#2017ReadingChallenge

#NewYearNewMe may be all about health and fitness, but reading challenges are a thing of habit to me by now. This year, again, I’ve devised my own reading challenge. The challenge contains books I already own, to make sourcing easier. There’s also an affinity to Indian writing that I can’t get over!
I intend to read 50 books at the very least, in the following categories:

1. A biography of a writer 
2. A book based on a fairy tale 
3. A book based on mythology 
4. A book by a Bengali writer 
5. A book by a Japanese writer 
6. A book by a Kannada writer 
7. A book by an African writer 
8. A book by an author you don’t like 
9. A book by an Indian diaspora writer 
10. A book by your favourite author 
11. A book by a Malayali writer 
12. A book by a Marathi writer 
13. A book from your neighbouring country 
14. A book of poems 
15. A book of short stories 
16. A book from Oprah’s book club 
17. A book recommended by a friend 
18. A book that has been gifted to you 
19. A book that was made into a movie 
20. A book whose cover you love 
21. A book with feminist overtones 
22. A book with LGBT overtones 
23. A book with more than 4* ratings on Goodreads 
24. A book you have owned for long but not yet read 
25. A book you started reading but did not finish earlier 
26. A Buzzfeed recommendation 
27. A children’s book 
28. A detective novel 
29. A fantasy 
30. A free ebook 
31. A historical fiction 
32. A horror 
33. A humourous book 
34. A national award-winning book 
35. An international award-winning book 
36. A non-fiction book by an Indian 
37. A play 
38. A romance 
39. A science fiction 
40. A thriller 
41. A travelogue 
42. A war book 
43. An ancient book 
44. An autobiography/memoir 
45. Re-read a book you read in school/college 
46. A translated work in your mother tongue 
47. A self-published writer’s book
48. A book borrowed from a friend 
49. A book published in 2017 
50. A graphic novel

Based on these, I made a TBR jar for 2017, in which I put in 52 titles under these headings. 

I’ll pick up one each time I want to read a one, and this way the books would be both pre-decided and by chance! Since I’m bound to read over 100 books, this TBR jar contains only serious reading. The rest I’ll pick up based on my whimsy! I’ve set my Goodreads 2017 Reading Challenge to 52, and I am all set to start! Oh wait, I’ve already finished 6 books, and #nowreading 2 versions of Ramayana side-by-side — one by Ralph Griffith and another by C. Rajagopalachari. #happyme 

#2016ReadingChallenge - How I Fared

I read a total of 161 books in 2016.

• Most-read genres: Detective fiction (21% of 161 books), Indian writing (15%) and Children's literature and Fantasy (11% each). 

• I've liked 66% of the books I read (rated 4 and 5 stars on Goodreads). 

• My most-read authors were Roald Dahl and Lilian Jackson Braun with 6 books each. 

As for the #2016ReadingChallenge that I started with a friend at the beginning of the year, here's what I managed.

January: New writers (new to me)

Kaleidoscope by Rachna Gupta
The Murder Pit by Jeff Shelby
The Patna Manual of Style by Siddharth Chowdhury
The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
Lines Across Oceans by Nalini Priyadarshni and D. Russel Micnhimer
Skylines by Neelam Saxena Chandra
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

February: Romances

The Madras Affair by Sundari Venkatraman
Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Or Forever Hold Your Peace by Donna Abraham
Paro by Namita Gokhale
Only Wheat Not White by Varsha Dixit
Alphabet Soup for Lovers by Anita Nair

March: Women writers

The Hollow by Agatha Christie
A Thousand Unspoken Words by Paulami Dutta Gupta
The Magician’s Guild, The Novice, The High Lord (Black Magician Trilogy) by Trudi Canavan
That Quail, Robert by Margaret A. Stanger
The Saturdays, The Four-Storey Mistake, Then There Were Five, Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
The Moonglow Cafe by Deborah Garner

April: Plays

King Lear by William Shakespeare
The League of Youth by Henrik Ibsen
Red Oleanders by Rabindranath Tagore
Four Short Plays by John Galsworthy
Boiled Beans on Toast by Girish Karnad

May: LGBT books/writers

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Letters in the Attic by Bonnie Shimko
Shikhandi and Other Stories They Don’t Tell You by Devdutt Pattanaik
Atlantis by Mark Doty
Lumberjanes series by Shannon Waters, Noelle Stevenson

June: Award-winning books

Goat Days by Benyamin (Kerala Sahitya Academy Award, 2009)
Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar (Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award, 2000)
Relationship by Jayanta Mahapatra (Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award, 1981)
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (Man Booker Prize, 2008)

July: South Asian writers

Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif
Island of a Thousand Mirrors by Nayomi Munaweera
Mountains Painted with Turmeric by Lil Bahadur Chetri

August: Memoir/Bio/Autobiographies

Out of Line: A Literary and Political Biography of Nayantara Sehgal by Ritu Menon
Cracking The Code: My Journey To Bollywood by Ayushman Khurana
I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron
The Bafut Beagles by Gerald Durrell
Someone Could Get Hurt by Drew Magary

September: Regional books

Bhrandalayam by P. Keshavadev
Deliverance by Gauri Deshpande
Half-a-rupee Stories by Gulzar
Man-eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett

October: Books you’re scared of reading

This didn’t pan out exactly as I wanted. Could not finish 3 books in the “scary” category. So unless I change this heading to include books dealing with the occult, this month wasn’t on target. Anyway the books I might want to count in are:

Nolander by Becca Mills
The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
Darkangel by Christine Pope
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami

November: Graphic novels

Maus by Art Spiegelman
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
The Sculptor by Scott McCloud
Deadpool by Fabian Nicieza

December: Mysteries or thrillers

The Cuckoo’s Calling by JK Rowling (Robert Galbraith)
The Secret of Shadow Ranch (Nancy Drew #5)
The Cat Who Turned On and Off by Lilian Jackson Braun
Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer
Smashed Potatoes and Gravy by Ginny Gold
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen by NL Wilson
Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie

The Wait, The Body Takes Over, and Everyone's Poems

All three poems listed in this post appeared on Coffee Shop Poems, a repository of poems curated by Tim Knight (@coffeeshoppoems on Twitter).

The Wait, published in March 2014, on was among the poems written years ago. It first appeared on this blog on January 28, 2008, but again it is likely to have been written earlier than that. I do remember what I was feeling when I wrote this, though. It was one of those depressing days, where nothing interesting seemed to be happening to me. I was trying to capture in the words of this poem the feeling of loneliness that accompanies a wait for something or someone.

The Body Takes Over was published in April 2014. This is one of the poems that shamelessly celebrate the sexuality of women. I wrote three-four on this theme in late 2009, when I was going through a phase of being in and out of relationships. Rather than succumbing to feeling "like a slut", I decided to make myself feel privileged as the one who was not afraid of her sexuality and its consequences. This poem first appeared on this blog on November 29, 2009.

Everyone's Poems went up on the site in September 2014. Written in 2011 and first posted here on February 10, 2011, this bunch of micropoems is about little things that anyone can relate to. If I remember right, this was written in my early insomniac phase, when I used to sit after work into the wee hours, staring at the dark sky and hoping for more of the moon. The original entry had one additional poem than the numbers featured on Coffee Shop Poems, and I took it out before submitting because it did not seem quite relevant now.

This compilation of my published works is also listed on Facebook in an album format. 

Journey of a Poem - a poet's ramblings

So I’m finally taking time out to collate my published works. My foray into getting my works published began with eFiction India in February 2013. For more than six months, I sent my works only to eFiction India. In 2014, I vowed to try out other avenues, and so far, I’ve had some success in getting published. While the journey has been tough – you cannot imagine the ratio of rejections to acceptance – it has been highly rewarding and pleasant. Thanks to Sheikha A. for helping me figure out the submission process.

In this and the posts that follow, I shall write a two-bit about a published work with a link to the online display of the work, and any backstory to the piece or its publication, if worth mentioning.

Journey of a Poem (efiction India, Print – March 2013; online  – November 2013)

I don't even remember when this was first written. It was first posted on this blog on 19 November, 2009, so we must all assume it was written in that month, though maybe not on that day. Or maybe it was. I'm not in the habit of noting the date a piece is completed, so it's a little difficult for even myself to check my own progress in writing and narrative/thematic styles. But I more or less do remember the chronological order in which the works were written, and that is a little help.

I've noticed that many of my poems are about poetry or about the act of writing. While many literary journals do not like this theme, I'm reminded of Gulzar's words - spoken in a seminar in Mangaluru three years ago - that many poets write about poetry because that is closest to their heart.

And while you are here, go check out the eFiction India website. They do not have much content online, but purchasing the magazine or subscribing to it is worth the moolah. Huge amounts of upcoming talent! 

This compilation of my published works is also listed on Facebook in an album format. 

Poetry

Poetry
Does not
Come out of
Well-layered thoughts
Or well-meaning ideas,
But through pain and restraint,
Insanity and poise,
With a little bit of happiness;
Poetry comes
When the world comes to you
In a flash of reality,
Well-imagined. 

Incomplete poem

I started a poem that I could not complete,

I wrote a verse I could not sing, 

I chased a dream I could not see, 

I failed a test I could not attempt; 

Life's stream passes me by, 

And I know not where to rest my feet – 

Darkness and light play games with me, 

I know not how to move on, nor give up. 

Verses have a way

of coming back when least expected; 

Like unheard stories 

they haunt the nights, 

And plague the days

with hazy images. 

My incomplete poem lingered on,

Till I could not rest, nor sleep;

And when I touched my pen today,

It flowed unabashed from the tip. 

On finding meanings (Dug up from a 2007 hand-written note)

Grass flutters before me,
I see your heart in there.
Insects hover around it -
Is that me?

Investing your surroundings with symbols
Is very easy when melancholic.

Art,
Cannot arise from it.
Poetry does not build itself on symbols alone.

The strain of the nerves
on your temples,
The flow of the blood in your brain,
and the barrage of images
before you
Can make poetry.

To feel,
and to write,
Are different things.

My hand writes,
as the mind tries
To find some coherence in the words. 

The moment

It’s in the moment that time freezes.

All our lives,

We all wait for the moment.

The moment when love will shine on us,

From the beyond,

From the horizons of the universe,

From the depths of our souls….

The moment,

When nothing is defined

And yet you find a meaning

Unlike you’ve ever met.

The moment,

When everything is distorted

And yet the shape guides you,

Protects you,

Ensconces you….

The moment,

Lasting forever in the depths of your memories,

Walking up to you unawares

And throttling you into a self you never knew existed.

That moment,

My friends,

Is what you and I are worthy of.

The destination set upon us by Time.

The movement held still,

The silence of voices

Penetrating the calm of our existence.

It’s in the moment that time freezes.

Cannot write more

I cannot write any more.

I thought I told you this before,
But yes, I write for you.

I write of you,
of your thousand lovable gestures,
of your million quirks and faults,
of your innumerable thoughts and dreams.

They blamed me for writing only of love,
of an emotion well abused;
But they did not know it was inspired by you.

If they did,
they might have worshipped you, my muse.

And now,
You have gone away from my life
to find a way of your own;
Be a muse to someone else,
in some other way -
I know not what.

I thought I could find another muse,
and write on.

They came and went,
but failed to inspire,
to arouse me to a climax of poetry
that you so easily managed.

I still stare at your age-worn photograph
and try to write.
But,
I cannot write any more.

I.
"Leech!" She shouted at her,
"You're living on stolen blood."
"It's love, madam,
not stolen, but borrowed."
"Yes, he lends it to you
out of pity,
But that is due to me,
Hence you are but a lowly thief!"
And with that she branded me.

II.
Imposing skyscrapers
wrought in iron and glass,
gobble up suited-and-booted people every morning
and spew them out like vomit by twilight.
These suits and boots and skirts and heels
go on in a clatter,
unaware of their repeated
Ingestion, Digestion and Excretion.

III.
The fly in my hand
wiggled like a maggot
clipped of her wings.
And I, the sadist,
laughed of the tickle from her hairy body
on my soft palm.

Thank You Poetry

When smiles are aplenty,
Words always fail me.
I have a lot to thank you for,
O Poetry,
And a lot to apologize too.

You have shown fortitude
As I shed my depressions upon you,
Used you to bludgeon my frustrations,
And pounded you to free my repressions.

You stood by me
As I watched friends go away,
Dreams shatter, and
Life flow away in a stream's chatter.

I gave you no form,
No rhyme, No reason,
No colour,
No body -
And yet you embodied my soul.

Thank you, O Poetry.
You are my alter ego.

Poetry in the rains

Rains spout romance.

Nature flaunts its sexuality,
Shows off its fertile and well-preened hues
Inspiring all living creatures to follow suit.

It’s the mating season, and
Every layman becomes a poet,
And mouthing metaphors and similes
Borrowed from famous brains,
They go preening about,
Trying to attract their mates.

Lovers moan and whine about separation,
Thirst for some company,
And make love in cosy corners.

While little sprouts of green
Show their heads on the soil,
Dark clouds gather on the horizon
And warn you of impending downpour.

Some revel in the pleasance of the rains,
Some crib about its gloom.

Poets never stop crooning
Of the rains:
They rave and rant like verbose viragos
Of the little rain drops.
Some Wordsworthians write of the nature,
And some write of human nature.

And I too become one of them.

Journey of a poem - a poet's ramblings

I
It flowed from a pen like tears down the cheeks.
It came from the heart,
It rose in the mind.

Words and images,
Metaphors and metonymy –
The mind wrote a tribute to the emotions,
The heart sang a hymn to the thoughts.

A poem took shape,
Young and beautiful,
Carrying the burdens of a soul
Captured in the prison of a body.

II
It wafted away from the soul,
Gained various forms,
Made friends,
Gathered enemies,
Bantered with some and chided others,
Became one with another,
And playfully slid away from more….

Like the wanton cupid it struck hearts,
Like the impish Satan it defiled the minds,
Like the glorious angel it comforted some,
Like the morning mist it touched many lives.

The little poem cuddled
On a sheet of white paper,
A leaf of a book,
A page on a blog,
A pane on a website,
A scribbling on a note,
A memory in a bosom…

III
No name, no face,
No credo, no race,
It came to you
And it came to me;
It became mine
And it became yours;

And in that one poem the world found
A relation beyond boundaries.