Hello, ozhan! In response to your request on my Guest Book, I have offered some suggestions for grammar on your piece "A Writer's Resolve" ! I hope this helps! Another alternative to changing all the verbs to the present tense is to change the beginning to the past tense to match the rest of the story.
In addition, I enjoyed this tale! I think Asif is an intriguing character who is himself intrigued by the strange, beautiful music. The ending, with the girl being deaf and dumb, is such a poignant moment.
All best,
Morgan
This review is my own opinion. Please take whatever might be useful and ignore what is not!
In midst of a Mumbai slum sits a massive, dark and unsightly structure colored only by the linen, hung to dry, from its balconies. It is a colossal bee hive, a mountain of people piled on top of each other, parted and confined by flimsy walls, designed in the most complex way to accommodate as many people as possible, (comma instead of semi-colon because what comes after is not a complete sentence) where one person’s bedroom window opens to the sight of another's bathroom, or any other combination you may dare imagine.
Asif Ali, the retired editor from a small local publication, lives in one of those cubicles, where it smells of ancient woodwork and old books. Asif fills all of his time with writing. It had been his retirement resolution, to chronicle everything in life, everything he encountered, and he believed that to be the true work of a writer. Through the days (this seems a bit awkward) Asif strives to write it all, to an extent that when he wished to remind himself of how an experience felt he could read his own account of it and be reminded.
But lately something new had caught (perhaps “catches”) his attention more than writing, and that is an echo or a muffled sound of the most soothing song he had heard. It is clearly the voice of a child that, somehow, finds its way through the cluster of bricks, cement and steel all the way up to Asif’s bathroom, and he intends to find the source and write down the words to that song.
Asif would hear the music at various hours of morning and run out of the house and into the dark corridors to find the source, but he failed every time. Due to the tricky nature of the structure, it was almost impossible to follow sound by its trail, and asking around didn’t help either. Frustrated, Asif armed with paper and pen began to decipher this puzzle and find the source to the sound. He jotted, calculated and drew every opening, every door, window, and every corridor on his side of the building until he had a plan very similar to the blueprint of the building itself. Asif then began, bottom to top, to knock on doors or even place his ears on the walls where the occasion called for it.
A week and six floors later Asif still has no clue as to the source of the music. Until one day when he returns to his apartment, after a day of having doors shut on him, he hears the sound again, this time closer and clearer than ever. Asif follows it like a dog following a scent, and his trail ends in front of the door to the apartment adjacent to his.
The door, unlike usual, is wide open and Asif peeps in to see if anybody is home. Suddenly a woman walks out of the bathroom followed by a little girl draped in a towel. The girl immediately notices Asif and pauses to stare at him. This gets her mother’s attention who in turn begins to scream in a frenzy.
“Get away from my house,” she says, as she comes charging towards him. Before he can say anything Asif is pushed away and the door is bolted on the inside.
“This is a misunderstanding, Behen Ji, I assure you. I had no intention of intruding.”
“You step away from my door, I warn you. My husband is going to be home soon. He will kill you if he finds out… “
“No, no, Behen Ji, there is no need for all that. I am your neighbor, you see, I am a writer. Lately I have heard singing from your house. I thought it was beautiful and followed it to your doorsteps.”
Asif listens intently to hear a reply from her, but the house is absolutely silent, so he decides to move away before he gets into any trouble. As he steps away the door opens and the woman pops her head out, now covered with a cloth over her hair. She stands there in silence.
“The voice...it’s your daughter's, isn’t it?”
She nods.
“It is beautiful. Is there any way I could learn the words to that song?”
The woman frowns.
“Is this a joke?” She steps beyond the doorway, her hands on her hips.
“Oh, no, not at all, why do you ask?”
“Shirin is Deaf and Dumb. There are no words to her song.”
Asif still sits in his little place every day and writes, but he devotes a part of his mornings, away from the typewriter, to listen to Shirin’s voice.
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