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What if we read our chapters this New Year?

January 3, 2023January 3, 2023
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

As we enter New Year and begin another chapter, I wonder how many of us take our lives as a book. Also, what if we read our chapters? Many of us might be thinking along the same lines. How about we do the same for the journey we have done since we can remember and take it forward to the future that we don’t know much about? How about we divide our lofe road into chapters ready to explode? These chapters decide to design the content of choice and work on their meanings. They need to create value in our minds before we, as readers, get ready to voice the hidden crux behind them and take our actions as part of our future teachings.

Have you ever wondered if the past year that has gone by has had as many happy moments as difficult ones? They might not be obvious, but they were hanging throughout the 365 days, even by a single thread. Have we wondered whether our daily story begins in a tale full of small moments of laughter and adventure? There are moments of soft snowfall along with occasional hailstorms. This short havoc span stays in our memory, and we start defining our life based on their occurrence. We ignore that those regular small lighthearted moments are the ones that help us to survive actually.

The time that has gone by has so many characters that are, in fact, an extension of our personality. We identify with some and cower away from others. Some of them scare us, yet others gravitate towards us. Each has their own story governing their behaviour towards themselves and us. The same goes for our end as well. The vibe (positive or negative) we have created for ourselves is our restrained judgements regarding our surroundings and those who surround us.

Whether we have gained or are still stuck in our survival situation, this is as much our story as it is about others. Whether we blame someone else or ourselves, we need to realise that at the end of the day, our story and the path we took or are ready to take is our chapter of choice. Even when there is pressure for us to be a certain way or behave in a particular manner, we forget that there is always a next chapter ready to take over our pain or happiness. All that matter is the choice that we make for ourselves. This story of our life has its winnings and enough share of mishaps. And it is alright when we don’t get what we have set our eyes at.

We need to open our arms for ourselves and embrace ourselves in our totality. When Eminem wrote, “I am not afraid to take a stand…” the lyrics have the power to resonate with all of us in our way. The good, the bad and the ugly are all part of this package. Make mistakes, move on; if you have consciously hurt someone along the way, don’t forget to apologise and move ahead genuinely. There are times when you will be embraced. The others may not accept your apology easily or at all. But you need to clean your conscience and move further. There are so many more chapters to be written. There are several decisions to be made. Each morning we need to either continue our story ahead or, if it’s too bad, tear that paper or use an eraser pen to cover the loopholes and start afresh! You will make more mistakes it’s blundering, and create more havoc, perhaps for others and yourself. But you will learn.

That dustbin at the end of your journey might overspill, but keep discarding what you are not happy with. When you reach the other side and believe me, we all will look at some point. So when we cross that line and read all the chapters together, the final draft would be interesting. Our story may finish, but it is the journey that will never end. Someone else will be ready to write its sequel or an independent tale; it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we all look forward to the writings on that wall of this life’s game! We know the scripts are not plagiarised when we read between the lines. The text may be similar, but the experience differs. That is where we need to dream on and dream till they become true.

So what if you read my chapters and I read yours? The link may be smudged, but can we read those lines that say so much in so little? What if we cannot find all the answers to our questions? How about we forget the end and pay attention to the process? Since we know there will be an end, and that is obvious, but the paths may differ. The outlook may vary, and the methods may change, but the story will remain the same. For each one of us, the plot is different, but at the end of it all, it is indeed a story that is unique, intriguing and interesting to each individual! How about we focus more on our writing? The readers will automatically follow, for we all have a powerful nose for news! This new year why don’t we start re-writing our chapters? What if we start afresh, be our editors and read our chapter?

Literature in Life

Murders and ‘Eight Detectives’ meet their Mysteries!

July 13, 2022July 13, 2022
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

Eight Detectives fell in my lap after being underground for a month, It was then I realised I have ignored my small tight-knit group of readers long enough! Having spent these last 30 days or so digging deep into the theories and academic jargon for a research paper, I had my fill of serious reading and writing for a bit. So my eyes and hands were itching to read something light yet intriguing. Then came Saturday and off I went on my hunt for a juicy paperback! To satisfy my weekend craving for murder mysteries that for once did not end at Agatha Christie and Poirot in particular! My mind wanted more. It wanted another good, solid, foolproof mystery to tease me to alert mode. This tired brain was craving a good mystery. It was getting restless. It needed its regular dose of adrenaline rush!

this cover is taken from https://www.amazon.com/Eight-Detectives-Sunday-Times-Crime/dp/1405944978/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1E0O0M5UAC4JV&keywords=eight+detectives&qid=1657705278&sprefix=eight+detectives%2Caps%2C159&sr=8-1 — **Photo Credit:** **Amazon.com**

Continuing my promise to myself, I jumped the gun and picked up another book from the same small corner book shop. I felt proud that I was able to finish my first book of this year in less than the time limit I set for myself. I wandered across the small spaces between the overcrowded book shop and smiled at the warm quiet welcome that the hidden corners were about to offer me in my search for another bestseller. I found the one and my eyes were itching to read this one. The Poirot inside of me was raring to come out and give his verdict about the credibility and finesse of the mystery in my hand! I picked the book and clutched it to my chest as if it would run away if I held it any loose. I paid and smiled my winner’s smile at the old lady beside the counter. She gave me the knowing look and laughed softly, ‘I know that you just found your treasure for today madam. Happy reading!’ With this, she swiped the card and I rushed out towards the tube in urgency to reach home and splurge on my find of the day.

The moment I reached home I threw my clothes like they were burning and clad in my age-old night suit (even though it was just 7:30 and a weekend), I jumped on my bed and snuggled inside my cosy duvet. I wriggled for 5 minutes to find that particularly comfortable spot and position and boy was I ready for this journey into the mind of the mystery. I was ready to find the faults of the author because according to me no one can write a good mystery better than Agatha Cristy! On the contrary, I was wanting so badly to be proven wrong for once. I wanted someone fresh and new to pick and tickle my detective bones for once. I was so ready yet not. Now was the moment of truth. With mysterious juices ready to spill out of the hidden chambers in my brain I opened the first page!

As I dived into the stories one after the other, I realized that this Alex Pavesi’s ‘Eight Detectives’ is indeed an intriguing piece of work. Written as a Mediterranean crime thriller, the book overall revolves around 7 individual murder mysteries. However, they are tied to one elephant murder mystery that comes as a pleasant surprise for its readers. The story is spun in a way of explores human emotions and relations that creates their loopholes, strengthening the mystery of the book further. The author picks the readers’ brains including mine when he creates the character of Grant McAllister, a professor of mathematics who wrote a mystery book in the 1930s. 30 years later, he was while living a secluded life he met an ambitious and clever editor Julia Hart. She had searched him down to republish the book. Grant McAllister while conversing with Julia put forward his own set of rules that according to him all murder mysteries follow. This intrigues the editor and urges her to find those in the written stories. While revisiting these stories with the author, Julia found her disconnects and pondered over her doubts since she found him to be a man with a hidden past that has its mystery revolving around him. While she was determined to unveil it, she realized the ambiguity and disconnect within the stories. Getting sucked into solving these discrepancies, Julia found herself unveiling the biggest mysteries of all that tie all the stories together.

As I closed the book, I heaved a sigh of relief. After a long time, I found my peace in the heaven of mysteries. I was happy that my mind was satiated for now. When I looked at myself in the corner mirror, I realized I was smiling like a Cheshire cat! I felt it is one of the most creatively written mysteries I read recently. I wanted to clap in appreciation that it ended so away from my continuing thought flow. I was still marvelling at the constant shift of plots along with my attention with every page turn that I made. It was challenging for my inside detective to keep to its original deduction while trying to read emotions and thoughts between the written words. The thriller potion throughout was so intense that I marvel at the involvement of the author’s originality in the concept.

The potency of ‘Eight Detectives’ is high during the whole read. I was pleasantly surprised, originally intrigued, and happily satisfied with my accidental choice of random reading. Even though these stories may have their weaknesses in lack of relevant challenges for the central characters in them. Despite Pavesi himself breaking his own thumb rule of form by hiding a very integral part of the information till the end, the style, and his capability to involve the readers in his mysteries are commendable. His power as a writer to be able to suck the readers in and almost succeed in confusing them till they reach the final pages is a powerful tool that cannot be ignored. I will look at the brighter side of the whole reading process.

If this novel can engage the reader till the end and bend or twist its own rules or even rules made by others, then for me it is a success on its own. After all the author is the one who went through his pregnancy period to birth it out for the world to experience a new life! Intelligent, inventive, fun read that has the strength of cleverness on its side. Hope you all give it a try and find your favourite mystery ahead! I can’t wait to read many more new and different detective works. My brain is game for however many may come, be six, seven or eight detectives or even one!

Literature in Life

Trio by: William Boyd

May 13, 2022
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

Last week with a determined scowl on my face, I left my almost 9-year-old with my darling husband and set out on my nomadic journey over the London roads. I left my motherly guilt behind and hopped from one tube to the other with a random feeling of freedom in my hair. among my many new year resolutions is my quest to read random fluff books that are chill reads and bring a sense of calm to this restless gipsy sitting on her desk writing for you. As I was aimlessly walking through the streets I stumbled upon a random run-down bookstore where I could smell nothing but the moistness of the weather and that nostalgic smell of paper and ink. I hesitantly peaked inside and realised perhaps I was its second potential customer of the day. I didn’t want to look for heavy writings, just something off the rack that could pick my regular reader tastebuds. Across the edge of a bookshelf was a corner that had a collection of hardcovers and paperbacks that have seen their day of success and were slashed half in price to churn out more moolah than they intended to do so. This lured the Virgo in me, and my pace quickened towards the folds of those complied pages. As I run my fingers through the ignored dusty corner my eyes stuck flat on the catchline, ‘The Sunday Times Bestseller’. With my interest piqued, I let my gaze scroll down and read William Boyd! Well, I liked the name and I like the amount of change leaving my wallet. Moreover, it could satisfy my reader’s cravings that are far away from intellectuality and philosophy of thoughts. The cover was intriguing and satisfied the glamorised cravings of pictorial satisfaction too. I was all set to flip to its back cover. As I was reading the very crisp gist with a red and black backdrop, I got sucked in by the setting that revolved around chaos and adrenaline pumped life of films and how the three individual character developments pan along with one storyline. Through the characters and atmosphere, the author seems to pull the layers away from the idealist approach and highlights the swinging of thoughts, identity, and beliefs. It may be nothing extraordinary in today’s world as we have come a long way, but the interest sets deeper when one reads through lines. Also, remember I was not looking for one. What Kate Winslet once said in the movie ‘Holiday’; “I am looking for corny in life”, sounded so true for me now and I was so ready for it!

The novel ‘Trio’ established in the Summer of 1968, may not sound as interesting as Bon Jovi’s single, Summer of ’69; but it was luring enough for me to read because it was the year Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated! The turbulent times build a stage tight enough to weave the characters through. The characters Elfrida, Talbot, and Anny may be separate in their identity in the novel, but they all have similarities that connected with my character in real life. In the novel, they seem to be leading their own secret life and so each one of us is in real life. This makes our bond with the plot stronger. I am sure if you have read it or if you are going to read it after, you will find some aspect of their thought development sticking with you. Perhaps that’s what made this book one of the best sellers. Just by reading the back cover, the reader in me wanted to know more for it seemed that the author has tried to bring out a commonality in the public and private life of most of us and relate at least one aspect of our personality and behavioural trait with the developed characters.

Since the story revolves around a film shoot, it depicts its ups and downs in the entertainment world. This pressure results in mixing the personal and public life of these characters, building up a pressure that becomes larger than what can be handled. What may allure you all is who among them will crumble, or will they even do that or will they all crossover? Trio’s crisp writing style and no-nonsense plot development bring about a pace that is fast enough for readers to get engaged, and still has leisure enough to not miss out on any emotional development reaching the point of hope, tragedy, and redemption in one setting. It is difficult for an author to bring a sense of balance between the slowness and fastness of the idea and plot development. What worked for me most was that till the end I was engaged to want to know what come on the next page without it being overly mysterious and detective. Also, as a reader you will not be disappointed for it will very smoothly take you on the mental journey of a human being that you do not know of yet at the end you will realise that that person can be you or any random Tom. You may even ask questions like what one will do if at any point life is not worth living. Will you buckle under or will a part in you make you sail through? For to each is his own…

As I was reading such fiction after a long reader’s block, I suddenly realised that it need not be a heavy-duty eclectic piece of work that makes us writers of excellence or readers of creative excellence. With all due respect to the creative geniuses and thinkers and philosophers, I now, even more, feel that we do need these bestsellers and random engaging pieces of feel-good reads since they touch on a variety of human emotions of sadness, monotony, and humour with fun and frolic, in single flow to make us feel contented, happy, and fulfilled. After this trio of reading, absorbing and penning down my feelings as a reader, I can’t wait to head back to find more love for this reading haven and share my views on much more light reads to bring a sense of relaxation and pure joy back to where it belongs…human mind. Until then, happy reading!

Films

Merging the Genders: Working Her Life in Films

January 12, 2022January 12, 2022
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

When we watch films of our choice, as consumers of that content, films lay their focus on our emotional gratification and gradual build-up of a lasting connection with the story, characters and the whole concept of filmmaking. So, when we see our kind in any role on screen, we automatically start resonating with them and the image they project. Though there has been a regular climb in the journey of representation of women and their role on screen, there is a lot left to be desired. From being underrepresented to becoming subordinate selves, they have travelled far and wide and have managed to reach a point where sometimes the whole film can revolve around their character. They have donned the role of independent career woman, with sparks of their own along with their already existing role of homemakers and supporters to male characters. Many times, they go as far as overpowering the male leads due to a well-rounded sketch of the character development.

If we focus upon the image projection of career women in film quite a few times we will see that the women at the top of striving to be a top need to imbibe the qualities of image conveniently projected by men. Be it a corporate character sketch or a media mogul or even a career striving assistant, we witness them be to give the idea to the audience those women need to forgo their sense of softness, emotions, and empathy to reach the top of the chain. They need to self-inculcate a sense of cut-throat competition to reach a set level of success. In a way, they need to become as many as possible to push their way upwards in man’s world. Their need to dress in a certain way that emits power and exclusivity is shown to be one of the key factors of their character development. They require to stay away from so-called feminine qualities since they make them seem weaker in their journey toward success.

But are these stereotypes crucial in role development? Does the audience need to identify with them? Would it help women in general and will they truly get emancipated? Is the identification of ‘self’ with the ‘other’ important or does building up of women characters close to the real-life need to increase in number? The transition of real to reel and vice versa need to be talked in seriousness because the message that these films impart perhaps unconsciously leave a lot of loopholes when the human population in general and women in particular start to believe the absolute necessity of being like the ones they see and identify themselves with on screen. While drawing a working woman character sketch we end up over masculinising them, we gradually lose the sensitive trail of the human race. We tend to forget and forgo the beliefs integral to humanitarian co-existence by painting everyone in one colour or by picking up one umbrella to save all from the outpour. In turn, we end up dehumanising the concept of success and power by common gendering the beautiful differences that make an individual unique.

The films may come and go, the characters may change with time, but what stays is the impression that is already made. The human mind is very strong, and a memory made in time stays back. The fluidity with which sometimes films dehumanise and degrade the qualities of love, affection, empathy, and sense of sympathy that is core to women and humanity, in general, is quite alarming to absorb. It leaves a big question mark about the intent towards the sense of women empowerment in society through media and technology. Are we creating stronger women or are we recreating the need for stereotypes that may have a feminine face but already existing and thriving personality of their male counterpart? A question that we as women need to ask ourselves and to those who create characters about our empowerment. Is there a need to merge genders unconsciously to show a working success of the female sex or do we desperately need to let it go with the flow…

Films

Media as Industry

October 8, 2021October 8, 2021
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

Radio TV, videos, cinema, magazines, comics are all part of Cultural production. We can hate it or we adore it, whatever the case may be but we cannot deny the importance and forcefulness of Media i today. Everyone talks about it. We need it like air. Even if we don’t want it in our lives but it has become like an omnipresence in our lives which tags around our existence. Some sees its relevance while others have their own bias. We tend to politicise it thus in turn publicising the very aspect. It is the current flow that looks to keep its foothold for a long time. Various aspects of media contain meanings, thoughts, values, ideas that work at different levels unlike regular productions of things and items. But the similarity between them is also striking. Like these mundane products, cultural production is also developed in mind its mass reachability and access. So they also need to be developed cheap and in abundance. The reason being, there is a constant thirst for new production as there is ever growing market for new content. The new idea will always have more currency and acceptance. Moreover in current scenario there is a strong mergence between the technological and economic aspect of the industry that in turn help it in thriving in it full potential!

In Television, mostly ratings and the advertising rule the content available for the viewers. This give birth and nurtures well the concept of drama, scandal, propaganda. In fact it has become the fuel driving majority of economies. It has power strong enough to deviate from the more important issues and has the capacity to stay focus on the non-important topics due the the hype and uproar created in its favour. In films since they have wider money backings and support from investors, banks etc. so they have more choice and leverage to control their content and production. How far and strong they go about doing it is all together a different matter.

Newspapers, magazines and Alternative news have a more cut-throat competition an they have more number of mergers and acquisitions. Due to this there are more 24 hr. news channels, n obnoxious level of increased competition. This results in point-to-point marketing, target-oriented advertising and sales to engage variety of more and more viewers and consumers. So media studies focus on different perspective of of media industry. For instance what is produced, how is it done. What does it imply. Who controls the production. What is its impact, who all are represented here. What ideologies are promoted. Who are the consumers and how do they consume any product or content etc. There are so many more questions attached to this ever growing industry and we know that the answers lie very well inside this rabbit hole as well. What is further more important is are we going to deliberately look for them and try to break the vicious cycle of Media behind an industry and vice versa?