Poets want to express the inexpressible. Yes, the real poets seek the challenge of putting in words stuff that can not be put in words. No poet wants to write about the red flask in front of you. That is the task of a painter or photographer.
Poets want to write about the emotion that red flask may be generating in you that you yourself do not clearly know about. Maybe the colour red reminds you of the red saree your sister wore in her marriage, maybe it is the colour red that you saw when your finger was cut or the red bindi your mom wore when you were a small kid. The emotions can be love, fear, compassion or a mix of all.
The reason why you feel so good after writing a poem is that you know the feeling a little better after putting it on the paper. It is this process of manifesting the unmanifested also puts poet in the forefront of human consciousness, and in the old times being a poet was the height of wisdom and the old literature is mostly written as poetry.
(If you want to ask Manik a question about creativity, writing, poetry, fiction or general life advice, please use the contact details.
After the warm reception for my first book, I am pleased that readers like “Brothers Sen Gogh” too. Admitted that it is a smaller audience, unlike the romance or thriller genres, but it is an audience that every writer would like to have. An audience that craves for something different, something stimulating, something that enriches one’s thinking mind.
Thank you readers, for the warm reception of the book, and providing me motivation to keep writing.
Now a bestseller on Amazon, Brother Sen Gogh is a journey into the nature of talent, creativity, mental health and most importantly, familial relationships. Available at an introductory price of just INR 49/- in India and at USD .99 in the US.
Inspired by the brotherly love of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh, Brothers Sen Gogh ruminates about the pains of a sensitive soul, the inability of society to identify artistic talent and the heartbreaking tragedy of a flawed brotherly relationship.
Soubhik Sengupta is an indie musician with emotional fragility.
Sourav Sengupta is an indie music producer who is unable to launch his brother.
Will their life follow the script of the life of Van Gogh brothers? Will Soubhik be appreciated for his talent? Will he find his lady love? Will Sourav be able to convince people of Soubhik’s talent? Who is Prashant, who calls himself the modern Gauguin? Will Indrani be able to leave her checkered past to lead a family life with Soubhik?
With their life script following the brothers separated by one and half centuries, Brothers Sen Gogh is a journey into the real nature of artistic freedom, the intricate relationship between talent and destructive sensitivity, struggle of the life of an indie musician and the perils of an alternate life. Traveling in the bylanes of Mumbai, the story tracks the tragic lives of the Sengupta brothers as they try and build an alternate life following their passions.
A weekend spike of purchases has taken Brothers Sen Gogh in the bestseller list. Hopefully this lasts. Please grab your copy at the promotional price of INR 49/- or for USD 0.99, only till end of this week.
Inspired by the brotherly love of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh, Brothers Sen Gogh ruminates about the pains of a sensitive soul, the inability of society to identify artistic talent and the heartbreaking tragedy of a flawed brotherly relationship.
Inspired by the brotherly love of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh, Brothers Sen Gogh ruminates about the pains of a sensitive soul, the inability of society to identify artistic talent and the heartbreaking tragedy of a flawed brotherly relationship.
Soubhik Sengupta is an indie musician with emotional fragility.
Sourav Sengupta is an indie music producer who is unable to launch his brother.
Will their life follow the script of the life of Van Gogh brothers? Will Soubhik be appreciated for his talent? Will he find his lady love? Will Sourav be able to convince people of Soubhik’s talent? Who is Prashant, who calls himself the modern Gauguin? Will Indrani be able to leave her checkered past to lead a family life with Soubhik? Is Nethra a better guitarist or a better mother? Will Sourav have to support Soubhik all his life?
With their life script following the brothers separated by one and half centuries, Brothers Sen Gogh is a journey into the real nature of artistic freedom, the intricate relationship between talent and destructive sensitivity, struggle of the life of an indie musician and the perils of an alternate life. Traveling in the bylines of Mumbai, the story tracks the tragic lives of the Sengupta brothers as they try and build an alternate life following their passions.
To be available on Amazon in the first week of March 2021.
These precious days is a heartbreaking long read by Ann Patchett about an unlikely friendship developed between her and Sooki Raphael, Tom Hank’s assistant. It is written from Ann’s heart and is a great display of the healing power of storytelling.
Tom Hanks writes a short story book that is reviewed by Ann. Tom asks Ann to accompany her for a book tour. It is then Ann gets a little closer to Sooki. Eventually after finding that Sooki has cancer, Ann invites her to Nashville since Ann’s husband is a doctor in a hospital known for the treatment. The relationship between the two is the subject of the book which is almost a novella size book and an emotional roller coaster. Ann’s writing is magical and she treats the real life event as unfolding of a story. Anyone who has written anything fictional, knows that the characters take over the story and the story goes in directions you never intended it to go. A similar thing happens with life too. Narratives are mostly woven looking back. When things actually happen in real time, you do not know how your life is going to unfold.
When you start reading the story, you feel that it is going to be about Tom Hanks, but it turns out that he is a bit player in the story. There are many places where similar things happen. You expect the story to behave in a certain way, but it has its own mind. Ann makes sure that the reader understands the unpredictability of life and the highlights the myth of a difference between fiction and reality. In several places, she seems to talk to authors and ask them in a mocking tone, “Do you think you are writing the story?”
It reminded me of Anand, the emotional masterpiece by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, in the sense of a cancer patient getting in a totally different environment and making the best friends of his life in the short period he stays with them. Anand has a lot of emotional melodrama but the core point of life being short, comes across very effectively in the movie. There is a similar thread of philosophy in “These precious days” as well and the reader is surprised to find out the transformation in the personality of the leading characters due to the defining event.
Considering much of the proceedings are happening in the coronavirus pandemic days, it is amazing to see the impact of these events on the author’s life. It is as if the pandemic did not exist in their lives since much more was happening. The seed of the reason why the story became so interesting is also in the existence of the pandemic. The pandemic is what made us stay at home for months. A kind of period that allows intimacy to build or bonds to break if they are weak. In case of Ann and Sooki, the former turned out to be the case.
Please do yourself a favor and read it. It is a long read, almost the size of a novella, but is a magical read.
Less, with all its stream of consciousness rambling, exquisite use of language, psychoanalytical text, is ultimately a novel about love. Love lost, love gained, love showered on someone, love made and love wasted. It traces the journey of Arthur Less, a gay author who is turning 50 and whose lover has left him to marry someone else.
Less is sad but does not want to accept it. He does not want to attend the marriage as well. Instead, he takes a tour around the world accepting invitations to events that he would not have attended normally. They include an interview with an arrogant author, a writing class, an award function, a writing retreat and a food review assignment.
His mind is still going on thinking about his life, his 50 year long life, living in the shadow of more famous partners, more handsome partners. Living on the fringe, not being known, a life of humiliation as he sees it. Or is it? Less is a journey in exploring the midlife anxiety where everyone starts thinking about the life they lived for a long time. Has he made any difference? Has he lived a good life at least for himself? The language reflects the anxieties of Less, it mocks the literary culture, its own narcissistic agenda and bloated sense of self-importance. It rambles like Joyce and is recursive in the vein of Borges. It gets boring, becomes interesting again and then gets trivial and important alternatively. I
s it worth reading? For the plot, no! A big no! Some people may feel its an ego trip, a book written by a writer for other writers. For the love story? Yes, the language is subtly romantic, the love that exists in subtle glances, the bored mundanities of having a coffee together, tired love, decadal love rather than glorified love-at-first-sight. The self pity, the self doubt, midlife anxieties and heartbreak is dressed in a humorous, self-mocking language that becomes very slow at times. Slow enough for you to feel like flipping a few pages. But the toil is worth it, much like the incident of the protagonist reading Proust’s masterpiece. It deserves the accolades but makes you work hard for the same.
Kindle free promotion (Buy now with the link Below)
I published “Whiskey and Suicide” on 8th October, 2020 amidst the pandemic. It was a very emotional book that tackled a number of issues facing the middle class in India. I knew it was an intense book and has limited appeal to the thrill seeking, impatient reader stereotype that we have today. In fact the first reviewer for the book warned me that the book will not appeal to the millennial population. Three month down the line, the sales of the book have exceeded my expectations, many people have reviewed the book and it has reached the Amazon bestseller list in the short stories category.
More importantly, the book has made writing a part of my life. I am on my second draft of the next novel, scheduled to be launched this quarter. As a token of gratitude, I am planning to give the book free for a day this Sunday(10th Jan, 2021). The hope is to have more people discover my writing. Please share this with your groups, your contacts and any online forums you belong to. Please do not forget to download it yourself and leave an honest review.
Whiskey and Suicide paints a kaleidoscope of myriad emotions of the Indian middle class families. In a very informal storytelling style, it narrates the dilemmas of the urban families in dealing with the conflicting emotions arising due to contradictory desires. It is the bonds of family and friendship that allow the protagonists to deal with these crises which are depicted by Manik Bal in a detached but empathetic narrative style reminiscent of the great “slice of life” storytellers of the east and the west.
Now a bestseller with rave reviews :
— This book is raw and real and these people can be anyone truly. It is remarkably heartfelt, endearing, it claws at you at times with its depth and emotion. Hard to put down. One of those books you hand to a best friend and say “Read this!”
— The stories are all very good but out of all my favourite of all these is Her Father’s Killer such an interesting, emotional and unpredictable short story and it really touched my heart.
— Variety of intricate topics and unusual metaphorical contrast become an accustomed feat of the author.
— I loved the author’s style of narrating the incidents. Minimal yet precise.
— Bapu and Her Father’s killer plots are weaved around two completely opposite emotions.
— The heart or the author is easily felt with every line, as the lives of the characters seep in, and it is impossible not to get carried by their wave.
— It’s a fascinating inside glimpse at dysfunctional family life in modern India in real-world times, subtlety told with enough detail to make your hair curl.
— Whether it is the alcoholic father who takes the wrong path after his wife’s death or the sensitive couple in “Subtlety”, most characters are sketched in details.
Modern India is a complex place with the variety of demographics ranging from the multi billionaires to people who are not able to get a day’s meal. The financial liberalization and the IT revolution has created a middle class that is ambitious both in economic aims and spiritual aims. Whiskey and Suicide is empathetic without being condescending.
Manik Bal’s short story collection, “Her Revenge” is available now. With this diverse collection of short stories, Manik Bal continues to explore the, and the mundane in the bizarre.
