Banyan Tree

Jawahara,
I wonder who Jhumpa Lahiri`s agent is?
Have your agent contact her agent!

Ras

Ras, I do have an agent now. But she is not quite as proactive as I`d like her to be right now. Scout, yes, that`s exactly the kind of thing I heard as well. There were the female churails who would attack women with long hair, while the male ones would of course seduce you and have their way with you.:-)

To the person who asked about the ``written in the laws,`` thing...it was a reference to the way some people talk in India...referring to Manu`s laws, or the shastras...I guess.

More later.

Jawahara,
another absolutely beautiful piece
of work.
Get an agent!

Ras

Once again, I must compliment you on another fine piece of writing. Your writing is so spellbinding, love the details you describe the items in your story with. eg.

``It was a magnificent tree. Its trunk, rough and welted with thick muscular cords

of tree tissue. Roots thrusting deep into the ground, thirstily sucking up water.``

Only you can make a big old tree with roots sound so powerful. :)

re: sac

---

``For in the hair is the seductiveness of woman.``

Couldn`t agree more :)``

----

And then people wonder why Muslims want their women to cover their hair.... :)

cheers,

Fozia

When I was a child, a relative once told me never to walk with my hair open under a shady tree after dark. The reasoning was that evil spirits (churails) who lived in trees after dark could jump at the opportunity of possessing a female human body. And God forbid if your hair is wet, the spirits are worse.

I can`t help thinking about that whenever I do walk under a tree, night or day.

Maybe that explains the trend of desi women cutting their hair short or dying it an ugly muddy shade of blonde. :)

My my....here a discussion is raging of girls and hair and trees and sweetened tea, and there was I was on a boring trip.

Temporal if I ever make it big in writing, I shall have to hire you as my editor. You would keep me honest or beat me upside the head trying anyway.

This story was just one those things. Since I was a kid I used to hear about haunted banyan trees, jinns and spirits attracted to long, dark hair for some reason, and so along came this story. People seemed to take it kind of seriously.Kind of rambling but I gotta do that, more often than not, most people would say :-).

I wonder why all my stories have sad endings too. For all those who tire of the sadness in my tales, I wrote The Ring (please read Temporal`s critique after you read the story?;-).

I`ll address specific issues/questions later I guess. For now thanks for reading, and thanks for the comments. Much appreciated.

It`s been a long week and a tiring one, so please excuse the typos.

Jawahara

hamidm:

My sincere apologies for the faux pas.

I know this will dominate my next session with another practitioner of the same branch! And I knew you will take in the spirit it was intended. Am afraid urstruly got it all wrong.

;)

regards

t

temporal .....

maybe that is what went wrong .... a gynaecologist is not supposed to deliver babies - he is simply a voyeur

..... I should have been delivered by an obstretician and not by a pervert who seeks sexual gratification from viewing naked women from behind a mask:

ob·stet·rics (b-sttrks, b-)

n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) Abbr. OB, ob., Ob., obs., obstet.

The branch of medicine that deals with the care of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the recuperative period following delivery

gynaecology n : the branch of medicine that deals with the diseases and hygiene of women [syn: gynecology]

....... as for Jay - all of you, leave him alone.... he is the only one who stands between me and eternal damnation ..... hatred for the likes of him keeps that little spark of Iman alive ......... it is so easy to revert back to Paganism, which seem to be a lot more fun ......... I hate to say it, but there might be something to his tnt blathering ....... if it weren`t for Islam, One Day Cricket and heathen mehndis, most Pakis would be lost like those cabbies in Brooklyn .......

...... talking about cabbies - do you realize we could shut down all the major cities in this Land of the Great Satan ..... since we have been unable to harness the power of Hazrat Suleiman`s jinns, maybe we should organize the cabbies into a union that will make the teamsters run for cover !

still life or acid trip, beautiful is beautiful.
thanks jawahara.

shandana

RE: Temporal, Hamidm

Temporal: You have a very short temper. Dheeraj mairay bhai.

Hamidm : Is your behind really pink?

hamidm #12

B’raadrum hamid,

You have progressed well since that first ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarh’ you uttered as the gynecologist slapped that pink little behind of yours in the operation theater.

For a while you used that painful ‘aaaaaaarrh’ to indicate your need for attention --- hunger, wetness, discomfort in your cradle.

I would not bother you with minor details from your life from that moment to today. Now you have overgrown that infantile cry and c o m m u n i c a t e with words. Then why this bitching?

And as for this unholy alliance between you and that bird from the other side of the border -- it is enough to drive any sane person to the favorite drink of Victorian spinsters taken in the finest bone china tea cups.

regards,

temporal

``Sometimes a fly would alight on the corner of her lip, attracted by a

bead of sweetened tea she had forgotten to lick away. It would take her

a few minutes to flick it away. ``

Ooohh! It was Lovely! I wish I was that fly. :) Aur sweetened Tea to

ek achha bahana bhi na hota.

I started out with a different mindset. Then I was guided to the question

of the girl`s marriage and the anxiety associated with it..aur tabhi beech mein yeh

Banyan Tree tapak pada..? Seemed like a reflection of ``Chipko

Movement``.

Your story follows 3 to 4 strings, you could have easily caught any

one and built a deeper story; but you put all of it together and created

a strange mix..a good stroy though.

{ beauty - marriage - superstition - love - greenpeace}

Your description of Indian summer and the lazy attitude that people sport,

was very good. Mujhe to apne gaon ki yaad aa gayee.

Hum tho chale bhai ishtasion..Gaon ki taraf..Sattu Khaane..

Pullu

(My previous attempt ended in a warning of HTML tag usage. So recollected all that i could and wrote back again...phew..)

Interesting tale! It reminds me of an old Indian or Bangladeshi movie I saw once about a woman who was cursed and so they married her to a tree and cast her out from the house. Which was at the back of my mind for more recent events, of course... there was a huge storm in that movie too. But I can`t remember how it all turned out.

I love the sensuousness of the piece. You have a way of using just the right words to convey an atmosphere, a time, a place... I love the little bits of the Indian (South Indian?) culture embedded...the coconuts, the red and gold powders at the bottom of the tree... your eye for details is sharp, I like it.

The only thing that bothers me is the heavy use of passive voice. I know it slows the pace, makes the writing more heavy, but in my opinion sometimes it weighs things down.

They should have listened to the ``sharp tongued woman with a long thin nose`` and cut it down earlier, see what happened to a nice and ``long hair up to her hips`` girl she lost her life for a long lived, ol wicked man...OOPS tree.

Mz

................ and to think I took the time to read this ``tale of little meaning, though the words are strong``.........maybe I am getting stupid in my old age, but I completely missed the point of the tree, the hair, the storm, the violent death ....... where is the story - but then sometimes there is no point to what we write ..... like my silly ramblings .....

............ and what`s with temporal .... why is he so anal about grammar and punctuation and words.... why do we have to be constrained by silly rules that long dead bad poets made up ...... what happens if you say you and me instead of I... why can`t I use a . for a pause, two dots for a longer pause, and seven for one that is pregnant...... to hell with caps and spaces and conjugations and prepositions ............ why can`t one just throw up into cyberspace without getting into trouble with the language police ...... irregardless, we would could and should and would continue to tormet temporal and his rooster

Jawahara:

Lovely work. The attention to detail stands out.

``Stark skies, precisely placed stars and the silver luster of the moon,made it appear like a painting in silhouettes.``

Thank you.

And my personal favourite:

``For in the hair is the seductiveness of woman.``

Couldn`t agree more :)

later

-sac

P.S:

temporal: If you REALLY want to write desi English this is how you do it.

Jawahara:

Really nice. I loved the way, you describe things.

But why do most of your stories have sad endings?

Satyavadi

Jawahara,

You write beautifully, and it is always a pleasure to read your stories. However they have a tendency to become like american highways: very pretty, but so straight that driving on them puts one to sleep. I would recommend that you put some ``twist in your tale`` so that they don`t become too predictable.

narain

wowzers!

RE: Temporal

I am just kidding yaar. You know that I am always on your side ;) ustaad ji.

Urstruly #5:

[I wish I hadnt read the replies before going to the article. Now you have scared me with the idea of reading 42 paragraphs:-o]

That is not fair to the author! You must read the story, form your own views and then come here and share with us. Then we can have a honest exchange of views.

I strongly feel like withholding my comments till the interacts reach double digits. Should I do that?

rgds,

t

RE: Temporal #3

I wish I hadnt read the replies before going to the article. Now you have scared me with the idea of reading 42 paragraphs:-o

PS: Please read `the Rupa character` in the second last paragraph.

Jawahara:

Having read this story my first impulse was to write a cryptic one word or one sentence comment like Ras does and move on. But that would not be me. And you deserve an honest feedback.

Right from the second word ‘unraveled’ I felt cheated --- no --- that is too harsh a word -- I felt let down.

There must be hints if not explanation for her behavior. And if there were, I must confess I missed them today.

The landscape, the horizon and the banyan tree descriptions were wonderful. At times I felt the tree was too central --- more than the Rupa ---perhaps I missed the whole point and the tree was central?

Except for a typo in para 7 the rest was blemish free --- other than the irritating breaks in paragraphs 7, 20, 27, 34, 39 and 42 for which like last time you will forgive me :)

love,

t

Jawahara:

It was a pleasure reading your work after such a long time! It was a nice, and a needed, break from the articles about the orphans of TNT!

Ciao!

Is it just me or do other people also translate such stories in Urdu/Hindi in their heads while reading? Which brings me to another question: What do u mean when u make Rupa`s mother say, listen to me ``It is written in the laws``? ¿¿