Web migration

Hello everyone,

Just like the migratory bird that I am, Writing Organism has migrated to a new website.

Let us meet there to exchange adventures, tales, and, more.

Warmly,
Sham
aka Writing Organism

Blogging in luxury

Keep up to date with the writing organism's Luxembourg adventures via the Angloinfo Luxembourg blog.

With a warning of disturbing image - Elephant hunt

The Spanish economy is in shambles. I do not need to get into numbers, plus I will get off my high horse of working in Germany and humble myself. The European economy in general is in shambles. And Spain on the cusp of tanking. Living in Germany, not a day passes by without an argument of sorts on who should bail who, what should be done, who is responsible, the conversation possibilities are endless and every politician in sight trumpets his or her own views.

This post is about trumpeting. Of a different kind. It has to do with Spain as well. The King of Spain to be specific who apparently makes it a sport to go elephant hunting. This is a picture of him looking rather jubilant I suppose after his hunt.

Photo credit: Facebook wall D'Ibiza

And apparently his hunt cost a whopping €44,000 euros. This from the King of a nation where unemployment is at its all time low and who's cost of borrowing just rose another six percent. What kind of a man hunts elephants and prides himself upon it and how can such a trade even exist. It is not too long ago that the ivory trade was made illegal. To shoot an elephant for the pure sake of a hunting orgasm? What is he compensating for?

He has apparently fallen and hurt his hip, which I am sure his millions has paid for him to repair in a jiffy. I do not regularly make it a habit to wish ill people more ill. But, I think in this case, karma seems to have spoken for itself.

I attach here another image of an elephant with his mahout. I have seen elephants in all sorts of settings, and if I could make an elephantine wish, stop the horrendous act of elephant hunting.

Photo credit: Facebook page of Practising through mind and meditation

Guest post to New Indian Writing site

Check out my take on whether my heritage influences my writing on the New Indian Writing Blog.

Writing as an Indian or not?

Shamala S. Palaniappan grapples with how her heritage rears its head in her writing and reading.

"Are you Indian?"

Living in Germany, it must have be one of the most common questions I have been affronted with.  My answer has always depended on the situation, the person asking, and my mood for the day.

That is usually followed very quickly by, " I looooove Bollywood." At which point, I put an end to the conversation. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the industry, nor the movies, I am simply not a fan, and just simply because I am brown and have a name with 13 syllables, does not make me an instant expert!

I never see myself, which probably always been one of my virtues and problems in the same breadth. I have no sense of my height, colour, girth. I can stand amidst six-foot tall blondes and not know that I am the odd one out.

Because I really believe our outer shells can never do us any justice. As a writer, it is my inner self,  what I hear, see, feel, taste, suffer that appear on paper as words, in the hope that the reader will join my journey for the short while that they remain on the page.

But a question that presents itself every now and then and I know that I have to address is my Indian heritage as a writer. I stand in the wake of giants. Names such as Tagore, Rushdie, Roy, Narayanan, Andal, Adiga, Divakaruni, Mistry, Desai, the list is endless. Google search Indian authors and the list reels for miles.

When I read anything by any Indian author, I feel as if I have come home. It is really peculiar, as I have never lived in India. But perhaps, I carry the essence of a 5000-odd year soul in me.  I hear the characters speaking directly to me, relating tales that I understand, and showing me emotions that I immediately comprehend.

Perhaps, there will always be an umbilical cord that connects me to the mother nation, and as an individual I do not need to address my ties since there will always be a connection at a very subliminal level.

I applaud the written words that India has birthed. I have learnt, lived, and loved every bit of the country I know only as a tourist through the books. I have read and reread stories to visualize what life must have been like during different political eras, through the labyrinth of history.

The voices of Indian authors that have given life to characters who have traversed the sub continent from north to south, east to west, coast to coast. I could wax lyrical on each individual writer, but will save that for another post.

I want to whisper into the air, the story that wants to be told, the story of an Indian soul from a migrant family, who cannot stop – migrating. Where does the soul root itself? Where does the soul find its home?

It is the story that I am writing. It is the story of searching for answers.

Because for now, my answer is: I am not sure.

You are everywhere

A short story, incited by hearing Edith Piaf's Tu Es Partout.

She had not intended to commit murder. Perhaps even cold-blooded murder? But she did not really know what that meant.

*

He sat in his large, leather chair and she was lounging on the chaise. The TV was blaring loudly. Well, their surround sound system was. They were watching 'Saving Private Ryan.' She had already teared up a number of times, but stopped because he laughed at her. She tensed up, but continued to watch the movie.

Their little miniature Doberman pinscher slept between them, happy and at peace to be at home with her 'parents'. She slept most of the time these days, given her age. Lina had found her by the road one day as inched forward in Kuala Lumpur's daily grid lock of traffic. The dog was sitting by the road looking lost and the side of Jalan Tun Razak was the last place any dog should be. Lina saw the dog up ahead and as she inched forward in her car towards her, she knew she had to stop and take her in. She opened the passenger door once she got close enough and whistled. The dog jumped in, Lina shut the door, she drove away, the dog stayed. Lina had tried to look for the dog's owners, but after three months, knew that little Jolie had been abandoned. 

Jolie stirred in her sleep. She looked like she was enjoying a good doggy dream, perhaps chasing rabbits, or digging holes, or whatever it is dogs dreamt of. Lina looked down at Jolie curled up on the floor and thought for a moment how at peace the dog looked. She wanted to trade places with Jolie, if not to simply enjoy peace and dream happy dreams. Lina's dreams had all been so dark.

She turned to their 42-inch TV screen mounted on the wall. The soldiers in the movie were all in a quaint French town. Edith Piaf's Tu es partout was ringing loud and clear from the tower. Lina had always loved the song. 'You are everywhere'. Lina started humming and whispering the words.

"Can you stop that?"

His sharp voice woke her out of her reverie. She became silent and followed the translation the soldier was reciting to the troop. She was warmed by the words of the song. Nous pourrons si bien nous aimer, tu verras la vie sera belle. "We can love each other again and you’ll see life would be beautiful." In many ways, that is how Lina felt.

"Oh yeah, we need to talk," he said. He had a nervous smirk on his face and he ended his sentence with his usual nervous giggle. It annoyed her, irrevocably. She shut her eyes for a moment and envisioned what it would be like to reach out and slap him. Hard with the back of her hand. Just to kill the laughter.

"But not now. I will tell you when the time is right."

She choked back her disappointment. She had approached him more than three months ago to tell him she wanted him to leave. He had not taken her seriously, as usual writing off her sentiments to her temperamental nature, not to be taken seriously. She was getting tired. In the three months, he had behaved as if she had never broached their dissolving of their marriage. As if she had never raised the subject, as if their marriage was a sham, and as if all was well with the world.

All was not well with her world. She needed him to be out, out of her house, out of her life, for ever. The toxicity of his presence was reaching levels that would set a Geiger counter off the charts.

"I think we should talk now," she ventured.

"We are watching a movie."

"There is such a thing as a pause button, you know?"

"There is a time and place to have these conversations, you know?"

"I am getting impatient, we have been needing to talk about this for months now, and I am not sure you are actually thinking things through," she said, almost to the point of begging.

He stopped paying attention to her and reverted his attention to the TV screen. The scene was getting intense with soldiers dying and Edith Piaf's voice was drowned in the midst of the gunfire.

He stopped paying attention to her and reverted his attention to the TV screen. The scene was getting intense with soldiers dying and Edith Piaf's voice was drowned in the midst of the gunfire.

Just as Lina's voice was constantly drowned in the proverbial gunfire of life. She knew her time had to come, but she wondered how long she could hold on. She did not want to pack up and leave. That would have been easy, but she knew there was a side to her that wanted him to make the move. Make a move. Make any move for that matter.

*

In the end, she did make the move for him. They were driving to Penang, up in the north of Malaysia. It was a four hour drive and she was the driver for the day, because he told her he needed to rest. She had always been submissive and caved in. She hated herself. Jolie was in the backseat curled up and fast asleep. They had set out late. By the time they reached their half way point, it was already one in the morning. She told him she had to stop at the next highway stop.

He got down as well to use the restroom. She got back to their car first. She saw him approaching the car in the rear view mirror. She engaged the gear into reverse and stepped on the gas pedal. Jolie woke up when she heard the thud. She whined a little and then immediately curled up and went back to sleep. Lina's back and forward driving did little to disturb Jolie's sleep.

"Tu es null part," she whispered as she finally got out of the car. You are nowhere.

The elegance of a dead hedgehog

This story ends with a dead hedgehog, and it was elegant. 

The weather was miserable last Saturday morning but it did not deter three very enthusiastic hikers from heading out to Solingen Schloss Burg. I am actually not sure how enthusiastic we were at the onset, but the prospect of finishing 14kms of hiking to be followed by waffles sounded like a productive way to spend most of Saturday.

We headed off towards Solingen to be treated with a gorgeous view of the castle surrounded by hills. Cute pavilions dotted the landscape giving it a very magical air.

Picture taken off their website as it was too awful-weathered for us to take any pictures

One of the pavilions 

Katja, Svenja and I set out into the woods armed with a route guide book. Katja had done the trail a number of times and we felt safe in her presence. We trudged along, up and down hill, meeting the random hiker, random dog well on our way.

Conversations ranged free from dating blonde men, to job security, to staying fit, to wine, and we were to watch out for a viaduct.

The viaduct was to elude us. We walked back and forth a little, all the time going 'Where the f**#! is the viaduct?!" Actually we were about to name the hike 'Where the f**#! is the viaduct?' until the hedgehog appeared later.

The hike was supposed to be 14 km, and I was a little concerned with the wandering aimlessly if we would ever make it out, but lady luck shined upon us and confident with Katja as part of the troop, we found the ff**#ing viaduct, if anything, by chance.

But we actually wandered on to the Klingelnfahrt, which is a historical route defined by the Nazis to create trade in the area. There was a sense of walking through the path that had been thronged by many...

A quick pause to catch our breath and inhale some nourishment.

We rewarded ourselves with a quick break, managed to stop a deranged Nordic walker to take our picture as we perched precariously on logs eating our brötchen, soya milk, and hmmm..more German bread!

The hike went on beautifully, by streams, some sharp uphill hikes (my every muscle is still hurting) and we made it out to the cable cars. Oh, yes, there was the highlight - yet to come. The Solingen Seilbahn.

Picture from the site

Essentially, it is an open air cable car, well, more like a swing on air that takes you up and down the hill for a mere €2.60. I felt like a child all over again!

YES, it really is that primitive

With a random goat or two thrown in!

We made it up gleefully to treat ourselves to Solingen's traditional Kaffetaffel and waffles.

Over the Wupper on the seilbahn!

Malaysian ringgit note under the glass at our table- huh??

We made it up to a traditional waffle place and sat our sore and tired selves down to consume some calories. The table we were at was interesting with a glass top that had currencies from different parts of the world under it - and voila, within my reach - the Malaysian ringgit. What can I say, but Malaysia boleh!

But, I told you this story would end with a dead elegant hedgehog. We made it back to the car, and as we got out of our gear, Svenja noticed the hedgehog. Katja approached it to determine status. I stayed away as I was afraid of contracting whatever the headgehog had contracted - yes, I can be a crazy biologist that way.

The hedgehog was dead. We left it as it was, in its elegant state, and I am sure the other two were plagued of hedgehog dreams as I was!

Guest post on Conversations Across Borders

My experience of writing for the Conversations Across Borders Project as a guest post on the CAB blog.

You imagine a cathedral and feel like you ended up with a shack on paper. That is how Zadie Smith feels about every bit of writing she has done. Generally that is what I feel like to. But, here I want to tell you about an experience where I imagined a bubbling brook and ended up with the Pacific Ocean. I exaggerate a little – but will claim artistic license here;)

When I decided to take on the conversations across borders project, I was excited, yet a little apprehensive as I was not sure how working with another author would pan out to be. Also, I have issues with self esteem as a writer (as most do and the ones who don't - I actually don't like you), and I was convinced my partner would balk at my efforts. But I sailed forward with the 'water' prompt, I dove in, I was ready to cause a splash - all right, will stop with the puns and get on with the story.

I was paired with Kaitlin, a very decorated writer from New England who was working a lot in China. We both spoke a fair bit on how to approach the project. Let me take a step back and explain the project- well there isn't very much to explain. You are paired and then you decide what to write, how to write and well, a free handle on the whole thing.

Kaitlin and I entered the project at crucial times in both our lives - we were both in the midst of receiving proofs and having to deal with manuscripts and the whole rigmarole, than any writer can understand. It was hell and heaven in the same breath. I don't know how our loved ones put up with us in times like this.

We were a little slow on the uptake, but once we dove into it, magic happened. Kaitlin started with a short tale and when I read it, I took a step back, to realize I was working with a genius. I had a five-minute battle within myself on how to approach it all, but I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, poised my hands over the keyboard and wrote - yes, with eyes closed. The character came, the character was born, told his tale, and left.

The page was of course fraught with typos, but it was a new experience for me - letting myself go and asking the character to speak and I was not to be distracted by anything else not even the words on the page but simply be a medium.

Kaitlin and I sent the file back and forth between us and found that we were echoing each others experiences - characters were developing. People were showing up on our pages. I don't want to give away too much of the story at this point, you can wait to read it once it is up on the CAB website.

I am very excited about being paired with Kaitlin again for the next prompt - 'Air'. Who knows who will come to the page and have his or her story told? Wish us luck! And thank you CAB for organizing this!