BENGALURU: Years after losing his son, a government employee confronts grief when faced with another bereft soul; two gym-mates find that there’s more to magnetism than meets the eye; touring Edinburgh and London, a successful theatre couple tries to go ‘back to the beginning’. These are the short stories that feature in actress-playwright Noor Baig’s debut book, A-Quaint-Essences, which delves into encounters, relationships and friendships that go beyond the usual definition.
If 2020 had been just another year, Baig – the wife of actor-director Mohammad Ali Baig – would have been travelling to Russia, the USA and other Indian cities with their play. But homebound thanks to the pandemic, she decided to get into publishing some works. “I’ve always been fascinated by human relationships, emotions and finding meaning in every meeting. I would write only what I would want to read,” says the Hyderabad-based vice-president of Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Foundation.
The 120-odd page book has 10 short stories, and has been published by Notion Press. While most of the stories are fictional, they have been inspired by some real-life meetings. In fact, the story, Back to the Beginning, is loosely outlined on her husband and her. Writing has always been an important part of her life. But is there a difference between writing for the stage and for a book? “It’s different, there’s the audience element. In short story writing, there’s a lot of internalisation of characters.
In the former, there’s an immediate response, but in books, there’s no immediate response,” she says, adding that at the end of the day, it’s the process of story telling that is the heart of the matter. Baig spent the lockdown penning these tales, many of which were with her for along time. “I prefer writing in the mornings, but during the lockdown I was completely consumed in the book. It was like the characters were driving me to tell their stories,” she says.