Crazy writer, curious reader

I want to chop her into one hundred and eight uniform pieces,” I, the crazy writer, write, and begin my story by presenting my own dark desire.

“What???...Who is she? What did she do? Did she really do serious harm to you? Are you okay?” You, the curious reader, ask these questions mentally as you read the first line of my story.  “But I am not willing to tell anyone anything about her,” I write the second sentence of my story to make you even more curious and furious at the same time.

You smile. Some of you even laugh at the absurdity of my writing. “What a beginning!” you muse. You can smile, you can laugh, you can even scream. You can do whatever you like. You are you. I am I. No serious relation exists between us. If you read my story, you are my reader and as I’m pretty certain that you aren’t going to read the rest of my story, I don’t care about you. If you go, someone else will come and read my story. To be honest, I don’t lack readers. I have countless of them. They love my writing more than anything else in their lives. They are my muse. They inspire me to write more beautifully, even brilliantly.

However, there are some readers like you who are so crazy they have no words other than those of criticism. It’s not that I don’t pay any heed to the criticisms. I agree that they’re oftentimes very valuable. But you know, I’m not referring to that sort of criticism. There are some so-called critics who have criticised the titles of my stories. There are some who have criticised my forms, my characters and my story-lines. They even criticise things that cannot be criticised. They never understand the philosophical motifs in my tales. They do not even try to understand the use of metaphor and language. How can I expect any serious suggestion from such critics? From where do I get ideas that will make me a better writer? Okay, let me stop here!

“We lived together 11 months but she never told me her name. And quite to my surprise she didn’t ask my name either.” I now write slowly and thoughtfully. “So I don’t know her name. She is a nameless woman.”

“What???...You two lived together for such a long time and you don’t even know each other’s name? How can this be possible? How did you communicate? What did you call each other? Or, were you both silently meditating for such a long time?” You are quite surprised to find that the protagonist of the story you are reading doesn’t have a name.

“She would call me brother and I would call her sister,” I write. “But she never told me her name. I could have told her my name, but she never asked me to tell.”

“Crazy!” you think.

“But could you please tell me something more about her? Something related to the story you began with? Who is she actually? What happened to your sister-brother relationship? Why do you want to kill her? Did she betray you?”

“She had very long and silky hair. I don’t know why but she always played with her hair, as if it were her best friend. There wasn’t a single day she didn’t wash, comb and oil her hair,” I write, and turn the mode of the story.

“Oh! I see,” you say mentally.

You think that I’m now telling you the story of that nameless woman sincerely.

You surmise that the story must be somehow related to the hair of that nameless woman. Perhaps, in some mysterious way, her beautiful hair might be the cause of the writer’s anguish. “After all, what is the story all about?” you ask curiously.

But you know I am a crazy writer, how can I be so sincere? I want to give you a shock.

“Sorry! I’m not telling you the story of that nameless woman whom I badly want to kill. I am telling you the story of her friend. Her friend, whose name is Nautangki. Nautangki was a beautiful woman. All men in the town fancied her,” I write. I want to make the story-line clear to my readers. “But why are you telling a story about Nautangki? Why don’t you simply tell the story of that nameless woman? What is this story all about? Indeed, it is so crazy. Instead of telling the story, the writer keeps on conversing with readers. I have never read such crazy stuff before. It is indeed driving me insane,” you remark out of confusion and frustration. There are some baffling emotions playing hide and seek on your face. You are shocked. And, if you have a friend sitting beside you, you probably ask him/her to read this story. After reading it, you two will probably talk about its insanity. You may even want to stop reading the story right here!

Some readers who are ill-tempered, narrow-minded, who value time, and who think readers too have their own importance, will not like my story. They will think they wasted their precious time by reading such a filthy and crazy piece of writing. Here, what I want to make clear is that I’m not writing this story for such serious readers. Instead, I’m writing for readers who, by now, are fed up with the trend of conventional storytelling, who appreciate new experiment, who love freshness and craziness, and who respects creativity. I am writing for such creative readers.

Now, I am sure you will read my entire story patiently. You want to prove that you too are one of those creative readers I am writing about. This is my trick!

“Yes, I’m not telling you the story of that nameless witch, but of her friend. Nautangki was good in her speech and behaviour but she had a very bad heart. Her intentions, I was to find out later, were equally bad. It was Nautangki, I came to learn, who had asked her not to ask me my name. It was Nautangki who had told me that the woman without a name was a widow and that she had no one in this world. It was upon her request that I agreed to keep that nameless woman in my house as my maid. She used to cook food, clean house, and wash my clothes for me.” I resume writing, and now I turn a bit serious.

I don’t think I can write anymore about her. To write about her, I have to think about her. And, I don’t want to think about her anymore. Indeed, even the bleak memory of hers makes me blind with anger.

“If only Nautangki were alive today, I would shave her hair, make her bald.” I write the last line of my crazy story. I end my story here!

“The story finished before it started well,” says one confused reader.

“I couldn’t understand the story at all,” says another.

“The story isn’t complete,” says another curious reader.

“I loved the story very much,” says one reader at last. And I am in search of such a reader...

- Sangram Lama