Writing 

Reading this blog post http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2013/10/special-children-are-born-to-special-people.html about parents of a special child whose dinner was paid for by a random couple at a restaurant here made me pause and think. 

Train of thoughts:

1. It has story potential. Unexpected kindness to marginalised section. 

2. Who are the most marginalised in society? Or the ones who are suffering the most? 

3. Does fiction in general give voice to them? 

I was in a coffeeshop the other day and thinking roughly the same thing. Looking at the drink stall seller, thinking, what is his back story? 

I think, outside my cushy pampered life, I want to explore characters I don't usually encounter. To give them a voice and to stretch my own viewpoints. 

A list: 

1. Abused wives -- I've been strangely drawn to this topic for a long time. There's something terribly odd, yet at the same time frighteningly relatable about suffering wives, although I've never been in a abusive relationship, and never really encountered one in close proximity (unless you count some friends and relatives). 

2. Hen-pecked husbands -- With the rise of the career women, hen-pecked, emasculated men make such great characters. 

3. People with special children 

4. Orphans and neglected children 

5. Singles -- by choice (ma jies, nuns, priests), by circumstance (widows, illness, responsibilities), by random social lottery 

6. Foreigners -- children of ghurkas in Singapore, expats

7. People who suffer beyond comprehension -- chronic illness that science and faith cannot help, death of a child (stillbirth, accident, illness)

8. Abandoned old folk