Both my books are now also available on Google Play Books in the Google Play Store app. Kindly click on the links given below in order to access them.
Megh Mallhar: The Song of the Rains by Lopamudra Bandyopadhyay – Books on Google Play
Meghashyam: An Anthology of Poems by Lopamudra Bandyopadhyay – Books on Google Play
Thank you for your kindness and appreciation.
Au revoir !
We, the writers and poets are strange creatures. We love planning. Planning our manuscripts. Planning on which days we will write which chapter. Planning the exact materials that we will use (they may range from battered typewriters to laptops to computers to paper and pen). Planning intricately on how to avoid the world (social engagements, official engagements etc). Planning quick meals so that may reduce the time devoted to cooking. And finally, planning our sleep patterns (how much should we rest our eyes and when). All this requires ample time. This huge and detailed planning. I am sure that compared to us, city civil engineers will fail when it may come to planning entire cities and towns. 😀
However, when it comes to the execution, we are master procrastinators (at least I am). We love daydreaming and creating those characters in our heads and we even allow them to romp around us on a daily basis, but when it comes to reducing them to letters punctuating white pages we tend to fail miserably. Either those whom we are able to capture and pin down on white sheets do not match the expectations that we have harbored in our heads for months, or we are too lazy to find the right words and sentences to describe them and their current predicament. As a result, we fail miserably. And then we get up, dust ourselves in the most brisk and official manner and plan again. We build newer plans. Plans that seem infallible to us. Invincible plans. Grand plans. And then they fall flat on their faces yet again. This never-ending carousel plays on till one fine day, suddenly, out of blue, we are struck by some divine lightening, and we manage to put together 80 or 90 thousand words within a single manuscript. That is nothing short of a miracle. That Eureka moment !
But, all said and done, till that magic hour arrives or the sky turns lavender and our inks turn blue this unending dance of the mind and the circumstances will continue. Quite like Hegel’s Dialectics. Quite like Wittgenstein’s language games.
Till I scribble another day…back to planning and execution. 🙂
Au revoir !
November quivers each time it is destined to leave my threshold. Decembers enters my doorway, dark, deep and somber. It has been such for the last 12 years. I do not wish to reveal the details of the somberness of December through my writings. She has her own coquettish moods that are difficult to decipher. She carries both light and shadows upon her countenance. Both black and white. At times she is sinister and at times rather bland with the pale light of the winter sky pasting itself to her visage like an old crumpled veil.
I do not question December. I do not speak to her. For the last 12 years I have simply watched her. Watched her descend into my life each year, Watched her pull the curtains around me and seclude me from the rest of the world. Watched her revive old memories and nightmares that I had tucked away deep beneath the bedclothes of my decade old mind. I have watched and waited with a crooked smile fluttering across my vapid face. Like a butterfly on the wing…trying its best to brush away shades of a dismal winter from its otherwise vibrant body.
Thus, we do not speak. December and I. We merely pass each other by. Like strangers, like old disenchanted neighbors, like two introverts caught up amidst this quagmire called life.
December and I….
Stumbled upon some brilliant little clips from the movie Wittgenstein (1993). It is a pity that I have not yet had the opportunity of watching the same. Wittgenstein has always enamored me as a philosopher.
Sharing one such clip from the movie mentioned above.
Picked up a copy of the book mentioned above from one of the largest bookshops in the city. Needless to say, it has been a rather life-changing experience reading through its contents. I would not like to comment on the stories, because, I am not qualified enough to comment on them (being the minuscule writer that I am). However, even though most of us tend to prefer bestsellers these days to classics, I would still recommend classics to all, as they are perhaps the only books that can not only touch the reader’s soul but also alter his or her perception about language in totality. Though each one of the writers whose works have been encapsulated in this slim volume is a writer par excellence, I would still like to mention William Faulkner in particular, whose usage of words intertwined with rich visual imagery will stay with the reader (haunting his or her mind) long after the story is over.
Words do matter. Writing is definitely not only about the plot and the characters. Words are perhaps the most important, to be closely followed by the rich imagery that the very same words create. If a writer can make the reader, see, smell, hear and feel things then the writer has truly been able to acquire all that he/she had ventured to accomplish in the first place.
So much for now.
Au revoir!
This is to inform my gentle readers that both my books are now available worldwide across multiple sites. The following is a brief description of my books :
Megh Mallhar: The Song of the Rains (Publisher: Serene Woods, New Delhi, India, 2010)
Category: Poetry
Drops of luminous rain, slivers of vivacious emotions, dreams quivering through skies
festooned with memories, warm earth pulsating with the sound of divine anklets, and the
wistful notes of a flute wafting through unknown forests dark with blue shadows…Megh
Mallhar is about these disjointed visions. Megh Mallhar is the amalgamation of intimate
experiences. It is the first song of the youthful rains, and the final aubade of a monsoon
departing with silent footsteps. Megh Mallhar is a voyage through the myriad straits of
solitude, loneliness, betrayal and silence, finally culminating into a quest for a love that
demolishes the notions of time and space.
Megh Mallhar: The Song of the Rains is now available on multiple sites such as Apple Books, Barnes&Noble, Smashwords, Baker&Taylor, SCRIBD, Angus & Robertson, Rakuten Kobo, Gardners etc. Kindly click on the universal link given below in order to buy a copy:
https://books2read.com/u/mv6ZK2
Meghashyam: An Anthology of Poems (Publisher: Serene Woods, New Delhi, India, 2011)
Category: Poetry
Dreams, seen over the years, through the diaphanous veils of nebulous nights. Dreams, nurtured and cherished with unbridled affection, enmeshed within visions of tender innocence. The forest, the river, the gazebo, the palace and the temple speak in hushed tones of a love that is beyond temporal denominations. A love that straddles the ephemeral epithets of time and space, and conquers a lone wandering minstrel entrapped within its silken folds.
Meghashyam is the dark prince of luminous smiles, molten eyes, tranquil peacock feathers and enigmatic flute notes. Meghashyam is a forgotten ballad of untrammelled passion excavated from within the innermost recesses of eras smothered in infidelity. Meghashyam is one woman’s quest for a love that is the flickering flame of eternity in a mortal world enrobed in the darkness of impermanence.
Meghashyam: An Anthology of Poems is now available on multiple sites such as Apple Books, Barnes&Noble, Smashwords, Baker&Taylor, SCRIBD, Angus & Robertson, Rakuten Kobo, Gardners etc. Kindly click on the universal link given below in order to buy a copy:
https://books2read.com/u/3kDAGO
Thank you for your patience and kind attention.
Au revoir !
Our lives seem to have radically changed with the advent of the smartphone. Personally speaking, I liked the dumb phone (the one with the typing keypad) much better. I still have one which I would love to carry with me to work had there not been a prevalent tendency all over my country to communicate important notices and documents via Whatsapp. That is an application that I detest from the core of my heart, but that is another completely different story. Coming back to the main point, I feel that this constant communication and over-dependence on the smartphone is making us quite dull and lethargic when it comes to social and official communications.
Unfortunately in India (and I am sure that this phenomenon must be true in other countries as well), there is an increasing tendency to avoid the computer and communicate via the smartphone. Gone are the days when people used to write long letters on dainty stationery, nowadays even the email has become quite a pet peeve for many. I have had a rather tough time convincing my colleagues and students to write emails. Most people are texting away the whole day, be they work related texts or social ones or even festive greetings. No, I do not expect to be surprised by Christmas or New Year cards lying in my mailbox, but at least a virtual card or two over the email would have been nice. On the contrary I have to remain satisfied with greetings over Whatsapp and other messengers. This can indeed be frustrating for someone like me who prefers thoughts expressed in solitude over letters and emails.
In order to keep my brain bright and ticking and not let it get submerged in the quagmire of instant communication, I’ve decided to follow certain rules hereafter.
Reading definitely increase ones patience as well as the ability to analyse. And who can benefit more from reading than the writer? Reducing activities pertaining to the phone such as watching movies (1 movie per week should be enough), and playing games should be adhered to in order to cultivate a fresh mind.
2. Limit Communications to the Computer
Writing emails and articles helps further in organizing ones thoughts and in responding in a more graceful manner. Posting comments on social media sites (to a news or an event) as well as typing a text on the spur of the moment are usually instant reflex actions. They seldom allow the person communicating to avoid words that might hurt others. Usually in life most of us tend to react than respond. Going old school helps in calming the nerves.
3. Encourage Others to Relax
I have decided to gracefully ask friends and family to limit their texting to the bare minimum and call me more. Hearing a human voice and the emotions that are attached to the same can be both calming as well as joyful in more ways than one. We seem to have become too tied up to this handheld instrument running our lives and relationships.
4. Carry a Book While Commuting
Yes, I’ve decided to avoid looking at the phone or plugging my earplugs in and listening to music while commuting, Both will do nothing more than tie me down to the machine even while I am travelling. On a related note, I wish I could invest in a gramophone in order to listen to vinyl records being played within the solitude of my apartment.
5. Jotting Down Thoughts in a Notebook
I have this habit of jotting my thoughts down in my phone throughout the day. I usually use MS OneNote for the above. However, henceforth I propose to replace the same with a paper notebook and pen. Good for my eyes and my mind.
Going old school can be tough, because we are organisms who are prone to being socially conditioned. However, I have decided to go back to the good old days of being “disconnected” from the world. The good old days when a bulky black rotary dial phone used to grace the precincts of our living room and the whole household would know who was calling whom.
Wish me luck folks ! Till I scribble again.
Au revoir !
Wishing all my readers a very Happy Halloween ! Enjoy a spooky one 🙂
Au revoir !
Autumn waltzes in languidly in tropical countries. We often do not see her colors as those residing in colder climes do. We feel her mellow footsteps in the air with the gradual departure of the subcontinental monsoon (the rainy season). Although vestiges of Autumn is completely absent where I live (we are thrown straight into the arms of Winter once Monsoon decides to relinquish her grip on us), still we do herald in her advent with songs and poems and festivals that signify the harvesting season. I briefly witnessed Autumn (or Fall as they call it over there) during my visits to the United States and those moments were extremely memorable when I could witness trees aflame in red, orange and yellow, the ground covered in carpets of brazen leaves and the air holding the scent of an impending Winter.
With the advent of Autumn comes in the flow of ideas or words. It has often happened in my case that new ideas and words tend to flow with the onset of a cooler weather. Tropical summers are not really for me. The writer in me tends to suffer a major setback as the days grow longer and more humid. Cooler days with shorter afternoons and longer evenings with the dusk falling rapidly and the birds returning to their nests tends to make me more tranquil, in fact, more spiritual with my words. This is the season when the words flow from the soul and not merely from the heart. This is the season for the writer in me…for the poet in me…and for the minstrel in me.
Welcome Autumn ! You have much to give and very little to take in return. Welcome, with open arms !
Speaking less has its benefits. You expend less energy. You are less misunderstood. You do not have to tailor-make your words for the audience concerned, You become a silent observer of things both necessary as well as unnecessary. And finally, you do not react to every word spoken, but rather respond to the same in your own sweet time.
Since speaking less is a boon, hence, writing more is a natural corollary of the former. I have always spoken/written/promoted the use of the written word in this blog as well as in my earlier blogs. The written word is slowly becoming extinct in this fast moving world that relies more on minuscule text messages rather than on long letters. We are always in a rush to achieve more within a short span of time. This never ending rush is probably that which makes us lazy and somnolent towards the written word. Letters, post cards and the like are no longer in fashion. Emails have become dinosaurs, and are only seen within the precincts of official environments. Writing diaries and journals have become old fashioned too. What remains is an incessant rush to fill up the void in our lives with constant chatter and self advertisement (through social media sites). The need to take things slowly is gradually disappearing. This is actually a crisis of our civilization and must be rectified with immediate effect. The individual who is no longer comfortable with the written word is severely harming himself/herself in the process. The individual who is in a constant rush to accomplish too many things within a tiny span of time is also severely neglecting his or her own potential to do great things slowly.
The written word more than a luxury, is today an immense necessity. Not only for our minds, but also for our souls. Speaking less, rushing less and reacting less should be seen as a way to sustain ourselves in the long run. Thus, I rest my case in defense of the written word.
Au revoir !
