A Prayer for the Motorcycle Girl

I read somewhere that all serious writers have a website. Since I’m sauntering vaguely in that direction, I thought of at least starting a new blog. The old ones were too specific — one was exclusively for poetry and the other, for documenting my experiences in Europe. On the other hand, I don’t know if people really read blogs any more, but here goes!

I’ll flag off this blog by posting a link to my first proper publication. I’m absolutely thrilled to share my tiny little story, “A Prayer for the Motorcycle Girl“, which has been published in the “Love Stinks” issue of Atticus Review. By the way, I think it’s really cool that Atticus came out with this ironic take on the whole Valentine’s day thingy. Actually, another story of mine got published earlier, but this was my first acceptance. I can still remember the day I got the acceptance mail. I danced for an hour, playing “otha sollala” in a loop.

Quite a few friends commented on the circus theme after I shared this story through email and Facebook. Actually, I was going through a phase of reading Kafka’s early writings where I noticed that he uses the circus as setting, theme and metaphor in stories like “First Sorrow”, “Up in the Gallery” and even the acclaimed “The Hunger Artist”. Though there’s nothing Kafkaesque about my writing, I liked the idea of using the circus motif to reanimate old themes. It seemed a way to express things otherwise inexpressible, which is indeed the raison d’être of all literature. And it was fun to write!

And here’s a lovely sketch to complement the story, inked by my multi-talented friend Sherine. I am so excited and honoured that someone actually thought of doing a sketch based on a story of mine! You da man, Sherine!

Fun fact: “A Prayer for the Motorcycle Girl” was initially titled “Playing with Fire”, but was revised according to editorial suggestions.