A good book on editing

 I read a good book with useful tips on editing

Cut it Out by Laura Swart

1. Avoiding too many little words that can clutter the main idea: identify content rich words, use sensory words, watch the punctuation, delete pompous and dull words. Combine long luxurious sentences with short punchy ones.

2.  Is, have and will: I am, they are, he is or she was, they have been

3. Avoid passive voice: look for "be" and "by"

4. Avoid progressive tense: "ing" unless required by the context. Use simple present and simple past tense.

5. Avoid repetition within paragraphs of key words or phrases

6. Avoid colloquialisms, choppy sentences, overloaded sentences, uncontrolled sentences and fragments.

How feeling secure translates to success: What Shah Rukh Khan can teach us

I watched a YouTube clip of an interview with famous Indian actor Suneil Shetty. About Shah Rukh Khan, the "Badshah" of the Indian film world, he said: " He's a gentleman, charmer, not just for women, and he's the most secure man I have known."

Another actor, Johnny Lever, said of Shah Rukh Khan:" He is hard-working, especially when it comes to what he does not know."

I have always envisioned Shah Rukh Khan as playing my guardian angel with his wit and wisdom. During one of his interviews, Shah Rukh advised: " Approach problems with kindness."

Shah Rukh Khan is the epitome of success to an average Indian. He came from humble beginnings, faced dire financial straits, got a Master's degree, and pursued the love of his life. He has remained married to her until now. His life is his message. 

Secure. Hard-working. Kind. Charming. 

Shah Rukh Khan is the complete deal. I admit that I have not found his acting as compelling as Manoj Bajpai, my favorite Indian actor. However, I still admire Shah Rukh for his personal qualities and his journey to success. 

Yet, there is much to learn from Shah Rukh as a symbol of success. His journey from humble beginnings to becoming the symbol of India on the international stage is truly inspiring.

I have reflected on why I am so selective about who I bring into my inner circle. I know the answer: I want to protect my energy. It's a conscious choice I make to empower myself and ensure I invest my energy in the right places. What I need to understand is if it is the right approach.

Shah Rukh and I are both Scorpios. Like him, I am an unlikely introvert. In an interview, Shah Rukh claimed he is introverted and shy. My need to avoid energy-draining individuals created a need to detach from those I perceived as inauthentic in my personal life.

I want to utilize my energy for good, or " Karma Yoga."  I do not wish to spend time on fruitless conversations. It's fruitless to me but not to the person who wants to "share. These conversations are different from mutual sharing. What I mean by this is a one-sided conversation with someone who needs a professional therapist. In India, friends are there to listen to you and advise you. When I needed a sympathetic ear, I learned that it turns off people to listen to your troubles.

I learned to process issues, develop ways my mind could cope, take action, and move on—with kindness to those involved and me—no hard feelings. I like to say hard feelings are like giving away your hard-earned income to someone you dislike. Rent is expensive these days, and the room in one's mind is a loft with a view of the Hudson.

What is the role of a friend? I don't believe in blind support that reinforces another's flaws. I want courageous and insightful friends to point out my blind spots. I hope to be that friend to others. The problem is, most people don't want that. They want someone who reinforces their false beliefs.

Every one of us has a journey to make. A friend does not have to walk your journey for you. They can point you in the right direction if you are seeking it.

I highly recommend Carol Pearson's " The Hero Within" to help us understand our journey. It has been as impactful to me as the Five Love Languages.

At what point does one detach from an individual who shares ( or dumps) their problems without the motivation to solve them or at least take any action towards that?

Does that make me unkind? I wish I could get Shah Rukh Khan's perspective.

Themes in movies or stories in general and how to design a character

 My all time favorite movie is The Sound of Music.

As the title implies, the theme is about how music brings about positive change specifically love in the loves of the characters.

The message is that music is the language of love. Music helps Maria channel her love for God into the love for a family. Her misbelief is that she is meant for a life of service to God as a nun and therefore must not love a man.

Why Did My Doctor Leave? the moral of the story is this: Do not make excuses to support people of bad character. In the long run, the harms outweigh the benefit.

The theme: Smart people know who's most valuable and who is worth supporting. The story questions how we decide who is most valuable. Should our loyalty be to doing the right thing or to a person or organization?

For Richard, his misbelief is that loyalty to a person or organization especially when financially advantageous, is the right thing to do even if morally wrong. He has grown up that way, heavily under his father's influence, knowing that his father is a womanizer and has ill-treated his mother and step mother.

Humor in movies: patterns for writers

 Growing up in Kerala, India, my favorite story tellers were Sreenivasan and Sathyan Anthikadu. Sreenivasan is a talented writer and actor. Short statured and dark, he often played the comical side kick. Even when he played the hero in a story he wrote, he was self effacing. His character fitted his appearance- a short, ugly man who marries a beautiful woman to the detriment of his mental stability. Or a spineless man easily influenced by his wife. Or an unattractive goldsmith who exacts revenge upon the pretty girl who betrayed him.

Among my favorite movies is the political satire Sandesam. It is the story of an elderly man who has an unjustified pride in his children, especially his two sons who he believes will become great political leaders. While the audience recognizes this misplaced faith, the meat of the story deals with how the protagonist recognizes his folly and rectifies it.

1. Satire in the dialog

Sreenivasan as a writer is a master at inserting a truth at the most uncomfortable and unexpected moment.  He breaks the tense situation by making a character say something true, but inappropriate for the situation.

-in Sandesam: there are many such opportunities. A scene that has gone down in history is the one of the two brothers arguing about international politics and one taking offence at his brother's jibe about Poland.

The audience laughs because a character is taking offence at something no one really cares about. The humor comes from a silly person's obsession with something irrelevant to the average person.

Exercise: create a character with a weird obsession or delusion, giving opportunities for others to inadvertently or purposefully give offence.

Sandesam also provides laughs by portraying human tendency to brag, exaggerate and even lack of language skills leading to misunderstanding.

2. Fear and deception

This appears to be a surefire way to elicit laughs. An authority figure with a dislike of an entity, quality or institution, his subordinates pursuing the same entity and covering up, getting discovered or almost discovered, then digging in to the subterfuge with hilarious outcomes.

3. Interaction between individuals

- this can be friends playing a prank on each other, or going against each other's wishes in front of a third party who is oblivious to the charade one of them is pulling. Friends can support their friend in the deception or completely blow apart the cover

-individuals in opposing camps going at each other verbally with subtle or not so subtle jabs

-Selfish individuals advocating for their needs at inappropriate moments when someone is in dire straits

-individuals on the same side of a tense situation going at each other. A play of words including misunderstanding a language, using or misunderstanding slang out of context.

4. Blackmail

Another hilarious Malayalam comedy was called "Odarathu Ammava Njangalkku aalariyam".

The premise was a flirty elderly man who got away with such behavior because women did not suspect he was being flirty given his age. Three young men befriend him in the hope of learning his "technique". However, when they lay their eyes on his daughter, the friendship shatters. The three men gain access to the elderly man's house under various pretexts, threatening to expose his one night at a cabaret. How he manages to get rid of the three men and the back and forth between them sets up a laugh riot.

The short films I liked

Here are the few short films that have left a lasting impression on me:

1. The Raisin

2. Love at first sight

3. Aath Aana

4.  Batti 

Let me analyze it one at a time.

The raisin is the story of an angry old man living isolated in the moor. We see his desolate existence cooking a meager meal of roasted potatoes. He tries to find balance by buying ten kilograms of chocolate covered raisins even though he doesn't want to eat them. I found this symbolism interesting. A lonely man who instead of the obvious solution to splitting his sack of potatoes into two, has chosen to accumulate something unecessary. Soon we find out he has other baggage: prejudice.  The first one we think seems fair. After all, no one likes dishonesty. The other seems harmless but needless. After all who hates squirrels? Then we see how he pivots the conversation with a woman who it is later revealed had come to his home in an act of kindness. We see him forcing this old woman to count raisins previously stuffed in his underwear. You may wonder why did this nice lady humors him. That's the point. Nice people tend to humor mean ones and suffer for it. So although at the end, he realizes he was wrong and accused a perfectly nice woman of being dishonest, even though she was only "guessing" something, he took his prejudice against "dishonesty" to a different unreasonable level. The emotionally satisfying ending for the viewer lies not just in seeing the look of remorse on his face, but the actual consequence: food getting burned in the oven. Another symbolism for your bottom line will be affected if you are distracted by needless hatred. Yes, hatred is the word he uses to describe his sentiments against liars and squirrels.

What is the message of The Raisin?

Needless hatred, no matter how justified you think it is, can harm you and make you look like a fool.

Rethink your deep seated prejudices.

How did the storytellers design the story?

The protagonist who narratest the story in the first person starts off eliciting some sympathy because we see him trudging up a desolate plain carrying heavy load. So although he is shaded negatively, the viewer is interested in knowing about his life. Then he veers onto the negative with his hatred of squirrels and liars. 

The protagonist is an old man who you can feel sorry for, but at the same time believe is a person with unnecessary prejudices. You see how he loses something important i.e his food for the day because of his prejudice.

The middle of the story: The part where he stuffs his underwear with raisins. This seems rather unusual. And then how did the old woman know what was in them?

Who would be the protagonist of a story if I wanted to convey the following messages:

1.  Your true intentions will always show

2.  Arrogance and bitterness are qualities that go together just like anxiety correlates with fear of the unknown

A little girl's freedom

 For I am a little girl scampering barefoot

On the crunchy sandy beach

Toes squeaking in moist delight, 

Shallow foot prints, breath-long each

Disappearing beneath a foamy accordion

Behind the bay, a turquoise tide pool

Sea turtles lay basking in the sun

They slide into the waters, silky, cool

The soft sand at the bottom of the pool

Glistening like melted innocence.

 

I race up the cliffside rocks 

Weeds, thickets and thorny brambles

Up and up I reach a mountain tarn 

Cobalt blue enzians rim its edges

Buttercups and fireweeds, poppies and bellflowers

Teasing the wind, swirling in ecstasy

On the  eastern horizon, a grey hut of stone

Lone, silent, dark and alone

Tonight I sleep beneath the glorious sky

My head resting on the grassy knoll

Moments from now, the stars will emerge

As the spilled cherry cream of the setting sun

Sinks into the depths of the ocean's whorls

Tonight I will sleep with the naughty stars 

Winking, dancing, wild and untamed

Peaceful, rested, free and unclaimed

Cradled by the cosmos' demulcent glove

Enveloped in an infinite gossamer of love.

Of feelings and fragrance

 

What do feelings and fragrance have in common?

My short answer is that with both feelings and fragrance, what you perceive is not the essence. Rather, look beneath the surface: where did that sensation come from? Go find the source and do more.  

Yogis would advise you to take note of your feelings at any given moment and then let it pass. Live in the moment. But what about strong sentiments which humans feel are legitimate enough to warrant life-changing actions? 

Perhaps it is time to recognize that all emotions are fleeting. They may be as delightful, yet as capricious as the heady scent of a wild jasmine. 

Would you be silly enough to lament the loss of "that feeling" upon which you made a life altering decision, only to regret it years later? Anger, sorrow, shame, are all impermanent, unless you allow the sentiment to morph into an ugly monster without addressing the source.

If you "feel" that a career in Medicine is right for you, and you act upon it, you have allowed that feeling to transform into action that sets your life on a different track. But is it fair to expect that the same feeling  to remain constant years after your career has taken a life of its own? So why do we expect feelings to last in romantic relationships  after navigating life's rough waters?

If feelings were like fragrance, isn't it silly to mourn its loss ?