Mehreen Ahmed's Blog, page 4
March 30, 2018
March 22, 2018
March 16, 2018
A diamond star review from The Booklooters, on The Pacifist by Mehreen Ahmed
The Pacifisthttp://thebooklooters.blogspot.com.au...
I absolutely adored this book.
Originally, I thought I would give this book 4 stars. However, The Pacifist is one of those books that gets better after contemplating the story and the fate of its characters. On the surface, this book feels like quite a simple rags-to-riches story about a man who got caught up in the New South Wales gold rush.
This book is not that simple, or straightforward, at all. It turns the cliché of rags-to-riches upside down.
The Pacifist begins with a sixteen-year-old boy, Peter Baxter, who escapes from an orphanage and ends up stumbling into the life of Farmer Brown. They work together and become close, but Peter learns the truth about how the farm is owned by the orphanage with horrible conditions attached, which has caused Brown much stress - however, he confides in Peter, and it is here where we realise that this book is made up of many curious layers piled on top of each other. Peter eventually embarks on a journey to mine gold in the New South Wales gold rush. After a while, he strikes it lucky and brings home a huge gold nugget which makes him wealthy and a respectable gentleman overnight. Using his fortune, he climbs up the gold rush rankings, becoming richer and more powerful than he ever imagined. Meanwhile, we read chapters about Rose, his future wife, and how her history, and her family, intertwines with Peter's.
This book made me smile, made me laugh, gave me chills and made me cry.
Ultimately, this book SHINES in its details. I was curious about the New South Wales gold rush, and this book has definitely sparked an interest in Australian history for me. I was glad to find out more about the raw realities the gold miners, the Aboriginals, and the lower classes of society during this period in Australia - which, after all, is connected to my home country back in Britain. It made me realise how we don't get to learn much about Australian history, and this made me downright horrified. The historical details shine through in the form of letters and diary entries, which have an intimate feel to them.
The mysteries and the revelations, GUYS, are SO satisfying. The delicate way Ahmed weaves the histories of the families together and surprises us with huge details that were missing before, adds quite a special, and unforgettable touch to the book. Ahmed's use of descriptions, metaphors and similes are first-class. The author's description of food made my mouth water - it was on par with George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. The similes made me smirk: 'a handful of local reporters sat with their camera men, waiting glumly like toads on lily pads for the next scoop'. Haha.
Ultimately, though, this book is very dark. It explores subjects like pedophilia, rape, adultery, mental illness, suicide, death and the abuse of children. The author is incredibly brave for writing about these subjects, and I wholeheartedly applaud her because she has done it so well. It's raw, but the author pulls no punches. Without a doubt, these awful things would have been happening during this period, as indeed it happens today. Don't let these subjects put you off, but do be prepared beforehand. It is easy to lose yourself in the world of The Pacifist, and you will become emotionally invested in the characters and the mysteries, which will keep you engrossed throughout. It's only 300 pages (for those who love books on the shorter side) so you'll find yourself speeding through it.
I loved this book so much, and will definitely be exploring more of Ahmed's work.
I absolutely adored this book.
Originally, I thought I would give this book 4 stars. However, The Pacifist is one of those books that gets better after contemplating the story and the fate of its characters. On the surface, this book feels like quite a simple rags-to-riches story about a man who got caught up in the New South Wales gold rush.
This book is not that simple, or straightforward, at all. It turns the cliché of rags-to-riches upside down.
The Pacifist begins with a sixteen-year-old boy, Peter Baxter, who escapes from an orphanage and ends up stumbling into the life of Farmer Brown. They work together and become close, but Peter learns the truth about how the farm is owned by the orphanage with horrible conditions attached, which has caused Brown much stress - however, he confides in Peter, and it is here where we realise that this book is made up of many curious layers piled on top of each other. Peter eventually embarks on a journey to mine gold in the New South Wales gold rush. After a while, he strikes it lucky and brings home a huge gold nugget which makes him wealthy and a respectable gentleman overnight. Using his fortune, he climbs up the gold rush rankings, becoming richer and more powerful than he ever imagined. Meanwhile, we read chapters about Rose, his future wife, and how her history, and her family, intertwines with Peter's.
This book made me smile, made me laugh, gave me chills and made me cry.
Ultimately, this book SHINES in its details. I was curious about the New South Wales gold rush, and this book has definitely sparked an interest in Australian history for me. I was glad to find out more about the raw realities the gold miners, the Aboriginals, and the lower classes of society during this period in Australia - which, after all, is connected to my home country back in Britain. It made me realise how we don't get to learn much about Australian history, and this made me downright horrified. The historical details shine through in the form of letters and diary entries, which have an intimate feel to them.
The mysteries and the revelations, GUYS, are SO satisfying. The delicate way Ahmed weaves the histories of the families together and surprises us with huge details that were missing before, adds quite a special, and unforgettable touch to the book. Ahmed's use of descriptions, metaphors and similes are first-class. The author's description of food made my mouth water - it was on par with George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. The similes made me smirk: 'a handful of local reporters sat with their camera men, waiting glumly like toads on lily pads for the next scoop'. Haha.
Ultimately, though, this book is very dark. It explores subjects like pedophilia, rape, adultery, mental illness, suicide, death and the abuse of children. The author is incredibly brave for writing about these subjects, and I wholeheartedly applaud her because she has done it so well. It's raw, but the author pulls no punches. Without a doubt, these awful things would have been happening during this period, as indeed it happens today. Don't let these subjects put you off, but do be prepared beforehand. It is easy to lose yourself in the world of The Pacifist, and you will become emotionally invested in the characters and the mysteries, which will keep you engrossed throughout. It's only 300 pages (for those who love books on the shorter side) so you'll find yourself speeding through it.
I loved this book so much, and will definitely be exploring more of Ahmed's work.
March 12, 2018
How can dreams be categorised as transcendental idealism? An essay on Moirae, in reference to Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism vs transcendental realism By Mehreen Ahmed
Published on: http://spillwords.com/how-can-dreams-...
This paper focusses on my published book, Moirae. In this, I discuss dreams in the light of Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism. From the outset, it should be noted that Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism means how an object “appears” in internal thoughts and the subsequent projection or representation of it. The representation is opposed to the objects’ “microscopic” image or what it actually is: “as is”. Kant exemplifies this with a phenomena taken from nature, e.g., the rainbow.
To make this complex doctrine more understandable, he distinguishes between transcendental realism and transcendental idealism. For instance,“the empirical “rainbow in itself” is a collection of water droplets with particular sizes and shapes and spatial relations, while the empirical “rainbow appearance” is the colorful band we see in the sky. The empirical thing in itself corresponds roughly to Lockean primary qualities, while the empirical appearance corresponds roughly to its secondary qualities. For Kant’s own comparison of his idealism to that Lockean distinction see Prolegomena (Ak. 4:289); Allais (2007) is a sophisticated discussion of Kant’s secondary quality analogy.)”
In the context of this premise, and in reference to my book, Moirae, I discuss dreams. How can dreams be categorised as transcendental idealism? Moirae is a dream allegory written in a stream of consciousness style of writing. Reading Moirae, some reviewers have commented that they readily enter in somebody else’s dream. It is not written in grammar, rather littered with many awkward phrases. Central to this discussion, is this character, a young teen-age girl by the name of Nalia. She is born in a village of an imaginary world with two moons, namely, The Lost Winds. Her dreams are the focus of this discussion.
The images which appear in her dreams are often chaotic, disjointed, and scattered. The language or the expressions used in the book maintain consistently an ungrammatical pattern emerging seamlessly in her dreams. Images of death and persecution become rampant in a politically unstable world of her mind. The book creates an atmosphere of the mind, a rarity. What appears in her mind, alone, is a world not linguistically or structurally sound, rather a different world where emergence of awkward phrases and multi-dimensional PoV occur, which explains, “otherness” or an existence of “another.” If we were to take from Kant’s example, the droplets as transcendental reality, and the rainbow as transcendental idealism; droplets translated in the image of a rainbow in the mind, then what Nalia dreams maybe categorised as “appearances” of an image notably existing in a different form of a hyper-reality or transcendental reality of Kant’s definition.
By definition, dreams are an internal construct, just as thoughts are in awakening. Nalia’s dreams contain realistic images, like the cinemas in the mind, which I deem as “appearance”. I choose the word “realistic,” here to make a distinction between sleeping and wakefulness. But what I actually mean is this that the dream in itself is a kind of wakefulness, for as long as the subject/dreamer doesn’t know that she dreams. At any given time, dreams can become a spontaneous and external representation of a hyper reality.
Which brings us to the moot question; what is it that makes Nalia’s wavering dreams/images as something pertaining to transcendental idealism? In the context of the rainbow example above, I would like to suggest that Nalia’s dreaming is in fact her “appearance,” or presumptive representation of a transcendental reality of external objects residing independently in time and space out there, or “as is” under a microscopic scrutiny.
Through this state of her dreaming, objects often “appear,” as persecution and death, chaos and confusion of a highly unstable community, but in a different form. We don’t know what these would look like in transcendental reality. But in her dream line they appear as disjointed images of torture, and killing, dying in the sea, wondering the world as a refugee. Not a pleasant picture. This confused state is further highlighted by the stream of consciousness style of writing, in which linguistics play a pivotal role.
Now let’s analyse the linguistics first; the syntax and the semantics that emerge in her dreams. How can these be incorporated within the definition of transcendental idealism? The language that she views in her dreams, and taken from one of many awkward phrases in her dreaming, Nalia sees her brother MD, inclining his head to respond to his landlady’s call, Angella, in the new land known as the Draviland. Nalia does not see this as it actually is, but in a different format which is incorrect perhaps, but also“different or the other.” That act of “leaning,” she sees it as “inclining from his position.” In the narrator’s description, “MD asked inclining from his position,” as he answers to Angella’s question in broken Kroll language, spoken in that country. The word, “leaning,” would have sufficed semantically and justifiably too, but to her, “leaning” “appears” as “inclining from his position,” when in fact, he was inclining his head. While inclining of the head, should have been the syntactically a correct choice, but those linguistic properties would have to be properties of a transcendental reality. Hence, the narrator, pens down the awkward phrases as they appear in the dream.
Another example of this chaotic disturbance is noted in the construction of the points of views or the PoV, where a discernible clash of multilevel PoV occurs. Even in Nalia's her wildest dreams, given her rural upbringing and level of exposure, she could never imagine about Shakespeare, the laws of physics or the Greek tragedies. But they emerge seamlessly in her dreams, nonetheless, not in her voice but in the voice of the “other”. How do we explain this? How do we explain the many-fold voices appearing in her head? Dreams can make anything possible. The only possible way, it maybe inferred is if there an outer reality, and that this dream manifests itself into transcendental idealism; the dream reality is eluding and so is transcendental idealism. Why do we see the rainbow, and not the droplets? Perhaps, because this is how our brain processes information. At the time of her dreaming, this is how Nalia’s brain processes this information that she were to dream of “other” voices, quoting Shakespeare and Homer, and in this “otherness,” voices “appear” in her head, pertaining to some hyper-reality of existence.
Although these multilevel PoVs, appear incognisance, insofar as Nalia is concerned, but the narrator understands them and makes a note of it. Her dream hinging on transcendental idealism, images “appear” or “represent” themselves as “not as is,” but as multi-facet switch of a PoV, when “as is” of a hyper reality would have to be something quite different.
Furthermore, in this construct of transcendental idealism, it justifies my use of the device, the stream-of-consciousness, in order to preserve the integrity of an other worldly,“appearance and representation.” Thoughts as confused and chaotic as they are, her visions of the war and persecution, are floating images of another reality which appears like this in her mind as the band of rainbow would, instead of its essential properties of droplets and so on that the actual rainbow is made up of. If say, for instance, the actual war is the transcendental reality, then the resultant effects of that brutality of human condition in the mind is that image of transcendental idealism playing up in her dreams. In a way, the properties of the war or the brutality are foreshadowed by this transcendental idealism of permeated images of a dream, as they “appear” in the mind and “represented” subsequently like the rainbow if you like, to the reader on the outer.
The book ends with the creation of a Shingdi; in her continuous dreaming, an ideal world appears in her mind, which hinges on her village. But this appearance of Shingdi of her dream is nothing like her village, but a utopia of a hyper-reality.
This paper focusses on my published book, Moirae. In this, I discuss dreams in the light of Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism. From the outset, it should be noted that Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism means how an object “appears” in internal thoughts and the subsequent projection or representation of it. The representation is opposed to the objects’ “microscopic” image or what it actually is: “as is”. Kant exemplifies this with a phenomena taken from nature, e.g., the rainbow.
To make this complex doctrine more understandable, he distinguishes between transcendental realism and transcendental idealism. For instance,“the empirical “rainbow in itself” is a collection of water droplets with particular sizes and shapes and spatial relations, while the empirical “rainbow appearance” is the colorful band we see in the sky. The empirical thing in itself corresponds roughly to Lockean primary qualities, while the empirical appearance corresponds roughly to its secondary qualities. For Kant’s own comparison of his idealism to that Lockean distinction see Prolegomena (Ak. 4:289); Allais (2007) is a sophisticated discussion of Kant’s secondary quality analogy.)”
In the context of this premise, and in reference to my book, Moirae, I discuss dreams. How can dreams be categorised as transcendental idealism? Moirae is a dream allegory written in a stream of consciousness style of writing. Reading Moirae, some reviewers have commented that they readily enter in somebody else’s dream. It is not written in grammar, rather littered with many awkward phrases. Central to this discussion, is this character, a young teen-age girl by the name of Nalia. She is born in a village of an imaginary world with two moons, namely, The Lost Winds. Her dreams are the focus of this discussion.
The images which appear in her dreams are often chaotic, disjointed, and scattered. The language or the expressions used in the book maintain consistently an ungrammatical pattern emerging seamlessly in her dreams. Images of death and persecution become rampant in a politically unstable world of her mind. The book creates an atmosphere of the mind, a rarity. What appears in her mind, alone, is a world not linguistically or structurally sound, rather a different world where emergence of awkward phrases and multi-dimensional PoV occur, which explains, “otherness” or an existence of “another.” If we were to take from Kant’s example, the droplets as transcendental reality, and the rainbow as transcendental idealism; droplets translated in the image of a rainbow in the mind, then what Nalia dreams maybe categorised as “appearances” of an image notably existing in a different form of a hyper-reality or transcendental reality of Kant’s definition.
By definition, dreams are an internal construct, just as thoughts are in awakening. Nalia’s dreams contain realistic images, like the cinemas in the mind, which I deem as “appearance”. I choose the word “realistic,” here to make a distinction between sleeping and wakefulness. But what I actually mean is this that the dream in itself is a kind of wakefulness, for as long as the subject/dreamer doesn’t know that she dreams. At any given time, dreams can become a spontaneous and external representation of a hyper reality.
Which brings us to the moot question; what is it that makes Nalia’s wavering dreams/images as something pertaining to transcendental idealism? In the context of the rainbow example above, I would like to suggest that Nalia’s dreaming is in fact her “appearance,” or presumptive representation of a transcendental reality of external objects residing independently in time and space out there, or “as is” under a microscopic scrutiny.
Through this state of her dreaming, objects often “appear,” as persecution and death, chaos and confusion of a highly unstable community, but in a different form. We don’t know what these would look like in transcendental reality. But in her dream line they appear as disjointed images of torture, and killing, dying in the sea, wondering the world as a refugee. Not a pleasant picture. This confused state is further highlighted by the stream of consciousness style of writing, in which linguistics play a pivotal role.
Now let’s analyse the linguistics first; the syntax and the semantics that emerge in her dreams. How can these be incorporated within the definition of transcendental idealism? The language that she views in her dreams, and taken from one of many awkward phrases in her dreaming, Nalia sees her brother MD, inclining his head to respond to his landlady’s call, Angella, in the new land known as the Draviland. Nalia does not see this as it actually is, but in a different format which is incorrect perhaps, but also“different or the other.” That act of “leaning,” she sees it as “inclining from his position.” In the narrator’s description, “MD asked inclining from his position,” as he answers to Angella’s question in broken Kroll language, spoken in that country. The word, “leaning,” would have sufficed semantically and justifiably too, but to her, “leaning” “appears” as “inclining from his position,” when in fact, he was inclining his head. While inclining of the head, should have been the syntactically a correct choice, but those linguistic properties would have to be properties of a transcendental reality. Hence, the narrator, pens down the awkward phrases as they appear in the dream.
Another example of this chaotic disturbance is noted in the construction of the points of views or the PoV, where a discernible clash of multilevel PoV occurs. Even in Nalia's her wildest dreams, given her rural upbringing and level of exposure, she could never imagine about Shakespeare, the laws of physics or the Greek tragedies. But they emerge seamlessly in her dreams, nonetheless, not in her voice but in the voice of the “other”. How do we explain this? How do we explain the many-fold voices appearing in her head? Dreams can make anything possible. The only possible way, it maybe inferred is if there an outer reality, and that this dream manifests itself into transcendental idealism; the dream reality is eluding and so is transcendental idealism. Why do we see the rainbow, and not the droplets? Perhaps, because this is how our brain processes information. At the time of her dreaming, this is how Nalia’s brain processes this information that she were to dream of “other” voices, quoting Shakespeare and Homer, and in this “otherness,” voices “appear” in her head, pertaining to some hyper-reality of existence.
Although these multilevel PoVs, appear incognisance, insofar as Nalia is concerned, but the narrator understands them and makes a note of it. Her dream hinging on transcendental idealism, images “appear” or “represent” themselves as “not as is,” but as multi-facet switch of a PoV, when “as is” of a hyper reality would have to be something quite different.
Furthermore, in this construct of transcendental idealism, it justifies my use of the device, the stream-of-consciousness, in order to preserve the integrity of an other worldly,“appearance and representation.” Thoughts as confused and chaotic as they are, her visions of the war and persecution, are floating images of another reality which appears like this in her mind as the band of rainbow would, instead of its essential properties of droplets and so on that the actual rainbow is made up of. If say, for instance, the actual war is the transcendental reality, then the resultant effects of that brutality of human condition in the mind is that image of transcendental idealism playing up in her dreams. In a way, the properties of the war or the brutality are foreshadowed by this transcendental idealism of permeated images of a dream, as they “appear” in the mind and “represented” subsequently like the rainbow if you like, to the reader on the outer.
The book ends with the creation of a Shingdi; in her continuous dreaming, an ideal world appears in her mind, which hinges on her village. But this appearance of Shingdi of her dream is nothing like her village, but a utopia of a hyper-reality.
March 6, 2018
Authority and Ambition in "The Pacifist": A Guest Post by Mehreen Ahmed
The Pacifist is not just an historical fiction that romanticizes the adventurous spirit of the gold rush period in Australia. Largely, the novel documents institutional abuse and effects of blind ambition as noted in the characters from the outset. Malcolm’s strange upbringing, Rose’s mental illness and supernatural encounters, Peter’s idealised vision of a good life. Consequences, hinging on the existence of an orphanage, at the heart of it.
In The Pacifist, the orphanage is not portrayed as the safe haven, it should be. In fact, children are seen suffering in the hands of a deplorable pedophile. The most vulnerable in our society in the grips of the most despicable, inexcusable. This warrants an investigation into the facilities that society comes to put their trust in. While the story focuses on this one example of an institution taking advantage of the unfortunate, the orphanage renders itself as a symbol for the greater injustices that happen; a discernible systemic corruption. While this is not a new idea, still, one that needs reinvestigation. In fiction, we can find newer ways to reopen a thesis, identify antithesis to possible synthesis. As a writer it is not my place to provide a solution, rather be critical of the lack there is.
This institution designates Brown as a farmer to a property, owned by Badgerys Creek Orphanage. Its strict caveat precludes him from making any serious money; overtime, he falls into a trap of extreme poverty and desperation. Metaphorically, this caveat is that destructive force of institutional power, a gate-less keeper, no less, which keeps the farmer perpetually broke and under constant subservience. However, this state of overwhelming poverty somewhat has a deluding effect on him. Deluded in his mind, he thinks that he can break through, gain freedom by leaving the farm, when he can't. The orphanage anchors down not just him to the farm, but the caveat stipulates that the farm be noosed around his successors too; his future generation of offsprings, thus perpetuating a system. A system to keep the poor, poor forever - a recurrent theme, like light and dark, night and day, poverty and wealth, one justifying the other.
Ambition is a good thing, but where does one draw a line between ambition and greed? Peter seeks to climb up the social strata by working hard. His role in the novel is to show that there is a fine line separating success and greed. Understanding this is important if one were to avoid serious repercussions. His family is thrown into turmoil as a result of his unwillingness to find a balance between living a life and seeking wealth. A situation which eventually bankrupts him morally. A wasteland of nihilism follows, betraying happiness and love; no amount of wealth can absolve this sin.
While set in the nineteenth century, The Pacifist contains themes that are relevant today. It is an attempt to point out how institutional power can often act as impediment in our struggle to grow and win.
In The Pacifist, the orphanage is not portrayed as the safe haven, it should be. In fact, children are seen suffering in the hands of a deplorable pedophile. The most vulnerable in our society in the grips of the most despicable, inexcusable. This warrants an investigation into the facilities that society comes to put their trust in. While the story focuses on this one example of an institution taking advantage of the unfortunate, the orphanage renders itself as a symbol for the greater injustices that happen; a discernible systemic corruption. While this is not a new idea, still, one that needs reinvestigation. In fiction, we can find newer ways to reopen a thesis, identify antithesis to possible synthesis. As a writer it is not my place to provide a solution, rather be critical of the lack there is.
This institution designates Brown as a farmer to a property, owned by Badgerys Creek Orphanage. Its strict caveat precludes him from making any serious money; overtime, he falls into a trap of extreme poverty and desperation. Metaphorically, this caveat is that destructive force of institutional power, a gate-less keeper, no less, which keeps the farmer perpetually broke and under constant subservience. However, this state of overwhelming poverty somewhat has a deluding effect on him. Deluded in his mind, he thinks that he can break through, gain freedom by leaving the farm, when he can't. The orphanage anchors down not just him to the farm, but the caveat stipulates that the farm be noosed around his successors too; his future generation of offsprings, thus perpetuating a system. A system to keep the poor, poor forever - a recurrent theme, like light and dark, night and day, poverty and wealth, one justifying the other.
Ambition is a good thing, but where does one draw a line between ambition and greed? Peter seeks to climb up the social strata by working hard. His role in the novel is to show that there is a fine line separating success and greed. Understanding this is important if one were to avoid serious repercussions. His family is thrown into turmoil as a result of his unwillingness to find a balance between living a life and seeking wealth. A situation which eventually bankrupts him morally. A wasteland of nihilism follows, betraying happiness and love; no amount of wealth can absolve this sin.
While set in the nineteenth century, The Pacifist contains themes that are relevant today. It is an attempt to point out how institutional power can often act as impediment in our struggle to grow and win.
March 3, 2018
Waheed Murad: "Emotion recollected in tranquility" - A prose by Mehreen Ahmed
Who isn’t smitten by the dashing Waheed Murad? Despite his meteoric success in the stardom, Waheed is a fashion metaphor, class, culture and romantic nostalgia to boot, as Elvis Presley is in rock and roll. When I pay a visit to his filmy website to catch a glimpse of him, I am both intrigued and intimidated just being here. Because, this world is much beyond my comprehension. Yet, I am here. Come to think of it, that’s exactly the kind of effect Waheed Murad has on people. And trust me, as someone who knows nothing about the movie world, let alone Waheed, I am just as enchanted as anyone else, drawn into his aura. Far apart we maybe, but he seems to be hovering on the outskirts of my mind’s eye, whom I now try to fathom. Is he unfathomable? Most likely, but at the cost of being laughed at by all of Waheed’s associates, and perhaps against my better judgement, I set out in a bid, to explore his artistry. The best that there is by a long shot in the Himalayan peninsula.
Not inconsequentially, I cannot but help thinking of the obvious. Very rarely, does one come across a personality of Waheed’s stature in the movie world. Regardless of age, he strikes a chord even with the fourth graders, particularly one girl that comes to mind, who watches his movie, Armaan in grade four and takes a fancy to him. She cannot be made to wake up the next morning to go to school, because, her eyelids are laden with lovesick potion; he, who is a senior by 30 years at least, the same age as her parents. This “chocolate” hero, gives her a flavour of his maddening charms, like he does to millions of crazed, intergenerational women, back in the day, and today. A zesty king of the hearts, this tall man with slightly drooping shoulders, is but not rugged necessarily. He stalks them in their dream and day dream as though Venus, Cupid and Aphrodite with the entire pantheon of love deities have colluded to shoot random arrows with this love message that it is expressly vital.
In the meantime, as the time passes, that fourth grader notably, continue to suffer from love affliction at the risk of being precocious. If this sweet sensation is corrupting in Socratic measure, then so be it. Because, this puppy love, which no hemlock can slay, grows and flourishes like a secret garden in her charmed heart. She does not outgrow this any time soon, although she may have grown out of her dresses. It sinks deep, and freezes in the moment’s rockbottom, with many historical chain of events piled up over it. Primarily, the bad blood and tensions between the former two wings East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and the West Pakistan, culminating into a brutal civil war, ending in a severed relationship. I don’t want to go into the gory details of the war or its causes. I only want to celebrate the magnetic, Waheed Murad, to prove a point; that he is rightly an atypical idealist.
Having said this, it is not an easy feat. Being a Bangladeshi, it is not easy to put only Waheed with his ideology in a bubble without the historical rubble. Because his fans, even in the aftermath, think of him as just that, uncontaminated as the raindrops, pure as the driven snow, who never betrays a poet’s imagination. For many years after the war, when I rekindle my frozen memory of the somewhat snapped link with my dark hero, since I am that precocious fourth grader, I retrieve him from a memory storage in a holographic projection, as it were, with awful clarity. Curious as it is, this shocking revelation isn’t a case of a novelty wearing off, rather one of idolatry, to the point of awakening him from his crypt. Emboldened by this blind loyalty, I place him in the forefront of my thoughts; this dandy, debonair hero, pulled up from my memory bank. With little hope, or none at all, for all that is worth, and much for his fans’ sake, as well as mine, this figment of my imagination lends itself to a legacy within a legacy. Like Hamlet’s ghost, it haunts to goad me farther to the brink of God-knows-what, to unravel a mystery about him that the world knows not. This spell, fogs all my critical thinking; an insane craving resurfaces, strong and ravenous that cannot dispel my thoughts about him. Even better that I retreat into a fantasy world to shape him as whatever I wish in my story, a full-blooded lover, or platonic, as decreed by our circumstance.
Platonic, now there’s a thought. At best, this can clue me in to seek out a new dimension in Waheed’s gripping love scenes. That which may assist in eliciting his personal thoughts on romance through his movies. He is not an incidental hero, who perchance takes Lollywod by the storm. What is it after all, that makes Waheed’s love scenes a cut above the rest, thus far special? Watching Waheed, in circumspect and maturity, I dare say, that even in his most flirtatious roles, there is a fascinating underlay. An aspect, of a shadow reality, which elude the viewers. In essence, an urgency to define love as fulfilling and an undying emotion, which Waheed the persona, exudes almost involuntarily. His nuanced performances of intimacy, the touches, the facial expressions, the linguistic flourishes of sweet endearments, poured into the ears of his leading ladies, are all accomplished with such dexterity that the self and the art bond indistinguishably. Hence, Waheed the mask, and Waheed the man, converge into one whole inseparable entity, alluding to an unscripted streaming.
To tie up the loose ends, his romantic roles translate, by far, into a fusion; a fusion of the physical and the spiritual which dictates the former to be a stepping stone to a higher ground of love. And in his passionate pursuance, this zeal for love is akin to bandagi (devotion) and zindagi (life). Something, not sought after by the majority of actors, but all too uncommon a concept; an idea of resolute love, which resides in the soul to mean that he is never really in love with the person, but with the idea of love itself in the spirit, which he strives to conceptualise and perfect in its abstraction.
What’s more? To understand Waheed, I delve deeper into his fundamental ideals. It dawns upon me that Waheed’s movies unveil not just his artistic endeavour, but his life and death, and a potent philosophy all entwined in one seamless composition. It is very convincing that the man that he is, the lover that he acts, are all but in pursuit of love for humanity, truth, beauty and fairness. And as I stumble on the newspaper, Dawn: In Memoriam, The Mystery Behind Waheed Murad, my inkling is corroborated; that the coded messages conveyed in Zubaida, Bandagi, Samundar, Mastana Mahi, and Naag Mani are all but well thought out allegories, central to his core beliefs of religious equality, and mutual bonding in a country torn apart by ravages of the war and zealous stupidity. This uncompromising situation obstructing to find a common-ground for union, empathy and egalitarianism, disturbs his equilibrium profoundly. The irreconcilable wave of religious apathy, social and political disparity, precludes him to achieve poetic justice to a fatal consequence; an irreparable loss pushing his fans to the edge of inconsolable grief.
He plays his finale well. He departs backstage, after the last curtain drops. As he dies in carelessness, however, for all it may seem, a death most tragic, it is but certainly not in vain. Because, he never really renders himself off-limits to his fans. His remains burn aflame in their tender love for him, as he appears and disappears in their minds, like in his stream-of-consciousness movie, Isharaa, also a mark of his artistic prowess.
The fact is, Elvis has never left the building. His signature writ large on the silver screen: the appealing smiles of youth, moody, blues looks, and croaky, sexy voice-overs with a marked air of romance, sets him apart from casual ordinariness; a cast, not from the same mould, as the other actors of his time.
Lest the world forgets, he is that Sufi steeped in love. That poet lost in lyrics. And that postmodern visionary drunk with atypical idealism (see Kant's doctrine of atypical idealist). But also an actor who lives to die another day. He, who offers himself to posterity in all earnestness, not in the sense of a celebrity hero, but as a question for those, who pine away for him, to wonder, and to ponder timelessly about Waheed Murad, the man. Hence, his fans remember this powerful enigma, as mei aisa ak sawaal hu; he is that unanswered question; he is that unresolved mystery.
It may very well be that Waheed is none of this, but a movie mogul, made larger than life. However, I retrace this journey at the behest of my muse which hints at all these possibilities. To conclude Waheed Murad’s inconclusive tale, one may gauge him to be a sentient human, existing within the subliminal cinemas of his mind, and essentially, in the futuristic outreach of his arts.
https://mehreen10.wordpress.com/
Not inconsequentially, I cannot but help thinking of the obvious. Very rarely, does one come across a personality of Waheed’s stature in the movie world. Regardless of age, he strikes a chord even with the fourth graders, particularly one girl that comes to mind, who watches his movie, Armaan in grade four and takes a fancy to him. She cannot be made to wake up the next morning to go to school, because, her eyelids are laden with lovesick potion; he, who is a senior by 30 years at least, the same age as her parents. This “chocolate” hero, gives her a flavour of his maddening charms, like he does to millions of crazed, intergenerational women, back in the day, and today. A zesty king of the hearts, this tall man with slightly drooping shoulders, is but not rugged necessarily. He stalks them in their dream and day dream as though Venus, Cupid and Aphrodite with the entire pantheon of love deities have colluded to shoot random arrows with this love message that it is expressly vital.
In the meantime, as the time passes, that fourth grader notably, continue to suffer from love affliction at the risk of being precocious. If this sweet sensation is corrupting in Socratic measure, then so be it. Because, this puppy love, which no hemlock can slay, grows and flourishes like a secret garden in her charmed heart. She does not outgrow this any time soon, although she may have grown out of her dresses. It sinks deep, and freezes in the moment’s rockbottom, with many historical chain of events piled up over it. Primarily, the bad blood and tensions between the former two wings East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and the West Pakistan, culminating into a brutal civil war, ending in a severed relationship. I don’t want to go into the gory details of the war or its causes. I only want to celebrate the magnetic, Waheed Murad, to prove a point; that he is rightly an atypical idealist.
Having said this, it is not an easy feat. Being a Bangladeshi, it is not easy to put only Waheed with his ideology in a bubble without the historical rubble. Because his fans, even in the aftermath, think of him as just that, uncontaminated as the raindrops, pure as the driven snow, who never betrays a poet’s imagination. For many years after the war, when I rekindle my frozen memory of the somewhat snapped link with my dark hero, since I am that precocious fourth grader, I retrieve him from a memory storage in a holographic projection, as it were, with awful clarity. Curious as it is, this shocking revelation isn’t a case of a novelty wearing off, rather one of idolatry, to the point of awakening him from his crypt. Emboldened by this blind loyalty, I place him in the forefront of my thoughts; this dandy, debonair hero, pulled up from my memory bank. With little hope, or none at all, for all that is worth, and much for his fans’ sake, as well as mine, this figment of my imagination lends itself to a legacy within a legacy. Like Hamlet’s ghost, it haunts to goad me farther to the brink of God-knows-what, to unravel a mystery about him that the world knows not. This spell, fogs all my critical thinking; an insane craving resurfaces, strong and ravenous that cannot dispel my thoughts about him. Even better that I retreat into a fantasy world to shape him as whatever I wish in my story, a full-blooded lover, or platonic, as decreed by our circumstance.
Platonic, now there’s a thought. At best, this can clue me in to seek out a new dimension in Waheed’s gripping love scenes. That which may assist in eliciting his personal thoughts on romance through his movies. He is not an incidental hero, who perchance takes Lollywod by the storm. What is it after all, that makes Waheed’s love scenes a cut above the rest, thus far special? Watching Waheed, in circumspect and maturity, I dare say, that even in his most flirtatious roles, there is a fascinating underlay. An aspect, of a shadow reality, which elude the viewers. In essence, an urgency to define love as fulfilling and an undying emotion, which Waheed the persona, exudes almost involuntarily. His nuanced performances of intimacy, the touches, the facial expressions, the linguistic flourishes of sweet endearments, poured into the ears of his leading ladies, are all accomplished with such dexterity that the self and the art bond indistinguishably. Hence, Waheed the mask, and Waheed the man, converge into one whole inseparable entity, alluding to an unscripted streaming.
To tie up the loose ends, his romantic roles translate, by far, into a fusion; a fusion of the physical and the spiritual which dictates the former to be a stepping stone to a higher ground of love. And in his passionate pursuance, this zeal for love is akin to bandagi (devotion) and zindagi (life). Something, not sought after by the majority of actors, but all too uncommon a concept; an idea of resolute love, which resides in the soul to mean that he is never really in love with the person, but with the idea of love itself in the spirit, which he strives to conceptualise and perfect in its abstraction.
What’s more? To understand Waheed, I delve deeper into his fundamental ideals. It dawns upon me that Waheed’s movies unveil not just his artistic endeavour, but his life and death, and a potent philosophy all entwined in one seamless composition. It is very convincing that the man that he is, the lover that he acts, are all but in pursuit of love for humanity, truth, beauty and fairness. And as I stumble on the newspaper, Dawn: In Memoriam, The Mystery Behind Waheed Murad, my inkling is corroborated; that the coded messages conveyed in Zubaida, Bandagi, Samundar, Mastana Mahi, and Naag Mani are all but well thought out allegories, central to his core beliefs of religious equality, and mutual bonding in a country torn apart by ravages of the war and zealous stupidity. This uncompromising situation obstructing to find a common-ground for union, empathy and egalitarianism, disturbs his equilibrium profoundly. The irreconcilable wave of religious apathy, social and political disparity, precludes him to achieve poetic justice to a fatal consequence; an irreparable loss pushing his fans to the edge of inconsolable grief.
He plays his finale well. He departs backstage, after the last curtain drops. As he dies in carelessness, however, for all it may seem, a death most tragic, it is but certainly not in vain. Because, he never really renders himself off-limits to his fans. His remains burn aflame in their tender love for him, as he appears and disappears in their minds, like in his stream-of-consciousness movie, Isharaa, also a mark of his artistic prowess.
The fact is, Elvis has never left the building. His signature writ large on the silver screen: the appealing smiles of youth, moody, blues looks, and croaky, sexy voice-overs with a marked air of romance, sets him apart from casual ordinariness; a cast, not from the same mould, as the other actors of his time.
Lest the world forgets, he is that Sufi steeped in love. That poet lost in lyrics. And that postmodern visionary drunk with atypical idealism (see Kant's doctrine of atypical idealist). But also an actor who lives to die another day. He, who offers himself to posterity in all earnestness, not in the sense of a celebrity hero, but as a question for those, who pine away for him, to wonder, and to ponder timelessly about Waheed Murad, the man. Hence, his fans remember this powerful enigma, as mei aisa ak sawaal hu; he is that unanswered question; he is that unresolved mystery.
It may very well be that Waheed is none of this, but a movie mogul, made larger than life. However, I retrace this journey at the behest of my muse which hints at all these possibilities. To conclude Waheed Murad’s inconclusive tale, one may gauge him to be a sentient human, existing within the subliminal cinemas of his mind, and essentially, in the futuristic outreach of his arts.
https://mehreen10.wordpress.com/
February 23, 2018
February 10, 2018
An open letter to Mehreen Ahmed
MoiraeAn open letter to Mehreen Ahmed from Joan Eyles Johnson, winner of the Earnest Hemingway Prize for short fiction, 2016: Moirae by Mehreen Ahmed.
11
FEB
Dear Mehreen,
As an English teacher, I found some of it disturbing with spelling errors and switching back and forth with punctuation and long passages that seem unconnected. In other words, it is confusing and difficult as an English teacher to read.
Now as a writer, I am impressed by the literary references, the beautiful and often lush descriptive metaphors and strong storytelling talent that continues throughout the book. I see the stream-of-consciousness and juxtaposition of styles as following Ezra Pound’s “Make it new.”
As a teacher of creative writing, I would tighten up many spots that I see to jar the reader or even yank the reader violently from one narrative to another.
Over all, Moirae is a beautiful example of an earnest attempt at a new kind of writing, and that is commendable, however, I wish I could talk with you as you completed each chapter, which by the way is beautifully divided and managed. I like the Faulknerian switch in point of view from first chapter to the second. I would have asked you delineate the characters in such a way that their family relationships were made even more clear. The thing I most liked was the strangeness of the setting, the fact that I was never sure of what and where and if in your novel. I like that very much. I like your voice, Mehreen.
11
FEB
Dear Mehreen,
As an English teacher, I found some of it disturbing with spelling errors and switching back and forth with punctuation and long passages that seem unconnected. In other words, it is confusing and difficult as an English teacher to read.
Now as a writer, I am impressed by the literary references, the beautiful and often lush descriptive metaphors and strong storytelling talent that continues throughout the book. I see the stream-of-consciousness and juxtaposition of styles as following Ezra Pound’s “Make it new.”
As a teacher of creative writing, I would tighten up many spots that I see to jar the reader or even yank the reader violently from one narrative to another.
Over all, Moirae is a beautiful example of an earnest attempt at a new kind of writing, and that is commendable, however, I wish I could talk with you as you completed each chapter, which by the way is beautifully divided and managed. I like the Faulknerian switch in point of view from first chapter to the second. I would have asked you delineate the characters in such a way that their family relationships were made even more clear. The thing I most liked was the strangeness of the setting, the fact that I was never sure of what and where and if in your novel. I like that very much. I like your voice, Mehreen.
December 27, 2017
Jacaranda Blues by Mehreen Ahmed
Brilliant!
ByPage-Hungry Bookwormon October 10, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition
Jacaranda Blues is one of those stories that remain with you for a long time. It borders on the stream of consciousness technique. In fact, Rhonda's life at the time when the story starts is much the same as Clarissa Dalloway's, as Rhonda herself points out! The writing is brilliant. We see everything from Rhonda's perspective and it helps us realize the pain and drudgery involved in her daily dozen. We think with her and we think like her! Although the story follows Rhonda's different thoughts and explores her psychology, nothing is incomprehensible or overcomplicated. The unnecessary complexities of novels that deal with similar themes make them go beyond the ken of average readers. In many such books, I've failed to find a proper story and perhaps not having a story has become a trend in contemporary literature. This book, however, has struck a balance between having a story and delving in the depths of a character's thoughts. Using this kind of a narrative technique is very difficult and the author has used it to perfection! I'll definitely be watching out for other novels by this author and I'd recommend this book to people who appreciate good literary fiction.
ByPage-Hungry Bookwormon October 10, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition
Jacaranda Blues is one of those stories that remain with you for a long time. It borders on the stream of consciousness technique. In fact, Rhonda's life at the time when the story starts is much the same as Clarissa Dalloway's, as Rhonda herself points out! The writing is brilliant. We see everything from Rhonda's perspective and it helps us realize the pain and drudgery involved in her daily dozen. We think with her and we think like her! Although the story follows Rhonda's different thoughts and explores her psychology, nothing is incomprehensible or overcomplicated. The unnecessary complexities of novels that deal with similar themes make them go beyond the ken of average readers. In many such books, I've failed to find a proper story and perhaps not having a story has become a trend in contemporary literature. This book, however, has struck a balance between having a story and delving in the depths of a character's thoughts. Using this kind of a narrative technique is very difficult and the author has used it to perfection! I'll definitely be watching out for other novels by this author and I'd recommend this book to people who appreciate good literary fiction.
December 14, 2017
Bad Bone by Mehreen Ahmed
The cafe hummed a note of non-rhythmic jingle. Mila Rahman sat with a glass of sparkling water reading Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night; deep in reading, she took a sip occasionally. As it stands, the passages of infidelity bothered her more than the stylistic complexity of the book. It resonated of something that she did not wish to remember. A wind picked up just outside the glassed window. Her attention diverted because of an intermittent, yet twiggy knock on the pane. A gum tree stood tall; a sudden blast tore off a branch and felled it on the sill. Mila looked at it briefly and resumed with her study of the characters.
A sea of snow; the whispering winds of quietness. She reflected on a placid icy slope of a winter afternoon; silent like a still painting, her face stood out amongst the cafe crowd. Not a sore thumb, as there were others like her too, but with more sprightly, appealing demeanours. It eluded Mila. Carefree, she thought. Something tore her in the gut. She conferred with an inner self and tried to understand a joy colluded with despair. Not known to her, why had it always been like that? To not to be able to seperate the clashing emotions fused within the unmarked boundaries of her soul. Her soul never at peace, never resting, oscillated between here and there; between this temporal world of the body and elsewhere, a life of the mind or of the spirit. Of the mind, she noted with care. An inner self of being, where dreams took place, more so in hibernation. Hibernation was the word. For that was a long journey. It offered no reprieve from dreaming on a continuum. In awakening, the tall green grass now turned into straw. Dehydration caused hallucination of the mind. The letter came way too late, her fate could have turned. But no, that was not written in the stars. Written off. Love written off. She couldn’t break someone’s heart by accepting. For accepting the letter meant, a defeat for Papri. Married, yes, but she had married him, while his realisation of love for Mila came afterwords. But it was too late by then. He had already married. Married, yes, but there was dilemma, which Papri never knew, even to this day.
But Papri had no where else to go. He married her and then left her by herself. Long overdue. Forlorn. For she didn’t know what had happened to him. Mila received his love letters, one too many. An imminent affair loomed at her doorstep. Nearly knocked her over. She read the letter but did not respond. A marriage of the heart very well could have been. But the grass had been dehydrated by then. The dehydrated grass had turned into straw. Then the brittle straw clung on to the earth for dear life. She went into a quiet hibernation. Now there was a stream of straw whose tortured roots lay rooted to the soil. The soil made of sand, caved into its roots. Nurtured it not, the soil lay hollow. Then there was a hole. A hole in the soil where she slept in awakening and she dreamt of nothing. But hunger acted up. Hunger she ate all day. She walked in a dream. Dream of a life. Listened to the spring birds. Broke the silence of the morn. There was silence in her heart. It whispered, not but a dirge. For it was spring. Love in the air. The air was fresh, Mila sat under an apple tree. Fresh red apples hung over her. An apple tree burdened with fruit. Burdened. Her heavy heart burdened; so many memories. If one could paint them, then there would be many shades of red. She buried herself deeper into the burrow. The hole which she clawed. She picked up the dirt with her own two hands. The dirt which slithered between the five fingers. It slithered right through. The waves of her thoughts, flowed undulated. She wanted to see him now. After many seasons, she wanted to know what he looked like. She gave him up for Papri because she was a homeless orphan. She had given him away only to find him after all these years. Age and ageing broke her. Broken bones but not bad bones. Would it be bad to want him back in her life? She didn’t have a single bad bone they said. Alas! It was the paradox that killed her. The poison ivy crushed her unduly. Creepers, the ivy poison, crept up the spine first. The love potion, at its best worked like magic, at its worst a delusion. Maybe, it was delusion. She never really wanted him. She was better off without him perhaps. Leave him to his nemesis, to his Papri, one that he married, then he had second thoughts and wished that he had not married for he loved Mila. That was what he thought. And his thought turned in a while, and then he took Papri back. Papri in Bengali, meant petal in English. She was like that soft and sensitive. She used to say, look at me, how I’m embracing death; this world too harsh; far too harsh. And that was the truth. Yes, it perhaps was but for her, who never even tried to do much.
Mila dug deeper into her trench. She dodged a bullet. It could have taken its toll. He would never have understood, let alone accept. For much too much, far more engrossed, with money and matter and materialism. She on the other hand, soared on the wings of poesy for sure. It would not have worked out for her. In the end, a realisation, it was better this way. She pulled herself up and out of the burrow. The leaves under the tree crunchy and brown. Brown, a natural process of decay, but brown because they paved a way to new life. The dehydrated grass, had turned into straw, when she hibernated. The straw now turned back into green grass. She felt content. Shades of pink turned her reds around. She felt not just content but she, young again. She was a sheaf of corn; the life giving properties of the sun; sprinklings of water. Back to the waves where life began as did hope and optimism. Optimism and hope replaced the drought of the soul, and the nihilism of the thought.
https://storylandliteraryreview.wordp...
A sea of snow; the whispering winds of quietness. She reflected on a placid icy slope of a winter afternoon; silent like a still painting, her face stood out amongst the cafe crowd. Not a sore thumb, as there were others like her too, but with more sprightly, appealing demeanours. It eluded Mila. Carefree, she thought. Something tore her in the gut. She conferred with an inner self and tried to understand a joy colluded with despair. Not known to her, why had it always been like that? To not to be able to seperate the clashing emotions fused within the unmarked boundaries of her soul. Her soul never at peace, never resting, oscillated between here and there; between this temporal world of the body and elsewhere, a life of the mind or of the spirit. Of the mind, she noted with care. An inner self of being, where dreams took place, more so in hibernation. Hibernation was the word. For that was a long journey. It offered no reprieve from dreaming on a continuum. In awakening, the tall green grass now turned into straw. Dehydration caused hallucination of the mind. The letter came way too late, her fate could have turned. But no, that was not written in the stars. Written off. Love written off. She couldn’t break someone’s heart by accepting. For accepting the letter meant, a defeat for Papri. Married, yes, but she had married him, while his realisation of love for Mila came afterwords. But it was too late by then. He had already married. Married, yes, but there was dilemma, which Papri never knew, even to this day.
But Papri had no where else to go. He married her and then left her by herself. Long overdue. Forlorn. For she didn’t know what had happened to him. Mila received his love letters, one too many. An imminent affair loomed at her doorstep. Nearly knocked her over. She read the letter but did not respond. A marriage of the heart very well could have been. But the grass had been dehydrated by then. The dehydrated grass had turned into straw. Then the brittle straw clung on to the earth for dear life. She went into a quiet hibernation. Now there was a stream of straw whose tortured roots lay rooted to the soil. The soil made of sand, caved into its roots. Nurtured it not, the soil lay hollow. Then there was a hole. A hole in the soil where she slept in awakening and she dreamt of nothing. But hunger acted up. Hunger she ate all day. She walked in a dream. Dream of a life. Listened to the spring birds. Broke the silence of the morn. There was silence in her heart. It whispered, not but a dirge. For it was spring. Love in the air. The air was fresh, Mila sat under an apple tree. Fresh red apples hung over her. An apple tree burdened with fruit. Burdened. Her heavy heart burdened; so many memories. If one could paint them, then there would be many shades of red. She buried herself deeper into the burrow. The hole which she clawed. She picked up the dirt with her own two hands. The dirt which slithered between the five fingers. It slithered right through. The waves of her thoughts, flowed undulated. She wanted to see him now. After many seasons, she wanted to know what he looked like. She gave him up for Papri because she was a homeless orphan. She had given him away only to find him after all these years. Age and ageing broke her. Broken bones but not bad bones. Would it be bad to want him back in her life? She didn’t have a single bad bone they said. Alas! It was the paradox that killed her. The poison ivy crushed her unduly. Creepers, the ivy poison, crept up the spine first. The love potion, at its best worked like magic, at its worst a delusion. Maybe, it was delusion. She never really wanted him. She was better off without him perhaps. Leave him to his nemesis, to his Papri, one that he married, then he had second thoughts and wished that he had not married for he loved Mila. That was what he thought. And his thought turned in a while, and then he took Papri back. Papri in Bengali, meant petal in English. She was like that soft and sensitive. She used to say, look at me, how I’m embracing death; this world too harsh; far too harsh. And that was the truth. Yes, it perhaps was but for her, who never even tried to do much.
Mila dug deeper into her trench. She dodged a bullet. It could have taken its toll. He would never have understood, let alone accept. For much too much, far more engrossed, with money and matter and materialism. She on the other hand, soared on the wings of poesy for sure. It would not have worked out for her. In the end, a realisation, it was better this way. She pulled herself up and out of the burrow. The leaves under the tree crunchy and brown. Brown, a natural process of decay, but brown because they paved a way to new life. The dehydrated grass, had turned into straw, when she hibernated. The straw now turned back into green grass. She felt content. Shades of pink turned her reds around. She felt not just content but she, young again. She was a sheaf of corn; the life giving properties of the sun; sprinklings of water. Back to the waves where life began as did hope and optimism. Optimism and hope replaced the drought of the soul, and the nihilism of the thought.
https://storylandliteraryreview.wordp...
