Prasanna Raghavan

The Showing Narrative of Kamba Ramayana "Bleached bones lay where animals had perished, including those of monstrous serpents with jaws open deadly thirst; into these enormous jaws had rushed (says the poet) elephants desperately seeking shade, all dead and fossilized, the serpents and the elephants alike."  Photo by  Errin Casano  from  Pexels In an earlier post,  Showing Versus Telling   about “showing versus telling’ a narrative style in creative writing.  I wrote there; I was a practitioner and admirer of telling before taking a creative writing course because that was easy, and I hadn't known about showing.  Also, I concluded that showing is a modern narrative style discovered by contemporary creative writers. My curiosity took me to research the ancient work of the Indian epic, Ramayana, to learn about its narrative style.  And the outcome was amazing.   I felt rewarded for getting anxious, and I am happy to share my amazement with my readers. Before I go further, I

In creative writing, we always hear showing versus telling.  What does that mean? It means you create a scene in a story, showing all details rather than explaining it. Or do not make it expositional, or describe, only show.  For, e.g. instead of telling your character was angry, show how his eyes went red-shot, his mouth quirked in disgust, he stamped on the floor etc.  When you join a creative writing course, this is the point the facilitators stress from beginning till end.  I'm sure all of us practising writing stories have heard this.  But it's challenging to practice. I haven't exercised writing in this way, of course, I started it in my mother tongue-Malayalam.  And I never came across anyone mentioning this kind of rules in that publishing world. Even now, I don't think any such regulations are existing there.  I just wanted to bring this to my reader's attention because we are all striving towards one objective --to get our work published. If I combine all

C Courtesy to -https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/03/language-study     Anything valuable is a treasure. You come to possess lots and lots of useful things in life--both material and non-material.    A treasure trove is a collection of stuff that gives you pleasure and value. It contains books; coins and pieces of jewellery made out of gold and other precious metals like diamonds, gemstones; relics of historical and cultural significance, the list are endless. Some have real values regarding coins and banknotes. But, some can find value only in the eyes of the beholder. A moth-eaten yellow piece of paper keeping a name or a line of writing can be of immense value to someone.      Memories too are treasures, though they lack material forms.  Some people just throw away their lives once come to the realisation no memories are left for them to be treasured. No matter they are super rich.     My family is a treasure for me, which cannot be given value.     Use of language is