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 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

The Second Crucifixion

  ‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita:                         For certain is death for the born                         and certain is birth for the dead;                         Therefore over the inevitable                         Thou shalt not grieve . At that time Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare were moving to Retiring Room Number 6 at the Old Delhi railway station. They walked like thieves not wishing to be noticed by anyone. The early morning’s winter fog of Delhi gave them the required wrap. They found Nathuram Godse already awake in the retiring room. The three of them sat together and finalised the plot against Gand
6 comments
Read more

The Final Farewell

Book Review “ Death ends life, not a relationship ,” as Mitch Albom put it. That is why, we have so many rituals associated with death. Minakshi Dewan’s book, The Final Farewell [HarperCollins, 2023], is a well-researched book about those rituals. The book starts with an elaborate description of the Sikh rituals associated with death and cremation, before moving on to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and finally Hinduism. After that, it’s all about the various traditions and related details of Hindu final rites. A few chapters are dedicated to the problems of widows in India, gender discrimination in the last rites, and the problem of unclaimed dead bodies. There is a chapter titled ‘Grieving Widows in Hindi Cinema’ too. Death and its rituals form an unusual theme for a book. Frankly, I don’t find the topic stimulating in any way. Obviously, I didn’t buy this book. It came to me as quite many other books do – for reasons of their own. I read the book finally, having shelv
10 comments
Read more

Cats and Love

No less a psychologist than Freud said that the “time spent with cats is never wasted.” I find time to spend with cats precisely for that reason. They are not easy to love, particularly if they are the country variety which are not quite tameable, and mine are those. What makes my love affair with my cats special is precisely their unwillingness to befriend me. They’d rather be in their own company. “In ancient time, cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this,” Terry Pratchett says. My cats haven’t, I’m sure. Pratchett knew what he was speaking about because he loved cats which appear frequently in his works. Pratchett’s cats love independence, very unlike dogs. Dogs come when you call them; cats take a message and get back to you as and when they please. I don’t have dogs. But my brother’s dogs visit us – Maggie and me – every evening. We give them something to eat and they love that. They spend time with us after eating. My cats just go away without even a look af
13 comments
Read more

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation
4 comments
Read more