Tears and Warning Bells Again – A Real Life Incident

Dear Usha,

It's the other way round. You are - I mean all of you are - improving my writing skills. I am placed in a position to defend a man who is absolutely defenceless and you have a field day pouncing upon the hapless person.

If the person had said, "I am going to pursue my dreams. What if I am 55?" we might not have known him at all. And even if we had known him and I wrote the incident in IL, all of you say, "What happened to Varalotti? He is posting such lacklustre, such dull incidents here in IL."

The story has drawn all of you exactly because he is wrong.

Usha, you have agreed to shower mercy provided.. provided... The Provisos you have introduced would definitely beat those in our tax laws. Especially when the Indian Income Tax Act is about to confer a benefit on the assessee the section is riddled with so many Provisos, sometimes one going against the another.

But what you say is right; we can't show mercy to a man who has not realised his mistake. But I am sure he would have realised his mistake by the time he cried before JK. Especially when JK whipped him mercilessly with his strong words that his urge to paint was not as strong as his urge to eat or sleep.

So technically after the incident he would have fulfilled all the Provisos ordained by Chief Justice Usha. And now Your Excellency, he is just waiting for your mercy.

But that apart I would like to point out your words, "If the man had blamed himself for what happened, and looked for help, he deserves mercy and compassion". Your Honour the moment you start looking into the fact whether the subject deserves mercy or compassion, then what you show is not mercy but justice and fairness. And I extend the same defence for the AIDS patients.

Take the case of a cancer victim. Especially an innocent person who does not smoke or drink or does anything bad. Still he has cancer. No doubt he would be sad.

But think of an AIDS patient. When the verdict is pronounced what would be his suffering! He would be thinking at least a billion times that had I not strayed from the path of morality I would not have had this dreaded disease. Normally we would grieve 100 times more for an avoidable error than an unavoidable situation.

And AIDS patient is a punished sinner, a condemned sinner. The only feeling we can show to him or her is compassion.

regards,
sridhar

Dear Latha,

When you are vehemently arguing in this thread you drop many real life examples all of which have increased my admiration for you.

What you say is perfectly right. Persons who blame others do not deserve our mercy. But again we are imposing conditions on people to receive our mercy. Such an imposition would degenerate the quaility of mercy.

Blaming others, especially in cases like this happens because of stupidity rather than anything evil. And towards stupidity what else can we show but mercy and tolerance?

Many young writers have sought my advice. (Of course I am also a young writer; not with reference to my age but with reference to my writing experience). I find all of them blaming somebody else for their not writing. One would say, "That editor cannot understand my writing." "This editor is biased against me." I always tell them to seek the answer in themselves. Of course editors are biased, short tempered, do not read our scripts but all these are givens. We can't change it. Once you put the blame on the editor you are closing down all the doors to improve.
The height of idiocy came in when a distant relative of mine in his 60s came to see me. He wanted to know why none of his stories have been published. He was kind enough to narrate the stories he had sent to mags. There was virtually nothing in them. There was no drama, no conflict, no resolution, no emotions nothing. At the end he told that he strongly suspected the magazine editors. He told me that the editors have stolen his stories and have sold them to Directors.
Now tell me Latha, how should I react to this man? Can I say, "You moron, you don't know how to write and you have the nerve to say somebody stole your stories." The stupidity of my man is not this graphic but in terms of intensity it is the same. That is why he needs our mercy - I mean unconditional mercy.
Thanks for your emotional and enthusiastic participation, Latha.

If I can take the liberty, Latha, you can start writing your own story. Just write a few pages a day regularly. At the end of a few months you will be amazed at your own work.
All the best,
Varalotti

Dear Preethi,

Your participation in this thread was excellent. You are down to earth, practical and have a way with the words.

I did not have any ulterior motive while asking you to give some real life examples.
I just thought that instead of arguing dryly with words we could talk in examples and real-life situations. That all.

I enjoyed your posts very much.

There is no question of cornering, Preethi. Why should I corner you? Your arguments served to clarify my thoughts and organise my thinking. Only after reading all my posts did I wonder I have so much to say on this incident.

Regarding your last post my replies to Latha and Usha answer the points which I think I can answer.

Thanks once again, for your participation

sridhar

I read your chirukathaikal in the tamil magazines and your some postings in IL site.You are very cleaver writer.
There will be no tears from your kathanayakan if he knows
Vyatha gita presented to the koushika muni by the Kasappu kadaikkaran and the thirukkural
Enni thuniga karmum thunintha pin ennuvum enpathu ezhukku
tsseethalakshmi

Ma'am,
I am honoured for you are entering my thread for the first time. I fully accept your views subject to the following:

a) I do not want to be known as a clever writer. Clever to me has always been associated with cunningness. I don't mind being called a lousy writer, or even a bad writer but a clever writer is something else. There is a bengali proverb
"chalaki dwara koi mahath karya hoi nai." That is nothing great happens through cleverness.

b) Had my kathanayakan read vyatha Githa (you mean kokkai eritha konganava) and thirukkural he would not have wept before a public audience. And if he had not wept, we would not have known his touching story, nor there would be a thread like this, drawing wonderful and vehementlhy wonderful views from wonderful persons like Kamla, Latha, Preethi and last but not the least, Madam, tsseethalakshmi.

Thanks for the participation.
regards,
varalotti enra sridhar

Most Gracious ILites,

Thanks a ton for your enthusiastic and emotional support for this thread. I have just now hosted the next thread again on the same topic. But this time I have given my short story, The Freedom Song, which was my first story in English.

As usual this story created a lot of controversy. With somebody praising it skyhigh and many others condemning it as it "praises selfishness and condemns the sacrifice of the parent."
I don't know what you are going to do with the story. It is in your hands.
regards,

Varalotti