My maiden 'Novel' blues
After letting
me pen over a score of articles, though my muse prompted me to enter into the
arena of fiction, yet it made me struggle to come up with the opening lines of
my maiden novel for over ten days or so before “That winter night in the
mid-seventies, the Janata Express was racing rhythmically on its tracks towards
the coast of Andhra Pradesh. As its headlight pierced the darkness of the
fertile plains, the driver honked the horn as though to awake the sleepy
environs to the spectacle of the speeding train. On that, in the S-3, were the
Ramaiahs with their nine year-old daughter Roopa.”
But then “the
train stopped at a village station, as though to disrupt Roopa’s daydreams of
modeling herself on the lady doctor at the Christian Medical College Hospital,
and as she peeped out, the ill-lit platform seemed to suggest that the chances
of her being
Dr. Roopa could be but dim.”
Indeed, as Roopa’s father couldn't help her become a
doctor, she marries Sathyam, hoping that he would help her cause, but when he
fails her, feeling used by him, she insensibly seeks lesbian solace in her
friend Sandhya’s embrace. Later, losing her heart to Raja Rao, Sandhya’s
husband, she finds herself in a dilemma of love, even as Sathyam’s friend
Prasad woos her to distraction. Unfolding the compelling saga of Roopa’s love
and loss, governed by the vicissitudes of life, this 'novel' endeavor nuances
man-woman chemistry on one hand, and portrays woman-woman empathy on the other.
When, in
an absorbing story, these and other inimitable characters began to come alive
in an intricate plot, I could sense that my maiden novel was turning out into a
work of art on the Indian literary stage, and so I was desperate to live up to
its completion in its poetic prose. Oh, how I feared death then, and what a
relief it was as I lived to keep up with the muse to complete 'Benign
Flame'!
But what
a poetic justice it was that the publishers’ apathy, for my literary foray into
an uncharted fictional arena, pushed me into Roopa’s despondent shoes, leg for
leg! So to say, to atone for myself, and to earn for her the empathy, at least,
of a few discerning readers, I self-published it, in which some have found
freshness - “it’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not
trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have
habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital
affairs” – for, after all, Raja Rao famously goads the deviant Roopa to love
Sathyam too to make him happy.
Who said the novel is dead; 'Benign Flame' raises the bar as vouched for by –
The author has convinced the
readers that love is something far beyond the marriage tie and the fulfillment
in love can be attained without marriage bondage. The author has achieved a
minor revolution without any paraphernalia of revolution in the fourth part of
the novel – The Quest, India.
The author makes free use of –
not interior monologue as such, but – interior dialogue of the character with
the self, almost resembling the dramatic monologue of Browning. Roopa, Sandhya,
Raja Rao and Prasad to a considerable extent and Tara and Sathyam to a limited
degree indulge in rationalization, trying to analyse their drives and impulses
– The Journal of Indian Writing in English.
Overall, Benign
Flame is a unique attempt at exploring adult relationships and sexuality in the
contemporary middle-class. All the characters come alive with their cravings
and failings, their love and their lust. Benign Flame blurs the lines and
emphasizes that life is not all black and white - it encompasses the full
spectrum of living - Indian Book Chronicle.
Later, after enriching it further, I’ve placed this enchanting novel in the public domain as a free ebook to more acclaim https://bulususmurthy.blogspot.com/2020/10/benign-flame-saga-of-love.html?zx=567f8bbe3e0f3649 that is even as ‘publishing’ remains the Domain of the Devil, as captured in the eponymous chapter of my second novel, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Love, also in the public domain https://bulususmurthy.blogspot.com/2020/10/jewel-less-crown-saga-of-life.html
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