T he saddest story that a person can tell is one without a twist. Imagine what would happen if all twists went missing from our lives -- lives that are after all mere stories being played out for the enjoyment of somebody else (my mother told me it was God, but I believe it to be my dry cleaner). Imagine having to spend the day in the company of a slightly sore muscle in the upper neck, the lower mouth tasting of the sour saliva of a day still remembered. The lick of a red blob of toothpaste, the memory of seven births being jogged by the first drop of tea, the sight of a smile against a cobble stoned street. These are nothing but twists in the stories of our lives, which we are aware of, but for which we have forgotten to be grateful.   A missing twist is a crime that would be unsolvable. Sherlock Holmes would stop in his tracks to weep a tear so profound, that when it fell on the back of a hound of a Baskerville, the beast would be overpowered into a state of hibernation.

S omerset Maugham 1 was the master of the twist, in his stories and in his life. Maugham was a few hours away from waking to life on French soil, but at the last minute, his father arranged for him to be born into the British Embassy to ensure that his son would never be conscripted for a French war. One of Maugham's most enduring books is The Razor's Edge . The book derives its title from an ancient Indian text: T he sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.

In the novel, a fighter pilot named Larry is traumatized by his experiences in the First World War, and goes to India 2 to seek inner peace. 3 Maugham doesn't end the story with Larry sitting under a pipal tree glowing with knowledge of nirvana. Rather, he progresses the story through a series of twists created by other characters in the novel, as they react to Larry upon his return from India.  

M augham is also widely known as being a champion chronicler of the last days of colonialism in India and South East Asia. His characters frequently battled not only with twists caused not only by the complexities resulting from their displaced lives, but also diseases like jaundice and malaria. 4 Thankfully, Maugham's imagination remained feverish to his dying days. Towards the end of his life, he created the suave detective character Ashenden -- the inspiration behind Ian Fleming's double agent James Bond. It is not known whether Ashenden liked his martinis shaken or stirred, but it can be safely presumed that he enjoyed his glass of gin with a tangy twist 5 .

1. Somerset Maugham was my grandfather's favorite author. My grandfather worked for the American Consulate in New Delhi, became a renowned journalist for TIME magazine and gave it all up to pursue farming in Southern India. He was a generous man, who never skimped while buying biscuits.

2. My grandfather had begun work on a novel that he had told me about in a restaurant. In the novel, a man commits a crime in New York City. Shamed by his deed, he goes to an ashram in India to seek inner peace. Ten years later, another white man comes to the ashram. After this point, the story is a blank. I remember the dosas, the touch of the air conditioning and the sounds of the shehnai, but I simply cannot remember the twist.

3.My grandfather would never recommend going to India for mental peace. For one, the roads in many parts of the country are dusty, causing swollen sinuses that come in the way of mental peace.

4. When he was 64, my grandfather experienced high fever and aches in the upper regions of his body. He was diagnosed with malaria.   

5. The diagnosis of the doctor was proved wrong, when my grandfather unexpectedly succumbed to a sudden heart attack, possibly brought about by the complications of a drug commonly prescribed to combat malaria. His death was for all of us, an unexpected twist.  

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© COPYRIGHT 2002-2012 Arun Krishnan