Music of Silence

‘Music of Silence’ by SK Prakash is a collection of stories and poems that he wrote at different times. You will come across a mosaic of characters such as a watchman, a historian, a coolie, a grasshopper, a dark lady, an insomniac all quietly going through the karma of their lives. However, if you analyze closely you will see that Prakash’s writing is essentially about human states of mind, ranging from compassion and gratitude to longing and loneliness to insecurity and sense of absurdity. To his pen, characters are a medium of expression for these states of mind. Coolie and the Wheel The story of a porter in a suburban railway station in India; he represents a section of society marginalized by the economic progress of the country. Watchman and the Hundred rupee Note How easily we get accustomed and even addicted to the monotonous rhythm and the patterns of human life!; an interesting story on the psyche of habituation. One Morning in the Life of a Historian The story of a historian who stands perplexed at the crossroads of history; how his academic ambition goes awry by a strange twist of history. A Weekend as Usual A chronicle of a weekend evening in the life of the protagonist; it portrays a series of weird and fascinating characters who come to the local bar to unwind. Music of Silence We often experience silence as a rare and precious pause in the procession of this noisy human world. In fact, the nature had originally meant life to be a perpetual song of silence, with sounds just as its accompaniments. We turned it upside down, and drowned the beauty of silence in a clamor of absurd sounds. Mist of Kodaikanal Kodaikanal is a hill station in South India. KodaiKanal is beautiful all through the year, but she is all the more beautiful during the pause between monsoon and winter, when rain makes a reluctant departure and mist descends the valley in free abandon; A love story of nature in the background of Kodaikanal. Call me Machaan Endless cycle of births and deaths; but for the spontaneous springs of human goodness, we would have lost our way into perennial gloom and despair; the story of a relationship bonded by compassion and gratitude from the previous birth. Grasshopper The story of a grasshopper that yearns to be with her long lost friend and play together again in a faraway garden of such solitude unknown to humans A miracle and a Mystery “Oh! To know her a little closer, to hold her a little longer….” We all have experienced, at least once, the bitter-sweet game of this elusive seductress. My dark Lady The picture of a dark lady, myriad in her manifestations and beautiful in her imperfections In Praise of Gossip “Humanity is yet to invent a more interesting and cost effective pastime”; a hilarious satire on gossip, the universal human pastime.