Skip to main content

Discovery

Short Fiction
 Sculptor was frustrated. 

He had a theory that every rock contained within it the statue which the artist has only to discover.  Sculpture is the art of dis-covering. 

But the rock on which he was working refused to reveal the statue it contained.  Sculptor looked at his semi-finished statue from left and right, front and back, from all angles possible. 

No, this isn’t what I had seen in the rock. 

Yes, a sudden realisation dawned on him.  I’ve been making a mistake.  I had seen a particular statue in the rock while the rock contained a quite different one.   He took his hammer and chisel again. 

In the place of Sita which he had been trying to carve, now emerged Ravana.  With one face containing all the ten faces. 


Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 2, 2013 at 1:07 PM

    Indeed sometimes changing perspective work wonders..And Sometimes it is necessary to see things with someone else eyes to make things clear

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 2, 2013 at 6:54 PM

      Indeed, Harsha. Sometimes we become slaves of fixed perspectives. I realised it yesterday when there was a problem with a student. This story is the result.

      Delete
  2. Mon.EspritNovember 2, 2013 at 6:29 PM

    Just have one word for it Sir - Brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 2, 2013 at 6:55 PM

      Thank you, Abhra. You always make me happier than I deserve.

      Delete
  3. KhushbooNovember 2, 2013 at 7:38 PM

    An eye opener. Sometimes we have to let go of things and let them work on their own.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousNovember 2, 2013 at 8:05 PM

    Tom excellent moralistic story. There is a Ravana in everyone

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 2, 2013 at 8:16 PM

      And that Ravana becomes too active at times creating havoc for others...

      Thank you.

      Delete
  5. Anita SabatNovember 2, 2013 at 9:32 PM

    Nice one, Sir! :)
    Great that the rock told its story and the sculptor understood...
    Wish we all are as perceptive as the Sculptor while carving our sculptures in Life! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 3, 2013 at 9:35 AM

      If your wish came true, the world would be paradise, Anita.

      Delete
  6. TriveniNovember 3, 2013 at 7:55 AM

    What a great writing..few words said and conquered all.
    Sonal

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownNovember 3, 2013 at 11:56 AM

    Breaking Stereotypes - Brilliant!

    ReplyDelete
  8. AmitAagNovember 3, 2013 at 12:55 PM

    Absolutely wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
  9. jahidNovember 5, 2013 at 12:52 AM

    Trial and error is actually a good approach :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 5, 2013 at 9:50 AM

      In this case, it was more than a trial and error, however.

      Delete
  10. AnonymousNovember 5, 2013 at 1:52 AM

    [ Smiles ] It's good to know that the artist had a change of perspective!

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousNovember 6, 2013 at 10:51 AM

    A brilliant post, I could even conclude two more things out of it - The once who were Ram or perhaps Sita, as time passes may turn Ravan....Or people you thought were like Ram and Sita were actually Ravan in making which you failed to notice..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 6, 2013 at 9:54 PM

      Both are natural and valid possibilities... This, being a parable of sorts, is amenable to a lot of interpretations. What about the process of artistic creation, for example?

      Delete
  12. UnknownNovember 15, 2013 at 6:24 PM

    Absolutely beautiful. I guess every artist feels that way at one point or the other. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...
121 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Romance in Utopia

Book Review Title: My Haven Author: Ruchi Chandra Verma Pages: 161 T his little novel is a surfeit of sugar and honey. All the characters that matter are young employees of an IT firm in Bengaluru. One of them, Pihu, 23 years and all too sweet and soft, falls in love with her senior colleague, Aditya. The love is sweetly reciprocated too. The colleagues are all happy, furthermore. No jealousy, no rivalry, nothing that disturbs the utopian equilibrium that the author has created in the novel. What would love be like in a utopia? First of all, there would be no fear or insecurity. No fear of betrayal, jealousy, heartbreak… Emotional security is an essential part of any utopia. There would be complete trust between partners, without the need for games or power struggles. Every relationship would be built on deep understanding, where partners complement each other perfectly. Miscommunication and misunderstanding would be rare or non-existent, as people would have heightened emo...
9 comments
Read more

Tanishq and the Patriots

Patriots are a queer lot. You don’t know what all things can make them pick up the gun. Only one thing is certain apparently: the gun for anything. When the neighbouring country behaves like a hoard of bandicoots digging into our national borders, we will naturally take up the gun. But nowadays we choose to redraw certain lines on the map and then proclaim that not an inch of land has been lost. On the other hand, when a jewellery company brings out an ad promoting harmony between the majority and the minority populations, our patriots take up the gun. And shoot down the ad. Those who promote communal harmony are traitors in India today. The sacred duty of the genuine Indian patriot is to hate certain communities, rape their women, plunder their land, deny them education and other fundamental rights and basic requirements. Tanishq withdrew the ad that sought to promote communal harmony. The patriot’s gun won. Aapka Bharat Mahan. In the novel Black Hole which I’m writing there is...
61 comments
Read more

A Lesson from Little Prince

I joined the #WriteAPageADay challenge of Blogchatter , as I mentioned earlier in another post. I haven’t succeeded in writing a page every day, though. But as long as you manage to write a minimum of 10,000 words in the month of Feb, Blogchatter is contented. I woke up this morning feeling rather vacant in the head, which happens sometimes. Whenever that happens to me but I do want to get on with what I should, I fall back on a book that has inspired me. One such book is Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince . I have wished time and again to meet Little Prince in person as the narrator of his story did. We might have interesting conversations like the ones that exist in the novel. If a sheep eats shrubs, will he also eat flowers? That is one of the questions raised by Little Prince [LP]. “A sheep eats whatever he meets,” the narrator answers. “Even flowers that have thorns?” LP is interested in the rose he has on his tiny planet. When he is told that the sheep will eat f...
8 comments
Read more