conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a story about Calcutta, quot;O, Siva with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this story could be 'Song of Kali'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a plot for a story about Calcutta, quot;O, Siva.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Song of Kali: Robert Luczak is sent by the magazine Other Voices, where he works as an editor, to Calcutta to locate poetry alleged to have been recently authored by a poet, Das.\nThe literary world considers this development newsworthy because Das disappeared and is presumed to have died eight years ago.\nRobert's Indian wife, Amrita, and their infant child accompany him on his assignment.\nUpon arriving, he is met by a mr Krishna, a local intellectual who claims to have been asked to assist them by a mutual friend.\nThe next day he meets with the local writers guild who were the source of the few bits of poetry that made their way to America.\nWhen he asks to meet Das, he is told that it is out of the question.\nRobert considers leaving Calcutta at this point, his duty done, but feels that something is missing and that he doesn't have enough material for an interesting article at this point.\nThe night before he and his family are to leave, Krishna returns and takes Robert to a man who can provide him with information relevant to his story.\nThe man tells how he and a friend tried to join a religious secret society dedicated to Kali, a Hindu goddess associated with death and destruction.\nOne of the prerequisites was for each initiate to bring a corpse to a secret temple, there to be laid at the feet of a statue of Kali.\nOne of the corpses, bloated and decayed after being dredged from the river, is chosen by Kali and vivified by her, becoming animated.\nThe corpse is that of the poet, Das.\nRobert finds the man's tale too fantastical to believe, and still hopes to meet and interview the poet.\nWhile he is not granted an interview with Das, he receives an extensive collection of Das' poetry, which is very different from his earlier work, describing dark, mystical, grotesque, and apocalyptic happenings.\nRobert again insists that the writers guild allow him to see Das.\nThis time they agree.\nHe is brought to the poet, who seems to suffer from the advanced stages of leprosy.\nDas corroborates the story of his return from death, but Robert again refuses to believe it.\nDas asks Robert to bring him storys of poetry, making a reference to a certain poem about a suicide to hint that he really wants the means to kill himself.\nBecoming concerned at the eerie, and sometimes frightening, events that he has experienced, Robert attempts to send his wife and child home, but they are unable to get a flight.\nConcealing a gun (given to him previously by Krishna) in one of the storys he has bought for Das, he returns to the poet.\nHe leaves the storys and goes, but, as he exits the house, hears two gunshots.\nDas is dead.\nRobert is captured by guards and drugged.\nHe awakens to find himself in a temple of Kali, where the statue of the goddess seems to come to life and attack him, but it is unclear whether this ever really happens.\nHe is loaded into the back of a truck by the cultists to be taken somewhere, but manages to escape with Krishna's help.\nHe returns to the hotel, only to find his wife informing the police that their daughter has been kidnapped.\nAfter a couple of days of dead-end leads, a couple is caught trying to smuggle jewels hidden within the child's body.\nWith their child dead and no hope of finding the perpetrators of the crime or bringing them to justice, Robert and his wife return to America.\nRobert decides to destroy the poetry, and, gradually, their relationship returns to normal.\nRobert is tempted to go back to Calcutta on a revenge shooting spree, but manages to resist at the last moment, and finally comes to terms with the events after that.\nWhispers can still be heard, though, of the ″Song of Kali,″ the condition of humanity dominated by hatred and violence, perfectly embodied, in the mind of the narrator, by the squalor and chaos of Calcutta.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first paragraph for this story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Song of Kali
  Amrita looked out the window at the evening chaos on the street. "I would have offered twice as much," she said. "But that would have been almost a million rupees. This amount is more believable somehow, more exciting to the greedy."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'We had made two-thirds of the mile-and-a-half circuit and were approaching the crest of the small hill that overlooked the road when Abe sat down on a fallen birch and began methodically emptying his shoes of dirt and twigs'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: We had made two-thirds of the mile-and-a-half circuit and were approaching the crest of the small hill that overlooked the road when Abe sat down on a fallen birch and began methodically emptying his shoes of dirt and twigs. I sat nearby and looked back toward the pond we had circled near the inlet.
  Abe rose and spat again. Chips of bark clung to his suit. "Let's go, huh, Bobby? I got to get the bus back to Boston to get the damn train."
  On November 2, I received a short letter from Inspector Singh. It informed me that the male suspect, Sugata Chowdury, would not be standing trial. During his detention in Hooghly Prison Chowdury had "met with foul play." Specifically, someone had stuffed a towel down his throat while he slept. The woman identified as Devi Chowdury was expected to come to trial within the month. Singh promised to keep me informed. I never heard from him again.
  In mid-November, shortly after the first heavy snowfall of that bitter winter, I reread Das's manuscript, including the final hundred pages that I had not finished in Calcutta. Das had been correct in his succinct summary: it was a birth announcement. To get the gist of it, I would recommend Yeats's "Second Coming." Yeats was a better poet.
  It occurred to me then that my problem with deciding what to do with Das's manuscript was oddly similar to the problem the Parsees have in disposing of their dead. The Parsees, a dwindling minority in India, hold earth, air, fire, and water all as sacred and do not wish to pollute them with the bodies of their dead. Their solution is ingenious. Years ago Amrita had described to me the Tower of Silence in a Bombay park, above which circle the vultures in patient spirals.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Amrita and I made love that night. It was not the first time since Calcutta, but it was the first time we were able to forget everything except each other. Afterward, Amrita fell asleep with her head on my chest while I lay there and watched the Perseid meteors cut their way across the August night sky. I counted twenty-eight before I fell asleep.
  Amrita is thirty-eight, almost thirty-nine. I'm sure that her doctor will recommend amniocentesis. I'm going to urge her not to go through that. Amniocentesis is helpful primarily if the parents are willing to abort the fetus if there are genetic problems. I don't think we are. I also feel—feel very strongly—that there will be no problems.
  It might be best if we were to have a boy this time, but it will be fine either way. There will be painful recollections with a baby in the house, but it will be less painful than the hurt we've shared so long now.
  I still believe that some places are too wicked to be suffered. Occasionally, I dream of nuclear mushroom clouds rising above a city and human figures dancing against the flaming pyre that once was Calcutta.
  Somewhere there are dark choruses ready to proclaim the Age of Kali. I am sure of this. As sure as I am that there will always be servants to do Her bidding.