I am writing a book which will be a collection of short stories?

Soothsayer

I have written a few pages of the first story and wanted you all to comment on the writing. Please give me honest feed back. The stories will all mostly be based on life and happenings of India.

The Pole stood there for 40 years now. Shedding light at the same spot, an endless chain of local chronology could be associated with the electric Pole in the NB area. Initially erected in front of a mansion in a posh locality in the south of Bangalore, it was later dislodged to the NB slum owing to the fact that the mansion belonged to a high profile officer whose working contacts in the government were evidently impressionable. People of the NB area took no time in making the Pole feel at home, as it was the harbinger of the electric era to the unfortunate locality where half the population was poor and the rest was poorer.

The first Vijayadashami after the arrival of the pole was celebrated grandly by bestowing a reverent status to the pole, coconuts were cracked and offered to the pole, vermilion and turmeric powder were applied in sumptuous amount to the pole decorated with banana tree stem and jasmine flowers. In the early years of its erection at NB area, the entire population of the area would gather under the light of the pole at night and appear benevolent under the halo of flies attracted by the light of the pole. In groups of men and women, they would gossip about neighbors, make wedding plans, exchange baby raising tips, give references for employment, decide on whom to vote for, quarrel and sort quarrels, and do miscellaneous domestic chores. All that the pole would have seen in its life time had it been in the posh locality would be the watchman of the mansion dozing under its light, but here it was destined to see the vividness of human habitation and live through the graphic upheaval in its status from being raised to a celebrity position to being loathed as an anti social element.

School going children were forcibly ushered by their anxious mothers to complete their homework and study under the pole. Citing the example of Sir M.Vishweshwariah the mothers collectively conceived a notion that any child that studied under street light would eventually become a replication of Sir M.V. The children would then display a genuine fake concentration on books long enough till their mothers exited the scene and then move on to more entertaining acts like comparing the change of color of their skin, books, bags under the neon light of the pole and swatting flies. This benign scene of the pole and its pupils was photographed by an aspiring photo journalist and published in a rather local paper with the cliched title âSir M.Vs in the makingâ. The article went on to say how the lone pole in the area provided for a study room as large as its light spread; how even on negligence of the municipality to provide electricity to each house, the little buddhas under the pole were battling municipal odds trying to attain educational enlightenment. The people of the area though could not read a word of the article, bought copies of the paper just to see the photo of their children studying and themselves plunging into and trespassing the background of the photo just to be seen in it. Scanning the grainy black and white photo, Raju the milkman, an esteemed old timer at the area said âDo you see thatâ, pointing at what looked like a chucked dirty broom, âThat is my hand, I somehow sensed the scope of the camera had ended exactly where I was standing, So I lent my handâ and some one said in an impressed tone that it was very thoughtful of him to do that. This lead to people scanning every detail of the photo. Many arbitrary voices came up saying âThat is my shoulderâ, âThis is my footâ, âOh that is my cow in the photoâ, âThat you see is my bucketâ. There were two claimants for the same foot in the photo which lead to a heated argument with asocial vocabulary for the rest of the day with the claimants thrashing a third unfortunate person saying âIf only this fat fool was not in front covering up, the rest of the body to which the foot belonged would be evident â. By now, the pole had gained such a popularity that the immovable half blind Parkinson-stricken senior most citizens of the area had started coining proverbs on the pole which loosely translated to âEven at the cost of burning self, the benign spread light aroundâ

It was evident from the geography of the pole, that it was erected in haste; it stood still right in the middle of the road leading into the area. This proved an inescapable obstruction for the drunken husbands of the area staggering and struggling with the labyrinth path back home from the Madhulok liquor shop. Like a coincidental ritual , almost all drunken men would bang against the pole and start an argument with the pole in demand of justice for the inconvenience caused. After a prolonged one sided argument, the session would be adjourned with the drunken man collapsing at the foot of th

Answer
Your writing is pretty good, although it needs a lot of editing and formatting help. But the fact remains that, symbolic or not, your story is about a pole. It just comes across strangely.

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Title Post: I am writing a book which will be a collection of short stories?
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