The Agony of a Sequel Writer - Sophie Hannah, David Lagercrantz, Tilly Bagshawe

How do we feel when we learn that our favourite author is no more? How do we feel when we realised that we are rapidly running out of our favourite author’s books or our favourite series? We feel sad. And then suddenly there is an announcement. A new Poirot mystery is coming. A new Lisbeth Salander book is coming. There is another Sydney Sheldon mystery is there. When I came to know about this, I was happy. But the aftermath of a new Poirot mystery made me believe that, not everybody was happy like me. Sophie Hannah the author to whom the responsibility was given to further the Poirot mysteries was vehemently attacked as was Agatha Christie’s great grandson James Prichard. Okay, so let me go into details. There is an institute that manages Agatha Christie legacy. The head of that management is Agatha Christie’s great grandson. So that trust or management chose Sophie Hannah to write another Poirot mystery. She just did not wake up one morning and published a Poirot. Nobody can do that, there is a thing called “copyright”, remember? People approached her, and she wrote. Now about people criticising James Prichard, Agatha Christie’s great grandson, I do not know whether he did it to make profit. I do not know his ulterior motive, I am not Poirot! What I know is I was happy when I learned that there was a Poirot mystery coming, and I have not read it yet. That was enough for me. I am an insomniac, and at night I read. Just few months before the “Monogram Murders” publication I had finished the entire series of Poirot. So I got hold of “Monogram Murders” as soon as possible. I read it, and I loved it. To be honest it was evident quite blatantly that it was not written by Agatha Christie. But there were few places where Sophie Hannah was almost there. As an avowed Agatha Christie fan, I know that that is a big deal. Both in “Monogram Murders” and “Closed Cascade” Sophie Hannah tried to create the familiar ambience of Agatha Christie. So in “Monogram Murders” there is the description of hotel, London street and in addition to that the walks and the investigation in countryside. In “Closed Cascade” on the other hand there is that all too familiar a grand house, staircases, detailed description of all the guests and the position of their respective rooms. And Sophie Hannah was able to put all the measurements so well. The distance from one place to another, from the upper floor room to the ground floor library always played a vital role in Agatha Christie mystery. In this book Hannah explored a side of human nature that interests and annoys me at the same time. I do not want to give away the ending, but it was the main trait of the murderer. Now I am not going to say more. Just that no one can surpass Agatha Christie. But anything that even resembles Agatha Christie gives me immense happiness. But then anything written after Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple or Poirot is always going to have a resemblance, a shadow of its predecessors.

Something very unusual happened with “The Girl with Dragon Tattoo” series. I watched the movies first, the Noomi Rapace Michael Nyqvist ones, the Swedish ones. And then I read the books. It was not a conscious decision, it just happened that I came across the movies first and then found the books. At a stretch read all three and thoroughly enjoyed them. Then I thought it would be great to have a few more of Lisbeth’s ventures. Then discovered the author Steig Larsson has died in 2004. I was disheartened. It was, I thought in every possible way, an untimely death. I dug deeper, as I always do, and came to know about the whole uproar about the Steig Larsson legacy that was garnered after “The Girl with Dragon Tattoo” fame and the feud about it between Larsson family and his partner of 30 years Eva Grabrielsson. I think it was unfortunate that such ugly thing had to happen around that great writer. He could not even see his literary and monetary success. And I do not think that he was bothered about money. All he probably wanted to do was to write. Only after the greats leave, the petty commoners fight about his fruits of labour. But let’s not concentrate on this unpleasant issue anymore. Let’s talk about the 4^th instalment of the series, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” by David Lagarcrantz. It was published in 2015. I liked it, because again I was happy to read another Lisbeth thriller. The author kept the essence alive. There is internet, hacking, cyber-crime, dark web, malware, an inter-continental conspiracy, complicated relationships. Lagarcrantz loyally kept situations also the same and why not, if the characters are the same! So in “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” also Lisbeth spends time looking at Gamla Stan in the evening, alone. But what is intriguing is that the 4^th book ends with Lisbeth at Blomkvist’s door as in the 3^rd book ends with Blomkvist at Lisbeth’s door. In spite these similarities, I would say Lagarcrantz was already protected from criticism because the story was so infused with technical details, that it was quite difficult to find loopholes regarding trueness of Steig Larsson.

The first Sidney Sheldon book I read was “If Tomorrow Comes”. I think I was in my early twenties. So for obvious reason I was enthralled. The female protagonist Tracy Whitney was a character who was bound to be appealing to girls. A girl who was initially mild and polite, but after going through an ordeal she emerges as this strong person who avenges all the wrong doings. The hero Jeff Stevens was a perfect foil to her. Sidney Sheldon was often criticised for his graphic sexual description. But I noticed something else, suppose in one page you are reading about a graphic description, but on the next page there will be a twist that can just blow the reader’s mind. I also read his autobiographical memoir “The Other Side of Me”. Only two things I can still remember from that book, firstly how his family used to cut the toothpaste tube so they did not waste anything and secondly he suffered from bi-polar disorder. I do not know why I remember these two things. By the way his most famous novel is “Rage of Angels”; the female protagonist is Jennifer Parker. It is an unusual novel. And the ending is… No, nothing! So the publisher of Sheldon’s books Hachette Book Group wanted more Seldonesque books and they decided that this British author Tilly Bagshawe has a similar writing style, and so came Tracy’s “Chasing Tomorrow”, “Reckless”. There was “Mistress of the Game”, sequel to “Master of the Game” which was my favourite Sidney Sheldon book. I read Tilly Bagshawe’s other books too. What can I say; you should read her books if you do not want to put any strain on your brain. See, it was like you are on a diet, but sometimes you eat few packets of chips and coke. Her books are like that. So my reaction to Tilly’s Sidney Sheldon’s sequels is lukewarm, because those could be Tilly Bagshawe novels without few names that have appeared already in Sidney Sheldon.

So the point i am trying to make through this long article is these sequel writers did not snatch the torch but was given to carry it further.

 *Hey, do not forget to post your comments!

Writers' Guide to Creativity

To write according to Virginia Woolf, one needs only pen and paper. Jeffrey Archer said in a book launch in Bangalore, India, writing needs talent and perseverance. Even if one does not have talent, it will do, but it certainly needs perseverance. Maya Angelou used to check into a hotel at 6.30 in the morning with a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards and a bible and wrote 10-12 pages until 2 in the afternoon. In the evening she edited them down to 2-4 pages. Victor Hugo wrote without cloths, Mark Twain, Proust, Capote wrote lying in bed or couch, Hemingway wrote standing upright. There are authors like Faulkner, Joyce, Poe, Tennessee Williams, Dylan Thomas who had the reputation of being alcoholic but did they write while intoxicated?! If someone has the reputation of loving the booze, isn't it quite obvious in some ways that maybe they wrote a few great works while inebriated! Who cares, we at least have those great works to read at night when the whole world sleeps, dreams or procreates! 

So what does one need to write? Virginia Woolf was right, one needs pen & paper, but one needs time too. And yes, Angel of the House always comes to make one feel guilty, if one is a woman.

Jeffrey Archer was right, it needs talent and perseverance, without discipline nothing is possible to achieve. But one cannot totally pooh poohed talent and only rely on perseverance and discipline. 

Maya Angelou's method is very unique but observed by other authors too. In a hotel room far far away from your known habitat gives one a "tabula rasa" one will feel to write is the only thing she has to do. And if one is a woman, then there is no fear of the constant reminder of her domestic chores, wifely and motherly duties. A hotel room helps to disengage oneself from everything. There he or she is left with just one identity, an author. 

Twain, Proust, Capote wrote lying down, maybe because it gave them the ultimate relaxed mind, and only then they could have able to think. People think best, people let their imagination fly only when they are lying in bed, sometime when one just about to drift into sleep, best thought pops up, so why not! 

Victor Hugo wrote without cloths so that he couldn't leave house, or maybe because he wanted to be stripped down off his other identities and to be left with just one true one. 

Hemingway wrote standing upright. Maybe he didn't want to be relaxed. It gave him a strong grip on his creation. When some people watch a great movie or get close to a great incident in a book they stand, they sit up. Maybe that was his reason. Or maybe he was just an upright person all together!

Authors who write while drunk, are giving me real headache to find out reason for them to do so. Maybe they wanted to be uninhibited. Also under influence one actually feel like his or her real self, finds their true identity. Somebody somewhere said always have a glass of wine before going to a job interview, that is the only way to feel like your true self. Also there is again that relaxed angle. And who doesn't know when you are drunk you say or do things that are otherwise unimaginable. In other twisted words, your imagination run wild. And imagination is the key ingredient in writing, unless one is writing an autobiography, biography or a semi autobiography or loosely based on real events...okay you get the gist!

To sum it up, one needs pen, paper, time, talent, perseverance, discipline, no distraction, feeling absolutely him/herself or do not at all feeling him/herself, a bed or a table, alcoholism or sobriety. But problem with me is lack of motivation and pure lethargy. I'm very good at thinking. But feel if only instantly my thoughts were written down somewhere automatically, it would have been so good. Only one thing can motivate me to write like a writer (in the conventional sense!) is if already one of my books is published. I know it will give me the necessary impetus to write. Is there anybody there who thinks like this? 

The Girl with Subtle Revenges and No Tattoos

Why I like revenge thrillers! Why does anybody like revenge stories? It is very simple actually. It gives readers a sense of achievement, a contentment. There is also that justice being done angle. When a person decides to avenge the wrong doing that has been done to him, it automatically creates a goal for him, right? So when the goal is achieved everybody is happy. And that is why we watch movies, read books. We become one with the characters and start to live his or her life, his or her happiness becomes ours, his or her sorrows make us cry as our own. A fictional character’s revenge becomes my revenge. If anyone asks me what part of taking revenge I like the best, I would say the very process of taking revenge.  The careful planning. And that is why I like Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander. This girl with all her tattoos and piercings is like an inspiration. Lisbeth was deprived from any normalcy since her childhood, and she had this gift, this talent that nobody understood, so nobody helped her when she could have done some good with it. Then after such ordeal that was her teen life, finally in her early twenties she managed to have some sort of respite, a system, something nearing to a normal life but again it was shattered by an incident. She got raped and brutally tortured. After the incident what does she do? She could not go to the police, she hated authority probably more than she hated her rapist, so you would expect her to at least cry her hearts out, and blame her fate maybe? Nope, after leaving her rapist’s house she bought painkillers, antibiotics. She went back to her place, took a hot shower, had few pain killers, antibiotics, and sleeping pills and slept. After sleeping for hours, she woke up and had some food. She knew that to take revenge she would need her strength back, the strength that had been taken away. But thankfully it was her physical strength that was harmed; her mind had the strength of an iron column. So she then plotted her revenge with an ice cool head. She considers pros and cons and hatched her plan to set the score right.

Yes, I like the “planning” part of taking revenge. All those minute details of a revenge plan attract me. The very process is enticing. I like planning, but do not worry I do not need to plan to avenge anything so big. Just the very idea of planning something makes me happy; in my case sadly it is almost always a get-together or a movie plan. Is it because nothing brutal ever happened to me like Lisbeth? Maybe. But things have happened to me too, silly little things. I think everybody has something no matter how small, that itch them to tread on the path of revenge. I also plan to take revenge, but luckily I think I can do that just by going on writing. I don’t need a sword, I have my pen, oh no, wait a minute( oh my god, what do I do, how do I turn this around!!) I meant to say my keyboard. I will not shed any blood, I will write my revenge in ink, (oh god, not again) I meant to say on Microsoft word! (What is happening? Is technology actually literary killing poetry of words?) Yes, after writing these few lines I am set on my goals to take revenge more than ever. I tell everybody “I am not a forgetting forgiving kind of girl”, I tell people “when I am good I am good, when I am bad I am better” (remember Demi Moore from Charlie’s Angel?). Obviously those statements are made for empty vacuous dramatic effect and let’s admit we all love creating melodrama around our life, after all we all love the idea of being the main protagonist of a novel. The women in my family especially my maternal side thrives on melodrama. So I am also no exception. But I need to start taking my revenges that are overdue for a long long time.  But first I need a good cup of tea.

Post Scriptum: I wrote the above lines few weeks ago, and just today I heard somebody saying “an unforgiving person gets wrinkles early”. Just now I forgave everybody!

There Are Two Types of Men Regarding PMS

There are two types of men regarding PMS, yes, yes, “men”! There is so much awareness about PMS now. Everybody knows what it is. It is a phase women go through before their menstruation. Hormones go gaga, create havoc in women’s body and mind. Symptoms of PMS are bloating or puffiness, severe mood swings, sudden breakout of acne on a very specific area of one’s face like chin, or forehead. In simple words women feel shit. They become excessively sentimental, teensy weensy things make them cry, they become very sensitive, I mean more than usual. Things that they usually overlook suddenly becomes absolutely unavoidable, mistakes they normally forgive become an offence only to be squared with capital punishment like hanging somebody at town square on the scaffold, and obviously this time a man would be wearing the “scarlet letter”. The anger, the irritability, the wrath, the scorn of a woman during PMS is most of the times aimed at men (not always, please note!), and caused by imbalance of hormones such as Estrogen, Progesterone, FSH (Follicle stimulating Hormone), LH (Luteinizing Hormone) and men. It is not like men become extra insensitive, non-thoughtful, unrefined when women are PMSing, they remain the same, it is just that women become more sensitive, more irritable and less patient than usual.

Now coming to the heading, yes there are two types of men regarding PMS - one, those who acknowledge a woman is PMSing, and that is why she is acting or rather behaving and reacting in a certain way, two, those who thinks the woman is being angry and nasty just for the sake of it and trying to cover up the certain behaviour as PMSing. I have nothing to say to the former ones, they are certainly fine examples of evolved human species (a rare, rare species), they understand science and women and to be more elaborate, women’s body and mind. They have accepted the fact that they make mistakes, and though throughout the month their mistakes are going to be pardoned or overlooked, during PMS, there will be severe reckoning. And they are okay with that, they prepare the hot water bags, microwave bean bags, keep the painkillers, juice, water on her bedside table, keep their hands ready on call for back massages, take her to long drives at 2 a.m. if her majesty whims so! Now the latter ones, I do not want to talk about them. Hey! my ears are hot, my hands and feet are cold and moist, my lower back and legs feel heavy and numb, I feel this blunt pain in my tummy (not heart, at least this time), I can actually feel blood rising to my brain, am I PMSing or just angry?

Please do not forget to like or leave a comment

Galway - J.M. Synge to Ed Sheeran

With the Shape of You, i have started to listened to Ed Sheeran. It happens to me all the time, I hear there is a singer who is taking the world by storm. I don't pay any attention and in the mean time that singer gets all the awards and accolades and becomes a household name. And then one day comes Shape of You and I start to listen. I liked the song solely for the purpose of dancing. It will make anybody dance, and the lyrics are cute, "...last night you were in my room, and now my bed sheets smell like you". There are so many Shape of You dance video on youtube, even Indian classical dances like Odissi and Katthak, it is just unthinkable. Okay I get it, it is called "viral", right? 

So just few days ago when I just finished practising some moves to Shape of You, I came across Galway Girl, " played the fiddle in an Irish band", best lyrics so far by Ed Sheeran and the music is that happy melancholic Irish folk tune which takes you long back to some forgotten "mind palace" that you so desperately want to capture, but cannot. It stars Saoirse Ronan. I saw her first in Hanna. Good movie. Different. I have a soft spot for Eric Bana after Hulk and Munich. This Saoirse Ronan is Irish and always annoyed that nobody pronounces her name correctly. She sometime come across as a rude young girl, but I am also very particular about my name, so if I judge her, it will be seer hypocrisy! Didn't see her Brooklyn, but mean to. So the song Galway Girl, really really loved it. Made me so nostalgic. Riders to the Sea came to my mind right away. Riders to the Sea by J.M. Synge, the Irish playwright. We had it in our graduation syllabus. I believe I was a different person before reading Riders to the Sea. I think everybody changes after reading Riders to the Sea. It had a great impact on me. Maurya and her true premonitions, Nora and Cathleen as the Greek chorus, and how Bartley is going to go to Galway fare to sell horses. The gloom, the doom, the cold, the death, the grey horse, they engulfed me for a considerable time. There was a map of Ireland in the beginning of the book. So yes, I know Galway, I will always remember Galway. But what Ed Sheeran's song can do is to lighten my thoughts about Galway because to me Galway is a place where people want to go but always die in the process.

Sherlock to Surrealism

Few weeks ago watched Dr. Strange Love. Loved it. After Sherlock, I am an avowed Benedict Cumberbatch  fan. In one of his interview he said his fans are calling themselves cumberbitches. He told them to have respect for themselves and is not feminism back! I can proudly say I am a cumberbitch. What is this with British men! I sometimes ask myself (yes, I have lots time in my hand) why I love Benedict Cumberbatch so much, is it because he plays Sherlock, the ultimate greatest detective in the world and I am a sucker for Sherlock? By the way here I must mention that I was also a little bit of in love with Jeremy Brett. He was the first Sherlock I saw on screen. I was so happy; I could not believe I was seeing something so fascinating. For the first time I watched Sherlock Holmes was at one of my relatives’ house. It was, “The Adventure of Sussex Vampire” from the casebook of Sherlock Holmes. I was speechless, I could not believe such story, and that such show could exist on earth. Now when I look back I think that was a turning point of my life. At home we did not have cable. So next time when I watched Sherlock Holmes by Jeremy Brett was in high school. This time I watched every single episode to my heart’s content. I was in awe for that person, but again I think it was because he played Sherlock. So now I am head over heels in love with Benedict Cumberbatch, I think it is also because he portrays my favorite character on screen. Here I must mention something that may seem a digression. Few days back I was watching “My Fair Lady”. Last time I watched it was many years ago, and totally missed Jeremy Brett who played Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a possible suitor for Eliza Doolittle.

My liking for Sherlock was a bit different than my liking for Poirot or Miss Marple. I want to be Poirot or Ms. Marple, hell, I think I am Poirot or Ms. Marple but Sherlock is someone I want to make fall in love with me. Oh that troubled soul, that coke addiction, that unworldly intelligence, that soulful music of his violin, that superior attitude. But then I realised in some ways I am like him. I sometimes think I am surrounded with people who are not getting something that is absolute obvious or just in front of them. I realised things that others don’t, and that sometimes give me a supercilious attitude. People around me find it irritating, I am not blaming them. I forgive them! But the problem is others have accepted Sherlock’s depth of understanding and perspective but not mine! What can you do! Oh wait so I want be Sherlock’s girlfriend and I myself is (I think!) a bit like Sherlock that means I am in love with me! I am a narcissus! What a surprise (severe eye rolling)!

Now about Doctor Strangelove, I did not start talking about the movie just because of Benedict Cumberbatch, but something else intrigued me, in the movie the characters have this power to fold, unfold matters or things around them. When it was happening I realised it has a strong resemblance to surrealism. In surrealistic paintings one can see a staircase is going nowhere, a man walking on the roof, a building is dividing itself in parts and those parts falling down and then rebuilding another building. So yes, Doctor Strangelove has peculiar similarities with the works of Salvador Dali, M. C Escher, Picasso. My question is was the director did this knowingly or not! Okay, let me ponder over the strangeness of the world a little bit more with a fresh cup of tea.

Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell, Val Mcdermid

I’m a thriller/murder mystery junky. I tell people Agatha Christie is my god. There was a book in our home I saw lying here and there since I was a child, that book was “A Murder Is Announced”. I used to write my name on the pages of “A Murder Is Announced”. Actually I practiced writing my name after learning how to write my name, and used “A Murder Is Announced” as a copybook! Now I go through that book, see my unsteady name on its pages and feel stupid.

I have the entire collection of Agatha Christie, but I don’t write my name on its pages anymore.  I’m a grownup now and I write my name with a steady hand, I write it, sign it on official forms and also like everybody else have developed a personalized style. Ahem…ahem! I have read “A Murder Is Announced”, obviously. The second Agatha Christie or to be more exact Ms. Marple book I read was “Nemesis”.  I was speechless. The story was so unique. I don’t want to reveal the story, because there are still people in the world who haven’t read Christie yet. God bless them! See here I’m trying to be sarcastic but I know I dare not because there are zillions of books I myself haven’t read yet.

We were talking about “Nemesis”, yes. The way this story starts slowly in St. Mary Mead with Ms. Marple reading her morning paper and then takes up pace and ends with head whirling outcome. That subtle hint of homosexuality presented by Christie is well crafted. It was like out of curtsy Christie could not openly citing it but giving enough reasons for reader to decide the obvious. When Ms. Marple was given that poisoned milk because she got too close to the murderer, I was biting my nails; I sat up on my bed in tension and finished rest of the novel. The gloom and sad terror of that house engulfed me. I guess you have to read it to know it.

With Agatha Christie I fell in love with English countryside. It gives me a sense of calm, a sense of peace, and a sense of belonging, and why do I of all people feel a sense belonging to English countryside I don’t  know, it’s a mystery!  Just now while actually writing the last sentence I realized that what these books gave me was an escape. After a while I came across Ruth Rendell and Val Mcdermid. But how did I come across Rendell and Mcdermid? When I was sadly realizing with unnatural restlessness that Ms. Marple and Poirot cases were rapidly being solved because of my devouring them at an alarming pace, I started looking for other similar types of books. I blatantly and very crudely googled “other authors like Agatha Christie” and found and liked Rendell.  First Ruth Rendell book that I read was “From Doon with Death”. It was also Rendell’s first Wexford mystery. It also had something very similar to “Nemesis”. Truth to be told I was re-reading “Nemesis” last week and realized that “”Nemesis” and “From Doon with Death” have a subtle similarity. But it is not a surprise because Rendell is often times called modern Christie. And I hope she did not mind, but then who would! Through Rendell’s Wexford mysteries I got the chance to again walk through English countryside. Rendell and Christie’s countryside, the society, people are quite similar. In the first book there was nothing about Reginald Wexford, the detective’s personal life, but as I read more his entire life unveiled in front of me. No, he does not have a life of an adventurer. He is quite domesticated with wife and two daughters. Entire Wexford series covers his life when his daughters are in their teens to when his grandchildren are off to college. What makes him a hero of a story is his extra ordinary detection skill and what makes him a human is his momentary lapse when he cannot help but feeling attracted to a beautiful girl though he loves his wife Dora to death. In “The Monster in the Box”, there is a description of Wexford-Dora love story and the subsequent marriage. There is aloso Wexford’s trusty associate Mike with whom he always go to some new restaurant that has opened in the town. Their venture into these new theme based restaurants is always hilarious.

I found Val Mcdermid through Steig Larson. In “Girl with Dragon Tattoo” Blomkvist would go to that cabin in Hedeby Island and to fight off loneliness he would buy few books of Val Mcdermid. Mcdermid’s England is a contemporary and modern England. Her Detective duo is DCI Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill. Carol Jordan is a strong woman who runs her own team. While handling a case she will come in contact with Dr. Tony Hill, a psychiatrist. There will be a mutual attraction but it will soon come to the light that Dr. Hill is impotent. I was shocked because I have never seen a detective who has such fallibility, but it has only made Tony Hill a human just like Wexford but for reasons that are poles apart. And the mysteries! Yes, they were worth my time, my mind and my nights. It was in one of Mcdermid’s book “The Mermaid Singing” that for the first time I came across few pages that I actually skipped for its brutality. And I read John Sandford and Pierre l’ Maitre for god’s sake!

As I told earlier in Tony Hill-Carol Jordan books the England is the present England. Here various characters frequently frequent curry houses meaning Indian restaurants. There are often mentions of poppadum, onion pakora, butter chicken, nans. I like these detailed descriptions. In any novel detail description of a house, rooms, dresses, food help me connect with the story and characters more. I want to know what was there on the table by the window; I want to know the colours of the curtains, the upholstery. I want novels to be like pre-Raphaelite poetry where they paint with their words and wrote with colours.

Be it Christie, Rendell or Mcdermid, the  mornings, the evenings, love, hate, crimes, twisted  human minds and adamant intelligent detectives with their tenacious continuous effort to bring justice is always the same.  But whatever thriller I read, at the end I find they are just another story of people.

Zara or Zara Men's That Is the Question

We have a shopaholic friend whose sole interest in life are coitus (all hail Dr. Sheldon Cooper for making it a household jargon), opposite homo erectus, her lingerie omnibus, makeup & brush, being slutty with a correct amount of virgin blush and having her name among the fashionistas. Yeah she lives and breaths cloths. So few days ago our herd was grazing about in our favourite pastureland, a shopping mall, obviously, and one of us announced to the rest of the fashionistas that that aforementioned friend is pregnant, no she was not there. And look at the fate, that time we were just crossing Zara. I had this brainwave and uttered something the way someone in the Genesis did, "Let there be light" or maybe like a high priestess from the Delphi, "She should name her child ZARA", everybody nodded, then one asked anxiously, "If its a boy, then?" I said like a calm cool Himalayan saint who was just happened to be in h&m cloths with chocolate sauce of her dunkin donuts dripping from her mouth corner, "Then she should name him ZARA MEN'S"!

A Tribute to OCD and Not 59

Hercule Poirot likes things in a certain way, he prefers square things, even his toasts, I mean each and every piece of bread and also his eggs have to be of same size, eggs!! Can you believe it! He is a firm believer of formal attire, and he sticks to that even when he is going to a rough country walk or to the desert. He even once told Hastings to part his hair in the middle. His love for symmetry is unthinkably praiseworthy; to be precise like that needs real passion for nuances. Now if we start talking about his moustache and its very particular up keeping then may I well need to start an epic. So let’s drop that matter now.

Another detective like Poirot is off course Adrian Monk. He likes thing square, he counts his steps, likes things to be arranged from 1 to 10, not 5 after 8. When there is three flowers in three separate vases, and one of them is shorter than the other two, he cannot decide whether to put the shorter one in the middle or to put it after bigger ones in a descending order. He is a sever germophobe, he puts his used napkins when he has flue in a zip-lock bag, and then put it in another zip-lock bag, and then put all those zip-lock bags in a big zip-lock bag.

Now comes Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets”. Here in this movie his character again counts steps, brings his own forks to his regular restaurant where he likes to be served only by this particular waitress, Helen Hunt. He uses soaps just one time, and then for second wash at that same time uses another new soap and then throw them away.

Monica from f.r.i.e.n.d.s. this maternal friend of Joey, Chandler, Rachel, Ross, Phoebe is an OCDian on the verge of being irritating but even then you cannot stop loving her. Every furniture in her room has their specific place. The border of the carpet should be aligned with the couch; the phone pen should be in its correct allotted place. Hundreds of freeze magnets are there and if one is moved, she will know, yes, she will know as she herself allotted their places. Today let’s not go into the details of her being a control freak, I am not writing a novel here. Someday, someday!

Everybody has their own set of problems. But the problem is now every problem has a name, not only that, a scientific name. A person likes things in a certain way, if it is not in that particular way, it bothers her. Now this way of a person is called OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, in plain colloquial language “creature of habit”, one can also call it loyalty, let’s call it loyalty, who’s stopping me! In this way you will know that if an OCDian commits to something, there is a chance he or she will not waver. Now how much one loses her sanity, temper, and calmness when her habits are disrupted, to what intensity, that is the question. Sometimes they become irritating and sometimes scary. Most of the OCDians are clean freak. I am not so clean freak, but I like things in a certain way (obviously!) that would probably seem very trivial or silly to others. And when they are not in that certain way, irritation, anger and weirdness hit me. Okay, so here it goes, I do not like any number that ends with 9, for example, 19, 29, 39, 49, 59 and so on. I know the reason for this, see, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 give a sense of completeness, there is no undone thing, it so proper, neat. But when I face the number 19, I feel like why not go a little bit more and close with 20! Why leave something on 19, when 20, a good round neat proper number is right there! I specifically have some serious issues with 59. The logic is just few numbers ago I came across 50, so neat, an exact half of 100, everything is so proper, clean, clear-cut. And then we go 9 more and stops at 59! WHY?? Then the whole beautiful journey from 1 to 50 just goes astray. I like the number 69, it has its own symmetry, the yin yang and its fun. I do not have that much problem with 9, I do not know why, maybe because in itself it stands for something, like holy trinity, maybe because it is a set of 3! But if something being counted from 1 and abruptly stops at 9, yeah, then it will bug me.

If somebody is giving me a foot massage, and tugging my toes, I would like my left foot, toes to be tugged in the same order as my right foot toes, preferably starting with the big toe.

So bed sheets, if it has flowers on it, I would like those printed flowers toward the head of the bed, stems or leaves toward the foot. Why are you frowning? It is the only normal thing to do. Oh, you don’t think it’s normal? Okay, but I have Harold Pinter on my side, who asked the most apt question, “Normal? What’s normal?” Now let's brew a cup of tea and ponder over the absurdity of existence!