true Conception - the Making of an Idea

Dear Reader,

I recently watched this brilliant movie called Inception. If you haven't already then I definitely recommend that you watch it; and at least twice because it can be confusing at times. But it is amazing, truly inspired and keeps you locked to the edge of your seat. To cut a very long and complicated story short, this film, on the most basic level, is about how most of our ideas come to us in our dreams.  And a few nights ago, I had one of those dreams.   

I don't remember most of the dream, but I remember this one part. There was enormousness body of water. Water stretching as far as the eye could see. And as bright as the brightest sky blue that I've ever laid eyes on. Rising out of water every now and again, were thin columns of rock. I was floating on the water, whether on a rowing boat or a giant leaf, I can't remember which, but it's not really that important. 

In my hand I was holding a rich leather-bound diary and I knew, just knew - somewhere at the back of my mind - that this diary belonged to a bitter-old-foul-mouthed crone. But I also knew that this diary contained the story of how, once upon a time, that bitter old woman was young, smart, shy, innocent and was excited to be sailing to British Occupied India, to a new country, a new culture. It told of a journey of struggle, hardship and heartbreak, that led this beautiful young woman to become an embittered and lonely Lady.     

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In the middle of the diary, was a scene of the young women with a Mughal Prince. They were desperately in love. There was something he said to her, but it was in English and I was trying my best to translate it into Urdu/Hindi because it was originally said in that language. I was having a great amount of trouble because what he had said was quite sensual. And this struggle to translate that sentence became the focus of my dream. It was what I was struggling with as I wrestled myself into conciousness, and woke up thinking about it. 

But after waking, I realised that in my dream, I hadn't been reading someone else's diary but actually writing it myself from a character's point of view. That's why the translation was so important. And so my mind began to automatically fill in the gaps of the story: constructing the character of this woman, her name, where and why she was in India, the details of that time period, how the Prince had fallen in love with her, the circumstances of why he couldn't marry her and how exactly he broke her heart, her marriage to a white-fortune-hunter just to spite the Prince, how her husband beat her and tortured her, how her husband eventually died in the 1857 Rebellion. 

I could not stop my mind from thinking about it. As I went through the daily routine of life, subconsciously my mind was fleshing out the plot and making links and stuff of that sort. I was haunted by this story and I knew I had to write it down some where. But there just wasn't enough of a plot to make it into a novel of it's own. And then click, just like that, I knew exactly what I had to do. 

You see, there is another story that I have planned which is also set in that same time period, the mid-to-late 1800's. This is basically a compilation of letters between two sisters, each telling the other her story. One is Catherine (a.k.a Kitty) who spends the majority of her life in London doing charitable acts and getting involved with the suffrage movement. While the significantly older sister, Camilla,  goes to live in Hindustan with her husband Major James Russell. 

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Up until a few days ago, I had Kitty's side of the story thoroughly planned and plotted (hence the working title of the novel was "The Letters of Kitty"). I knew that Camilla's story ran in parallel to Kitty's: where Kitty fought for the rights of women to vote, Camilla would fight against the oppression of the Indian people. Yet, in honest truth, the details, actions and events of Camilla story (as opposed to Kitty's) were still rather ambiguous and fuzzy in my mind. And now here is where the idea from my dream comes in. 

Suddenly, Alhumdulillah, I just knew that Major James Russell had a wealthy but miserable old Aunt who lived in India and James was her only heir (and favourite nephew). So naturally James and Camilla would live with her in her mansion. But the Aunt is mean and bitter and takes an instant dislike to Camilla, making her life miserable too. And after a few years living with her, it is Camilla who find's the Aunt's diary and reads it in secret. She learns all that had happened to the Aunt and why she is the way she is, and relates all that she learns in her letters to her sister, Kitty. Camilla begins to sympathise and understand James' Aunt but just then ... Well, I won't tell you what happens next, for that will be giving away the rest of the story. 

But dear Reader, I did not tell you all this to boast about the stories that I am writing. I tell because I want to give you an example of were ideas come from, how they develop and take on life. Some ideas are brilliant with radiant futures ahead of them. Some are not, forgotten and neglected as soon as they form. Some ideas become best-seller novels, while others become atomic bombs. We cannot pick which idea comes to us. And when it does come, we know not where it might lead. All we can do is choose whether to follow it through. The rest is by the will Allah.

Nida