The next big one from Neil D’Silva is the sequel to his runaway hit Maya’s New Husband.
The Book 2 of The Beast Within trilogy is The Birth of the Death. Check out a teaser below.
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Come September and most people who can write start talking about NaNoWriMo. There are prep sessions, writers’ interactions, writing sprints, outlining and plotting sessions, and so many activities in the prelude to the big event in November. To the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is a nonprofit global online community where thousands of people from all over the world come together and write. The writing clock begins on November 1 each year and ends on November 30. Those who can write 50,000 words within this timeframe are adjudged winners and they get a spunky certificate from the NaNoWriMo organization.
I did not know about NaNoWriMo until last year. I began hearing of it since about April 2014, which is when I was intrigued. Now, the thing about me is that though I have always been writing since Grade 7, I have always been too busy with other things to commit myself to write a full-fledged novel. Over the years, several plots formed in my mind and fizzled out for lack of commitment.
When I became a part of several Facebook writing groups last year, the buzz about NaNoWriMo was too strong to be ignored. I became a part of the local (Indian) NaNo community as well as the larger global one. And people in both places vouched for the way it had influenced them.
So, I jumped head on. I used the months prior to NaNoWriMo for plotting out my novel. And when the calendar turned to November 1, 2014, I began writing. I hit the ground running because I already had a plan in mind, writing over 3000 words of my well-formed novel (in my mind) on the first day itself.
Then began the interactions. Though I did not participate actively in NaNo camps last year, I did communicate with people in my close-knit group. It was interesting to check out how everyone’s manuscript was shaping up. Some of them were real pros, one with even nine wins under her belt, and it was a highly inspiring environment to write in.
To cut a long story short, the daily determined approach enabled me to finish 50000 words on November 22 itself. I put it up proudly on my NaNo dashboard and won the certificate!
But it did not end there, of course. Though the word count target was achieved, the novel was far from over. I continued writing, and it seemed easier now because I had gotten into a groove. I knew how to commit myself to a daily deadline. I wrote for a couple of weeks more and brought my book to the finishing point. The final outcome was close to 82000 words.
As many of you might know it, this book is Maya’s New Husband. I edited it for close to a month, and finally released it as a self-published book on Amazon. The book hit the Hot New Releases rank #1 on the first day itself, and went on to hit #1 on Amazon India (horror) several times over the next few months. Today, almost ten months after its release, it still stays within the top 20, and occasionally hits #1, and is on its way to be translated into a larger format, i.e. a movie.
If it hadn’t been for NaNo, Maya’s New Husband would have been just another plot that occurred to me and vanished without a trace. It was this global sparring (a healthy one, of course) that helped me bring it to fruition. There is no doubt that I owe it entirely to NaNoWriMo for being a partner in my writing career, almost a mentor, and helping me touch the finish line.
Since this first NaNoWriMo win, I have published two more books, which are short story collections. My next full-fledged novel will be The Birth of the Death, which is the sequel to Maya’s New Husband. I am taking up the NaNo challenge again this year, and will finish the sequel to my last year’s winner.
With NaNoWriMo by my side, I am confident of scoring a win again!
Join me in my challenge at NaNoWriMo.org. Look me up if you wish to; my handle is neildsilva.
It was on a day filled with perplexities that Horatio walked into our lives. Everything about that day was filled with conundrums, right from the way the sun tore through the dark clouds in the August sky and tried, not very successfully, to throw its rays onto the earth’s surface, to how a freak accident at the railway station necessitated most offices in my part of the town to be unexpectedly shut down. Frogs croaked in the shadows, waiting for the climate to darken a little more to their liking, but the hide-and-seek played by the sun bemused them, forcing them to scurry into their holes or wherever they went when it peeked out of the clouds. Dogs mated on the roadside, hoping to make the most of the weather, but every time nature played truant, they stopped their ceaseless activity and scampered away, their lustfulness still unquenched.
Truth be told, Horatio did not really walk into our lives; he was brought into it. I remember quite lucidly—for there is very little of this episode that I have forgotten—that I had stepped out of the house during a brief sunny spell to buy something for the day’s lunch. As I made my purchase and began walking homeward, I saw this boy standing on the footpath, clearly no taller than the fire hydrant he was propped up against. I do not have a habit of looking at people on the streets, and not in the least little boys, but there was something unsettling about this one that yearned for my attention at first sight itself.
He was dressed in a white shirt with short sleeves, buttoned all the way to the top. Underneath, he wore black shorts that came halfway up to his knees. He did not have any kind of footwear on him, and that piqued my attention. Which parent would send a child out without footwear? And in this weather?
Then, I looked up, right into his face, and something stirred within my very soul. His face was of almond-shaped perfection, absolute symmetry lurking behind every feature, right up to his narrow chin. The nose was somewhat upturned, and that made his slight mouth clearly visible, and I remarked at how tightly his jaws were set, almost as if he were withholding a secret. But, the most prominent feature was the eyes—large clear white orbs with perfectly round black circles in them. And, a mere inch above those eyes were his hair. Raven-black, and straight like the bristles of a threatened porcupine. They fell right into those petulant eyes, but he did not seem to mind.
This contrast of black and white yelled out to me, making me stop in my tracks, which perhaps I had already done so by then. And then, when the boy knew he had my attention, he spoke to me.
“Sir, do you know of a place where I can sleep?”
My heart broke. That street, the Rue de l’Hôpital, was known to be the haven for several urchins and bums, and even a few hobos. Even at the moment, there was a homeless minstrel singing a ditty in the farthest corner of the street, though there was no one to hear him or, better, throw him a coin. But seeing this child, this bundle of melancholia, weeping away for a lack of a pillow was something beyond pain.
“Where are your parents?” I asked.
“I have no one,” he said.
“Then where have you come from?”
“I do not know. I was sleeping. When I woke up, I was here.”
It did not seem to be an unlikely story. Many unsavory elements were known to kidnap children and bring them to our neighborhood to beg. He seemed very much to be such a victim.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“I do not remember.”
The thunder boomed overhead, and suddenly the clouds burst, their frenzy lashing out on the ground below. I ducked under the parapet of a roadside shop, but the boy stayed rooted to the spot.
“Hey boy, come here!” I yelled. “Come in the shelter.”
He looked at me, taking his own sweet time, and then, as though he had made up his mind, took slow steps and came next to me.
“Look, my house is right here, in this building. I am going to leave now, all right?” I was shouting because I needed to be heard over the thunder and the splashing. “But I will call the police from my house. They will come and take you and find your home.”
“No!” he screamed, louder than I, though his voice sounded more like a tormented rat’s squeak. “No police! I will run away.”
“But why? They will help you.”
“No! They are bad people. They take people away and we never see them again. I don’t want them near me. I will run away; I am not lying.”
He would have acted to substantiate his words at that instant, but I quickly grabbed his arm.
“All right, all right,” I said. “Don’t run away, all right? This place is not good for little kids. Come to my house. I will ask my wife to keep you till this rain subsides. Then we will think what to do.”
“Will you?” he said, and despite the raindrops all around us, I think I saw tears in his eyes. “You are awfully nice, sir.”
“Call me Andre,” I said.
***
It took me a good part of half an hour to explain to Helene how I had come across the boy. “Oh Andre! You mustn’t get an orphan off the street like that,” she said. “Isn’t that criminal or something?”
That thought had not struck me until then. I contemplated on it for a moment, and then said, “Right now, the boy needs some care. He would have died in this weather. Could you be an angel and take care of him?”
“Why’re you so worried about him?”
“My heart is like that, I suppose,” I said.
Maybe that disarmed her, or maybe the kiss I planted on her cheek with that sentence. But she smiled and said, “A’right! How can I refuse when you say it like that? What’s his name?”
“He does not remember his name.”
“Let’s call him Horatio then,” she said. “He’s a character in a book I’m reading.”
“Perfect.”
Horatio had warm chicken soup after a hot-water bath. He wore Helene’s old shirt that came up to his knees, another white affair that had a pattern of thin blue lines crossing over his heart. Throughout the meal, he was quite polite and thanked us several times for taking him in. I could sense that Helene was growing fond of this boy too, and I could not fault her in that. I felt a lump in my throat every time he said, “Thank you, sir and madam. You both are so awfully nice.”
For that day at least, we were like a perfect family. In a particular weak moment, I saw Helene looking warmly at the boy as he sat watching television, and I held her hand. I knew she was thinking about our son who was never born, who suffocated and died in her womb when her tube coiled around his neck. If he had been born, he would probably have been as old as Horatio.
***
Then came the night.
The rain made it darker, and the fact that the windows were tightly shut to prevent even the slightest amount of moisture from seeping into the house made it mustier. The wind howling outside rattled the windows several times, which in turn rattled our very bones.
While Horatio sat at one of these closed windows, looking noiselessly out into the blind darkness, we debated our sleeping arrangements. Finally, it was decided that we would put a mattress for him in the spare room, for there was no other bed in the house apart from ours. Helene took him to the room and helped him go to bed, while I waited for her to come back in our room.
When she did, I asked her, “Did he sleep?”
“Yes,” she said. “He’s a brave little darling. Didn’t make as much as a whimper.”
“That is good.”
“Wonder where he’s come from,” said Helene. “Someone could be mighty worried about him. You must go to the police tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah, we must, though he does not want to go with them,” I agreed. “We have no other choice.”
That night, we slept right away after Helene put the lights out. The rhythm of the environment lulled us immediately to sleep.
The night was probably halfway gone when I heard Helene’s gasp.
Still sleepy, I turned over to see what the matter was, but she blankly sat there, looking at something in the distance.
“What—” I began to ask, and then turned my head to look in the direction of her stare. And I got a start myself.
It was the boy, Horatio, standing right over the foot of our bed, looking at us with an unflinching stare.
In that moment, he seemed almost like a stone statue, as though there was no life left in him anymore.
“What is it, Horatio?” I asked, finally finding my voice.
But the boy did not move. The only sound I could hear was of Helene’s heavy breathing. I brought my body out of the blanket and walked up to him. Holding him by his shoulders, I shook him. “What is it?” I asked again.
Then he blinked several times.
“Thank you, sir and madam,” he said. “Just wanted to say that you are awfully nice.”
This time, there was no smile on his face as he said that. There was no twinkle in his eyes. Only his lips moved and the voice came from somewhere deep within his throat.
Slowly, I held his arm and said, “It is all right. But now you must sleep. Come,” and I led him to his room.
***
The next morning, I paid a visit to the police station on my way to work. The Boisdonné Police Station was full of frenetic activity, with the policemen in navy blue running around for something that my unaccustomed brain could not quite understand. No one saw me walk in, and I found the way myself to an officer who sat at the front desk with a huge ledger.
“Sir,” I said, clearing my throat, “I found a boy on the street yesterday. I would like to see him united with his parents.”
“Where is he now?” said the officer without even a pretense for cordiality. Police officers, I think, deal with so many criminals in a day that they cannot quite understand people who do not fall in that category.
“He is at my home now, being looked after by my wife.”
“You shoulda brought ’im. What good is a missing lad if we can’t see ’im? I ’ope you aren’t ’iding something.”
“No, sir, of course not! The boy is paranoid of the police. He is reluctant to come.”
“That be no excuse; anyway you seem to be a man of a decent business. Right now, we’re chock full with complaints. The train accident ’as been pretty nasty too. Been driving us up the wall, matching the bodies with their families like that.”
“So, should I come again?”
He considered me for a moment, and then stood up and got a huge file from the top shelf of his cabin. “This is all the missing complaints we ’ave. See it and tell me if you can see the lad in ’ere.”
He pointed to a bench near the door. I lugged the heavy file and sat on the bench, seated next to someone who looked every inch a rapist or a murderer.
It took me well over fifteen minutes to go over all the pictures. They were all boys and girls, and ironically they were laughing in these pictures, their eyes hopeful of a brilliant future looming in front of them. And now, probably, they were in a ditch somewhere with random limbs torn off their bodies to make a living through begging.
“He is not in here,” I told the officer when I was done.
“That be a crying shame for sure,” said the officer as he took the file back. “But did you look good and proper? That’s a lot of missing kids in there.”
This kind of conversation went on for five more minutes and I realized the officer’s reluctance in even filing a complaint.
“Our files are full!” he said. “So many stray children in the city! Any more of them and we will burst!”
But, finally, he gave me some assurance. “If someone comes up reporting a missing kid like you’ve described, with all the details you gave, then we’ll come knocking at your door.”
“When could that be?” I asked.
“How do I say that?” He threw his hands in the air.
“So, until then?”
“Well, until then keep the frigging critter with you, or send ’im to the convent, or turn ’im out in the street and ’ope ’e doesn’t run away or get carried away.”
***
When I returned home, I saw him shelling peas in the kitchen with Helene. He was wearing a new shirt and shorts, and my eyes made a quizzical gesture.
“We’d been shopping,” said Helene. “Doesn’t he look cute?”
There was a certain wistfulness in her tone. Then he asked for ice-cream and she gave it to him without a moment’s hesitation. Ice-cream? I do not remember having that in the house ever. She never bought it for us, for me.
I should have realized then—my pretty wife was slipping. She was entering into a dangerous world of delusional solace, for this child was not ours. That was never meant to be.
But I did not want to burst her bubble just then. It would have been brutal. A new fondness is highly difficult to break. But if it stews awhile, the chinks of familiarity begin to show themselves and the fondness runs out its course. I decided to let it proceed as it did.
The child smiled at me, but I did not return that faint quivering of his thin lips. I moved on to our room, changed, and came out again for lunch.
The boy was at the table again, but this time he was sitting more cozily than on the previous day, cozy to the point of being smug. I sensed, not without discomfort, the sense of belonging that was swelling up within him, and my gaze was fixated on how Helene kept putting things in his plate that he did not say no to.
For the first time in years, Helene and I did not have any conversation at a dinner table we shared. It irked me, for on each occasion that I opened my mouth to say something, I found her face turned to see his—that wretched boy whom I had brought home in a moment of passion.
And so I ate my dinner, eating it just for the purpose of filling my stomach and not for any other reason that a homely person might have a family meal for.
***
Over the days, my hate increased. The boy, who had once enamored me with just his eyes, and convinced me to act against my best counsel, had now turned to be an eyesore. If he were a mere pet, I would have turned him out without as much as batting an eyelid. But the fondness that Helene seemed to have developed for him proved to be a major deterrent in implementing such a plan.
There were several painful occasions when I found them neatly ensconced in each other’s company, whispering things into each other’s ears, usually when they thought they had the advantage of being out of my line of sight. But though my eyes could not see them at all times, my ears would hear them. Even when they slept, I could hear them, hear them in the silence until that began to deafen me.
I paid several visits to the police station, in the vain hope that someone might have come to collect the boy, but he was as yet unclaimed. They offered me to send him to the convent, and that thought held my interest, but for Helene. Then, after I had been visiting for close to a month, I heard the snide comments the officers made behind my turned back, and therein were some words no sane man should have to hear—of them all, the one that lingered was ‘lunatic’. That was when I decided I would not visit the infernal place again.
Things began to drastically change after that last visit to the police station. It was a late evening when Helene was working elsewhere in the house and I was sitting on the couch, my head buried in a book. The boy sat at his favorite place by the window, looking out into the increasing darkness. I never could fathom what he could see in there, but I never questioned him, for those were the few instances when my wife did not seem to be hypnotized by whatever the charm was that he had.
However, on this particular instance, I heard a sound escaping his lips. I could not see them, but there was certainly a few words there, floating without direction in the air, hoping for some ear to receive them.
Strangely, I felt there was an ear.
I just could not see it.
I moved closer. I needed to hear what the boy said. If nothing, it could allay my manic state. And then, as I moved almost within an arm’s reach of him, I heard it:
“I am all right, mother. These people are nice.”
I suddenly turned, turned to face the window, and perhaps I thought I saw a shadow escaping but nothing more than that. At that very moment, a wail seemed to emanate from the air outside the window, but it was quickly drowned in the hollow rattling of the wind against the windowpane, and the boy turned to look at me.
I thought I should spring up at him, and tell him, “Ah, so that is what you are hiding! You have a mother out there,” but before I could say or even properly think anything of that sort, the boy broke out into a loud wail.
No, it was not the crying that kids his age are prone to do. This was hollow, and had an ominous ring to it.
And in that brief instant, I saw. The eyes, the very eyes that had captivated me once, turned fully black, and the lashes grew longer even as I stared.
And there was a grin on his face, a grin sans any mirth; it was but a curve of pure wickedness, and I knew there was evil in my house.
I stumbled against a piece of furniture and fell backward, landing with a soft thud on the carpet. Then I saw the familiar hem of Helene’s gown busily swishing into the room.
“What happened here?” she shrieked. “Are you all right… Horatio?”
Horatio! HORATIO!
Here I was, fallen on the floor, and all she cared about was that little devil? I sat up, angry words foaming at the corners of my mouth, but what I saw arrested me.
The scene that I was faced with was reminiscent of Mother Mary and Baby Jesus n, the innocent lamb that was being prepared for sacrifice, tended by his mother who knew nothing. He had returned to his childlike self, and Helene, in her blindness, did not even see the gash that had begun to spew blood through the back of my shirt.
***
I refused to stay alone with him after that, even though Helene was going rapidly insane with her obsession for him. “He’s our son,” she told me one day. “Come back to us. Don’t you see?”
“Stupid woman!” I yelled. “Dead people do not come back.”
“Look at his face! Isn’t it just like mine? He’s my son. I’m his mother. I know. No one can take him away from me.”
“He is not our son!” I shouted back, clasping the palms of my hand against my ears, and I ran out of the room even as she stood breathing heavily in the center of the room.
And that evening, it happened again. I was immersed in reading a particularly interesting article in a newspaper when I suddenly heard breathing next to me. I lifted my eyes and was shocked to the bone. The boy was sitting on the couch next to me, close to the point of uneasiness.
“You don’t like me?” he asked. “Why you don’t like me? I thought you are awfully nice.”
These were not the words of a child. The sound was of him, but the passion behind his words seemed to belong more suitably to some jilted lover. I could not find words to answer him.
“Tell me, Andre,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you let me be near my mother?”
He moved closer to me, his little spindly knee jabbing into my thigh.
“This is my home too, you know?” his words went on. “Why haven’t you realized that so far?”
“Who… who is your mother?” I asked, my uttermost thoughts shaping themselves into words.
“My mother is a witch. An awfully nice witch.”
That moment, when I still fumbled to get my voice again, Helene emerged from the bathroom and sat next to the boy on the couch. In a chirpy voice she said, “I’m so glad to see you two together. This is a joyous moment, isn’t it?”
She took the boy on her lap, and they sat with smiles of contentment on their faces. I saw that smile and it horrified me to see how similar they were, but what horrified me more was the way their eyes turned. It was happening again, and this time, Helene’s eyes grew black in tandem with that boy’s, and the malevolent grins grew on both their faces, which were frozen cheek-to-cheek as though for a photograph. In that moment, the thunder clapped and the lightning struck, and I could take it no more.
***
That night, when darkness ruled the house, I got out of the bedroom leaving Helene in there, and tiptoed to the little room in which the boy slept. Creeping more silently than even the shadows that lurked in the house, I slowly came up to his door and pushed it open.
I had hoped to catch him in his sleep and quash his existence right then, for he was not unlike any rat that I had so often terminated from the house. To achieve that object, I carried the bust of an Egyptian statue in my hands, a heavy and grotesque ornament that my wife had procured on one of our foreign travels. I even pictured myself hoisting that thing up in the air and letting it fall on that evil creature’s black-haired head, thus removing myself out of my misery forever.
But that was not to be.
For the boy was not in his sleep. Instead, he was sitting up on the mattress, facing the door with a solemn look, his eyes staring at their widest extent.
And despite the darkness, I was conscious of the blackness in them.
Then he grinned, that same spiteful grin that had begun to haunt me in my nights and in my days, and I saw the marks of vileness beginning to erupt on his cheeks.
“What are you up to, Andre?” he hissed.
Before I could move, before I could respond, his mouth contorted into an oval hollow and from there emanated a wail most vile. Nay, it was not just a scream but a caterwaul, a sound that could raise the dead from the grave.
I turned and saw Helene standing right behind me.
And the communion between the two, evil child and evil mother, had never been more apparent as then. I saw it, I saw it clear as day—her hair flying despite the stillness of air in the room, her eyes turning to nothing but black beads of doom, her mouth turning into a source of the most revolting stench.
In the next instant, she was on the ground.
Dead.
The bust in my hand dripped blood, her blood, and the corresponding wound on the side of her head needed no further testimony as to the cause of her death.
From the corner of my fast-swooning eye, I saw the boy rise on his limbs, more like a spider, and walk like the same creature that he resembled now, up to the window. With one hand, he opened the window, and escaped into the darkness of the night.
***
They still call me lunatic, now with greater vehemence than ever. Earlier the word was a whisper; now it is spat into my face.
And it is not the only word that they speak.
Wife-killer is another.
Sitting there in my cell which is almost a dungeon as dark as the inside of my heart, I brood in silence. I have no remorse for having killed my wife, and I do not expect these people to understand, because only I had seen the witch in her. I heard they had a prayer in the church for her, but all I could hear was a bundle of lies.
But why should I explain anything to anyone?
I am happy here.
Happy in my desolation.
Happy that I can see no one. That no one can see me.
Except him.
He comes in the nights, right through the bars, and sits on my stone bed next to me. His face is still like an almond, and his hair are still black, and black also are his eyes. For he does not need to hide them from anyone anymore.
And when I feed him the leftover food in my prison plate, he sometimes tells me even now, “You are so awfully nice.”
END
This was a chapter that was written to be included in the Part 1 of Maya’s New Husband. It did not make it past the editing stage, as it was thought to be too spoilery. If you have already read the book, you may enjoy this chapter. And if you haven’t read it yet, well… why haven’t you?
***
The night was darker than the inside of a beating heart, but the rag-picker knew exactly where to look. This street had been his domain since the last several years of his young life, and he had no qualms stepping even into regions that other mortals feared to venture into. His survival hinged on finding the best spoils anyway, and he could not leave before he had thoroughly scoured the area for all that it had to offer.
As he placed his unshod feet on the slippery grass, he suddenly winced and pulled back. It was the scream that came out of his lips first, and then the impulse to hold the brutalized foot with his free hand. In the ambient light, he saw the broken half of a bottle rolling away obscenely from the spot where he had just stepped on. It left a trail of blood behind for sure, but the darkness prevented him from seeing that.
He kept his bag down and hobbled along on one foot to a puddle, with the intention of plunging the burning foot into the cold water. Trivial matters like the possibility of the foot getting infected did not matter to him much. He had spent more than twenty years of his life in this filth; he was sure he could bear whatever filth nature and civilization gave him.
And so he came up to the puddle, whose darkened water shimmered in the wan moonlight, and dipped his foot in it. The wound didn’t seem to be quite deep now, and he knew he would survive it. He had survived worse things anyway.
Then he noticed that he was not alone. There was another man sitting by the puddle, probably washing his hands in it. Even though he was on his haunches, there was no doubt that this stranger was quite tall.
Who was this? Like a dog that feels threatened when another of its ilk steps into its domain, he felt threatened. He almost bared his fangs and was just about snarl something in anger, when the other man spoke.
“Are you hurt, brother?” he asked.
The sudden gesture of compassion threw him off-balance. “Who be you?” he asked.
“I am no one,” the taller man said. “Let me see the wound.”
“You doctor?”
“No, but I can help.”
The rag-picker thought about it, his slow mind trying to weigh the pros and cons of the situation. Then he seemed to have arrived at a decision and sat down on a rock next to the puddle. He raised his foot and pointed it at the man. “Look.”
The taller man, still on the ground, turned and took the foot in his hand. Ignoring the audible wince that the rag-picker made, he examined the wound, his head very close to it almost as though he meant to heal it with a kiss. But he only came as close to the wound as he possibly could, perhaps so close that he could smell the blood, and then stopped. The rag-picker looked at the scene with an amused interest at first, but when the man’s head began to twitch, he lost his grin.
“I have the medicine for this,” the man said. “It’s a mix of herbs. If you do not mind, I can apply that on this wound and it will be gone forever.”
The rag-picker shook his head. “No, no, what’s the need? This be a small wound. Clean gone by tomorrow, I know.”
“No.” The tall man shook his head in the way a doctor does when a patient refuses good medicine. “Believe me, I have seen a lot many more wounds than you have. This one looks small but it can get septic. Do you want to lose your foot?”
The rag-picker shuddered. “Can that happen?”
“Yes, if you are careless. Trust me.”
And then a smile arose on the other man’s face, and despite the poor light, the rag-picker could see that the man’s kind words were a sharp contrast to his face. The marks on his face reminded him of the creases on a molted snake skin he had seen years ago.
“My house is right here,” said the man. “Come in. I will take care of you.”
The rag-picker hesitated. He had been to houses of strange people and done strange things with them, special favors for gifts as they called it, but he did not know what to think about this man. Was he a kindred soul who just wanted to help him? Or was there something poisonous laced in his honey-dipped words? He could never tell. But what did he have to lose either way?
“Where be your house?” he asked.
“There,” the man pointed vaguely. “Walk with me. Can you walk?”
“Very much,” he said and began limping behind his inviter.
***
It was not until a few minutes later, when they were actually standing near the place, that the rag-picker realized where they were headed.
“This… but this place be always locked.”
The other man nodded. “I like it that way,” he said.
“That means… you own this place?”
There was another nod but no words.
“How?” the rag-picker went on. “This be not a house. It be a garage. All these broken cars.”
“You ask too many questions,” said the man, and there was a tone of finality in his voice. “I am only trying to help.”
The younger man balked at that tone. His body shivered for a moment, but then he stilled. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go in.”
At that, the other man smiled and ruffled the rag-picker’s hair. “Now that’s good, young man. Come with me.”
He expected a door perhaps, but there was none. And then his host did a strange thing. He hopped on one of the junk cars with practiced precision, and then on another atop it.
“What be this, now?”
The man looked down at him and grinned. “Well, the door is on top. Come on. There is hot toddy and chicken waiting for us inside. Do you eat chicken?”
That was it. Chicken! The young man loved chicken. It was a pity his rag-picking did not yield him much money for such delicacies. It was perhaps a couple of months ago that a lady had kindly given him a bowl near the orphanage.
He went behind the man, his emotions having suddenly transformed from those of skepticism to those of anticipation of a free meal.
They went right to the top. Hopping from one car to another in the heap, they reached the roof of the building. He thought of asking about the strange way to enter a building, but he had entered stranger buildings before. He knew better than to ask at this point.
The tall man reached the roof first. With his long legs, he lumbered on it, and stopped at a particular spot and beckoned him to follow. But when he reached there, he was aghast.
There was a hole in the roof, and it opened out a room below. There was a dull light, perhaps of candles, shining in there. But what was unmistakable was the fact that this place wasn’t as abandoned as it seemed from the outside.
“Someone lives inside,” he said in amazement.
“Yes, I do,” said the tall man.
“So how do we get there?”
“You have to jump.”
“Jump? You be joking? With this foot?”
“That’s the only way to go in,” said the tall man. “All right, let me go in first and then I will keep a chair or something so that you can climb down easily. Hold on here.”
The man jumped like a panther and that was when the rag-picker had a better look at the bunches of skin on his face. He had hardly got that image out of his mind’s eye when he returned with a chair and stood on it. He held his arms wide, and the injured man slowly eased himself into them.
“Phew! This place stinks,” said the rag-picker once he was inside and could walk on the floor. “What be this smell?”
“Dead rats,” said the man. “But we are going in that inner room. I’ll anoint… treat you first.”
He opened a rickety door and the smell suddenly changed. Now it was a sweet smell of burning incense sticks and flowers. There was a trace of sandalwood in the air.
“Oh!” said the rag-picker looking at all the incense sticks. “Is this something religious?”
“Something like that,” said the man.
The walls around the place were covered with several artworks. At first, the young visitor could not see them clearly, but then as his eyes attuned to the light, he saw the strange sketches. They were unholy beings of all kinds—vetalas and pishachas and asuras—and they were painted in the goriest details.
“I drew them,” said the man. “You like?”
The rag-picker tried to ignore the gruesome details in the pictures. “Where are the herbs? I must leave.”
“What’s the hurry?” said the man. “Come on, hobble over here,” he said and put his arm around his shoulder. “Let me show you my art.”
“Ouch!” the rag-picker winced.
“What happened?”
“Something bit me on the back.”
His host looked behind his back. He brushed something off. “There is nothing,” he said. “Must be a bug or something. Come.” And he held the man more firmly and took him to the first picture of a rakshasa devouring a horse.
The man looked intently at the picture and was soon lost in the various red and orange lines that made up most of it. He looked at the eyes of the rakshasa, which were in perfect symmetry with the dead horse’s shut eyes, and yet were in perfect contrast with them. Even with his very limited knowledge of the arts, he could say this was a brilliant piece of work.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” he went suddenly, snapping out of his hypnotic appreciation of the art.
“What? What?”
“It’s still there, whatever it is.”
“Take your shirt off,” the man said.
“Is it there? Is something there?” the rag-picker asked frantically, removing the offending garment in a panic.
“Don’t fear,” said the man, and now his voice was ominous. “It’s over. For now.”
“What?” the rag-picker said. “What’s over?”
And then he caught a glimpse of his naked back in a faraway dusty mirror. He saw the eight lines that crisscrossed each other, forming a kind of intertwined pattern etched right into his back.
And before he could question the man on how that tattoo of death came upon his back, he saw the glinting weapon wrapped around his knuckles. Its sharp points over the four fingers mocked his very being.
And then he turned and saw the lone chair in that room. This is where his heart leapt out of his chest. For, on that chair was seated a wizened skeleton with no face. Or rather, it was a face that was painted with red and orange paint. But what scared him all the more were the various materials of worship rituals that were around that seated corpse. As though the corpse was a deity and this was his shrine.
“Who is…” the rag-picker began to ask, suddenly aware of the blood that was now copiously oozing out of his back.
“You won’t need to know,” said the tall man. “Ever.”
The rag-picker fumbled for words.
“It’s a divine purpose,” said the man. “I will be easy on you, though. All I need is the heart.”
***
An hour later, the tall man sat with the heart, neatly diced and fried, and offered it to the dead man in the shrine.
“I will atone for my sins, Father, I will,” he said. “Accept this—my humble offering to you.”
When I start plotting a story, I do not think of the protagonist first. For me, it is always the antagonist, the nemesis, the villain who needs to be characterized to their fullest extent before I begin writing. Most of you will agree with me when I say that it is the villain that is the backbone of any tale. In fact, without the villain, the protagonist wouldn’t have anything to do! The hero’s bravery is only justified by how well they can vanquish the bad guy (or gal).
Here I shall be talking of a few things that can help create a memorable baddie. This is mostly the way I tend to go about it, and everyone is welcome to have contrary thoughts.
The name has to be perfect. Authors spend a lot of time thinking of their villains’ names, and that is an absolute must. See the hidden (and not so hidden) meanings behind some of these wonderful villains:
Even in my own book Maya’s New Husband, the name of the villain, Bhaskar Sadachari, is a play on words. This character, who has a bit of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality within him, is as gentlemanly as he can be in the daytime and monstrous at nights. Hence, ‘bhaskar’ which means ‘the sun’ and ‘sadachari’ which means ‘good behavior’. At first glance, the name evokes a noble character, even a pious one perhaps, but it brings to mind a question — what does he do when the sun goes down?
It could be a lair or a prison cell or a hideout, but a villain does need to have their own sanctuary, a place that is different from the rest of the world around them. Make this place fit their character. You could choose to make it bleak and dark or not, depending on the nature of your story. However, if you do make it dark, it will add to a brooding quality to your villain. It will right away demarcate the fact that your villain lives in an atmosphere of their own, which is different from the rest of the world.
When I chose an abandoned garage that could only be accessed by climbing up a pile of cars and jumping down a hole in the roof, I built a personal sanctuary for my villain for his dastardly acts. It instantly set him apart from the rest of the world outside and painted him as different.
We know of a particular real-life villain who lived in an underground bunker and the terrors he committed there. Even a mere thought of that can send shivers down the spine.
The hideout of the villain also plays an important plot role, especially whenever unsuspecting people stumble into it. The very fact that someone who doesn’t know a thing has stepped into the spider’s web can keep the readers glued to what happens next.
Most of the James Bond movies are about the master spy trying to infiltrate into such villain domains. Why do you think they work so well? They do because everyone wants to in on the thrill of stepping into forbidden territories.
Villains, especially the arch-villains, are not like ordinary people. Their mind behaves differently and they have quirks that most of us won’t have. I would highly recommend everyone to get acquainted with the multitudes of villains in the D. C. Comics series, especially in the Batman stories. Right from The Riddler to Scarecrow to Penguin to the quintessential one, The Joker, every villain is laden with layers and layers of typical mannerisms. Some people might call this exaggerated villainry, but it is good to seek inspiration from.
The mannerisms are also what set your villain apart from the rest of the crowd. You could use them for an added thrill in conversation and can also incorporate them in major plot points. Once you have these behaviors pat down, there is no end to how you could use them.
A secret is always interesting. It makes people sit up and take notice when it is revealed. By secret, I do not mean a flashback which justifies the villain’s actions. That is something we must avoid as much as possible. If you justify your villain’s actions too much, you are watering them down and reducing the impact drastically. But, it could be a secret that could add to the character more. Remember how the world reacted when Voldemort’s secrets of the Horcruxes came tumbling out? Yes, we need such wow moments in our work!
Now, what past you create depends on the nature of your villain. But I strongly suggest creating this backstory before you start writing your book. The backstory, even though it is revealed much later in your book, it will help you drive the plot forward in the most plausible way.
As an endnote, I would like to say that though you keep these points in mind, it is necessary to keep your villain unique. Work with the elements and come up with something original. Steer away from cliches, because that will kill your villain before the hero can.
This was a brief coverage of the Rising Litera event titled The Writers Perspectives which was conducted at Cafe Terazza in Indore on October 2-3, 2015.
This was a brief coverage of the Rising Litera event titled The Writers Perspectives which was conducted at Cafe Terazza in Indore on October 2-3, 2015.
A lot has been written on the use of pedestrian language that makes for languid prose and therefore a badly-written book, which leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
In this post, let’s talk about the opposite of pedestrian prose – PURPLE PROSE.
In lay language, purple prose means stringing a litany of BIG words together to form convoluted sentences, thus creating flowery prose (yeah, you can say I have a language fetish. It is the aspect of writing that I’m most concerned about).
Reading a book with flowery prose is different than reading one with pedestrian language. Reading a novel crammed with purple prose is like bumping into someone who has sprayed too much perfume. The pungent aroma smothers the nostrils and makes it difficult to breathe, doesn’t it?
Big words and unnecessarily twisted sentences lessen the overall reading experience. Personally speaking, it puts me off reading the book.
The saddest part is that I’m reading a book with an AWESOME story but written in flowery prose. The presence of too many words to describe too little is hampering my reading experience, despite the fact that I really like the characters, the setting, and the plot.
New writers, in my experience, often tend to forget that it is not using big words in stories that makes a good writer. It is using simple words and lucid language to say a lot that makes a good writer. And, no, literary authors, at least the ones I’ve read, don’t use flowery prose or complicated language (except Cervantes, perhaps).
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the literary giants, uses simple, lucid language in his novels, sometimes peppered with Spanish cusswords. And yet, his prose is lyrically beautiful and enchanting!
Toni Morrison, VS Naipaul, Richard Flanagan, and John Steinbeck use normal, everyday language too, but in a way that tells a touching, poignant story, both through the text and its subtext. And their prose is excellent and of high quality.
A good writer, I believe, can strike a balance between using simple BUT quality words, and incorporate a style and voice that speaks straight and is honest, but still connects and impresses. The language should not become pedestrian instead of simple, and at the same time, it should not become irritatingly complex instead of having quality.
When reading a novel, I expect to read a story — about characters, about their thoughts, actions, and feelings, and about what happens during the story. I do NOT expect to have big words thrown at me. That makes the writer seem condescending, like they think they can awe the reader by their complex word-building, and prove that they ‘know’ so many complicated words.
If a character has to use the loo, it should be ‘I have to pee / use the washroom’, and not ‘I have to evacuate my bladder / perform micturition’. The latter sounds laughable, doesn’t it?
My point is, we writers must cultivate the talent to convey complicated things in simple, lucid language, while still maintaining the quality of the prose. This fine balance can be struck only if we practice our craft properly.
Prachi Percy Sharma is an upcoming name in the world of Indian and global literature. She is known for her strong opinions on feminism, and is quite vocal about the things that blight our contemporary society. All of these shape her writing, which is mostly in the genre of crime fiction. Visit her site at Crimocopaeia and read her short stories at the links below:
I often hear my dear writerly folks speak about the dreaded writers’ block. I see discussions on this affliction, and complete websites and even books devoted to it. Well, there’s definitely no writers’ block in writing books on writers’ block, is there?
But I find all these discussions a bit exaggerated. For me at least (and it has been often remarked how I might be of another species altogether), writers’ block seems to be like the pandemic that I’ve been immune to despite living in the same world as the others. Either it is that, or it is the fact that I am somewhat of an unconventional writer.
Let me take up this space (and hopefully your time) to state why I haven’t succumbed to this blight so far. Kindly bear with me.
Intuitive writing is when you become your characters and write the story as they would react to the situations. In short, you detach yourself from playing god to your characters and let them flow of their own free will. So, if I am at a difficult point, I ask myself, “How would this person react? What character attributes does she have? If I were her, what would I have done?” These are the questions that carry the story forward.
I realized only recently that a lot of people who write for long-running television soaps practice intuitive writing. They create characters and scenarios and then let them out to play. And it always helps them to build those large volumes of highly interesting content.
I don’t plot. I plan. Now there’s a difference in the two. When you plot, you sit down and storyboard everything, even the minutest details. Some authors even go as far as to plot details such as the color of their characters’ dress, which may not even be mentioned in the book. However, I don’t go that far. Instead, I have the basic outline of the story in my mind, or if I’m not too lazy, written down somewhere. I know the turning points in the story. I know the climax. Then it only becomes a matter of carrying my characters forward till there. Coupled with intuitive writing, this becomes an interesting way to propel the story forward.
Remember, what you write at first is only your rough manuscript. It is going to get edited several times. So it doesn’t really matter what flies off your mind the first time. It will be polished to perfection later on.
I know many eyebrows are going to be raised for this one. This is definitely a most unconventional way to write. I do flirt with several stories at one go. (But each story feels I am only with them when I am with them — hallmark of a Casanova). I don’t even have specific time slots as to which story I should write when. I just take up one at a time, the one I am thinking the most strongly about, and then unleash my fury on it. If I have a difficult time with it, I have no qualms in keeping it aside and picking up another one. Even as we speak, I have at least four stories in various stages of completion.
Do this only if you are good at compartmentalizing things. It works for me because I never work on two stories on the same day. If I need to switch, I’ll always do it on the next day.
A writer needs all of that. Free time. Me time. These are the times when you are doing nothing else, when your mind is cleared up to think. Usually it’s what you think in those few minutes before you sleep that becomes your best written work. Many wonderful stories are created in the bathrooms. (Okay, that came out wrong!) Anyway, you get the drift. Try finding time for yourself to think. Not write, not plot, just think. You will be thankful you did that.
So, these are just some of the ways. There are several others that might be escaping my mind now. But, one thing’s for sure — I am not going to let a writers’ block hamper my productivity.
The first thought that entered Kiran’s mind when she opened her newly-purchased vanity case was, “Oh, I’m not good at this!” The various hues of red nail paints and lipsticks intimidated her. The mascara was an object of horror.
Not that she hadn’t decked herself before. But those few times when she had adorned her lips had been only for herself. For some reason, she had always felt embarrassed to show anyone her cosmetically-enhanced form. Once, when there was no one at home, she had even gone as far as rouge and eyeliner, and then she had washed it off her face almost immediately.
But today she didn’t want to hold herself back. It was a momentous occasion after all. The job was good. It would be her first ever interview, and she expected all the other girls to come in their finest. There was no place for a shy, reserved girl in the hospitality business anyway.
So she started a video on YouTube on how to apply makeup. She made sure to choose the one with the best reviews. She wanted a professional touch, no less, and the salons were uber-expensive for a girl who was just starting out with a job.
A few seconds into the video, she brought out the foundation cream and applied it on her cheeks, which felt rough to her self-prejudiced mind. But she went on. Not quite satisfied with her work at the basics, she took the color brush and applied it on her upper cheeks in deft straight strokes. She smoothed it out and blended it with the rest of the background just like the woman in the video did. And then she went on with the lipstick, and even outlined it with a lipliner. The eye shadows came next.
She didn’t look all that bad now. It turned out much better than those days in her early youth when she used to clandestinely practice the cosmetic art on her with her mother’s things. Yes, she could go out with this look!
Half an hour later, she came out of her room. Brijnath Jaiswal saw her in the tiny red dress that stopped woefully above her knees and her heavily embellished face and let out a hollow cough.
“Are you all set, beta?” he asked.
Kiran wanted to answer that question because it was asked with the right concern, but the last word riled her.
“Why do you keep calling me beta?” she asked. “When will you realize that I am not your son but your daughter?”
Brijnath realized his goof. He didn’t want to anger his daughter on this all-important day. “Sorry,” he said. “Old Indian habits die hard.”
“Change them,” said Kiran. “Times have changed.”
“I’m trying.”
“Well, it’s not enough. If you really put your mind to it, anything can change. Anything.”
Brijnath stood up and came to her. He was a short man, or perhaps his daughter was taller than him. He looked funny when he put a hand on her shoulder.
“I know that more than anyone else, Kiran,” he said. “Anyway, go forth and conquer. Make today your day.”
“I will,” said Kiran, and touched her father’s feet for his blessings.
***
Kiran stood in queue for the bus, a little away from the other ladies. They were all working women. It was evident that they worked in different places but had the same bus route. A strange thought entered her mind — if this job materialized, she would probably be sharing the bus with such ladies too. Would she become like one of them? She particularly observed one of them who seemed to complain about everything. But the more alarming thing was everyone agreed with her ideas. Kiran shrugged and looked the other way.
When she got into the bus, she tried to sit as far from the gabby women as possible. The bus moved and she bought her ticket from the conductor. A minute later, she felt the man standing next to her brushing against her. She flinched but said nothing. It could have been an accident. She stiffened and turned away.
Another minute later, the bus took a wild turn.
The man almost fell on her, making a hasty apology with his bad breath, and as he pulled back, she felt his hand brushing against her in a wrong place.
Now, clearly agitated, she turned her entire body to face the window. She looked out but her mind was conscious to every action that occurred behind her back.
And it would not stop. It was mild at first, but then it increased. She squirmed, but he only pressed further. Angry as daggers, she turned to look at him right in the eye.
There was a smirk on his face. And he winked.
That was it.
Kiran stood up at her full height, and landed a resounding slap on the man’s face. The man, surprised out of his skull, lost his balance and almost collapsed on the college students standing behind him.
“What do you think, you worm?” Kiran yelled loud enough for everyone in the bus to hear. “I’m a woman so you can do as you please?”
The chatting women stopped and looked at her with both admiration and awe.
“Take your filthy thing and go somewhere else,” she said.
This alarmed the women. The fact that there was one of them who could say ‘filthy thing’ so openly and so loudly was unheard of. Embarrassed, they tried to look anywhere else but at the raging woman.
Presently, the bus screeched to a halt.
“That’s my stop,” said Kiran. “Move aside.”
Saying that, she shoved the man aside and strode on. When she got off the bus, she heard the murmurs behind her, and maybe even a clap or two. A smile escaped her lips.
***
Chaos reigned in the buffet space of the Bluefinger Restaurant & Bar. The space had been converted into a waiting hall for the thirty-six ladies who had applied for the vacancy of Front Desk Supervisor. Everyone knew that the name of Bluefinger could be a worthy addition to their résumés even if it turned out to be only a brief tryst.
When the lanky woman in her short red miniskirt walked in, there was a collective snigger that rippled through the audience despite their nervousness.
But Kiran walked in confidently. She went right up to the desk where the receptionist sat, announced her name, waited for her to look it up, and then took her seat. She took a magazine and began to flip through the pages. Soon she was immersed in the perfect abs of the male models in the deodorant ads, so much so that she became completely oblivious to the muted laughter of mockery all around her.
“Er… Miss Kiran Jaiswal?” the receptionist announced.
The mention of her name made her look up.
“You may go in now,” the receptionist said.
“Oh,” Kiran said and got up, hastily straightening her dress and hair. “Thank you,” she muttered and walked in with her trademark stride.
She hadn’t expected the interviewer to be so young.
He had a French beard and spectacles, but none of them hid the handsomeness that lay beneath.
“May I come in, sir?” she asked.
The man looked up at her and was speechless for a moment. Then he said, “Oh, come in, please.”
When she had seated herself, he said, “I am Kishore Das, and you are Miss… er… Kiran Jaiswal.” He looked at her up and down as he said that.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’ll be interviewing you today,” he said. “I am an HR manager with the Bluefinger Hospitality Group.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” said Kiran.
“Equally charmed,” he said. “Please walk me through your résumé.”
Kiran was prepared for this part. She knew submitting the résumé was merely a formality. She knew every interviewer made their applicants speak as much as possible. It was their way of gauging how confident a person is. When she was done, Kiran was sure she had done a good job, which was mostly because the man was nodding in appreciation.
“I like that you have the confidence to speak,” he said. “And this is your first job interview?”
“Yes,” she said. She wanted to ask him how he knew.
But perhaps he heard her thoughts because he said, “I am doing this since three years now. I can spot a rookie from a mile away.”
Kiran smiled.
“We usually don’t waste our candidates’ time,” said Kishore. “So we tell them what we think at the first meeting itself.”
“That’s nice,” said Kiran but the smile had vanished now.
“And, Miss Jaiswal,” he said in calculated words, “I have to regrettably tell you that you cannot get this job.”
“Oh!” said Kiran. Another question loomed on her lips, but she held it back.
“I’m sorry but this is just your first attempt. Keep trying,” he said.
Kiran knew it was over. She knew this was the cue for her to get up and leave but something held her back. Maybe it was the fact that he was still looking at her résumé with interest.
She had to ask. It was now or never. “Why can I not get the job? It is because—”
“It is because of the educational qualifications, Miss Jaiswal,” said Kishore with absolute politeness, even perhaps concern. “We are looking for a higher educated person. It was mentioned in the brief.”
“And is that the only reason?”
“Absolutely.”
She got up now, feeling a little lighter. In fact, by the time she reached the door, her smile was back on her lips. She was almost outside the door, but she poked her head in and said, “Thank you!”
It was the loudest and the most heartfelt ‘Thank you!’ she had said in a while. The HR manager looked at her with puzzlement written across his bearded face.
***
By the time she reached her colony again, it was near eight in the evening. It was evening time and the park in the colony compound was buzzing with children playing their usual games. In one corner was a row of benches where a host of senior people sat, chatting about the most recent headlines. The watchmen sat at the gate.
As she entered, every head turned to look at her in her itty-bitty dress. Even the children stopped playing, but she walked on.
She was about to press the button for the elevator when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and saw the face of a friend.
“Sushil,” she said.
“And how you have changed!” said Sushil.
“Don’t ask!” said Kiran.
“So, did you get the job?”
“No,” she smiled.
“You didn’t get it and still you smile? You know, you are a queer one.”
Kiran looked at him in mock anger. “I should take offense at that word, shouldn’t I?” she asked.
He ducked to protect himself from the handbag she swerved at him and said, “Sorry!”
“Forgiven!”
“Okay, so how was the rest of the day?” he asked and then added, “You do look strange in all that warpaint! I only know the person behind this subterfuge.”
“Grow up, buddy,” said Kiran. “You are going to see a lot more of this face this way. Do you have a problem with that?”
“’Course not!” said Sushil. “You are my friend, come what may.”
“Glad to hear that,” she said and shook hands with him. It was a firm handshake, the kind that’s only shared between people who have faced several things together. “And the rest of the day was nice too,” she added.
“Do tell.”
“Okay, so it started with my father calling me beta, which angered me, but it’s okay. I know he will take him a while to get used to the idea that I am his daughter now.”
Sushil laughed.
“And then someone actually eve-teased me!” she said. “Couldn’t have imagined that a year ago when I was Karan Jaiswal. But he did, and the poor sod got a solid thapaak on his lousy chin. Little did he know that though the body is of a woman now, the bones inside are still of a man.”
“Great! Poor chap,” said Sushil.
“And then at the interview, when I was fired, I found out that it was because my qualifications didn’t match their requirements. Can you understand what a relief that was? He saw my birth certificate, I tell you, and he knew for sure I was born a boy. But he didn’t say a thing. Not a thing.”
“So it was indeed a good day.”
“Yes. It was my true test of freedom today. For twenty-five years I was trapped in a man’s body. The reassignment surgery was just the biological transformation, but the true transformation occurred today. Yes, I was accepted. Not for what I was, but for what I am. I not only experienced the joys but also the troubles of being a woman.”
Sushil held her hand, and she tightened her hold on his.
“And then there’s you. You who have seen me in every form. And you have loved me regardless. Thank you!”
“Sure,” said Sushil. “Now run along home and free yourself of that cosmetic dust.”
As Kiran walked homewards, she knew she had won a battle. She had attained her true freedom today — her odd little jigsaw piece had found its place in the puzzle.
END
This story was originally published in the first issue of the emagazine UnBound. Get a free copy of the emagazine here.
The Evil Eye and The Charm is a short-story collection. It contains three stories penned by Neil D’Silva, which are based on Indian nimboo-mirchi superstitions. The nimboo-mirchi is a contraption made with one large lemon and seven green chilies held together by a black thread and a piece of coal. This is usually found hanging from Indian homes, offices, and vehicles. The belief is that this charm can ward off the Goddess Alakshmi, the harbinger of bad luck. Interestingly, Alakshmi is considered to be the Goddess of Adversity, and she is the sister of Lakshmi, the Goddess of Prosperity.
The stories in the book raise several questions in the readers’ minds. They straddle between the contrasting aspects of rationalism and superstition, and try to explore the fine line where one ends and the other begins. Such stories have never been told before, and the creepy style in which they have been written adds to their lasting effect. No one who reads these stories can forget them for a lifetime.
These are the stories in the book.
A Grave Situation – A young couple is distressed because their baby doesn’t stop crying. An old aunt suggests the baby is possessed and uses a nimboo-mirchi charm to ward it off. Then, she sets the husband on a task that tests his courage and beliefs.
Last Juice – A disbelieving son steps on a nimboo-mirchi and thinks this is a wonderful way to test his mother’s strong beliefs in her superstitions.
Chain Reaction – A young boy gets possessed, which manifests itself as several blemishes on his skin. When medicine fails, belief in superstition takes over, which includes a trip to a crazy godman and, of course, the nimboo-mirchi.
The Evil Eye and The Charm has been highly praised in India and abroad. Despite being a short book by conventional standards, it is praised by reviewers for quality over quantity. A US reviewer stated that this book can be used as a textbook for American students to learn more about Indian culture and traditions. This review is live on Goodreads.
The Evil Eye and The Charm hit #1 in the Amazon India (Horror) Bestsellers Rank more than thrice. It currently enjoys very high rating on both Amazon and Goodreads.
The Evil Eye and The Charm can be ordered through Amazon, Amazon India, and PayHip.
Its Goodreads page is worth checking out too.
