Harikumar Edasseri
Suchitra is writing a story. Sitting in her room with doors closed, creating a world of her own, she is getting ready to write a story. A sheet of paper that she pulled out in haste from her Social Science notebook lies in front of her with a sentence, “Mother is an evil character”. Writing the first sentence was easy for her. In fact all her stories begin by portraying somebody as an evil character. That first sentence, for her, flows out from the tip of her pencil to be imprinted between the blue lines of her notebook. It is done with the ease of a little bird landing on the window-sill, tucking its feathers closer to itself and turning its head to look straight at her. Now, what is the next sentence? It is here that Suchitra is in real trouble. It is easy to imagine somebody as an evil character, but it has to be authenticated with valid evidences. It should be given a halo of truth, capable of standing on its own legs. Not enough being just a sentence, it should stand tall in the arena of literature and above all, the story starting with that sentence should immortalize its creator.
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