Fact & Fiction Fight!

Since morning, I have been going through my old posts, amidst varied odd jobs. A new pattern has evolved over the last months -- the use of 'I' narrative, like now. Each phase has a pattern. First there were letters, then there were very short stories, which developed into short stories, then there was a lot on the topic of madness and writing. Of course, we all know Chhuti and Chinky and Tucks by now, and them love-letters, by the triple dozens! There is some abstraction and there are stray plots, there is possibly some art and absolutely no poetry. There are pillows and walls. Travels, whiskey, friends, characters and conversations. I remember Iravati, and Space of Shadows. I often think about Firoza and Tarini. And more letters strewn here and there, some signed off as Vasundhara or Anupam; Utsarinee's diary entries. Which brings me to Meira and Nikhil, and their different lives -- another constant. How then are all these fiction -- that which is not real?

Who is real then? Me? Hardly. I am only construing amiable figures for you to play with. You do play with them, don't you? Don't you feel their joy, pain, their words? The thirty nine multiplied by two characters and their as many love-structures, in those thirty nine love-letters, I haven't lived any. Nor have you. Actually, nor have they. Am I lying? No. I have never known to lie. Are they lying then? Of course not. Are you? No.

It is surreal, how real the unreal can become.

Why then are Fact and Fiction fighting? Vehemently. You will disbelieve the colourful chaos inside me right now. I am the skeletal, my characters are claiming, to their doing. What does one do? Here I am, innocuously peace-keeping between them, 'Why can't you co-exist?'

They replied, in unison, 'Could you?'

Silence. I failed in many relationships. 'Sorry, continue. But pray do not end up ending each other,' I slowly requested. That is all I can do -- request my opinion, and respect their decision.

The words fell on them like a waterfall, a sudden strong splash. I believe they have accepted each other. While I was having my last cup of tea, my insides felt much better. Fact and Fiction are no longer fighting. Perhaps they, with me, were reading this reply. On being asked by a genuine reader, and an established editor, whether I consider my work as fact or fiction, I wrote this last night:

"As a creative writer, I like confession as a genre and think the best way to communicate is to speak / write / type aloud, clear and true. Nevertheless, stories are different from lives and can be published when the thin line between fact and fiction dissolves like "The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve." (Winter Trees, Sylvia Plath). And that "everything is writable if one has the out-going guts to write about it", whether it be a gory Other or a fancy daughter.

I fail to classify them as either fact or fiction. I just write. And be. It is to you to do whatever you feel about it -- reduce it, or celebrate it. I write so that I can exist, so that I can breathe, I can digest, I can laugh and cry the unattended tears. I simply write. (Here, it is necessary to point out that I am miserable at academic writings, thus.) What would you call Charles Lamb's Dream Children? I am no lamb, please do not roast me! But believe me, if you can, I do not know how to classify, or what to do about distinguishing fact from fiction -- for:

through my writing, I am living fiction, and that is a fact."

Rest prevails. Guess, who ends up with the last word?

Word.