h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Long Ago - in Rajasthan - A53848533
Author: Atrijit Dasgupta - U6998920

Submitting for ALternative Writing Workshop

This is beautiful and immensely evocative.

I did wonder about the structure, though. The two paragraphs beginning "All in all it was one of the most beautiful places I remember," might be better placed at the end, with only the last sentence afterwards, so the reader is left with this lovely image.

There are one or two places where you need a plural instead of a singular:
"The plant was another 20 km further but there were no places where we could stay"
"The dominant animal forms..."
"entire villages and towns were breeding grounds for plague germs."

In your description of the visit to the temple, it should be "we drove along the road."

That is some good proofreading from MVP there.

This is a wonderful story. Very vivid. Going to a mountain to send a fax is just...well, amazing.

I am fascinated by all the wildlife: donkeys, little pigs, langoors...and people with bows and arrows.

Thanks, made the suggested corrections.

Thanks MVP for the wonderful proofreading...and Dmitri for your comments.

I particularly like the image of the local people going to work with their bows and arrows.

Hi MVP
Yeah they were quite insistent about THAT. They were not looking to mingling with the others anyway.
Atrijit

Can't add much apart from to say I enjoyed the read

Hi Keith
That's all you need to say
Thanks!
Atrijit

I enjoyed reading this too, and particularly liked the arrow in the door.

I'd dearly like to use a bow and arrow at my own place of work - aimed only at doors of course!

Not at the boss?

Well... this morning I'd consider aiming at the boss .

Whoosh, thunk, bang on target - according to the good Miners of the UnderGuide, that is, who have selected this for inclusion in h2g2's UnderGuide. Many congratulations!

Our QA had the following to say, in passing the piece with flying colours:

"Those who expect writing to lead somewhere will find this piece exasperating, but then again, what are people like that doing in this part of India? The rest of us will be intrigued and enchanted. This one is all about transporting the reader and invoking a place as well as the narrator’s circumstances.

"The freshness of the style and the intimacy of the description are what make it effective for me. I guess I’m a sucker for the subject too. It really does feel at times like capital project engineering in developing countries proceeds by establishing a site office and then waiting for civilisation to happen."

Congratulations again - you can expect to be hearing from a UG Polisher in the very near future

WD