Why I write...

Reader’s Digest says that good writing is simple ABC: Accuracy, Brevity, and Clarity. I took that to heart. Another advice is to keep the language as simple as possible. So, I try to write in a language where readers will not need the dictionary. I break down complex words and shorten sentences. I follow certain rules that I learned from other writers, for example: never fall in love with your first draft, break the rules but after having learned the rules, to be a writer there’s no other way but to write, and so on. That’s how I write.

I remember how I started writing my thoughts. My dad who was also my headmaster made us write essays. In one class, he decided to read out one essay. He said that one of us wrote it but he won’t tell who. As he started to read the essay titled ‘My Neighbor’, my ears started to warm up. It was mine. Dad might have noticed my discomfort and he made sure that no one knows it’s me and he remarked in the end, ‘It is a good essay’. When other students were taking mathematics tuition, he encouraged me to take English grammar tuition. My English teacher was as also an inspiration. He made grammar more like a work of art than boring rules to be swallowed. He made me want to be a journalist one day. That’s what a good teacher does; he/she inspires. Though I went into Science stream, because of these two guys, I continue writing to this day. By the way, after PU Science, I had a plan to do BA English if I do not clear the MBBS entrance exam. So, that was how I started to write.

But if I am asked WHY I write, I don’t have a good answer. I write. Sometimes, I push myself even when no one’s asking me to write anything. I have no published book, no journal article, nor any technical background or training in writing. It is not for fame or name. I’ve been writing long before I put any of my writings in public. I don’t feel any divine calling that I have to write. I don’t feel I have been blessed with any special message to tell to the world through the written word. My job doesn’t require me to write that much. But I continue to write regularly. Sometimes I write as if my life depends on it. So, if not for the love of it, there’s no other concrete reason why I write. But I believe that love for the art will suffice and there need be no more reason.

Writing is hard work. Dry spells, aka writer’s block can drain you out. You squeeze and squeeze but the juice wouldn’t come. You stare at the blank page/screen, look up the ceiling for inspiration, search your heart; scribble, scribble, cut, cut, nothing. Then there are those days when your hand struggles to put into words the overflowing thoughts in the mind. Those are the truly exciting times. You didn’t know you have all that in you and you think you’ve wrote a masterpiece. But... Sleep over it and you find the next morning that it was nothing extraordinary really. You polish, sweep, stitch, repair, and get irritated. Some pieces that you were so excited about ends up in the dustbin. What a waste. Sometimes, the piece you are writing takes a turn midway and ends up very different from how you started. It is like you wanted to draw an apple but end up with a mango.

A writer is a keen observer. At all times he’s taking notes internally. A writer is also a reader. To write a piece, one has to read ten times as much. Then copy paste, copy paste :-) In an age when plagiarism is frowned upon and intellectual property rights violation has become a serious offence, one wonders if there is anything genuine to say. Whatever you know, someone already knew. An idea strikes your mind and you think it’s yours, but someone probably had written a book on it. It happened to me not long ago. I thought I came up with a beautiful motto for an NGO we were starting. We accepted it unanimously. I swear the idea was original. But when I went home and googled, lo and behold, it was already there. But the beauty of writing is that no matter how many people has written on the subject, no one has written it quite like you. No two persons see the same thing. There’s no one who has the exact perspective as yours. Therefore there’s always something fresh about what you dig out from within you. If that’s not true, we should be sick and tired by now of the hundreds of thousands of love song lyrics which talk of more or less the same thing. That same old Love that we know so well about.

Writing to me is a compensation for not being able to speak well. Good speakers are persuasive and some people’s jokes are funnier because of way in which they are said. As an escape, I sought solace in the written word. And like a pilgrim who has found his inner self (not that I know any), I found liberation in the written word. Some people pick up the microphone. I picked the pen and in so doing, discovered my voice.