A story made of fire and time

Review: Portrait of a Lady on Fire

(Dir. Céline Sciamma, 2019)

Image sourced from Pinterest

There are movies that you watch. Then there are movies that you listen to so intently, they become memory itself. Portrait of a Lady on Fire belongs to this second kind—it doesn’t unfold so much as it smolders, waiting patiently for you to lean in, to let it burn you, quietly, irrevocably.

I didn’t see it in one go. I saw it in intervals—fifteen minutes between meetings, ten before a call, twenty after a long day’s work. But even in this fragmented watching, the film never lost its hold on me. Every time I returned, it picked up as if no time had passed, its intensity preserved in the embers. Most films suffer from such disruptions. This one adapted to them—perhaps because it, too, is about longing suspended in time, about love stretched and stilled like a moment inside a painting.

Céline Sciamma crafts the film like a living canvas. Every frame feels hand-mixed—shades of honey, salt air, and earth. There is a liquidity to the way it moves, like brushstrokes finding form. The composition is meticulous: warm candlelight bleeding into cool stone, the sea flickering like a restless conscience. Sciamma doesn’t simply create mise-en-scène; she paints with it.

The absence of a traditional score only deepens this immersion. The film chooses silence over sentimentality. The everyday becomes the orchestra—fabric swishing, footsteps echoing, waves humming against the cliffs. And most vividly, the sound of fire. It crackles through the film like a pulse—domestic, dangerous, intimate. It’s not a symbol but a presence. The fire becomes the film’s emotional metronome, marking the rhythm of restraint and release, of things that will ignite but cannot last.

The story is both simple and labyrinthine. Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a young painter in late 18th-century France, is commissioned to paint Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), who is to be married off against her will. Héloïse had refused to sit for a previous portrait, so Marianne is brought in under the guise of companionship—to walk with her, observe her, and paint her in secret. But as Marianne looks, she begins to see. And in being watched, Héloïse begins to awaken. What begins as study becomes conspiracy, becomes connection, becomes love.

Love, in this film, is an act of looking. But it’s not passive. It is active, equal, transformative. The gaze is returned. The lovers don’t just fall into each other—they rise into awareness of being seen. Their intimacy is wordless and slow, as if drawn by candlelight. Their bodies speak like poetry—measured, breathless, reverent.

The film gives them this brief paradise: a week without men, without judgment, without consequence. Sophie, the young maid (Luàna Bajrami), anchors the world with her quiet presence, her own secret rebellion unfolding alongside theirs. In this all-woman world, rituals emerge—painting, reading, abortion, music, sex. There is freedom, but also the shadow of return, of inevitability.

And then, there is myth. The Orpheus and Eurydice reference arrives not just as a story but as a prophecy. When Marianne turns back to look—when love, momentarily eternal, is interrupted by memory, by choice, by fear—we sense the fall. The lovers descend from their fiery perch into the underworld of routine, roles, and absence. But the gaze endures. Héloïse appears later, in a wedding dress, in a painting, in a memory, in music. She becomes the ghost that love leaves behind.

The film’s final act is quiet devastation. Marianne sees Héloïse again—only from a distance, in a concert hall. Vivaldi’s “Summer” floods in. The camera stays on Héloïse’s face, trembling under the weight of everything remembered. We don’t see Marianne. We only see the one who carries her.

Image sourced from Pinterest

“Do all lovers feel they are inventing something?”

Image sourced from Pinterest

Verdict:

A masterpiece of restrained passion and visual poetry, Portrait of a Lady on Fire burns with the quiet fire of recognition. A gaze held too long, a moment prolonged beyond time, a story remembered as flame. I watched it in pieces—but it has stayed with me whole.

Between the last page and the first

Of Endings, Beginnings, and the Impossible Task of Choosing What to Read Next

If you think finishing a book is difficult, wait till you reach the real challenge — choosing the next one. That, dear reader, is where the madness begins.

You close the last page with a sigh (or a sob, or a smug “I saw that twist coming”), and then it hits you. What now? Which book deserves the honour of being next? It’s a bit like speed dating with a thousand suitors — charming, mysterious, some with suspicious blurbs, others flaunting awards like badges, and a few that just feel… right. But are they?

First, the genre conundrum. Do you stick to your memoir streak, or have you already lived too much inside other people’s heads? Maybe it’s time for something lighter. Fiction? But what kind of fiction? And won’t that also involve living inside someone else’s head — some author’s imaginary creation’s head, to be precise? Maybe you could try that romance novel you started last year but found too sweet. Real life is anything but.

Non-fiction? What kind? Historical? Management? Self-improvement? Do you really want to be a better human today? Poetry helps. But you don’t read poetry books in one go, like a novel. Back to prose. Maybe science fiction will do the trick, as it so often does. But your brain is still tired from counting the number of species in the last one.

Next comes the author debate. Do you go with the tried-and-tested writer who’s never let you down — literary comfort food, if you will — or gamble on someone new who might just become your next obsession (or regret)?

Then there’s the internet trap. Reviews! Endless reviews. “Unputdownable,” says one. “Couldn’t get past chapter two,” says another. Some people rate books based on font size; others on how “relatable” the author’s mugshot is. Your head spins.

And then — shelf guilt. Remember that pile of unread books staring at you like neglected pets? You should probably pick from there. But what about that new one everyone’s talking about? Should you read it now and ride the hype wave, or wait until it’s less mainstream and therefore more you?

I’ve been going through all of this for the past week. Ever since I finished ‘Whereabouts’ by Ms. Lahiri, I’ve been at sea. I’ve spent hours sampling many works of prose — from all the categories mentioned above and more. Yes, add to that an obscure book of scholarly art essays and a now-French woman advising how to live joyfully like a Parisian. I’ve been tempted by many, but haven’t committed to any.

As of now, I’ve started two books. One is Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and the other is Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout. The former is “a moving, passionate testament to the power of books, the magic of words, and the search for beauty in life’s darkest moments,” while the latter is the first in a series by a 20th-century American grandmaster of detective fiction. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll finish either.

I might go back to one of the umpteen books I previously started but didn’t finish. Intermezzo, Conversations with Friends, Outline, News of the World — among the fiction works I left mid-way. The first three were very good, and I’ve been saving them for a rainy day. The last one was a used copy, and I grew suspicious of it triggering an allergic reaction. Who knows what strange microorganisms it may be carrying? (Covid cases are also on the rise again!)

There are a few non-fiction books I’d begun too — most notably Mountains of the Mind and The Half Known Life. Then there are the two photography books I ordered online, currently en route as I write. I’m also tempted to buy ‘M Train’ to continue the memoir or memoir-adjacent streak (Lighthousekeeping, These Precious Days, Whereabouts) I’ve been riding lately.

Cue a non-verbal expression of numb exasperation that others may simply call a sigh.

Let’s face it — choosing is hard. Tomorrow is Monday, and I may end up Kindle-sampling or reading one of those Amazon Originals (short stories) rather than committing to a full-length read before the workweek swallows me whole.

So yeah, here’s to all the indecisive, overthinking, passionately picky readers out there. May your next read find you — before you drive yourself gently mad trying to choose it.

What We Hold On To: Reflections on Ann Patchett’s Tender Essays

Some books arrive like gentle rain on parched soil—unexpected, slow, and quietly transformative. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett is one such companion.

I first opened it in February 2024, with the essay My Three Fathers, somewhere between the calm backwaters of Alleppey and the larger silence of being away. I didn’t know then that I’d carry this book with me for months, unwilling to let it go—like a letter from a friend I wasn’t ready to reply to.

Patchett writes not to impress, but to connect. Her essays shimmer with grace—on writing, on friendship, on choosing not to have children, on her unexpected and life-altering friendship with Sooki Raphael (Tom Hanks’ assistant and a bright, beloved presence). But it isn’t just the content—it’s the feeling these pieces evoke. Like warm light on a cold morning, or the steady voice of someone who has lived long enough to know how brief it all is, and kind enough to share what she’s learned without pretense.

This wasn’t a book I raced through. I kept it by my side, dipping in and out, holding on to it because I didn’t want it to end. There’s a certain kind of sadness when you close a book that made you feel understood—These Precious Days was one of those rare reads.

And I know, without doubt, that I’ll return to it. When the world feels noisy or thin, when I crave something tender and true, this will be the book I reach for. Again and again.

It’s become, quietly and certainly, one of my favourite reads in recent years. Not because it dazzled, but because it stayed. Because it asked, gently: what do we hold on to in this life? And then answered—with stories that remind us the answer is often: each other.

When Silence Speaks: The Haunting Beauty of Small Things Like These

Some books whisper. They do not demand attention but settle into the corners of your mind, leaving behind a quiet ache. Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is one such novel—a slender, unassuming book that carries the weight of a lifetime within its pages. It is the kind of story that does not shout for your love but earns it through the honesty of its prose, the stillness of its setting, and the depth of its moral questions.

Set in a small Irish town during the weeks leading up to Christmas in 1985, the novel follows Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant who has built a modest life for himself, shaped by the kindness of strangers and the silent burdens of his past. As he makes his deliveries, he stumbles upon something unsettling at the local convent—a discovery that stirs something deep within him, forcing him to confront the quiet complicity of the town and, more painfully, his own conscience.

Keegan’s prose is like winter light—spare yet illuminating, gentle yet unflinching. She does not waste words, and yet every sentence carries the weight of a life lived. There is an exquisite tenderness in the way she captures the mundane details of Bill’s days: the cold mornings, the familiar rhythm of labor, the small gestures of love exchanged between him and his wife and daughters. These moments are rendered with such care that they feel sacred, reminding us that the measure of a man’s life is often found in the smallest things.

But beneath this quiet beauty lies a deeper reckoning. The novel subtly confronts the dark stain of the Magdalene Laundries—institutions that imprisoned and exploited women under the guise of morality. Bill’s discovery forces him to navigate the dangerous space between knowledge and action, between what is easy and what is right. And as a reader, you feel his struggle intimately. How often do we turn away from injustice, convincing ourselves that we are powerless? How often do we choose comfort over courage?

What makes Small Things Like These extraordinary is its restraint. Keegan does not moralize; she does not need to. The weight of silence, of things left unsaid, speaks louder than any grand speech could. And yet, in the end, there is something profoundly hopeful about the novel—an insistence that even in the smallest of acts, there is grace, there is resistance, there is redemption.

Finished in one flight between Bengaluru and Delhi yesterday, I closed this slim book with a lump in my throat, aware that it had left an imprint on me. Not in the way of an earthquake, but like the slow, persistent pressure of a hand on your wrist, urging you to look closer, to care more, to be better.

Some books whisper, but their echoes last forever. Small Things Like These is one of them.

The Diaries I Read, The Diaries I Fail to Keep

There is something irresistibly intimate about reading someone else’s diary. Not in the way of trespassing, but in the way of invitation—when a writer decides their private musings should be held up to the light, when their once-secret thoughts are allowed to breathe in the minds of strangers…the literary equivalent of Big Boss for us reader type folks. I have always loved these glimpses into other people’s inner worlds, into other eras, completely different universes than mine. And yet, how similar they tend to be.

And yet, despite my admiration for the practice, I have never succeeded in keeping a diary of my own.

It’s not for lack of trying. Over the years, I have started more journals than I can count. Leather-bound notebooks, those ‘yearly diaries from random companies’ that some office goer in the family would get as a new year gift, digital attempts like Day One, or private MS Word files. I have tried the methodical approach—setting reminders, giving myself prompts. I have tried the freeform approach—letting my thoughts spill without order. Each time, I begin with enthusiasm, only to trail off within weeks, sometimes days.

Why?

Part of me wonders if it’s because I overthink the act of recording. Reading published diaries is effortless; writing my own feels self-conscious. When I sit down with a pen or at a keyboard, an odd paralysis sets in. Who am I writing to? My future self? A hypothetical reader? Should I be brutally honest or narrate with the awareness that someone might one day read this? I’m not famous enough that years from now, readers would be interested in what I was thinking that particular day. The moment I start curating my thoughts, the diary ceases to be a diary and becomes something else—an edited version of myself, a performance.

Then there’s the problem of consistency. Real diarists, the ones whose journals I love, write through everything: the thrilling days, the boring days, the days when nothing happens. I, on the other hand, feel compelled to wait for something worthy of being recorded. I tell myself I’ll write later, when I have a more cohesive thought, when I have something profound to say. But life doesn’t wait for profundity. Life accumulates in the small, forgettable moments, and if you don’t catch them as they come, they slip away.

Perhaps that’s why I admire diarists so much—because they succeed where I fail. They capture time as it is lived, in real-time, without the burden of hindsight. They remind me that there is value in recording the unfinished, the fragmented, the uncertain. That life is not just a collection of significant events but also of mornings spent making tea, of half-remembered dreams, of lists of books to read and thoughts that never quite find a conclusion.

I still want to be the kind of person who keeps a diary. I still want to look back years from now and find a record of who I was, in all my contradictions and unfinished sentences. These days, I’m trying again, knowing full well I might fail. But maybe failure itself is part of the practice. Maybe the act of starting a diary—again and again—is its own kind of diary.

Discovering Joe Hill: A New Year, A New Favorite?

It was the last week of December 2024 when I first stumbled upon Joe Hill’s Ushers. The year was going to end soon and in a desire to increase my ‘read’ count, I was devouring a series of Amazon Original Stories on Kindle. It also helped that many of these authors were new to me and I was reading a variety of stuff without investing myself for a longish time in any one work. (God knows how many unread books have piled up in my list in the past few years.) Hill’s name had floated into my periphery before, often with whispers of “Stephen King’s son” trailing behind it. But Ushers wasn’t an introduction to the son of a legend; it was a revelation of a storyteller in his own right. (Also didn’t know that the Netflix show Locke & Key is based on his work. Had enjoyed season 1, will get back at it again now I know the writer behind the series.)

Ushers as a story gripped me from the start. Martin Lorensen, the young counselor with a talent for cheating death, and those eerie “ushers” created a perfect blend of the strange and philosophical. By the time I swiped to the end, I was a little rattled and entirely sold on Joe Hill.

Fast forward to mid-Jan. 2025, and my year has begun with another of his shorter works: The Pram. (I’m also halfway through Ann Pratchett’s ‘These Precious Days - hoping it doesn’t end up in the ‘unfinished’ books pile!) Okay, coming back to The Pram. Here, Hill’s knack for layering human grief with the uncanny shines again. This time, it’s Willy and Marianne—two hearts weighed down by loss—trapped in a Maine farmhouse where an old baby stroller carries echoes of something both tender and terrifying. Hill doesn’t just tell a ghost story; he tells our ghost stories—the ones we carry in our hearts, the ones we don’t quite know how to set down.

It’s safe to say Hill is growing on me. Two stories in, and I’m already eyeing his longer works. Should I dive into NOS4A2 next? Or maybe The Fireman? If you’ve read his novels, I’d love your recommendations. Which of his works has left a mark on you?

For now, though, I’ll carry the lingering chills of Ushers and The Pram. Here’s to discovering new voices, new stories, and new favorites in the year ahead.

घड़ी

ऑफिस जाते हुए आज

घड़ी भूल गई हो तुम अपनी

मैं भी अपनी घड़ी

यहीं रखे जा रहा हूँ

साथ रहे कोई

तो कट जाता है वक़्त

-आलोक १०/०९/२०२४

My favourite moments in the day are when Adu and I talk.

On Conversations 

My favourite moments in the day are when Adu and I talk. Just talk. About anything and everything under the sun. 

A few nights ago, we talked about his future wife—where she might be right now, whether she’s been born yet, and if she hasn’t, what she would be doing in her pre-Adu’s-wife life. Incarnation comes naturally to us Indians. I had told him about the five-year gap between Dee and me, and since he’s only four-and-a-half, toddler logic suggests there’s a good chance his would-be wife hasn’t been born yet.

One weekend morning, in that hazy state of taking an hour to fully wake up, we debated about the kind of dinosaur we should keep as a pet. Most dinosaurs turned out to be too big or aggressive to keep in our aangan or indoors, so we decided on a cat instead. After further discussing the merits and demerits of cats, it was unanimously decided that fish are the best pets. They stay within a glass box, are colorful, and do not leave smelly messes everywhere.

You know that feeling when you’ve heard someone deeply, intently, and intentionally? I hope you do. It is so difficult for adults to peel off their masks and talk that it feels like a miracle when it happens. I treasure the moments when someone has opened up to me. Rarer, but even more precious, are those when I’ve spoken with abandon and someone else has given me their full attention. (Alcohol may have played a part.) It’s another thing that I can count those moments on my forty-four-year-old fingers.

Some nights, Adu and I talk about death. And life. What does being alive mean, how long we’ll be alive, or what happens after we’re not alive? Sometimes, I try to answer these questions rationally. Other times, I’m both fascinated and devastated by what must be going on in his mind. And sometimes, I simply don’t know how to reply.

What I do know is that forty-four years or so from now, when I’m looking back at the life I lived, I’ll be treasuring these warm summer days and nights when Adu and I used to talk. And I want those moments to be far more than my eighty-eight-year-old fingers could ever count.

-Alok, 20:30, September 06, 2024

Touched by light

Here’s to light. To hear it slowly shuffling across the room you are in, entering through the window like a stray bird with burning wings and giving everything it touches the gift of life. To feel it on your eyelashes, seeing the soul of the world with your eyes closed. To sit under a banyan tree and see it play hide and seek with shadow, its eternal friend. To being with light, as you look back at the years gone by and realize how it has always been about her. Or him, as you wait patiently by his side to open his eyes at the dawn of time. Yes, light can be a person too. 

And yes, it can be you, too. 

To be someone’s light. To see their eyes light up at your sight. Knowing that even after the shadow has consumed you, some part of your light will stay alive in them.

To be touched by light, to be alive, to be immortalized.

-Alok 16/04/24

Nettle & Bone - a fairytale with horror, humour, and heart

"Nettle & Bone" by T. Kingfisher intricately blends horror, humour, and fairy tale elements to tell the story of Marra, the third princess who embarks on a quest to save her sister from a dire marriage. Assembling an unlikely alliance of a gravewitch and her demon chicken, a dog of bones, a disgraced knight, and a fairy godmother, Marra confronts her challenges with a unique blend of determination and whimsy.

The journey is fraught with magical obstacles and dark forces, but Kingfisher masterfully balances these with moments of light-hearted humor, ensuring the narrative remains accessible and engaging. Through her journey, Marra not only seeks to change her sister's fate but also discovers her own strength and the true meaning of bravery. The book’s rich storytelling, characterized by its clever use of horror to accentuate the stakes and humor to lighten the mood, makes "Nettle & Bone" a memorable exploration of heroism, family, and the power of persistence.

-Alok, 11/03/24

To be at home

It is a feeling that doesn’t come easily.

I’ve changed many addresses throughout my life. Some, not how I would have liked to. Only a few have felt like home. And even in those few, this is a rare one.

I’m sitting, once again, at the dining table. Don’t know why I do most of my writing here instead of the dedicated (and expensive) study corner we got custom made! I have our main bookshelves in all their congested glory on one side, and the cabinet of curiosities i.e. dear wife’s crockery/knick knacks display on the other. Slightly further apart on the left and right are our son’s room and our bedroom respectively. And behind me is the living room. The one I’m looking at though is the guest cum study cum temple room where a pile of ‘sun dried’ clothes and books we got from the recent book fair and some winter blankets are lying on the bed in an exhibition of inter-species harmony that human beings should learn from. 

It is not a pretty sight.

When I was growing up and as recently as a few years ago when we were thinking of moving into a bigger place than our previous address, I had this notion of creating a house with Scandinavian sparseness and Indian warmth. Had even thought of a term for it, ScandIndian. It was to be this large enough house with clean white walls, wooden flooring, subtle colors, Indian accents and not a thing out of its place.

This is not that house. 

Not a single room here is good looking to speak of. There are crayon hieroglyphs on the wallpaper in the bedroom; the living room sofas are colonized by things that shouldn’t be on the sofas; the dining table is a visual depiction of the word chaos; the bookshelves store books and medicines; the child’s room is a museum of toys, the aangan is a gallery of dying plants, and the guest cum study cum temple room is well, the antithesis of my dreamy ScandIndian aesthetic.

And yet, this is the one that feels most like home.

This is the one where our newborn crossed the threshold from hospital to home; this is the one with all the fights and sulks and not-talking-to-you but still-caring-for-you happens; this is the one where just a few hours ago the three of us were dancing on a medley of Punjabi, Hindi pop, and Tamil songs; the one with all the yet to read books, yet to play games, and yet to dream, dreams; the one we all come back to wherever we have been.

This is home.

This is a feeling that has not come easily to me.

I’m home.

-Alok, 02/03/24

सुपरहीरो

(स्कूल से घर लौटते समय, आदु और पापा की बातचीत)

पापा, आज मैंने क्लास में 

सुपरहीरो मास्क बनाया

वैरी नाइस, आदु

कुछ बताओ अपने हीरो के बारे में

वो हरे रंग का है

और हवा में  उड़ता है 

अरे और भी तो बताओ,

वो करता क्या है?

क्या-क्या पावर्स हैं उसकी?

वो रेड लाइट को ग्रीन कर देता है

और पौधों को, पेड़ों को, और फूलों को 

जल्दी से बड़ा कर देता है, फ़ास्ट-फ़ास्ट 

और सूरज को भी उगा देता है जल्दी 

ताकि दिन जल्दी शुरू हो 

और सारे बच्चे टाइम से स्कूल पहुँचे

आदु की बातें सुन पापा ने सोचा

कितनी अलग होती न वो दुनिया

जहां सुपरहीरो होने का मापदंड

लड़ने का बल नहीं

पेड़ पालने का कौशल होता 

और ये पक्का करना

के सब उठें सूरज के संग  

और समय से पहुँचें अपनी मंज़िलों तक 

(स्कूल से घर लौटते समय, पापा को ‘आदु सर’ की ये क्लासेज़ बहुत अच्छी लगती हैं)

-आलोक, ०६/०२/२०२४

To Road Trips

Day 06, Year 45

Here’s to road trips: to leaving home early on a winter morning; to speeding through a world wrapped in a blanket of fog, with the yellow-orange blinking lights of the vehicles ahead serving as your only guide; to joining this community of human fireflies, all headed to a destination of their dreams.

Here’s to purging the term ‘baggage allowance’ from your vocabulary. Stuffing the car with so many odds and ends that the rear windshield is blocked but the idiosyncrasies of each member of the traveling party shine through. A knife and a steel plate for the granny who swears by fresh fruits, but may end up feeding them to cows and monkeys on the way back home? Check. A racket and shuttlecocks for the woman who has just started playing badminton, though unlikely to take them out of the trunk during the trip? Check. Extra lenses for the photography enthusiast, prepared for the early morning walks that may never see the light of the day? Check. And seven toy cars in seven colors of the rainbow for the toddler who loves to paint the town red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet and will actually be playing with them all? Check. When it comes to road trips, we all are the granny and the toddler combined. 

Here’s to the mandatories. To utter a quick prayer to your chosen deity as the ignition turns on. Topping the fuel tank, checking the tire pressure, and confirming for the millionth time the route and hours the journey will take.

Here’s to road trips in all their perfect imperfections. To the questions posed by boredom, backache, and nausea answered by music, back rubs, and candies. Collecting the rain in your palm, catching the wind in your hair, or crunching the gravel under your feet. Playing long-forgotten games, sleeping like babies, or singing without fear of judgment, because everyone else is singing along. And yes, stopping anywhere along the way because you simply can.

Here’s to having the time of your life, arriving at your destination with creaking limbs and a weary mind, and swearing never to travel by road again, only to find yourself planning the next road trip once you’re back home.

-Alok, 30/01/24

Light is beautiful

Day 01, Year 45

It is half-past seven in the morning. I’m sitting alone at the dining table; everyone else is sleeping. I've been awake since six, for reasons I can't quite explain. It is cold, and I should be in my bed, under the blanket, next to my four-year-old, but I'm not.

Perhaps it has something to do with turning 44 the day before and all the existential questions that such milestones bring. But then again, I don't need a birthday to ponder existential matters.

I've already had my customary two glasses of warm water, visited the bathroom, replied to the remaining well-wishes, and perused my Substack when I glance up and see this scene.

The morning light filters through the living room window, softly illuminating my son's birthday decorations, still up three weeks later, and the inevitable mess that only a toddler's home can exhibit. I look up and think, light is beautiful. I grab my phone and capture a few images.

And as I'm capturing those moments, I realize that, indeed, life is beautiful. A warm home to wake up in, a family to share this life with, reasonably good health, work that I enjoy, and time to create—yes, indeed, life is beautiful.

-Alok, 25/01/24

तोड़ना कलम की झिझक को - ममता कालिया जी के साथ हिन्दी कहानी लेखन कार्यशाला

हिन्दी साहित्य जगत की प्रसिद्ध पत्रिका ‘नयी धारा’ ने आज त्रिवेणी कला संगम में वरिष्ठ लेखिका ममता कालिया जी के साथ एक ‘कहानी लेखन वर्कशॉप’ आयोजित की थी। किसी कहानीकार का लिखा हुआ पढ़ना अलग बात है, और ख़ुद उन से मिलना, बातें कर पाना अलग। मैं ये भी देखना चाहता था कि कविताएँ लिखने के अलावा, क्या मैं ख़ुद को कहानियों के माध्यम से भी अभिव्यक्त कर सकता हूँ या नहीं।

८० की उम्र पार करने के बाद भी ममता जी का ‘एनर्जी-लेवल’ युवाओं जैसा ही लगा। ढेर सारी बातें, जीवन के क़िस्से-कहानियाँ, और आँचल भर ज्ञान, वो भी एक बड़ी लेखिका होने के अभिमान बिना, सच में बेहद अच्छा लगा उनसे मिलना। उन के स्नेह भरे मार्गदर्शन से, आज मैं अपनी ‘कलम की झिझक’ को तोड़ पाया और दो लघु कथाएँ लिख पाया।

सर्दियों के इस शनिवार को विशेष बनाने के लिए ममता जी और नयी धारा टीम, ख़ासकर आरती जैन जी का साभार। आशा करता हूँ आगे भी हम अन्य कार्यशालाओं में, और भी प्रबुद्ध जनों से मिल पायेंगे।

-आलोक, २०/०१/२०२४

कॉल

कभी कभी

किसी सुबह ऐसे ही

मैं हिंदी की कोई क़िताब उठा कर पढ़ने लगता हूँ

क़िताब नहीं तो कोई पैकेजिंग या कहीं पड़ी शब्दों की कुछ कतरनें

“अतः उनके साहित्य में भारतीयता का स्वर स्पष्ट रूप से मुखरित हुआ है”

“चलते चलते मेरे पाँव ठिठक गये”

“गर्म पानी या चाय में मिलायें”

जैसे दूसरे शहर में काम करने वाली संतान

अपने माँ-बाप को कॉल कर लेती है किसी सुबह

“बस ऐसे ही”

“बहुत दिन हो गये थे बात नहीं हुई थी, सोचा हाल चाल पूछ लूँ”

“आप लोग ठीक हो न”

-आलोक, १०/१२/२०२३

Half a day in Orvieto and the absolute importance of looking beyond pictures while traveling

How does it feel to revisit a place you once explored as a different version of yourself?

Yesterday, the Google Photos app on my phone unearthed a treasure trove of memories from my honeymoon in Italy. Six years ago, in June 2017, amidst our Italian odyssey, Dee and I found ourselves in the quaint hillside enclave of Orvieto, a mere two hours from Rome.

A veil of time seemed to drape itself between then and now, simultaneously obscuring and intensifying those moments. Yet, within those photographs, much of that day remains unspoken.

As you gaze at those images and videos we made that day, you'll see the two of us looking pleasantly young, a nondescript train journey, a funicular ride up the mountain (with another tourist hogging the best view throughout the ride), a dive into the pre-Medieval Etruscan past of the town, a most gorgeous church with beautifully painted exteriors and interiors, and a few pictures from the town’s charming streets.

What you won’t see in the pictures is the fight we had because we missed our early morning train; the way I remained sullen for the next many hours, and how, after multiple attempts to cheer me up, Dee had given up and turned equally sour. The two long hours we spent at the Roma Termini station waiting for the next train, talking little, observing the crowd, and interacting with an Indian Italian who briefly shared the pros and cons of living away from his watan in Punjab. Also missing from the photographs is the acute awareness of time slipping away from our already limited grasp.

No photograph will be able to convey the Indianness of our Italian train, its ticket checker attempting to extract an unnecessary fine thwarted by my chance research about those types of scams. The short but beautiful bus ride from the funicular station to the heart of the town, and perhaps the freshest, soaked in olive oil pesto pizza we have ever had won't be captured either. The photographs won’t tell you how, like total nerds, we spent most of our time immersed inside the gorgeous Duomo and missed out on exploring the equally charming town outside.

Yesterday, when I looked at those imperfectly captured photographs from what feels like an era past, I wished there was a way to reach out to that slightly younger version of mine. I wanted to tell him to enjoy Orvieto and all it had to offer but to relish the journey more. To create more memories with the one he was traveling with because cities and towns will come and go; she will be the only constant through those.

A Thanksgiving thought, thanks to my son

Yesterday, I read a book to my son. It was a beautifully illustrated ebook that we both flipped through on my tablet. The book is about a day in the life of seven different children living in seven different places around the world. Seven names, seven faces, seven countries, seven cities…told in the first person, each child introduces themselves, talks about where they live, what they eat for breakfast, where they play, what their school is like, and many other facets of their daily lives.

I think he enjoyed it, though it became a bit verbose for him from time to time. When I downloaded the book, I had imagined that he would be fascinated by the different cultures, environments, and places shown in the book. However, he wasn’t.

What he noticed most were the things in this order: the ages of different children and how they compared to his older cousins, the fact that one of the children didn’t have to wear a uniform to school, the yellow school bus a child takes (the same as the one in his favorite song), the ice skating another child does, the five cats of another child (he asked me to get a cat for him as well), and the one child whose evening activity was watching television (he made sure that I noticed that other children are also allowed to watch TV).

What he didn’t notice was: The color of the children’s skin, their gender, the fact that some children were rich, and some not so much, whether they lived in a city or a village, in an apartment complex or in a mud hut.

He’s going to be four in a couple of months, and I’m afraid of the day when these differences will start seeping into his consciousness. Perhaps we wouldn’t need our DEI conferences, mandatory corporate trainings, amendments, laws, marches, and fights if we all kept our four-year-old selves alive within us.

Thank you, dear Adwitiya, for letting me look at the world through your eyes. It definitely looks like a much ‘equal’ place.

Wishing everyone a Thanksgiving filled with warmth and reflection.

फ़िक्स्ड डिपोज़िट

एक नई स्कीम पता लगी थी

जितना डालेंगे

कुछ ख़ास समय के लिए

तो मूल के साथ साथ

उतना ही ‘रिटर्न’ मिलेगा

कर्म के इस बैंक में

खाता खोल तो लिया

पर जन्म बीत गये अब

मूल ब्याज मूल ब्याज करते करते 

पता नहीं कब

एफ़ डी मैचयोर होगी

कब हिसाब पूरा होगा हमारा

-आलोक, ०३.१०.२०२३.

अदला-बदली

अदला-बदली कर ली थी हमने कल

वो पापा बना और मैं आदु

उसने मुझे कहानियाँ सुनाईं

‘कलर्स’ पढ़ाये

मैंने 20 ‘परसेंट’ दो हज़ार ‘थाउजेंड थाउजेंड’ सवाल पूछे

और नख़रे दिखाये

थोड़ी देर में ‘बोर’ होकर

‘मैजिक’ से उसने 

वापस आदु को आदु 

और पापा को पापा बना दिया
…

मेरे साढ़े तीन साल के बच्चे को

जल्दी है बड़ा होने की

और मैं हर लम्हा

थामने की तरक़ीब में लगा हूँ

-आलोक

२९/०८/२०२३