Word High July : Kalinaw

The Tranquil Breeze

The tranquil breeze

From far off land

Dancing leaf with it the sand

Travelling overseas

.

Then garden flowers

To and fro

Nodding to its merry flow

Brightened after showers

.

A movement gentle

It infuse

Clothes drying in recluse

With patterns ornamental

.

Then softly on my face

It sweeps

And round about ardently leaps

Proffering an embrace

.

And when the crease

Of worry shows

Soon away along it goes

With the tranquil breeze

.

-r prab

 

(Source of the above image : TH Smith)

In response to Word-High July: 30 Beautiful Filipino Words: Kalinaw

 

Learning the Writing Style of Favourite Authors

Absorbing the writing style of my favorite authors is the new hobby I have found for myself. This has been a second nature to me always, though.(I mean absorbing the writing pattern of any writer.) Even in the blogosphere, I read the posts of the awesome people I follow, with utmost keenness and interest, to understand and feel what state of emotions would have inspired those words!

Now, I want to take this instinct one step ahead by methodically examining and try acquiring the techniques of my ideal novelists. Few days back I got inspired from Mike’s post (He is a published author, and this was an old post, in which he recounted his prime days)to practice this earnestly.Mike in his post wrote- “..I even typed out Hemingway’s text to see what it felt like to produce such sentences, and started trying to write the next sentence”

Precisely! When I read Oscar Wilde, I often say to myself, “Wish I could write like that!” Alike sentiments I get while reading Tennyson’s or Wordsworth’s poetry or Edgar Allan Poe’s tales.So, I resolved to study the narrative forms of  Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe to begin with.(I can take poetry, the next month)

The plump old book “Great collections of Oscar Wilde” and the not so plump but old book “The Tales Of Imagination” by Edgar Allan Poe have been presented with a reserved space on my table for the next one month.A blue notebook, with a pen clasped inside, adorns them on top.

Last night, my subject of study was Oscar Wilde’s short story “The Selfish Giant”.I tried picking up a few sentences, where the aesthetics of Nature had been very neatly narrated.I wrote them down in my blue notebook, read them twice, then tried to cast my own words in a similar prose.I thoroughly relished the exercise! It felt reasonably satisfying!

Tonight I plan to study Poe’s “A Mesmeric Revelation”

 

The era of letter writing

I crave to experience that age where letter writing used to be the adorned gift for distant communication.One person would sit and contemplate for days what to write since the letter would take months to reach to the other side of the world, where the dear one dwelled.There would be a wealth of stories, incidents, and sentiments to write about- of wars, of explorations, of love, of betrayals, of dreams, of hopes.

With the letter being the sole means to converse from afar, the language would benefit from the writer’s feeling of separation and longing. Often inspiring profound sentences of adoration and intellect, with the anticipation that they will make the reader feel warm and comforted while being read.

And in the absence of emoticons, which make emotions get expressed in a generalized fashion, there, one would be absorbed with a dictionary or thesaurus to unearth the precise words to express the emotion elaborately.Some sentiments may even get transformed into beautiful verses with rhyming words.

And once the letter was dispatched, one would wait and imagine if the letter had reached, if the letter was received with as much yearning as with which it was written.And questions would flutter in the mind of the writer like a restless bird. Did the words carry the feelings well? Did it comfort? Brought the smile? Conveyed the warmth?

Several days will pass, and seasons change in hope and optimism of receiving a reply. The quill and the papers on table would be looked upon with a promise.And then on one fine day, a knock would be heard at the door,  with the horseman standing outside, who, when you get out to meet will  declare, “There’s a letter for you Sire!”

 

In a dim room

I dragged the chair, and placed it near the window, which was the only source of light in my room.It was late afternoon and I wanted to have the company of natural light while reading a classic Agatha Christie murder mystery novel.

As I continued to read..the story building up,the characters taking shape,the plot getting serious and the suspense starting to crawl in, I could not realize how many hours had passed.

As I lay consumed staring at the page,flipping them briskly, the story running unhindered in my mind as my eyes kept scanning the words in pace,owing to the fact that I had reached the very climax of the tale, I realized the sun had set and I had to exert pressure on my eyes to read the text.

But I was way too captivated with the story to even leave my seat to switch on the light.I brought the book closer to my vision,because I wanted to experience the final revelation of the suspense while lying in this position only,in this state of the room only.Switching on the lights will suddenly create a whole new environment and I did not want to complete the story in a different environment than in which I had started it.