The Unruled Notebook

I don’t know if you have had the same problem, but the snag I come up against when I try to tell a story is where to begin it. How do I begin a perfect story?  Fooling about too long or what do they call it – beating around the bush; well, that doesn’t help. Getting off the mark like a scalding cat trying to prove a point doesn’t help either. I have read some stories that begin with striking, eyebrow-raising passages but the whole story that follows leaves you hanging in the middle of nowhere. If you are thinking “Where is this story heading?” then I have caught your attention. At least, I am happy I could bore you for a while. Haven’t done that in the past few months, you see!:) This morning, I was S ocioscrolling* in FB when I came across this contest which asked us to narrate a lipstick incident, or should I say a lipstick experience. Hundreds have been commenting real and fake stories to that post. One of the stories caught my attention as it began like this “I ...

I was up early this morning, shrugging off the coziness of a Sunday that went by and looking forward to a new week. Sipping my filter coffee and waiting for some morning cognizance in the form of ‘The Hindu’ daily, I noticed that the paper-man was late  today . Looking outside eagerly, from the balcony, I saw an unusual buzz for a Monday Morning. Yellow buses and vans haphazardly hovered through the narrow road; I noticed a few kids sporting bright uniforms carrying water bottles in different hues, looking so animated. Caught in a reverie, I thought the newspaper man’s kid must also be in one of these buses. May be he got busy attending to them, I mused. This is the time of the year when ‘sunny’ boy   gently subsides as monsoon beckons and we are ready for yet another beginning.   Of excitement and apprehension, the smell of crisp uniform and the meeting of new friends, the thought of mom’s love and the thought of a new teacher, school going is a mélange of an eerie...