MORAL DEPRAVITY IS THE GREATEST ENEMY OF MAN
Before I dwell into a deep discussion about my capabilities of storytelling, I owe it all to my spontaneous thinking and unfettered imagination to invent an idea and convert it into a story. To put it honestly and with absolute humility, I can make a story out of anything (precisely any word/event or fact) and the present series of stories with its titles will prove my versatility in this direction.
I’ve worked on very challenging ideas that have arrived in a very mundane and abstract form to my mind and I faced enormous difficulties to construct stories around them. It would be worth saying that the stories chiefly woven around humanity will have a profound effect on the readers’ minds for its psychoanalytical nature. The sensational and gripping stories relate with everyday occurrences whether borrowed from the remote past or the present to capture the hopeless and hopeful moments of life. The stories reveal the moral depravity in human beings that have overtaken their minds in a ruthless manner and has become their greatest enemy.
The stories have found its own length and are inundated with philosophical and psychological views that have a witty and eloquent application. The narrative style is highlighted with interesting description of the characters in some of the stories; in some the events make a significant contribution. All the actions in the stories are evenly distributed to produce a thrilling effect on the minds of the readers’ with appropriate verbiage.
I’ve extracted ideas for the stories from even the most dull and unworthy conversations that people indulge in, the activities they perform with little or no intelligence at all; and from every awkward and delightful situation that matters. I’ve a natural versatility to express human afflictions in words with strange rhapsodies and go beyond the boundaries of an occurrence diversifying it. The most interesting feature of my writing is its originality and the contributory elements drawn from every field that connect with humans and influence their feelings – inwards or outwards.
I would like to share with my valuable readers how the ideas for the construction of some of the significant stories were drawn out from common conversations. ‘Funeral Coat’ and ‘The Unknown Giver’ witty as these titles sound were instantly coined. Both the stories were born out of my Sikh friend Mandeep Singh Bhohi’s gracious involvement. During a routine visit to his workshop in Mansarover Garden, I saw another close acquaintance of his sitting in his company. During the conversation, Mandeep pointed out to me the glitzy or glamourous coat he was wearing and made a satirical comment – ‘He went to attend a funeral wearing this coat.’ I instantly gave his coat the name ‘funeral coat’ pointing at it and my friend knew for sure that I would create a story out it. I took some eight months to conceive the story with such an abstract idea since there was no such coat to be called a funeral coat.
One day I received a call from my friend and as a habit I always note the time on my watch whenever a call comes in. During the conversation Mandeep told me of finding a 10 rupee note lying outside his office while talking to me. I looked at my watch again and noted that we had talked for about ten minutes. I cut the call. He called me again and cursed the bad network. I told him that the call was disconnected deliberately by me. I jokingly said to him, ‘You’ve been adequately compensated with ten rupees for making the ten-minute call and neither of us know who the giver is.’ I announced to him the new title ‘The Unknown Giver’ and conceived the story fairly quickly.
The idea for the story ‘The Last Stitch’ developed during a conversation with my tailor. He appeared very upset over the death of a valued customer whose clothes he had stitched. He was in a dilemma whether to deliver the clothes to any of his family members or not. I took advantage of this strange situation and constructed the story.
Then, the story ‘Walk for Money’ is based on my own personal experience. I was going through a deep financial crisis and a small amount of money two to three hundred rupees would’ve served my purpose for a few days till I got my salary. Though I could’ve borrowed the money from anybody but I thought otherwise. I’d to walk down the long distance to my room in Ramesh Nagar from Vikas Puri. When I reached Tilak Nagar, I found two hundred rupee notes lying on the road and picked it up and thanked God. As I resumed walking I found another set of two hundred rupee notes lying at a further distance. Since I’d only desired for two to three hundred rupees. I honestly picked up just one note and left one behind for someone else. So I always remain alert to look inwards and outwards for drawing my ideas for constructing the stories.
Similarly, the idea for the story ‘Veil of Disgrace’ formed in my mind after I saw a hooded picture of a criminal in the newspaper surrounded by policemen. Once the idea strikes my mind, I quickly run my imagination around it and probe every angle and also look into the possibility of incorporating a historical fact distorting it a little to avoid any controversy. The story ‘Veil of Disgrace’ has received such treatment. This story runs on an investigative pattern and keeps the momentum alive from the start to the finish.
The stories in the present collection may appear as works of creative fiction but they represent my genuine purpose to empathize with human suffering. It is a pity that the standard of writing has come down drastically over the years; particularly the growing impassivity to human afflictions compelled me to highlight it through my stories for creating a mass awareness.
I hope that my small literary contribution will open up avenues for beginning a fresh intellectual discussion. Besides, if I critically look at my own work, I feel that it will one day prove to be a rich and significant contribution to English literature. I feel immensely glad that Nature has bestowed upon me the opportunity to serve a noble and humanitarian cause through my art of writing.
Sanjiv Nair, June 2018