THAT LAST NIGHT

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 26; the 26th Edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The topic for this month is 'That Last Night'.

A small crowd of reporters was waiting anxiously for the WRITER to arrive, and back of my mind I was very much excited to keep them waiting. I was accompanied by my agent and we walked inside the conference hall and the sound of warm applause relieved me; though, it didn’t satisfy me.

We sat on the chair, which was a de facto way to start the so called interview. “Good evening to all my friends. I am now fixed to chair and you can start the interview. I know many of you have myriad questions running in your minds and soon they are going to be blasted on me. So let the 1^st question of the evening come in”

(A lady of a leading newspaper gets up as soon as if she was waiting to pounce the piece of meat being offered)

Lady1: In your book, you have condemned every campus novelist; so much that it feels, after reading your book, you may soon, indubitably launch another viciously attacking book. What prompted you to write about it?

Me:: You should stand corrected. It didn’t prompt me, but I was forced to write about it after seeing, innumerable people selling their love stories and a long bunch of fools, attaching themselves too much in these imbecile fictionless stories.

(This time another guy sprung up with a rebuttal)

Gentleman1: So you mean to say, those who are willing to read what they want are ‘bunch of fools’ for you? This is a direct attack on the readers. Don’t forget that the same bunch of fools have read your book too.

Me:  So? I haven’t forced anyone to read my book. Why should I behave like a sycophant only because they read my book? It’s my passion to write and their wish to read. Coming to those so called ‘CAMPUS NOVELS’, I hold no qualms in accosting the writers and readers as ‘fools’ since the former are unaware of why did they write this and the latter don’t know why did they have to read this. So there is a stark impotency in their reasoning for their own actions.

Gentleman 2:  But it’s their will wishes to read any book they want to as they are entitled with freedom of choice and expression. They are the youth of the country and one doesn’t have any rights to judge their freedom.

Me: You are totally correct. What you are forgetting is that freedom of expression has two sides; in which, the side which you are talking about can negatively influence the same youth. Who reads those books? I would say above 16- below 30 are the only dense readers for such kind of books. We basically and technically, call the people falling in these age groups as ’YOUNG GUNS’ , and what kind of precedence is been set for them by these writers, like, ‘ ANYONE CAN BECOME A WRITER, IF YOU HAVE GOT WITH YOU, A STUPID-CUPID STORY, AND INDEED SOME GOOFED UP-SPICY-NAUGHTY SEX IN IT’ . Writing is a very dignified profession. It’s a blasé and baseless allegation to generalize this profession to everyone. A writer MUST write for his own thoughts and not for anyone else.

Lady2: I disagree with you on this one. Even here, these writers are writing for their thoughts. So why do you think these thoughts are inappropriate for this generation?

Me: I think it’s not ‘inappropriate’ but humongously evil to even attempt to write about it, because, these aren’t the exact thoughts you want to jolt down. Most of the stories written are a means to flaunt that theirs is the best story. What is supposed to be the lesson of such books? Have you ever thought about this?

Lady1: But why are you oblivious to the fact that people don’t want lessons from every book they read. Life teaches them enough. All they want is a peace of mind, which they achieve after reading this. 

Me:  I think there are enough ways and means to attain peace of mind. You answered your question (with a cynical smile); you said, they achieve peace of mind after reading this, but even this is a lesson they learn from ‘those’ books: to have a placid mind for no absolute reason. Well, to me, the integrity of peacefulness is a must and I believe it should not come at the cost of such petty themes; which stalls your thinking capacity. Peacefulness is achieved only after you stop finding it outside and start realizing it within yourself. I would never ever write to distribute peace, because as a writer, I have to make people think and act, rather than act without thinking.

Lady3: sir, this is a form of literature and by lambasting this; you are directly questioning the forms, which are otherwise considered very sacred.

Me:  LITERAURE doesn’t allow you to express everything. The central idea of literature is to make people think, realize, act as a catalyst to change the society, give discerning parameters to judge themselves and then play an instrumental role in uplifting the society. It should, directly or indirectly propagate this significance.

Gentleman2: one more question sir. Why did you name the book as THAT LAST NIGHT?

Me: If you had analyzed the book and not simply read it, you wouldn’t have asked me this. I have written this book to induce a perception, or better to show a perception which should be carried on from now, that the era of such books and themes has become a cliché, so we should move on from now by considering it to be an incident of ‘that last night’ and start off this today with new measures. This goes out to all such writers, who wish to at last write something plausible, and direct their writings to the situations and scenarios which need to be addressed direly.

(Having said this, I left the place, not caring to the echoes of those reporters, who still wanted justifications. I said what I had to and thus wished to no more answer them as I wasn’t accountable to them anymore……………………………)

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