'FICTION'

I am an avid reader. It's been something of a childhood habit for me. To lose yourself in an alternate world, an alternate reality, getting to know people far away from you, some that don't even exist is an experience that has to be experienced to tell how it feels. Their points of view, their opinions. It is the best medium of escapism & just as visual as cinema, if written in the right way.

Of late, I have been developing an interest in this one particular author's books. I found an increasing amount of empathy in the stories. That they were based in real locations added to the empathy. Also, there are no fairy tale characters or fairy tales for that matter in her stories. They are people who you might meet today as you step out of your home, at your workplace, at a cafe, on the street, anywhere. Currently, I am reading a third book by this author and I have to say, this story has got me just as interested as the previous ones. It's also got me thinking & wondering about the parallels between fiction & non-fiction. When I am reading, like say this particular story that I am reading right now for instance, it almost seems to have happened in real life sometime back, real locations, real situations & people too who feel real. There is this amazing one-thing-leads-to-another string of events that is so coherent that I find it increasingly alluring to think that probably the best 'fictional' stories can arise from our very much non-fictional lives. Many people resort to books and cinema as a means of escapism. India can easily boast highly of this, considering a movie like 'Kick', which is as make-belief & superficial as it gets, becomes the top grossing movie of the year. But then if our lives are indeed such amazing sources of stories, why is it that we don't seem to enjoy it as much as we would if it would have been printed in 300 pages? Come on, let us not deny the obvious. We have fancied stepping into a certain someone's shoes & living a life that is in someway, anyway different than our own. Do we at times step aside & see our life, that which has passed & that which is ongoing & simply rejoice in it's nature, regardless of the calamities & catastrophes? Do we find it as fascinating as a 'fictional' story? But is it not? And would packaging your story into say 300-400 pages make you look at your life in a different light?               

I think that is why a book or a movie catches attention & makes us love it to our very core. It's only when the limelight falls on you, your story that you sit up & rejoice in the attention that you get. We all want some amount of attention to be paid. Can you imagine a theater actor reciting the monologue of his life on a grand stage, using every muscle & nerve of his body, with all his life in his voice to an empty hall? You might contend that he probably can, he can just vent out for a catharsis but even in that process, he is imagining a certain someone hearing him & probably smiling or applauding him. I had been maintaining a diary for 5 years until the last two years. Five extremely eventful years of my life have been captured in their true essence in it & apart from the one super embarrassing time that my mother got hold of it & read a few pages, it's privacy has remained sacrosanct. Initially, that's how I wanted it to be, just a reservoir of my feelings & emotions that no one should know about. But now I can't help but think that I indeed wish the concerned people read it, that they were indeed things I wanted to say but I couldn't & so I had this wonderful thought that someone would find this diary innocently, in my absence & just know what I feel, what I want, come up to me & understand & just do what I want. Even today, a remnant of this fantasy stays. Probably after I pass away someone could find it! We want our secrets to not be so sometimes!

Well, whether that would happen or not is completely unknown to me. What I do know & understand is that my life is just as promising & thrilling as any bestseller that have come or will come. I do see my life, whatever part of it has played itself till now, as an amazing journey & I look forward to writing an ending that justifies the journey up till now!