Anando was a favourite name of Ghetu’s in his stories, many of which were based on his real life.
I’d told Anando I might reconsider writing a book, but didn’t know how to go about it. He’s himself a writer of promise, burdened with talents yet to be uncovered for the world to see. We encourage one another. He’s like an unsuspected new-found twin, though our ages differ widely. Twins might not read one another’s thoughts but convey with light hints, not spelling out every detail.
Anyway, this is what he replied:
I pondered over it this week. Serious brain- storming. I feel the best thing you can do for this world is write your own story. You’re a fascinating character with a colourful life. Why don’t you write it down? That’s the best thing you can do to portray ordinariness.
He was echoing thoughts which I’d been too modest to entertain seriously. Who wants to read the story of a nobody? “Fascinating character” applies to any person you meet who has lived long or thought deeply. I’ve a standing invitation to write the life of the man who supplies us with breadfruit and yams. He is not just a West Indian greengrocer, and his story would make that plain. But isn’t this the case with everyone? Only a fool would suppose a grocer could cut no dash in the world, couldn’t be a singer-songwriter on the side. “Celebrity” and “interesting” are not synonyms.
It’s true that the ordinary fascinates me most. I like to look at passers-by when I walk down our commonplace street into town. Only the least pretentious take this route and the pathos of existence is written in their gait, their style, their faces. Each is the centre of his or her world, but no one walks this street to impress anyone.
What’s held me back from more substantial literary endeavour is hesitation over theme and structure. The effort will be intense and sustained. What’s the use if it’s halted by misgivings? Till now, that’s what’s always happened. My doubts were always well-justified. It’s been a self-indulgent hobby with no claim to priority. Domestic trivia have taken precedence and the inspiration has dissolved like a tiny cloud in a hot blue sky.
Why should anyone be interested in my life-story? People want to read about exotic people and places, the overcoming of adversity, the transformation of raw talent into celebrity. They relish someone else’s downfall, vicariously enjoy someone else’s power and riches.
Not for me such stale tableaux. Memory dances constantly in a love-affair with the fresh-born moment, conceiving myriad progeny like tadpoles—or sperms. Let them scatter through the world and unite with receptive brains!
Fiction or fact, it doesn’t matter, for experience is the lens: the reader’s even more than the writer’s. To look at the ordinary, peer into its essence. What do my senses tell me, and my feelings, and my thoughts?
I reject the assumptions of science and biography—both!—that the past is locked and unchangeable, that the present is explained by cause and effect. Oh yes, I can reject whatever conflicts with my own world. As in Richard Bach’s Running from Safety, I encounter my childhood self and we learn from one another.
My life-story will be full of space and possibility for my own transformation and my reader’s. We will change together.
Gold is a burden. I discovered yesterday that “talent” in the ancient world meant a weight of silver or gold used as money. Then because of the parable recorded by St Matthew, in which one servant buried the talent his master had entrusted to him, it came to have its present meaning. It’s certainly a parable that the present world has taken to heart, in the sense that everyone is urged to “cash in” on their potential.
Gold is a burden. It’s a heavy inert metal, unsubtle, attractive to misers. Air and water are better symbols of creativity. Or the sunrise striking a house on a hill.
a wayfarer’s notes 