Poornima Manco

Author

culture

What’s the point?

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Every author, regardless of the genre they write in, has some kind of message in their writing. Whether that is good overcomes evil, soulmates exist, happily ever afters are possible, crime doesn’t pay, etc, etc. You get my drift. Now, these messages aren’t necessarily emblazoned on their covers or blurbs. In fact, sometimes, the messages are so deeply buried within the writing that a reader would be hard pressed to vocalise them if asked. But they are there, even in the fluffiest romcom, the bloodiest crime caper, the most nerve-tingling thriller. Search and you will find.

However, sometimes, there is a disconnect between the message sent and the message received. What an author may be trying to say is open to hundreds of interpretations and misinterpretations. It depends on the reader, their mood, their provenance, their cultural history, their upbringing, their exposure to the world and many such factors. That can make for a jarring experience, both for the reader, and also for the author when they read a scathing review of their work. “That wasn’t what I was saying!” An author might cry out in the privacy of their home.

Whose fault is the misunderstanding? The author’s or the reader’s?

Now, having been both, I can tell you that the answer is complex and nuanced. As an author who is trying to put a point across, I want to be subtle. I want to layer my message within the story, the dialogues, the actions of the protagonists and the consequences of those actions. Do I want to beat the reader over the head with my message repeatedly? No! That is the most basic and worst kind of didactic writing there is. Yet, within all of this lies the risk of being misunderstood.

Let’s take the last novel I wrote and released back in 2022: Intersections. Most of the reviews I received were wonderful. Haunting, complex, emotional and compelling were some adjectives used to describe the story. So far, so good. But any writer worth their salt knows that it’s the negative reviews that stick in one’s head. I know of many authors who refuse to read their reviews, content if their works have a high star rating. I, sadly, am not amongst those. I enjoy reading my reviews because I see it as a learning ground. Somewhere I can find out firsthand what my readers are thinking, what I did well and what I could do better.

This one review had me baffled. The reviewer said she found the book was very well written, that I, as the author, had tackled an intricate plot with four alternating viewpoints and kept her engaged throughout. She then went on to talk about the story and finally ended with saying that the reason she wasn’t giving the novel a full five stars, despite having enjoyed it, was because the book didn’t seem to have a point or a higher message. Therefore, she felt it would not endure.

Picture a knife to the heart. That is how gutted I was to read this review. You see, my point had escaped her completely. This novel about four young women from very different walks of life who become friends in childhood, only for their friendship to splinter in their teenage years, for them to go their separate ways and reunite in their forties, had a point and a higher message. I wanted to show how random life can be. How those we perceive to be more fortunate and more blessed than us are subject to the same vagaries of fate as anyone else. Being born into a higher social and economic strata does not ensure happiness nor is it a guarantee of success, while conversely, coming from the lower end of society is not a predictor of misery and failure. Life is messy and unpredictable. Our spheres of control are limited and the sooner we accept that, the quicker we will adapt to and thrive in changed circumstances.

Perhaps it was my fault that my message wasn’t clear enough. Maybe the novel, which begins with an accident, and ends with the reason the accident occurred and the consequences of that fateful evening, felt jarring to this reader because it was too arbitrary to come to terms with. Unfortunately, many a time, life is that way, too.

As I’m working on my next novel, this criticism keeps me wondering whether I’m doing enough to convey my point. This book deals with the circularity of life, of how what goes around comes right back around. Do I keep it understated as I would like to? Or will that be too obscure and unfathomable to a potential reader? I could choose to ignore this reviewer and write what I want to write. That would be at my peril. You see, every reader is precious to me, and their criticism is a part of my growth as a writer.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon me to work on my craft and deliver a reading experience that is consistent with my philosophy, my convictions, and my worldview. Hoping these will be understood and will align with those of the reader, too.

That, after all, is the point.

 

 

50 Not Out!

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My father had once told me that life is as unpredictable as cricket. Taking the metaphor further, I can happily report that I have hit my half century with élan. During days of Covid that is not a blessing to be sneezed at! I fully expected to feel some sadness at leaving my youth behind so definitively. Instead, all I feel is a sharp sense of relief. At no point in my life have I ever felt so sure of myself, so comfortable in my skin, and so content with my lot.

Alongside, I’ve learnt quite a few lessons too. This is hard won wisdom, and in detailing it here, my intent isn’t to bore you, but to remind myself how far I’ve come from that gauche, awkward young girl setting foot into her twenties. Of course, there is no end to learning and in the years to come, I hope to amass many more life lessons. However, where I stand today, these are my little nuggets of sagacity. Do with them what you will.

  1. Forgive. My goodness me! If only I’d known how liberating this was. Conventional wisdom always dictated to forgive and forget. I’ve been terrible at both. But as I approached my 50th birthday, all those petty grudges and long-held resentments seemed to fall away. I really didn’t want to carry any of it into my fifth decade. So, my mantra has become forgive, but don’t forget. If someone has wronged me repeatedly, then I’d be a fool to let them do it again. But I will forgive because I do not want to carry the burden of my anger into the future. If I’ve wronged someone, I hope they can find it in their heart to forgive me too.
  2. Ask, don’t assume. Another one of my failings has been to jump to conclusions, often erroneous ones. With only half the information at hand, one can often make totally wrong assumptions. Isn’t it better to just ask, politely? Clarify rather than hypothesize? It’s already serving me well, as I just ask outright if I’m perplexed by someone’s behaviour. More often than not, it turns out to be the most innocuous thing.
  3. Say No and mean it. Aha! This takes many years to solidify into a behaviour choice, especially if you are a people pleaser like me. But, but, but… Time is not an infinite resource. It is up to you to decide where and what you want to spend it on. In my case, I’ve decided that I would rather say no at the very outset than not deliver on a promise.
  4. Be true to yourself, i.e. have some integrity. Recently I’d paid the bill at a restaurant, only to discover later that they had left the entire alcohol tab off the final tally. I could have let it go. After all, it was saving me a pretty packet. But after a sleepless night worrying that I could cost someone their job, I returned to the restaurant to settle the remainder of the bill. Yes, in the short term it hurt my wallet. But in the long term, my conscience and I could live together happily ever after.
  5. Enjoy every day. This is so oft-repeated it’s almost a cliché. It is so important, though, to really stop and smell the roses, to slow life’s treadmill enough to enjoy the view. Who knows which day may be your last?
  6. Have an attitude of gratitude. Really! Try it. Just say thanks to whoever/whatever you believe in. If you have no religious beliefs and think that the world is just chaos, then thank that chaos for everything it’s given you. Life, love, a home, a family, food to eat, clothes to wear, holidays to go on – everything is a gift that we must never take for granted. Just a simple ‘thank you’ will bring many more blessings into your life.
  7. Patience. This from one of the most impatient people you may ever have met. That’s moi! If I could have something day before yesterday, I would. However, life has taught me that all things come to those who wait. Waiting doesn’t mean sitting on your hands and hoping for a million pounds to fall into your lap. It means working quietly and diligently towards your goals without expecting to be rewarded immediately. There is an Indian proverb that goes – सब्र का फल मीठा होता है – which literally means that the fruit of patience is sweet. That it most definitely is.
  8. Confidence. I have two young girls, and I watch them as they navigate the world, unsure of themselves and their place in it. I always pretended I was more confident than I was when I was younger. “Fake it till you make it” was my internal instruction to myself. I don’t need to fake it anymore. Knowing who I am, what I’m not, and that I add value to the world allows me the luxury of being confident, not arrogant. I hope it doesn’t take my girls thirty years to discover their own unshakeable core of assurance.
  9. Growing old is a privilege. Yes, it is, and it’s one denied to many. In the last eighteen months when we’ve lost so many loved ones to Covid, it is even more important to acknowledge that living to a ripe old age is yet another blessing, a prerogative that only the lucky have.
  10. A legacy of kindness. What do we leave behind that is truly important? Wealth, name, fame? Or, the fact that we may have touched someone’s life with a little bit of kindness? To me, that is the only legacy that matters.

50 not out! It’s been a fantastic game so far, and I’ve hit a few sixers along the way. The day I’m bowled out, I hope everyone says, “She had a good innings.”

Because, you see, I really did.

What’s that all about?

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Blame it on my age, but I’m truly at a loss here. What on earth gives anyone the right to ‘cancel’ anyone else? Yes, I’m talking about the phenomenon of ‘cancel culture’. For those who don’t know what this means, here’s the definition according to Mirriam-Webster: the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure.

The long list of people cancelled in recent years include the likes of Liam Neeson, Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Fallon and J. K. Rowling. What have they done, you might ask, that merits this kind of social (media) ostracism? Well, some have said some inappropriate things, while others have maybe consorted with the enemy, and others still have held an opinion that is contrary to the public tide of the moment. I won’t spell it out, because Google will do that bit for you, if you’re interested. My point is, while none of them are squeaky clean, what gives anyone the moral authority to pass judgement on these people?

The reason this trend bothers me so much, and why I’ve felt the need to express it on my blog, is twofold. One, there is something sinister in how free speech and opinions that differ from the mainstream, are suddenly being held up to social scrutiny that is at best, infantile and one-dimensional, and at worst, policing that harks back to the censorship wielded by totalitarian regimes. Two, where is the scope, in all this moral grandstanding, for people to make mistakes, to learn, to grow and repent? None of us are born perfect, but if you’re a celebrity, you’d better never have put a foot wrong, because that will come back to haunt you at some later stage in your career. At that point, not even a grovelling apology and a promise to do better could redeem you.

In all fairness, some people need calling out on their obnoxious behaviour, their toxic beliefs and their gruesome opinions. But let’s do it in a fair manner, a manner that befits a society that believes in debate, in conversation, and not in clamping down and deleting a person just because they did not adhere to the popular motif of the moment.

There is a cruelty to ‘cancelling’ someone that is tantamount to a public stoning. A cruelty that doesn’t consider the mental anguish, the financial fallout or failure to allow the person a chance at redemption. Even the law states that a person is innocent until proven guilty, so a cancel culture that rubs out a person swiftly without due process, is no less toxic than whatever abhorrent deed the person in question may have been accused of.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who penned a blistering article on how social media denizens act as moral guardians of the rapidly changing landscapes of what is right and what is not, said it best:

“We have a generation of young people on social media so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow,” Adichie writes. “I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and reread their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.”

It is obscene, and it is ridiculous. Go ahead, cancel me now. See if I care.

 

Trust

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Val stumbled through the labyrinthine lanes, partially blinded by her tears. Mid-afternoon light filtered through the roof slats of the souk, lighting up the odd piece of jewelled glassware. Hamsas glinted everywhere, open palms offering benediction; the aroma of heavy spices lingered in the air; tourists and locals jostled through the scrum while a cat licked its hind paw. A man ejected a stream of red spittle into a spittoon, and a group of abaya-clad women watched as she blundered past them.

Why had she come here? What had made her rush to this chaotic market when the last thing she needed was noise and confusion? Yet, she walked on unseeing, as voices called out to her, extolling the virtues of their wares.

“Come, come. I give good price, lady.”

“Some babouches for your pretty feet?”

“Cactus flowers, hammam soap, argan oil…”

Shukran and Marhaba hung in the air like two scythes. Streets turned into lanes, packed with tiny shops that seemed to tilt inwards, as though conspiring to collapse on her, burying her alive under stacks of leather goods, lanterns and tagine pots.

Her breath came out in shallow little gasps, and a shiver ran through her. It was hot – a thirty degrees day – but she felt cold, goosebumps lining her arms like little sentinels.

A sudden thirst took hold of her, tears receding as a more elemental want asserted itself. Water, she needed water. But where could she find it here, in this maze of colour and commotion?

She halted, generating a few exclamations as the family trailing behind bumped into her. Apologising, she stepped aside, letting them pass.

Where was she? How long had she been wandering? Would she ever find her way out of this place?

A young man came up to her. Acid-washed jeans and a stubbled face.

“You want carpet?”

“Water.”

“I take you best place. Orange juice. Best in Morocco.”

“Just water.”

“Come, come. I take you.”

She followed him as he snaked his way through the crowds and tangled alleys, whistling a cheery tune.

He brought her to a stall stacked with oranges, grapefruits and lemons, bunches of bananas hanging on either side. The stall owner and her self-appointed guide had a brief chat and a laugh. She spotted a bottle of water behind the owner and pointed to it, but he was already preparing her juice. The guide took a tip larger than the cost of the orange juice. Bemused, she handed over the dirhams, which he pocketed as he disappeared back into the throng.

Ambrosia-like, the liquid quenched her thirst and brought her to her senses. A prayer call from the mosque rang out, and she looked up at the stall owner, who shrugged and made her another fresh juice.

This time she ambled with purpose, stopping now and then to examine a lamp or a piece of jewellery. There was no rush to return, no one to return to. Twenty-four hours had robbed her of certitude and replaced it with the bitterness of betrayal.

She watched the henna lady painting an intricate pattern on the Dutch woman’s hand as her husband commented in guttural tones.

“You want?” The eager young assistant offered to paint her hand, but Val demurred, moving on. A street urchin slammed into her before racing off into a narrow by-lane. The sun had lost its glare, and the air took on a cooler aspect.

Val tried retracing her steps.

Where had she gone wrong? Why hadn’t she seen it coming? How could she have been so naïve, so trusting?

Fatima’s hands beckoned to her from a shop wall. Ward off the evil eye and repel bad luck. Maybe she needed a hamsa now more than ever.

The grizzled old man hunched over in the shop barely glanced up as she stopped to examine his vendibles. There were so many varieties of the talisman: from metallic to ceramic, coloured to camel-bone.

“Which… uh… is best?” She spoke haltingly, unsure of how much English he understood.

He stared at her from under his bushy eyebrows and wiggled his forefinger at the wall.

“All good. Hand of Fatima protect the innocent. Allah eye watch over the pure.”

Val picked out a simple carved camel-bone necklace.

“I’ll take this one.”

She reached into her pocket for the wallet, only to find nothing.

“Oh.”

Colour drained from her face at the realisation of her loss.

The old man shuffled over to her and took the talisman out of her hand, replacing it with a silver one, a turquoise stone in its centre.

“Bismillah.”

She looked at it in wonder.

“May Allah keep you,” he mouthed before sitting back down on his haunches.

Her feet took her home of their own accord.

Open-ended

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Why am I so drawn to ambiguity?

Endings with multiple interpretations can be perceived as unsatisfactory. After all, we all want to walk away from a book, a movie or a television show with the feeling of having completed a journey and reached a destination. What could be more annoying than to stop at a fork in the road? Or never really find out what happened, or worse still, have to sift through the many choices the end presented us with, expecting us to arrive at our own conclusions?! No tidy little bows at the end, no ‘happily ever after’? Why would the writer/director/producer of the content do that?

For someone who gravitates towards such inconclusiveness, here’s why I think endings such as these are far more effective in the long run.

Think back to ‘Gone with the Wind’. After many years of being in love with Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler decides to leave her at the very same instance that she discovers that she truly loves him. He walks away, leaving her heartbroken. But we have been witness to her stubbornness, her wilfulness and her tenacity for an entire book. When she vows to win him back, secretly we are rooting for her. There is no definite ‘happily ever after’ here. She may win him back, she may not, but that depends on the reader’s estimation of her character. That is not an ending you are likely to forget in a hurry.

Haruki Murakami, the famous Japanese author, has often employed the technique of an uncertain ending. His off-kilter characters regularly find themselves at crossroads and many a time, you have no idea which way they’ll head. Which makes the entire experience doubly surreal and unforgettable.

Christopher Nolan’s movies often end in a riddle. Take the example of ‘Inception’. Dreams layer upon dreams until it becomes impossible for the protagonist to distinguish between reality and a dreamscape. At the very end, the viewer is left wondering whether they have witnessed his return to the real world or is the entire segment just another fabrication of his mind?

I can see how incredibly frustrating this can be to someone who just wants a linear narrative, a satisfactory end and entertainment for the sake of entertainment.

But for those who want a little bit more, the lure of an ambiguous finish is almost impossible, to sum up. Think of the many permutations incertitude offers us. The multiple paths that may be explored, the multiple ways that the story reached this conclusion. Mind-boggling? Yes! But that is the whole point, you see.

An Indian film by the name of ‘Andhadhun’ was a big commercial and critical success in 2018. The premise was a simple one – a young musician pretending to be blind unwittingly witnesses a murder. His life goes into free fall from that moment onwards, even as he scrambles to keep it all together. The resolution when it arrives is unexpected and once again, open to many and varied interpretations. Is he really blind? Did he succumb to the evil that had dogged him? Accident or murder? Uhhh, no clear cut answers for you, my friend. Read into it what you will.

And that is exactly my jam!

For those who have read my books and stories, they are often confounded by an ending they did not foresee; that little unanticipated twist in the tale. It’s a tactic I enjoy because I want the reader to think, to wonder and then to arrive at whichever conclusion works best for them. This isn’t the lazy writer’s guide to uncertain endings. It is a very deliberate modus operandi to shock and excite, but also leave a lingering vacillation as to whether their interpretation was correct or not.

Tell me that you don’t end up debating those ambiguous, open-ended denouements far more than any others! Yes? Thought so. Mission accomplished.

Parasite

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Last night I sat and watched ‘Parasite’ again. Yes, the same Korean film that won the Oscar this year and what a fitting winner it was too. The first time I’d seen this movie on a plane headed to India, and been shaken to the core by it. This multi-genre marvel with themes that intersected and overlapped, left me awed by its sheer complexity, by how black humour segued seamlessly into social commentary and the inevitable tragedy at the end. How, at the very heart of it and despite all indications to the contrary, Bong Joon-ho’s film was about hope. Hope itself being a double-edged sword with its capacity to wound and destroy.

Before you proceed any further, please be warned that this blog post contains many spoilers. So, if you haven’t seen the film yet and don’t want any details revealed in advance, go ahead and surf away.

As a writer, I am an avid consumer of content from various media. It enriches and informs my own work in many many ways. However, a particular quirk of mine is the inability to shut off the analytical side of my brain which sifts through everything to understand themes and patterns, their usage towards building a story and achieving the desired climax. Bong’s extraordinary talent lies in the layering of multiple ideas with a single motif as the objective.

Layers of society are portrayed in the three families depicted in the film. The Parks are representative of the wealthy upper classes, living in airy open-space mansions with chauffeurs and housekeepers at their disposal, the ability to hire tutors or buy foreign goods and toys for their children and organise picnics and parties on a whim. They are the aspirational top tier of society. Nice and naive – both because of the advantages that wealth affords them.

The Kim family, on the other hand, live in a small semi-basement apartment typical of the poorer sections of the Korean suburbs. They drift from job to job, subsisting on minimum wage, eager to grasp at any opportunity that comes their way. It is no wonder then that they have no compunctions about worming their way into the employment of the Parks, using underhand means, replacing the previous employees through a combination of lies, fraud and deceit.

Bong’s treatment of the two families is even-handed. Each is a victim of their circumstances, each believes themselves to be functioning in exactly the way they should be given their station in life.

It’s when a third family is added to the mix that things begin to get muddier. If it is at all possible, there is a tier that lies even below that of the poverty inhabited by the Kims. It is that of the previous housekeeper Moon-gwang’s husband, Geun-sae, who has lived in an underground bunker beneath the Parks’ house, not having seen sunlight in four years.

When the bottom two tiers clash, there is no honour amongst thieves. Each is capable and more than willing to destroy the other in a race for survival, while the top tier remains oblivious to the internecine wars beneath them. This fundamental disconnect is once again underlined in the conversation that Mrs Park has with a friend inviting her over for an impromptu party on their lawns, commenting on how lush and green it is after a night of unprecedented rainfall that (unknown to her) has flooded the Kims’ semi-basement with sewage, making it completely uninhabitable.

The differences are little and large, setting each group apart from the other. From housing to food to body odour, each signifies a societal placement several rungs afar. Can these distances be traversed? Can the scholar’s rock presented to the Kim family bring them the wealth it promises?

Hope drives the film to its conclusion, even as tragedy unfolds on the lawns of the beautiful Parks’ home. In an unexpected twist, Mr Kim drives a knife into Mr Park, a knee-jerk reaction to the lack of respect that has underscored every perfectly civil interaction of theirs. A fundamental disrespect for those that lie below, even while they serve, accommodate and aim to please. Mr Kim’s escape into the bunker previously inhabited by Geun-sae is his falling even deeper into the squalor and ignominy that he has tried so hard to climb out of. His son, Ki-woo’s dreams of being wealthy enough to someday buy the same house and rescue his father from its depths, are a painful reminder that while hope can fuel a fantasy, the daily grind of poverty will irrevocably douse those flames.

The ultimate question is: who is the parasite? Geun-sae who survives on the food secreted to him by his housekeeper wife, the Kim family who aspire to a larger share of the proverbial pie, or the Parks who cannot live without the labours of those who wait upon them?

In the end, we are all parasites in one way or another. But hope is the largest parasite of all, for it feeds upon so much, offering so little in return.

Watch this wonderful film, if you haven’t already! If you have, let me know what you thought in the comments below.