OFF BEAT: A COLLECTION OF INDIAN STORIES

The Stories in this Collection are based on all that I've experienced, seen and understood of life.

During my early days I was a vagabond of sorts since I was fascinated by the hippie culture of those days but then thanks to an uncle of mine, I realized that ultimately, I could not be dependent on anybody for my drugs or my food and that I had to lift myself up out of the mire to at least seek a livelihood for only then would it bring me the money to keep me going and maintain my habits. I therefore sacrificed my interest in the art of writing and sold myself to mammon. As a result I did not write for nearly twenty four years until I met my Muse who encouraged and motivated me to write once again and share my experiences with the world at large.

Coming to the question of the title for this collection of short stories, several of my friends have wanted to know why I had titled it “Off-Beat”. To them I can only say that though my writing appears to be old fashioned and straight as they would put it, my themes are rather different. In a world where most contemporary writers especially Indian authors in English write as if they have verbal diarrhea, I wished to write differently. I believe that creative story writing is to tell a story in the most simple and effective manner possible and trying to write flowery, disjointed, meaningless prose just to show off your skill with the language is not good story telling. I found my style of writing therefore different from the modern so called contemporary writers. I have been told that my stories are not very descriptive and have the feel of a guy telling it rather than writing it down. I deliberately avoid being descriptive since I believe I should leave it to the reader to imagine it according to his own perception of things.

I have therefore titled this collection as “Off – Beat”. I hope you get what I mean; even if you don’t, just read on….

Suri Ben Noah
Chennai – 600 014