This is how I started with Golden Age

Franz Kafka or Robin Sharma or Jose Marti or even Arundhthi Roy? No….my soul seems to give a solid answer when someone asks me whether my quench of writing was initiated by any of these writers. I love all of them, who instigated revolutions in the world with their pens...their pens had questioned about and at times had argued against to the ideals, Slavism, facts, god, ghost, and each possible realistic aspect in this world. They were courageous to bring the drizzles of realism to this world, which suffered rigorously from the disease of superstition. As a realist myself I follow their foots especially I love Ms.Roy for her bold way of writing and I always wonder how her pens could only express thousands of emotions in a single phrase. However, I would say none of these writers initiated my quench of writing…yes….it was Thamima Anam a writer from Bangladesh, who directed my soul towards the light of writing on the realities.

I was 16 years old when my brother brought me Anam’s book ‘Golden Age’. This book was basically about a family’s story during Bangladesh war. This Novel brought the reality of Bangladesh war into my eyes….the whole novel illustrated about how a mother’s life was changed during the period of war and about the war’s psychological impacts in the normal mass living. Foremost what I liked in the novel is that Anam didn’t talk about the political changes and she was inspired and worried about the average people’s lives and their worries during war...This subject was quiet related to me as I too was a civilian in Jaffna during the civil war and I knew how much war can pain people. Rohana the major character in the novel was flourishing and inspired me to read each word without even missing a single word.

As to what Anam says, Rohana was a widow with five children who refused to remarry. One day, some Guerilla freedom fighters entered to their garden and hided some weapons by making a bunger and after few months later, they came and brought the weapons with them. However, it became an unforgettable incident in their life…some military members noted the bunger in the garden and asked Rohana why the bunger is there. She said that they wanted to make a well and the same question was asked from her elder son as well. Very luckily he also said the same lie what Rohana told without even knowing that they asked the same from her as well…however, they managed to escape from the situation.  This incident in the novel reflected the situation in Jaffna…Indeed the situation seemed to be identical. I remembered the bunger life, bombings, fear, displaces and the all desecrations during the war in 1995…In Rohana’s family, some of them were already joined in the organization of freedom fighters and some of the others were influenced by some Guerilla fighters..Yes, it was the same situation in Jaffna. I worried how desecrate is that the young blood is spreaded and wasted onto the roads of mother land. The reality is that whether it is North or East, war is war….war has some unique desecrations….and in reality; war excessively impacts on the people’s lives and on other living beings too. 

With an interview with BBC, Anam told that she lives in London and she didn’t want to go to Bagaladesh again as she would remember the past days if she goes and lives in Bangladesh. It too reflected the same feeling to me…migrated younger generation of Jaffna doesn’t want to see the dark side and they never accept that Jaffna will be a peaceful place to live.

Anam’s Golden Age seems to come first in my mind whenever someone talks about writing and books. Her writing was flourishing for me and the reason might be that I am very much related to the concept what she was inspired to. For her, Monika Ali’s Brick Lane and Sadi Smith’s white teeth (earlier books that talk about the impacts of wars) seem to role model her writing. However, I never tried Monika Ali or Sadi Smith. Instead, I started loving Arundhathi Roy’s writings. I started wondering at her boldness and the fire that spreads from each word her pen outlines. I remember her saying about the trueness in city life in an article that enchanted me very much. ‘I don't think it's true of people who've grown up in cities so much, you may love building but I don't think you can love it in the way that you love a tree or a river or the colour of the earth, it's a different kind of love’. I love her views and this can be the reason why I hate city life and always doubt on the artificial faces who smile only at the material things and never bothered about their soul esteem. I am too in the process of understanding the views behind ‘Robin Sharma’s who will cry when I die’ and I don’t know when I will make it.

For me, I love Arundhthi. I love Robin Sharma. I love each possible writer who expresses realistic views. Each writer is unique and they are different in their ways of looking into aspects. Even, I will decide my own way in my journey with the guts of welcoming both flowers and stones in my way…but Thamima Anam comes in mind first. At my sweet golden age sixteenth, she inspirited me towards the concept of realism in war and her views imitated and reflected my own feelings very well. She might not be the best writer to this world…but she is the ever best inspirer to me.  

The pens that bleed forever

What motivates a writer to write? What derives a writer to come up with bunches of ideas, viewpoints, and criticisms? In my view, it is very uncommon for a writer to keep quiet in-front of injustice. A writer’s pen becomes extremely expressive and sharply tear the components of injustice, and in further probe the causes of phenomenon. In fact, an emotional-sensitive writing plays a key role in bringing-up the facts to the light and seek means of actions that will stand strong to conclude practical solutions. In pertinence to this, a dramatic increase in the ‘dark journalism’ can be commonly observed and such dark journalists expose the real scenario in the dark spots inspected due to wars and other disasters. On the other hand, slum exposures articulate the sad facts about the slum destinations in the remote African and Asian nations. Contrarily, some writers have even narrated their desires and dreams about the Utopian states that remain imaginarily equal to the garden of Aden, and this where the perfect democracy is dreamt to prevail. After the concept of ‘expressive realism’ was introduced by Falubert and blazac in the writing literature, it seems that many writers have realized how to express naked truths without the boundaries of fantasy and romantic exposure. Arundhathi Roy is such an expressive realist who stands against to the myths of terrorism, gender’s play, and governmental responsibilities. She is just a best example that a writer’s bold words often get attacked by the waves of criticisms. In my view, writing can’t either be feministic or masculinistic, and it is just that it should either catch up a realistic view or fantasied narration. Such writers who persuade expressive realism in their articulations often find-out vulnerabilities that do prevail in the social systems and they question against to them, and of course their questions often get criticized, hinted, and unanswered. But their pens will keep on bleeding until the whole world turns to be Utopian.   

  

Win the game of life

At rimes. Life gives us the most challenging days. Things that were alright before go wrong, things that seemed so easy to achieve become the hardest, things that mattered a lot once become pointless, our perceived logics become illogical, things that denoted high values suddenly start to contradict, people who were so closed and meant a lot in life become strangers, and at last all the dramas, arguments, anger, and all the exchanged expressions become pointless. It is just the game of life and no other word can denote the nature of life other than ‘game’. It is just a test given to see how far we stay strong, how far we fight to sustain our unique originality, and how far we play the game. Nothing lasts forever. In the end, it is us who have to face all the reality of life, play the drama, and win the game with confident. People may come in and stay in our lives for a short time to teach us something but in the end, it is all about us. It is all about us whether we make a path to the journey or just hang on others’ shoulders without the guts to face it alone. Let’s be open, enjoy the days with good people and use the opportunities whenever possible, learn things from the hard times and hard people. At last let’s be us, No dramas, No endeavours to impress anybody, No toxics, No expectations, and No to all negative feelings and people and they are meant to be out of our lives. Yes to the courage to face the game of this life and we are born for a reason on earth, we each are unique so that no others can devalue or value us. Let’s play our unique roles, let’s learn our lessons, let’s improve and win the game of the life our unique way.