I thought of an ode to 'The Umbrella Man'. No , not him. But an old story all the poor children in Central Schools (Kendriya Vidyalaya \m/) read in the 9th standard. It was written by Roald Dahl mind you. For those of you brought up on Julius Caesar and Brutus and Rome(i am sure you understand the difference between thou,thy,thee and thoo), this is a short summary.
For me. this story represented the only worthwhile thing I read in my English textbook. A true critic might not find this story too alluring. But there was a quality in it that made me an ardent fan of short stories that end in 3 pages front and back. And I don't say that to deride anyone. The fact that someone somewhere can build a character, aggrandize it or condemn it to the dark alleys of the human brain and make the reader feel intrigued about it,all in half an hour was magical. All this realization happened then. So I still think of it as a big deal.
People often speak about how readers sometimes connect with the story and feel like they are actually living it. I never connected with this story . And i think that was one of the reasons i read it again. The little girl in the rain,her mother by her side, the sudden rain and of course our protagonist. It was all only a picture,albeit an enigmatic one. My interpretation of the story kept changing with repeated readings. I read it everyday. The Umbrella Man needed to be killed first. It was later relaxed to Life imprisonment. I also thought of a rescue mission where i come swooping (more on this later) down, take the pounder from him and hand it back to the mother. Gradually, i wanted to understand his plight. Maybe, the lady was too harsh on him and should have tried to track him and see for herself the misery that forced him into this shameful existence. All of a sudden i was in the story myself. (My interpretation now is quite reflective of what i have become. 'He just wants some whisky lady!').
Something in the story made me think all of that!All this represented very powerful thought on the author's part and yet, was quite resonant with the goings on in the brain of a 9th grader. For me, this is when English all of a sudden reared up its head and announced itself to me.
Perhaps crucially, it also made me realize how you can be a former Wing Commander and still write this . The first thing I wrote was a short story of how I become a superhero and fly away with the attractive Science teacher. I have grown up of course. But whatever i have read/written over the years is due to Roald Dahl. More precisely, it is because of 'The Umbrella Man'. That shady vagrant from London. Thank You!
PS:I have a habit of going through old posts of mine and wondering how one can ever be capable of writing so much rubbish. Did that again today. And deleted most of it. I promised myself to start writing again as soon as I get a life (and have something to write about). There is a semblance of that now. Some more vomit coming right up.