Some artists first learn to draw by tracing the work of others – sentence structure, tone, plot, word play, imagery. Until I found my own voice, I wrote in the voices of other writers that I read from and tried to mimic. If I were to name one most influential title in my early life, […]
Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, India. Dec 25 2011. “I have a question,” a middle aged man says, his bald pate shiny against the afternoon light filtering into the Lakeside Terrace room at Harbourfront Center. We are at “Safar: Journeys to South Asia” panel of Toronto International Festival of Authors. He addresses the authors, “Do you […]
I was in transit at Dubai. People watching and collecting stories. There were women in saris, men in dashikis, the pilgrims for Ummrah wrapped in their white cloths: traditional clothing a backdrop against the modern lines of the terminal. The airport’s status as an international hub was evident as conversations in different languages overpowered the […]
“The crack’s in me,” I said heroically. – F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Crack-Up”. I drew a picture of myself once as a blue alien figure, without form or face, looking out of a window. From the chest, a rod ran up through the page and down through the ground, piercing the figure in two. I […]
Jatra, Poush Mela, Shantiniketan, India. Dec 23 2013. This photo forms the basis of the opening scene of a short story I am currently working on. The story is also set in Shantiniketan. It is dusk. Kishmish lies on a patch of grass and stares upwards, attracted to the dragonfly whizzing around his head, […]