Making Progress on the Novel This Christmas

Posted this on Facebook. Re-posting it here.

Another Christmas has come and gone. Just like that. There were carols, cakes from Bangalore Iyengar's Bakery, who, by the bye (by the way, is wrong, just look it up), make the best rawa cakes. Spent time with wifey at home since I still have a few issues of health to be sorted out. Find that I need sunlight more because of some bug caught from hospital, which is causing itching. So caught a lot of sun, in fact, I walk with no shirt on the walking trail near Artist Village, just like my forefathers did. No one is around when I walk. What if anyone is around? I think the sun is the best guarantee against infection, better than any antibiotic. I am paying more attention to Yoga and doing it the way it was meant to be done. All the western Yoga teachers get it wrong, because they don't integrate Yoga with meditation. I find meditation is crucial to the success of Yogic exercises. I do my own research, in addition, I have the experience of Yoga as done in the Yogashram in Cochin. Hope to throw away my afflictions and be fully myself soon.

Meanwhile work on the novel continues at 5 a.m. I am happy with the progress. Hope to give you some good news soon.

Tada, take care of your bodies. Don't over drink or over eat.

People Say the Wrong Things in Hospital

During my recent illness, I was toying with painful idea of giving up on my novel I am writing Mr. Bandookwala. This may anger some and make some go "Ah! So he didn't make it, yeahn?" "So much wasted effort." "Thank God, I won't have to bear his prattle of what stage the novel is in."


Yes people say wrong things. I know, I know, you deny this right? You can see this at funerals. There would be a group of uncouth dregs of society laughing on the solemn occasion. The reason I didn't want people to visit me in hospital was this. People say the wrong things and you can't stop them from doing so. There is one fellow parishioner who I suspect has necrophilia in a very advanced stage. Whenever he speaks he will bring out the medical condition in which people he knew died, along with descriptions in gruesome detail. Imagine him visiting me in hospital. I would have a tough time handling him. I suspect I would collapse. In hospital a patient is thinking of his recover and along comes this tyke, this moron, who talk so casually about medical condition and death.


So I said no visitors, please. A hospital is not the best time to meet me. Drop in at home; we will have a coffee and a chat. I am unshaven and have not slept for six days, what would they think? They will pronounce the end of the road for me.


I thought I had a lot of fight left in me. I still do. I used to play football and was in the college team. Though – smarting from hurt pride – as an extra, sitting on the bench.


After coming home and seeing the manuscript my heart melted. I said to myself I can't let this go just yet. I love this story. I have spent six years of my life on it. Some publisher will surely see it for its quality and publish it.


So I switch off the television at 10 p.m. and say our family prayer and I am in bed by 10.30 p.m. or, at the most, 11 p.m. I am up at 5 a.m. and working, sipping on hot green tea. Hope to give you the good news that the final copyediting is over and done.