Guddi

Re: # 16

Thankyou, Zahra, for your appreciation.

Very nice Tahera...I enjoyed the theme and the way it is written. I didn`t catch a sense of `feeling thankful for what we are blessed with`; to me the punchline so well expressed is more a case of slightly macabre schadenfreude. The reader can empathize with that unfortunate aspect of Guddi which resides within all of us; that part that relishes seeing the bleakness of our lives reflected in others`.

Re: # 9 Aaah now I remember!

Re: # 11
It`s true...she will probably end up with the raw end of the deal. There are so many Guddis around; we see them, feel their pain but very few of us actually make an effort to make a difference in their lives. It`s sad that most of these children won`t stand a chance against their destiny.

Thanks for appreciating my piece. I`m glad you liked it.

Re: # 10
I`m glad you think so...thanks for taking out the time to let me know. :)

Re: # 9
No, it was my second, Chris. The first is `The Tree` which I have posted as an ilog entry on my interactor page. Thanks for your comment.

A great story! I like how Guddi -for however long it lasts- has that feeling of being better than somone else, in a way not defined by financial richness.
Parts of the story hint at a future that may change her perception once again.....

so as to develop empathy for their misfortune. I hope I succeeded

you did.

I can`t remember if this was your first piece published for `You`...yes? Fair to say you have moved on a long way since you wrote this.

Reply #1,2,3,4,5,6,7...

Thanks a bunch, all, for your comments and time. I have not been visiting chowk lately and didn`t know Guddi had been published, or I would`ve responded earlier...I chanced upon it just now!

Okay, about Guddi...

This short story was published in the women`s section of The News sometime back, and might account for some of you experiencing de`ja` vu upon reading it!!! Plus, this is not an uncommon topic, anyway. The reason it is so short and `crisp` is because it was written specifically with the newspaper in mind and papers have a fixed-wordage problem!

In this piece, I wanted to focus on the plight of underprivileged begger-children - the deprivation, abuse and exploitation they have to endure throughout their lives and the effect of all that on their psyche, so as to develop empathy for their misfortune. I hope I succeeded to some extent. That `we should be thankful for what we have` frankly did not occur to me, but that`s a good way of looking at it too.

Thanks again, and take care... :)

Good story though touching. We have become so insensitive to our surrounding, as Azure says` I have read something like this before`
In fact we are reading so much about them in news paper that give such feeling.

Beautiful. I would suggest to keep going with the story.

Dear writer

[[Guddi felt small and insignificant. Compared to the girl’s exalted status, she cut a sorry figure with a ‘broken’ arm in a sling, clumps of dirty hair sticking to her scalp, tattered rags barely covering a body layered with dirt and grime, and emitting an offensive odour that made people want to look the other way. ]]

Good stuff!!!

So palely human, Guddi, and very real. The rest of us barely can know what these children feel like as they brush up against mediocrity of circumstances, ugliness of character, and crude weather. Some 10-year-olds turn 50 from within while some die while still appearing to have been walking around. If any of us have watched these children play, we would do well to ponder on what happiness truly means.

Thanks, Tahera!

Bit of a cliche, no?

Having read better stuff by the author, I believe she could do much better than this -> giving a new background to the age old moral story of we should be thankful for what we have.