NOVEL~*Hiding behind a Stranger*~ Thread 3- CHAPTERS 5 & 6 - Page 115

Originally posted by: Sandhya.A

I meant the descriptions more than the illustrations. Honestly i have always felt that the illustrations never did complete justice to Sivakami, Kundavai or Nandini as described by the author. They definitely enlivened the reading though.

Originally posted by: Sandhya.A

I meant the descriptions more than the illustrations. Honestly i have always felt that the illustrations never did complete justice to Sivakami, Kundavai or Nandini as described by the author. They definitely enlivened the reading though.

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Well, Sandhya my pet, my Heera would not look like any of these gorgeous ladies.

None of them could be even remotely described as "a delicate, almost fey creature, seeming at times to be not quite of this world". They are all fully alive, at times ferocious females.

My Heera would be like a will o'the wisp, a haunting faerie vision, gentle and yet firm, wise beyond her years, an unselfish binding force, and possessed of great, understated courage. And NOT mahaan, praise be to God!

As for Sivakami as a character, Akka, I am with you, even if I would not put it quite so strongly. Even when Mahendravarman, with the enemy at the gates of Kanchi, pleads with her to release Mamallan so that he can get the Pandyan alliance for his son and thus save the Pallava kingdom, all Sivakami can think of is herself. I do not thinks she was ever in love with anyone but herself; she loves Mamallan because he worships her. It says a lot about Kalki as a writer that he took the risk of making his heroine such a complex, infuriating, and thus very interesting character.

But I never bought into the pop psychology he trotted out to "explain" Nandini's unrelenting viciousness.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: karkuzhali

Yes, I remember the scene when Mahendravarmar pleads with Sivakami.

But she requests him to kill her instead..I remember that he finally says" Sivakami, You have won..I have lost.." ( Sivakami, nee jeyiththai.. naan thoRRen!)

I love the character Mahendravarmar in the novel. When Maamallar returns without bringing back Sivakami from Vathabi, he confesses to his son at his death bed," My son, you have saved me from committing a crime.. I was planning to bring a stepmother to you by marrying Sivakami".. What a political game !

Saraswathi Akka.

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Dear Lashykanna,

I have read thru these 2 chapters not once, not twice, but fully three times.

As I mentioned yesterday Periyamma...I was very touched to know about this... thank you so much... I cherish this line more than the first line you'd sent me as a comment

'Your Aurangazeb is shaping very well'

See... that's what I meant when I said even a line would do... from you, it conveys so much more than just a line and stays with me for very long... so... if and when you are not feeling up to it.. please don't strain yourself to write long comments...

🤗

Now onto this..

This is a tribute, firstly, to your unobtrusive skill in creating precisely the ambience that is needed. As during the rope ladder-knife throwing sequence. During the part ruminating, part evasive conversations between Heera and her maids - especially her shrewd maternal surrogate Gauri - while the incense swirls all around and Heera's tangled strands of hair are straightened out amidst chatter that resembles the chahakna of a bunch of birds. And most of all during the encounter between the lord of the manor and Heera's recklessly foolish stand-in, while Ibrahim and the rest of the troika, plus chachajaan, furnish a part startled, part irritated audience.

I loved the reference to a reading glass, a convex lens set in a chased frame. And Heera treating her sister's diamond ring as a stand in for Durga herself. Her long conversations with the sister she misses acutely, which are both an emotional release and a source of the mental strength she now needs so badly.

Periyamma... I actually imagined you sitting in that room along with the rest of them (which is why I said it feels like you are part of the scene).. you've brought alive the descriptions in your review...

and it took me back to the time 🤗 am glad you have been enjoying the aura created... difficult to get a story progressing in that time line though.. much easier crafting a quick story in a modern era with mobiles and laptops and cars...

everything takes so much longer 300 years ago 😆

Emerging character traits: However, even more appealing than this pleasing mis en scene is the way in which you have been filling in the portraits of our lead pair, mostly Heera, with sure but almost throwaway strokes/ segments scattered all thru these 2 chapters.

Each of these bits is illuminating, in that it casts into bold relief traits that might otherwise remain hidden for much longer. Let me pick out some of them, and if this makes it sound as though I have fallen in love with your heroine, so be it!

If there were ever a literal version of the figurative eye-popping moment as I read your review this was it. I am glad... you have taken to her so much...

the poor girl might have a few slip ups through the story.. after all, she is one young, facing a lot and falls in love for the first time... but... I do hope despite all of that... I continue to be able to justify the basic/crux of her character...

Striking intelligence: Heera has been shown early on to be a remarkably shrewd cookie. Thus, even at the horse auction, she makes out exactly what mischief Durga is up to, so much so that even her elder sister is taken aback.

A little later, she displays another shade of the same astuteness, coupled with a flair for diplomacy, when she defuses the sudden, and potentially dangerous clash between the Khan Sahib's man, the horse trader, and her servitors with a smooth mixture of praise and condescending kindness.

She demonstrates her practical intelligence when she quiets her fearful servants by carefully listening to the sounds of the horse hooves in the forest, and thus making out that there is only one horse, and thus only one rider.

You've listed all the ones where she's shown that 'Her mind was a weapon stronger than the sword'

The mark of a leader: She realises that there were almost sure to be enemies on their trail, but with calm good sense, she avoids speculating aloud about this and thus driving her already jittery entourage into blind panic. Instead, she quietly instructs Ratan Kaka to adopt evasive tactics about themselves, and to report any unusual happenings within this property and outside it. She thus spares her subordinates worry by taking it upon herself.

Yes periyamma... she is not as suspicious of the Mughals and hostile towards them as the rest of her people... but she is wary... and yes, no point revealing everything to her group...

She has the gentle but inexorable firmness of one born to lead. This is seen both when she silently reproves her staff after averting their clash with the horse trader, and again in the way in which she handles a much chastened Bindiya.

A logical mind: Heera is not prone to snap judgements, nor does she theorize without data. She makes deductions from carefully gathered facts, with a sure grasp of logic that would have pleased Sherlock Holmes. Thus, before accepting that the Khan Sahib has been there for some years, as stated by his staff, she has Bindiya check and confirm to her that the barns and stables and outhouses on the property are not new.

Sherlock Holmes... my...

To this datum she adds what Bajrangi has gathered about the Persian mystery man, plus odd bits like his returning the 4 dams to her, and produces a dispassionate, favourable mental character sketch of him. There are still unanswered questions about him that flit thru her mind, but she will seek the answers to those too in the same logical fashion.

The answers will eventually come...

but I need to save the underlined explanation for future reference... you've said in under 10 words what I've been using paragraphs and paragraphs to describe

at this point, what he is to her is a 'mystery' a 'puzzle' and a 'distraction'

He is the only element in her day to day routine that does not remind her of jiji's death or of the humongous responsibility that lies ahead... (or even of the fact of what might happen to her people if she was to die fighting for her land)

Instead, he reminds her of a more carefree time in her life where she used to have such witty banter with her jiji... where she solved puzzles & riddles and enjoyed playing mind-games with her sister... he is right now filling that void... unbeknown to her own self... and without both of them actually wanting for it to happen.

Perceptive and kind, sensible and strong: She is not so self-absorbed that she cannot make out what others are thinking and feeling, something which can at times be a very dangerous trait. She can sense Gauri's skepticism about her account of what she had done in the canal just by the way in which Gauri handles and plaits her hair. Similarly, even with her dimmer than usual vision that evening, she can make out from the stoop of Ratan Kaka's shoulders that something is bothering him.

There is no foolish indulgence towards Bindiya, but there is also the instinctive kindness that makes her gift her silk dress to the maid who craves it, and earlier, make an extra effort to soothe the fretting Ratan Kaka. To make an unprecedented apology to her maids for her having wandered off without informing anyone and made them worry so much.

She has her priorities right even in a crunch situation. Thus, when the stranger is exasperated by her clinging to him in the canal instead of making for the rope ladder, such a sheltered young woman must have surely hesitated before telling a man she has encountered just then about her defective eyesight. But she does not hesitate even for a moment since, for her, it is far more important to make him understand that she is no flirtatious maid eager to get up close and personal with a handsome young man, than to hide this very personal matter from him.

She has, by now, managed to dredge up the mental and emotional strength to overcome such a crippling personal loss, and write not just a warm message of empathy and condolences to Kunwar Mahendra, but all the other necessary messages as well, to check them, and only then send them off for sealing and dispatch.

Beautiful paragraphs periyamma... you've outlined it so well... and made me fall in love with her all over again!

Extraordinary maturity: In short, Heera not only takes her physical handicap in her stride - having, as Saraswathi Akka had once advised me to try to do with my rheumatoid arthritis, managed to make friends with it - but she throughout displays a tehraav, a gravitas, and a degree of wisdom and maturity that would have done a 36 year old proud, and which, in a 16 year old devastated by a crippling blow, are nothing short of amazing.

I did think twice before making her seem quite so wise beyond her years.. but then again, this was also an era where kids got married at 8... where girls turned mothers at the age of 15... where men were heads of households by 16... where princes ruled from 15-16... so technically she is leading the life of an adult... but yes... no doubt she is very mature despite all of that!

I do not like comparisons between this tale and Jodha Akbar, or between the obviously deliberately named Heera/Harka Baisa and Jodha Begum, but I could not help noting that Heera has so many qualities that I had hoped to find in Jodha, but had, sadly, drawn a blank.

Sole objection: I have only one reservation about the way in which Heera is depicted, as a wide-eyed Jodha look alike. I know why this has been done, but I personally would rather not have it. Jodha's features are not those that one would think of for Heera Baisa, whom I see as a delicate, almost fey creature, seeming at times to be not quite of this world.

And her eyes should be, as the poet wrote of the blind eyes of the Greek princess Nausicaa, more beautiful than eyes that could see. Not Jodha Begum's eyes. They are lovely, but they are not my Heera's eyes.

Periyamma... as Sandhya mentioned... I am a big fan of Paridhi's eyes and smile (even before JA days)... as I am of RT's sharp features and eye-language (ever since his PRC days)... which is why it's those features/faces I've used in the painting/banners too...

Truly speaking RT or PS as a whole, wouldn't match the description of Akbar and Heera in this story... Akbar is a towering personality, overshadowing most of whom he walks by... I would imagine at least 6'2, which RT is not even close to...

And Heera is only 16, which definitely PS doesn't look like...

it's more for inspiration.. fodder for the imagination and definitely for the fact that in this forum, it would be the only faces that would be welcomed...

But, of course, I know different readers would (and should) use/imagine any face they want their Heeras/Akbars to look like I would also like to look at the picture of this person you have in mind...

Still an enigma: There is nothing like nearly as much about Akbar, not as yet. This is as it should be, for a mystery should never be unveiled all at once, nor too soon.

But the little scene where he holds his oval topaz ring against the light of the lamp, and looks at the glowing hazel-brown of the stone, was as delicate and subtle as I could have wished.

Thank you😳

There is the instant throwback to the hazel-brown eyes he had glimpsed in the dusk over the canal. The girl and the topaz - both unique, elegant, clear-cut, subtle. But he is not yet ready for such distractions, and so he shuts the topaz away in a drawer. He will find it much harder to shut away the memory of those hazel-brown eyes.

For now, there is only the bitterness of his as yet unrevealed past, a bitterness that is reflected in his slow crushing of the wick of the night lamp, burning his fingers in the process, instead of simply blowing it out.

That was the underlying reason... a more direct reason is because he blames the 'traitorous' night lamp (aka the light of the moon) for having shown him something so beautiful (hazel eyes/topaz brown) that dared to make him stop him in his tracks and take a look... even if it was only for a second... it is also like he is showing the fire that the flame might burn him briefly, but ultimately HE will be the one standing last.. (Yes all tones of bitterness in it, though)

OK, Lashykanna, that is it, and count your blessings that this is shorter than the last one! 😉 Your tale is coming along beautifully, and I am looking forward to Chapter 8.

Shyamala Periyamma

now, my assumption/apprehension after reading all the comments is.. that Heera is going to end up having far more takers than Akbar would 🤣

Originally posted by: aishg1698

😃read till 7. u r amazing with vocabulary! u play with words and characters well!! RES for 8. and sorry iif its wrong thread