Stranger neighbors

Two strangers meet accidentally due to an accident with one of them. It turned out that the two were indeed neighbors in the same apartment.

Vivek was going at 60KM per hour on his motorbike on the busy national highway in Hyderabad. It was evening around 6.30 PM, he was returning from his office. As luck would have it, an old man crossed the road, abruptly without giving even the slightest caution to the commuters passing in the vehicles, as though he needed to cross over to catch up with his life breathe. The old man didn’t know that he was endangering his own life as well as the commuters. Without looking at either side of the road he hurried to the other side of the road. Vivek almost hit him and applied the brakes suddenly with a rush of panic and fear. The two-wheeler screeched with a loud thud and fell on the road along with Vivek. It was good luck that he wore a helmet that saved him from serious head injuries. But, instead, he received multiple bruises all over his body. Blood was oozing from his shoulder, left leg, and from his left jaw. A few passersby came to him and helped him to sit down. His two-wheeler got badly damaged by the impact of the accident. The passersby shouted at the old man for his gross negligence. They later came to know that the old man was deaf. After learning this fact, some people spoke to him and scolded him in sign language for his reckless act.

 

One of the members of the public, Deepak gave him water and cleaned his blood with his hanky. He spoke to Vivek in a soft voice and offered to take him to a nearby hospital which Vivek accepted with great relief. Deepak took him to the emergency section of the hospital and got the necessary first aid. In the meantime, Vivek called his wife over the phone to come over to the hospital.  Since Deepak had to attend some important assignment, he took leave of Vivek after confirming that someone was coming from his home to take care of him. Deepak noted Vivek’s phone number and left after wishing him a speedy recovery. Vivek’s wife turned up with her friend who brought her in her car. After the doctor’s check-up and X-ray, the possibility of any fracture was ruled out. In the next fifteen minutes, his wounds were got dressed. Certain medicines were given to him. Vivek's wife made the payment for the first aid treatment and accompanied Vivek in her friend's car.

  

In another few days, Deepak enquired over the phone about Vivek’s health. Vivek thanked him for all the help extended by Deepak. The two had become phone friends. Now and then they used to share messages on WhatsApp. After a month’s time, while Vivek was shopping in a supermarket, he accidentally spotted Deepak in a queue at the billing counter. Vivek waved his hands at Deepak who also responded but they could not meet and speak since Vivek started his purchases and Deepak had reached the billing clerk for payment. Vivek told in a bit loud voice that he stayed in Ram’s colony, nearby to which Deepak too responded he too resides in the same locality.

 

Later in their Whatsapp chat, Vivek invited Deepak to his home. Deepak accepted the offer and promised to visit Vivek soon. Somehow another two months passed. The WhatsApp connectivity was intact between these two friends, though with less frequency.

 

One Sunday, someone pressed the calling bell. Vivek’s wife opened the door. To her surprise, she found her neighbor friend Vanitha smiling, who had not visited Vivek’s house earlier. Vivek’s wife invited her inside. While Vivek and his wife stayed on the second floor of their apartment, the neighbor stayed on the 3^rd floor. Vanitha said they were vacating the flat and were moving to Bangalore. Though not close, the two women knew each other and Vanitha wanted to say goodbye to her before leaving Hyderabad.

 

Vivek’s wife requested Vanitha to bring her husband and have a cup of tea with them. Vanitha phoned her husband Deepak and asked him to come to the second-floor flat for just 10 minutes to have a sip of tea. Deepak was not interested to go because they were leaving Hyderabad the same day evening. But on insistence by Vivek’s wife, he agreed to visit their house for a short time.

 

Deepak entered Vivek’s flat, without any idea that Vivek resided in the same flat. Since Vivek was getting dressed up, his wife received Deepak and offered him a seat. Vivek got ready and came to the drawing room. Seeing Deepak in his flat he was taken aback by pleasant surprise. Deepak could not believe that both of them were residing in the same apartment. Later the two came to know the fact that the two families were residing in the flat for 2 years without seeing other.

 

In these days of mushroom growth in apartments and people taking shelter in its pigeon holes like flats, social ties, and personal intimacy takes a big beating. 

Reviews

[JayG]

Okay, you've written the synopsis. Now write the story. 😁

Seriously, what you've written is a report—a chronicle of events, of the form, This happened...then that happened...and after that..." So you've educated the reader on events in a fictional person's life. But that's how history books are written, and who reads them for fun?

You're thinking of the plot as being the story. But it's not. Your reader isn't seeking facts. They want you to make the events seem to be happening to THEM. They want you to calibrate their responses to that of the protagonist, and make THEM react. Instead of telling them that an old man walked in front of someone they know nothing about, make that person walk into the reader's path. Make the reader REACT, not just know it happened

Have you ever read a story that became so intense you had to stop reading to catch your breath? Have you ever been moved by a story to say, "What do we do now?" That's where the joy of reading lies. And providing it is a learned skill, one only taught to those acquiring the skills of the Fiction-Writing profession. We literally learn none of its skills in school. There, we learn the skills that employers need, like nonfiction writing.

After all, did a single teacher explain why a scene on the page is so different from one in film? Did they define the elements that make it up, and how to manage them? Because if they didn't, how can you write what the reader will see as a scene?

See the problem? It's not a matter of talent, or how well you write, it's one of acquiring the necessary skills. And for that, the library's fiction-writing section can be huge resource. Personally? I’d suggest starting with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found, to date, at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

Try a few chapters. I think you’ll be amazed at the number of things in plain sight that we miss.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/