There is such a clichéd romance in the idea of being an artist’s model. All these women who made it to eternity by posing for the greats. In reality, there was nothing romantic about it. It was tedious and demanding. The body begins to ache from the effort to keep still. The face stiffens from the attempt to preserve the same expression.
In Delhi, there lived a critic- his name was Venkat Swaminathan. I was in touch with him from the time I first moved to Delhi in 1978 until 1982. In 1979, he sublet a room in his house to me. Generally, I don’t ask anyone the usual ‘Indian’ questions, such as, where they work, if they are married, how many kids they have, or whether they own or rent their house.
‘Brussels, Naked’ is an experimental novel in the form of twelve interconnected novellas, each named after municipalities or neighbourhoods in Brussels, and each with a different narrator. It covers a period of fifteen years and is built around three main arcs: the life of Iris, Brussels itself as a protagonist and the EU crises, captured in the stories of ordinary people.
An aspiring writer who used to address complex issues strategically and confidently through my work, Olvens Louissaint is mainly committed to standing for the well-being of humanity and awarded with many international accolades. Some of his poems appeared in many international Anthologies and Magazines and his short stories and essays are also published in several journals
I was forty years old then. I had requested a transfer from Delhi to Chennai. Delhi, being the capital, it was easy to ask to be transferred to another city from there. Initially, I didn’t want to relocate to Chennai, but due to some unavoidable circumstances, I had to make the move.
At that time, we considered the Brahmins as outsiders. The Tamil they spoke was different. However, they treated us students like their own children. There was only one exception—our maths teacher, whom we called Arkay Saar. Despite being fond of us, on Mondays and Thursdays, if anyone hadn’t done their homework, he would grab his bamboo wand and beat the boy severely.
When someone commits harakiri, he tears his stomach open with a dagger. A trusted man should stand by, to swiftly cut off the head in a single stroke. This is done as soon as he has made the initial incision. Mishima’s military coup failed miserably, and he proceeded to rip open his stomach.
I’ve often heard my friends speak about their fathers as if they were their die-hard enemies. Some even call their fathers bastards. Many of my friends are teetotallers. When asked why, the most common reply is- ‘My father often got drunk and abused my mother.’
Prakash bought the blade and said, “Do it carefully da. If you cut a vital nerve, you’ll have to live as a khosa for the rest of your life.” So, I took the soap and the blade, stole Naina’s shaving brush and went to the cremation ground.
My mother and Naina treated me like an emperor; there was no scolding or reprimand. My mother often remarked that I should have been born in a mansion, but instead, I ended up being born in that slum. Education was nowhere to be seen in her family – only one brother among my mother’s eleven siblings received an education.
Because I have Telugu, Burmese, and Tamil ancestry, my East Asian friends often inquire whether I am from Thailand or Burma. Perhaps in my face they see the images of all these dead.
So the death of my father is now fodder for a story. This is the story of the writer in me walking all over my Naina’s life, and maybe his corpse too, and putting the journey into words. ‘Ordinary’ ethical frameworks can’t apply to a writer who walks on the ‘corpses’ of others.
Charu Niveditha is a prolific writer. Bold, unapologetic and defiantly truthful wordsmith. His work has stirred up stagnant social settings, melted down the clouds of norms and mores, and boiled the wrath of the conventional schools of thought. With all of that, millions of readers have gathered around him from all over the world.
The Asian Review 