THE Writer

‘Avada Kedavra!’ – the killing curse, causes instant death of the unfortunate soul on which the spell is cast.  This ‘fact’ doesn’t seem to deter J K Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter Series, to use this Unforgivable Curse, and indeed other such spells to devastating effect in her novels.

‘Dracarys!’ – the command that Daenerys Targaryen  issues to her favorite ‘child’ Drogon, to breathe fire and kill everything in its path, as written by George R R Martin in ‘A song of Ice and Fire’,  is not to be taken lightly.  Martin, in fact, has been praised and loathed in equal measure by fans of his iconic and best-selling series, for the abruptness, brutality and the uncanny goriness with which any of the characters of his novels meet their death – their popularity or seeming importance to the plot at that point in time, notwithstanding.

The concept of holding the Hunger Games between selected adolescents to determine which District is worthy of getting food supplies and riches and which District continues to suffer in abject poverty is a storyline which in itself needs its author to have nerves of steel.  Kudos to Suzanne Collins to have written a masterful trilogy based on such a gutsy subject.

These three series of novels are noteworthy examples of a genre of fiction wherein the author has created an entirely new space-time construct or an alternate ‘universe’ where all the events of the said fictional series occur.  In a sense, they are the ‘Gods’ of their story’s universe.  They are free to use their discretion in framing the ‘Laws of Nature’ of their fictional world.  This unique freedom that this particular genre affords its writers places more responsibility on them to build a coherent and believable narrative despite the exclusive novelties of the ‘New World’.

Readers from all over the world are in awe of such writing.  I myself am an avid reader of this ‘fantasy’ genre.  Sometimes though, I wonder, what if the author was bestowed with a power that converted all he wrote as fiction to concrete reality.  Would he be able to create such a fictional world then?  Would he knowingly condemn the characters of his novels to such gruesome deaths or make them suffer so indignantly while they are alive?  Does the knowledge that all he writes is, at the end of the day, just a series of words on a piece of paper, give the author the license to be more ruthless in depicting emotions and building stories than he would be otherwise?  Alternatively, what would he write if he knew beforehand that whatever he pens down will shape the actual lives of all the characters he has created? It seems a tantalizing prospect at first glance, but one which requires a tremendous sense of responsibility and balance on closer scrutiny – not everyone’s cup of tea I would say.

Come to think of it, we all know One such writer.  He is the One who ‘writes’ what is written in the stars.  He is known by different names, just like any author using a number of pseudonyms.  I know him by the name ‘Shri Vishnu’ – the finest writer of all.  He writes stories that straddle ‘Yugas’ in Time and encompasses all living species across the Ages.  He knows, whatever He writes will happen – no doubt.  This fact however, empowers Him instead of weighing Him down.  What is even more intriguing is that He gives all His characters a chance to choose the path their individual story takes – He writes alternate scenarios for each decision point in each character’s story and leaves the decision to the character itself.  This is, in His own words,  the Principle of Karma.  This effectively means that all His characters are free to chart their own course on the basis of what they choose to do at critical junctures in their lives.  He maintains the balance and the overall flow of the narrative despite these ‘unpredictable’ decisions that His characters take during the course of their lifetimes.  Quite a feat, and that is not all.

The characters in His story talk to Him, praise Him, question Him and even vilify Him at times for the injustice they feel that He has meted out to them.  After all, He is the one who is solely responsible.  There have been instances where He has had to change the story on account of the insistence and true devotion of His characters – case in point being the reversal of the Death of Satyavaan due to the dedication of his wife Savitri.  The nuanced positions that He takes and the fine margins where He treads become clearer in yet another example of His story writing prowess.  Ratnamala, the daughter of King Bali wished to have Vamana (Vishnu’s avatar) as her child and wanted to breast-feed Him.  Kaikeyi, Bharat’s mother, was repentant that she had asked Dashrath to send Ram (another avatar of Vishnu) to fourteen years of exile so that her son could become king.  On Ram’s return from exile, she asked Him for a boon that she get a chance to atone for her sins and raise Ram and shower all her motherly love on Him in their next birth.  Sutapa and Prsni – a devoted couple, performed tough penance and asked that Vishnu be born to them as their son.  He granted all of these boons and satisfied each one of them in His Krishna avatar – Ratnamala was born as Putana and got a chance to breast-feed Krishna.  Kaikeyi was born as Yashoda and raised Krishna as His foster-mother.  As for Sutapa and Prsni, they were born as Vasudev and Devaki – Krishna’s biological parents.

Can any other author claim to link such varied storylines spread over birth and death cycles and yet be interwoven with such perfection?  Can anyone except Him write stories where the characters themselves too have a say in what is being written about them?  I certainly don’t think so. This establishes Him, in my mind, as the best writer/author there ever has been.  The question now is, are we all, just fictional characters in a story already written by Him.  Do we have an individual purpose or are we just ends to a means?  If indeed we are the characters of a story and He is the author, who then is the reader of our story?  I will be searching for answers to these questions all along.  In the meanwhile, I pray to Him that he grants me a little bit of His story writing prowess so that I too may earn a name for myself as an accomplished man of words.

I wish He reads this and says, “Tathaastu!”