The Isle

There was an isle, 'twas formed anew 

Bereft of hope or cheer 

The sea had come, had raged and wrecked 

Sparing naught but fear

They'd sought its aid, in times of need 

Alas! Betrayed were they! 

For, down it came, its waters fierce 

All castles washed away

Grieved and sore, those forlorn folk 

Thus took to brick and stone 

A wall they wrought, and kept at bay

The seas, the foes unknown

For days on end, in peace they lived

No battles, naught to mend

But oh! One day, a silent stream

Came trickling round a bend

Benign it seemed, 'twas paid no heed

It grew and swelled unseen

With all its might, it brought to ground

The wall that once had been

The ocean wild, it rushed in free

And fiercely coursed right through

The flood was great, the folk aghast

And dread was born anew

But time went by, and soon they saw

The sea had come to tend

For, life it brought, no harm was done

And foe had turned a friend

Thus trees shot up, and meadows bloomed!

The isle was never so fair!

A scent so sweet, of newborn woods

Lingered in the air!

And ever since, the sea and isle

In harmony did thrive

The waters free, they lapped the shore 

And kept the isle alive

And yet this gift, the people knew

Could well be snatched away

The powerful sea now ruled the land

Free to abandon, or stay

There was an isle, 'twas formed anew

Filled with hope and cheer

Woods and meadows, sand castles high

The ocean looming near..

A rainy day

He scurried along the road, as fast as his tiny legs would carry him, trying to block everything happening around him. He was just beginning to feel slightly light and dry when, in his haste, he tripped on a pebble by the sidewalk and fell face-first, nearly breaking his nose. With that familiar clap of thunder, the dark cloud above his head unleashed another downpour upon his already damp head.

He was tired of that obstinate rain cloud hovering above his head. Every time he managed to shake it off, something seemed to happen to provoke it to burst and pour once again. And he simply couldn’t figure out why it followed him around, never targeting any of the other people around him. It all began in the morning when he woke up to the sound of his mom yelling at him. That was when the grey fluffs had begun to gather above him. As he quickly shoved down his breakfast, there had ensued another mild scuffle with his older sister, and he had felt the first drizzle of the gathered clouds and had hurried on his way to school.

Feeling extremely ungainly and embarrassed, he picked himself up after tripping on the pebble and trudged along in the rain, and somehow made it to his classroom in the 2^nd grade, fortunately without further incident. The first class was his favourite, and the clouds progressively started turning from grey to white. By the time it was recess, even the white clouds had drifted a small distance away. He was running around and playing with a few kids, almost oblivious to the reappearing haze, when suddenly – lightning struck! It was the bully from 3^rd grade. The clouds came gliding back in unison, and with a boom of thunder, a fresh storm was under way. Before he knew it, he was drenched from head to toe, and singed by lightning. He sat in a corner of the playground, unable to escape the rain. Drenched and soaking wet, he watched miserably as the other kids played, with the sun shining merrily above them, bright as a day in summer. He shuddered slightly in the cold.

He stayed well out of harm’s way through the rest of the day and by evening, the torrents had reduced to a mild drizzle. He rushed out thankfully at the end-of-day bell, and started walking home alone. His solitary stroll did him good, and the rains stopped finally, and he started making plans for his evening at home. That was when the next blow struck – he had a test the next day and had completely forgotten about it until just then. He could almost hear the clouds whizzing back to place, and this time, the deluge brought him to the ground and he flopped down onto the pavement. He sat there for a while, wallowing in self-pity and his hurricane. The persistent clouds beat down on him relentlessly, until he felt like he could just give up and sit there forever. After a while, he stood up, shook himself, and resumed dragging his sodden self along the road towards his home again.

Know your audience

When a scientific discovery is made, it hits the news instantly, a bunch of equations are derived and verified, a series of tests are conducted to prove their authenticity, and a number of awards are bestowed upon the person who discovered it. A work of art, however, is not met with the same unanimous appreciation. Everybody has, at some point, said “This book is terrible!”, “What a boring movie!” or “You call this music?!”.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, and that’s why the success of a piece of art is decided solely by the opinion of its audience. Then again, what is “success” to an artist? It could be a number of things varying from money and fame to appreciation and feedback. A director who wants his movie to connect with people emotionally may consider it a success even if he makes no money but gets a bit of the audience to shed a tear or two. And a singer may be perfectly happy with all his viewers sniggering about his lack of talent as long as he gets thousands of hits on Youtube.

Take books, for instance. Anybody who has read The Lord of the Rings knows that JRR Tolkien loved creating images of majestic kingdoms and spinning tales of history and lore. He planted in every reader’s head, a picture beautifully adorned with castles and forests and a detailed back story to all of it. He adds an authentic touch with his effective use of archaic language, which strengthens the “once-upon-a-time” factor in the fairy tale trilogy. It is true that a large number of people find it very hard to get through his books, what with heavy reading required and the lack of a gripping story. But avid readers will always love him for the world he created, for his bountiful imagination and his evident passion for writing, as will creative writers. And that in itself is quite a success to his credit.

If the target audience is one that likes fast paced, exciting stories with twists and turns in every page, then George R. R. Martin is a winner. His latest work, A Song of Ice and Fire, is a series of books about the battle between many dynasties for a kingdom. Martin has made the books very unpredictable, exhibiting the courage to kill off many important characters, something that most authors would never venture, out of fear of losing a huge chunk of the story. But Martin knows no fear, and the story gets wilder and wilder with surprises at the turn of every page. Another thing that keeps readers totally hooked to this series is the lack of a well-defined “good guy” and “bad guy”. It is impossible to pick a hero or a villain, because every time you try, a brave knight commits treason, or a baseborn thief saves a life. And since there is no good guy or bad guy, there is no saying who the real winner is, in the game of thrones. And this uncertainty keeps the reader interested through every page of the voluminous series.

Chetan Bhagat’s success as an author has always been challenged by many who claim that he does not have the gift for writing. But there is no denying that he did shoot to fame through his books. His books are entertainers, the easy-to-read types, which are more dialogue and less narration, and his topics are very relevant to everyday life. He caters to that section that prefers light reading and less to think about, which, fortunately for him, happens to constitute a large part of India’s youth these days. His idea of success, one could assume, is fame. And he is certainly one guy who became a success by knowing his audience.

Music also is always met with a volley of contrasting opinions, and there are umpteen bases on which a piece of music can be judged. There are so many ways in which music can reach a person. Many people judge songs based on the lyrics – some look for use of language, some look for the poetic touch, and some look for lyrics that they can relate to personally. Some people are more interested in the instrumental part of the song. The right usage of instruments can be very powerful in setting the mood of a song. A song, purely with proper use of instruments, can touch a person deeply and bring a smile to the face or tears to the eye. And when a song can achieve that effect, it is met with high appreciation. Some music lovers look for the overwhelming power of technology to edit a song to make it just perfect, while there are equally contrasting opinions in people who believe that technology shadows talent, and a song performed with nothing but simple instruments and the vocal abilities of the singer is of more musical value. This is again a situation where the artist needs to pick the audience he wants to cater to. For most Indian music, a huge difference is made to songs purely by the singers. A singer with a great voice can turn a boring song into one pleasant to the ears. A singer, with a trained and practised control over his/her voice attempting hard notes, can create awe in the musically literate. A singer who expresses the lyrics with the intended emotion in his/her voice can touch many people, even when one does not understand the lyrics.

And of course, there will always be those worldwide hits like Kolaveri and Gangnam style. These numbers, though seemingly devoid of anything extraordinary, got into every one of our minds and refused to leave until they got our heads nodding to the white-u skin-u girl-u, and our feet tapping to Psy’s random exclamations!!

I suppose the same holds good for movies, paintings, fashion designers and the like. We are all constantly judging and deciding the success of different people every single day. What with being made to accept all scientific facts as infallible, art is the outlet for freedom of expression, both for the artist, and for the heavily opinionated audience. Because after all, only Phoebe Buffay is at liberty to challenge the concept of gravity – “Lately, I get the feeling that I’m not so much being pulled down as I am being pushed”.