ThE wRiTiNgS oN tHe WaLlS

       In a far away village in Ladakh a father is determined to give his son the abundance in words. He had always wanted but could never get a chance to read a complete book. Being in a family courting the royal family, he would get some chances in his youth to read and he could never read enough. His father was a loyal servant of the king and worked at his personal quarters and so he wanted his son to be. Then he would hardly have time to read and his father would not listen of his interest that made no sense to him.

       So he wanted to give his son everything he had missed in his youth and books was one thing he saw grace in.  He would get books from where ever he could lay his hands on and give it to his son.  His son would learn from travelers how to write and would share words and phrases from books he read and mock at the villagers for not understanding the words. 

      A traveler who wonders and stays there for a month tells him that he is writing a book and from that moment onwards the traveler becomes his hero. When the traveler is ready he gives him his pencil and a small notebook and asks him to tell his story. That one day he has to write a book.

      Taking up that inspiration he dwells into the agony of expressions. Locks himself up in a tank and for days is writing and scribbling words. The tank walls are full of things he wrote and thought about in his ecstasy of expression.  He writes poetry that expresses his emptiness in life. He wrote about his crush on the princess as he had seldom seen her. He writes poetry about how one day his village will be reading and reading some day and every corner has sessions and debates lined up as they walked closer to the realization of an emancipated society.

  The film will start with the father and son playing their game of conversing through the books they have read. There are few books they get their hands on and they know every word of these books. The father walking and the son catching up they enjoy their walk with words.

      The background threads that will run throughout the film are the poems that the son has written. This poetry as and when written it will the run through the storyline of the film. Each poem telling to the audience about the agony that is going through the boy as he sees the princess toes while bowing to her. Or it will express his emptiness when he is just walking miles, with nowhere to reach. It is very important to have this poetry as the backbone of the film and its depth will compose the other elements in the film.

     The princess also knows of his existence and has three poems he has written and is quires to meet him. The king sends for him and while on the steps of the royal palace, the queen looks at him from far and refuses for the audience. When asked why by her maid she says looking into space. “There are some lines in these pages that may make me loose myself.”  She never touched his poetry again. The princess is taken away by the power of his words and witnessing the boy is sent off by the guards and is thrown off a few coins, through her window throws the pages into the fireplace and sobs relentlessly succumbing to the floor. The maid understanding her situation weeps and slowly walking towards her sits her down on her lap and says, “cry baby cry, it’s a women’s cry, let it out.” The camera closes into her staring eyes as we can still hear the violent sobs of the princess.

     The boy picks up a coin and walks and walks, until at a pass he is almost unconscious. He regains consciousness in a small tent of two travelers who take care of him. It is from them he knows more of writings and books and on seeing that he could speak English and knowing his interest in reading the couple asks of shat he has read and he says, “little here little there. I don’t remember but I can tell you a poem I composed when I was walking,

      Listening to his poetry the sat through the evening and the next morning before they were up he had left. Looking for him the lady looks over the small hill, he is sitting on the ground and beating something. There is a thread oiled kept by his side. He goes forward to see what he is doing and call him. Not looking back he continues to beat and as she can see his hands, she sees what he was doing. He was trying to make a hole in the coin he was holding to strongly. He uses a nail and tries it. The coin has almost lost shape and is battered badly. Finally he succeeds in making a hole in the coin. He then wipes the coin and carefully puts the thread through he coin and wears it around his neck.  He then looks up to her and says, “….”

      He stays with them for the next two days walking and talking in the language he loved so much. They are highly impressed by his work and suggests him if he is considering to publish his work. “So that the whole world can read your story.” There is a deceit in the husband’s view. He looks at it as a business investment. On reaching his village he takes them to his retreat and his house. He takes out the notebooks and scraps he had filled from a trunk and hands them over to the lady and says, “ may you find your answers.”

        They leave over the horizon and the boy overlooks their frames as it slowly disappears into the far horizon. He walks back to his life again and stays most of his times in his retreat.

9 months later, a usual day is going on in the village and there is a woman who comes to village looking for the boy. The girl is fascinated to be in this village and among these people. She greets everyone and hugs the grand mamas and exclaims to her cameramen “what an amazing world”.

        She is a recent grad and is on her first assignment in India and is in a trance. She is introduced to our audience in the beginning flashes of the film with lights and paparazzi shots. She is trying to make way for the man they are trying to shoot. Who is not in the frame? She tries to find him in the village but fails to do so. Looking around she is directed to the palace, as the princess also knows the language she is speaking. She asks for an audience and is brought to the princess quarters. The princess asks her why she was there and she explains that she was here to cover the author of a book that is doing well in the market and that no one knows him. She is startled by this news and as the lady hands over a copy of the book to her she stands up and slowly walks to her quarters. The princess sends a word with her maid for the travelers that they be her guest and wait till morning when she will send for the boy.

   The next morning the princess brings the book to the table and returns it to the traveler, thanking her for sharing it. Then she joined them on the table but she was silent for the whole time. She didn’t speak much the whole day and stays in her own quarters. The travelers reach the retreat of the boy and finds there and are struck by the scribbling on the walls and then realize that the cover of the book is the picture of the wall they were standing by. She is covering the walls and reading out the poetry on it as he enters the retreat and is standing just behind them. Reading a sentence on the wall she can’t make out what’s written and stops. At the sme time the boy reads out the remaining of the poetry out looking down to the floor in submission of being the author of the pain on the walls. 

      As the girl tries to say something he politely he asks them to leave him alone. A long silence prevails and she slowly walks towards the entrance and in a short glance at him, leaves the book on the floor of the room and leaves.

  Outside she asks the cameramen, “So what do you think? What’s his story?”

  He relentlessly sits at the place where he is and broods at the book lying on the floor. After a long time of brooding, he walks to the book and slowly bends to pick it up. He takes a long look at the cover and sees how his walls continue to the back page. On the back page he reads the reviews of what people had written of him.

The flashes of cameras, shots and paparazzi

     He reads through the night and as the girl in her quarters is yet not asleep, she looks over the retreat and can still see the oil lamp burning at the window. She has seen that here is a character that she is going to cover and that story has strength. A man who the public already likes and hasn’t been written about yet is a man with golden words. His character was strong and she somehow knows that it will catch attention.

     The next morning they went to the retreat. He was sitting in the armchair and writing. They sat silently in a corner and she could see she was right about the person. He slowly looked up at them and asked why they were here? She explains that she was a journalist and was here to cover him for an article and how everyone loved him. Then he asked her if she had read the book? She had and she had never seen so much love for a language before.

      The flashes of paparazzi again and now with the man she is trying to make way for is in the frame too and he is our own boy. Reaching for a dinner somewhere. The film then takes a black frame and the last fame is of the retreat where the boy has made a small workspace and has a lot of books. His clothes are lazily lying everywhere around and there are dress articles of a women as well.

    The final frame of the film is a scene from a small village room where students in unison are reciting the alphabets and the girl now wearing the local dress is teaching the English language, prose and poetry. A man standing on a corner of a window overlooking the school has a coin sling around his neck.

eMONK