Writing on the Wall. The Berlin Wall fits my frame well enough – for all these journals and trivia that are endlessly texted on handheld e-gadgets or painstakingly written with pen on paper are a metaphor for reaching out to people beyond the wall behind which one is caged. To dig a hole in the wall, to scale the heights of the wall, to escape from one space to another space, to reach out from one’s space to another’s space.
Writing on the Wall – I thought of the phrase as an apt portal to enter for an exploration of writing, my own writing for starters. How and why one writes through re-reading, how and why I wrote what I did over the years, the published and unpublished narratives. In doing so, I hope too to talk about the art and craft of writing.
Writing on the Wall. Usually the phrase is read as a portent of doom, but I would like to focus on the association of it being a hint of the future. It is human to want to know the future, which is why astrology and palmistry thrive. The future is already written, some believe, in one’s horoscope, one palm.
I once wrote a dance drama titled Sita’s Promise, where I have Rama, Sita and Lakshmana living in the forest during their fourteen year exile. Midway through their exile, some gypsies come their way, and sing of how they can read the future. When Sita thinks of having them read her palm, Rama does not like it. He says, “Do not seek to know what is to be. What if the future holds sadness? Would you rather be as you are, ignorant and trusting, or would you rather suffer like Savitri, knowing all along she would be widowed a year from her wedding day?”
Sita admits that would be too terrible and so she refrains from showing the gypsies her palm.
Now, apart from the philosophy of whether or not it is good to know the future, consider the art and craft of writing. We know the story of Sita, and know she was to suffer greatly, and by placing this incident here, the technique offoreshadowing is being used within the narrative so that the reader sees more than the character can see in the reference to suffering. Also, there is the allusionto Savitri, who knew the future and suffered. Allusions are always an asset to writing; those who know the story of Savitri will instantly appreciate the appropriateness of Rama’s reference. Those who don’t will, one hopes, find out about the story of Savitri, but even if they don’t, the context makes the relevant part of her story clear enough.
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About this title, Writing on the Wall, when I asked two young friends what they thought of my idea, one said, Cool, but it is getting out of hand on my wall. Turned out she was talking about the Wall on Facebook. When I asked them again what else the phrase brought to mind, the other, who remembered her childhood in India said, Walls have the same effect on men as lamp-posts on dogs. Oh please, I said, what else? The Berlin Wall? said the first. Graffiti, said the second.
The traditional meaning of the phrase as seeing a warning or a hint of things to come was not the first thing that struck them about the phrase! I gave up.
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Hello,
I have been a writer for a very long time but it is going to take me a while to figure out how to navigate this space.
Just a line to start off with the title of my blog – Writing on the Wall. It can mean such a wealth of different things. I will list some of them soon – when I get the hang of how this new medium works.
Uma
I have been a writer for a very long time but it is going to take me a while to figure out how to navigate this space.
Just a line to start off with the title of my blog – Writing on the Wall. It can mean such a wealth of different things. I will list some of them soon – when I get the hang of how this new medium works.
Uma
