Soft Facts

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Whenever there is a paucity of hard facts, Artistic Freedom is allowed its free reign; and justly so. Everyone craves freedom and artists make their living out of it.

Take for instance, the Death of Gandhijee.

I presume there is a plethora of hard fact evidence for us to agree that he was fatally wounded in broad daylight in public by a pistol shot.

But there is sufficient disagreement as to what his last words were.

Quite a few playwrights as well as Gandhians differ:

Gandhians insist that his last words were: "Hey Raam!".

The dissenters insist that all that emerged from his lips was an incoherent gurgle.

The choice is yours!

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Suppose an injured body were found beside the rail tracks in the morning and no one has a clue of what happened during the dead of the night.

The dozen odd onlookers are free to make their own theories like:

1. The poor chap was hit when he was drunk
2. He had an argument with his wife and decided to end it all
3. He was thrown under the train by his political rivals
4. Same as above but by his business rivals
5. Same as above but by his wife's paramours.

and so on....

At my age I would prefer to profess that I actually watched him try to save a lame street dog in the tracks from being run over and lost his balance after saving the dog.

Noblesse Oblige!

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To tall-tale tellers like me there is another angle to this freedom above the facts.

Most of my blogs are reminiscences of of events long past with few witnesses to confront me.

I don't take liberties with hard facts but I do with a hazy soft past, just to round the story up.

Memory is a tricky thing. The event of a half a century vintage, when recalled is in black and white.

I first color it up by deleting the inessentials and improving the nucelus, which is essential for the sake of brevity and readability.

Finally when winding up, I subtly alter the hard facts by adding one or two scenes that make the ending look great. Now this addendum has to be such that it doesn't violate the basic structure of the characters and their images; but highlights them.

After indulging in this imagination for a while and writing it down, I truly 'believe' that it is TRUE!!!

Such is the power of a 'story' recalled as Wordsworth put it:

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...For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils...

I am sure Wordsworth was making it up quite a good deal...he must have omitted the inconvenience of a long trek, foul weather, stinking lake and stuff.

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Let me give an example. Long while ago I posted a blog called: "My Fair Russian Lady".

The events happened a good 40 years ago and there are no survivors to challenge my personal account described there.

Everything said there was 100 % TRUE, but I am not that confident about this prefinal paragraph:


....Time for her to leave: the entire Faculty Hostel where she became the most popular Visitor threw her a grand Farewell Party. We decided that each of us her admirers would file past her by the Dining Table and present her with one rose each. She was overwhelmed at the unexpected gesture. Tears swelling in her eyes. We then asked her to make a short speech in Pure English. She blushed and gamely tried and we would hoot whenever she slipped into Russian. And we all laughed and laughed, she joining us most sportingly.....

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-fair-russian-lady.html

I now tend to believe that this really happened, but would not bet my life on it. It just sounds great and that's enough for me not to investigate too closely into these soft facts.

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