A reader's plea and a writer's thoughts

 My posts have been fermenting in my mind for the longest time. There were days when the fermentation was just appropriate for the posts were let out of the process. Alas! my posts have become pickled now and congealed within the crevices of my mind. Well, recently a student of mine (well, this is a rare phenomenon!) has begun reading my posts and posits questions and observations. This process of him commenting has filled me with a certain joie de vivre which in turn has made me promise myself that I should write more often.

The process of writing for me is also cathartic for me from the mundane-ness of everyday life which I seek to escape from. I know that the key is acceptance and reconciliation but that that hardly seems to work for me. I realise that I have to write to free my stifling thoughts and crude imaginations. Well, I hope to persevere and write.

Thanks dear Satyam for the childlike curiosity which makes me happy to write.

Well, tomorrow is another day!

In search of 'What is my passion?'

If you have seen the 2014 film Whiplash, you will understand what true passion is - passion that consumes your time, thoughts and almost everything you live for. I have seen many people having such passion - something that they live for (and sometimes also die for). I hope you have not mistaken passion for romantic passion in this context. I am not even thinking of that, though, I cannot deny that that passion also consumes the individual.

After watching that film, I asked R, ''Do you know what is your passion?'' to which he did not have a logical answer and as I was questioning him, I was also asking myself - ''What IS my passion?" A passion that I could live and die for, a passion that consumes me and a passion that fills my vacant hours. I could not think of anything. I was distressed for after all, everyone has that one passion which keeps them alive and going. I tried to think of many attributes that have defined me through the years but alas! I could not put my finger to the ONE passion and exclaim - I can devote my entire life to this one!

I had imagined that I liked reading and that it was my passion but then reading is a hobby and a life-line, not something which can be defined as passion. Then, I thought travelling and then realised that it was something that I liked intermittently. Teaching? Nah. I like interacting with young and curious minds but passion, no! Writing, perhaps. I dwelt a bit longer on this but could not convince myself to say, ''Yes, writing is my passion.'' But I don't write all that much. I have strong memories of a well-watered and nourished blog but that is a lovely memory now. I used to scribble in my journal - The journal remains albeit with blank pages . . . I could go on and on about my terrible failing when it came to writing but I hold myself and stop.

I am still searching for my passion. Even today morning, I had a conversation with my sister about the passion of doing something consistently and getting a high inspite of doing it every single day. We blamed boredom and laughed away our lack of passion for anything.

I am still not done. I feel like an inadequate work in progress which has some vital piece missing. There are days when the search consumes me and there are other days when I hardly think about any such piece. But here I am, painfully aware of that passion.

The process of writing never stops . . .

These days I find myself ghost-writing in my thoughts over and over whenever I find something interesting and worth jotting down. There was a time when I had the patience, luxury and adrenaline rush to capture my thoughts in my blog but then, like everything beautiful comes to a momentary halt (with promises of renewal), I sparsely felt the need to post. I discovered that inspite of not giving a form to my thoughts in the form of posts, I mentally write within my mind. Yes, that's why I say that the process of writing never stops. It continues albeit without a palpable medium.

I realised this quite late because I was perpetually in a state of guilt and anger in equal measure when I saw that my blog is lying in a state of neglect almost like the memories of an old lover who remains within but rarely demands any attention. I knew that my blog is there, safe, still read by some (the growing statistics tell me that) and bookmarked by some others to be read in leisure. But the ache of seeing the last entry dated a month ago does not bring any consolation to my otherwise active mind. In the interim, I have been closely observing my mind! Strange as it may sound, I have stumbled upon some interesting thought processes that marginally cut down my guilt quotient. I am always writing posts within my head - not the scribbling in a worn out journal but paragraphs neatly organised with a propah introduction, middle and conclusion, like I always say to my class!

I wonder whether this happens to everyone and if so, how long do these entries stay. For me, they stay a while until the next interesting subject comes along. I am afraid my mind has not served as a container so far, only a medium - that too a virtual one. I wonder if there is a procedure to tap one exact nerve and extricate all the posts and translate them to coherent words that would show up on my blog as posts. If wishes were horses, nay blog posts, I would be one content soul happily basking in the glory of my thoughts which I know would eventually get fed on my blog!

Until the technology makes my wish happen, I will hopefully continue the process of writing, sorry ghost-writing in my mind and maybe sometimes, I would stop by my wee blog and strive to record these precious nuggets of memory.

Dear reader, what have you been doing with your thoughts, if I may probe.

She could be me in another garb!

I know for a fact that each individual has her/his writing style which is unique to him/her but when I stop by at some blogs, I am reminded of the blogger ME. Yesterday, when I was supposed to be doing some serious work, I stopped at a blog for taking a wee break which extended beyond wee (that's another matter) and was astonished beyond belief that the writing was so very ME. In that blog, stood many posts which were drafted in my mind, same lines, same expressions and even same cliches. I was flabbergasted and a bit worried because the posts inflated my sense of 'uniqueness.' The topics were quite assorted but the thought process of those posts stripped me my sense of uniqueness. I guess that happens to almost most of us. No matter how much we talk of individuality and being special, some of these findings deflate our own brand that defines us.

The first post that I read piqued my curiosity because here was someone who thought and expressed things like me. I moved on to the next post and like that I would have read about ten posts or so which spoke of diverse interests and meanderings. Maybe the writer and I were some sort of joint souls who were separated many births ago but still have come together through posts in this era. As my reading progressed, I came to understand that I enjoyed those posts - the identity of the person behind those posts came alive with every post and that brought me close to the writer herself. I could see her smirk, delight, excited and morose. While she poured out her heart in her posts, I identified me. The thoughts that were a blur in my mind gained clarity when I read hers. Maybe I am exaggerating but I did feel like that when I read those posts by her.

The only thing I regret is that she had turned my drafts into delectable posts and I might not be interested in turning those drafts of mine into posts. She has already done that. Now, to prevent her turning more of my drafts into posts, I have to blog more regularly so that the girl who could be me would not steal my unwritten drafts.

This post is dedicated to her. I will not disclose her blog's name for you might land up there and exclaim, 'Really? She is not like Susan at all. In fact, she is much better!' Even though, you will not scream this on my face, the chances that you will find no similarities between us is quite high. So, I will leave you wondering about this blog I am referring to and also whether you have found any blog that captures the essence of YOU.

And thus was born a Grammar Nazi . . .

Believe me, I was never someone who took exceptional care of grammar esp the apostrophe when I was jotting down in my wee journal or writing in my blog earlier. My its and yours followed their own mind and often my number and tense was havoc! I wonder how those changed. Did I become conscious after reading a few writing blogs or did Facebook's self-proclaimed grammar nazis trigger the urge to check and recheck my its and it's. No, no, it wasn't Facebook. I now remember. It was my Supervisor who drilled and coerced me in turns to refine my crude ways of writing. The rest was done by the writing blogs that I had (wisely) subscribed to while gallivanting the world of blogs and bloggers. But even then, I wasn't a grammar nazi. I was a learner who was relearning and unlearning few tricks of the trade. 

In case, I forget, I was also teaching. And while one imparts knowledge, one should be sure and right of certain things atleast, I reckon. I might not be the teacher who gets everything right but my students had to learn some fundamentals of the English language and there it became imperative that I train them in certain rules of the language and writing was one of them. I consciously started spelling out your and you're; its and it's, in my mind and double-checked whenever I wrote something on the board. Of course, writing in English is more than their and there but still these were some items which were always confusing and largely misspelt. Gradually, my writing started improving. When one's Supervisor drills plus one teaches plus one reads fantastic writing blogs plus one writes often, the end result is something good. Ah, how I did I forget to add voracious reading to the list. That too helped a lot.  And all the while, I was STILL not a grammar nazi.

Then Facebook started popping up these pictures and memes and all of a sudden, there was a gross turnover of self-proclaimed grammar nazis. Sadly, even I joined the tribe, I reckon. A was correcting status messages, S was lamenting the fact that poorly-written blogs are getting popular, D was posting grammar memes on her wall and finally here we are - A group of grammar nazis screaming loud and ranting out the fact that grammar is dying a slow but sure death. And there were few who even challenged the fact by replying 'k' and 'u' and other funny answers in response to the grammar nazi's frustrated pleas.

Facebook and blogging, along with showcasing our penchant for imagination and narrating events, also brings to light the habitual grammatical skirmishes which are often unknown to the writer him/herself thus giving a field day to the grammar nazis. And why is it that the grammar nazi is only passionate about its and it's and your and you're. Is that all that is there to grammar? Grammar is much more than misspelt words! No memes point out to awkward phrasing of words, tautological errors, long sentences, non sequitur lines and so on. There is much more than what meets the eye. But grammar nazis don't venture beyond a point. Why? Simple. No one understands the errors and thus begins the great argument - English is not my mother-tongue. If English is not your mother-tongue then why do you attempt to write in an alien language! Well, I can go on and on with this but I shall pause.

So, the conclusion: Without poor writers, a grammar nazi cannot exist. I still feel that I am not as competent a weaver of words as certain others are but I certainly take care of my you're and your when I write. This ensures that I am safe from the grammar nazi within and outside of me!

So, what say reader? Are you one of us or them?

Image 1: Internet
Image 2: Internet

An update: It takes one to spot one and one of my favourite reader/commenter Govind pointed out a glaring error in the post. I thank him for being a discerning and sharp reader. Salute boss!

Where are the letters I wrote? Where are the letters that were written to me?

In a few weeks' time, I will have a new address. The feeling is mixed. How will my new address sound and will it have a nice ring to it? I hope you get the drift! Sometimes, addresses do have a nice ring, like say, Sugar Land, Texas or Palli Hill, Bandra or say, Poes Garden or even Lake Avenue. I could go on about sweet sounding addresses which sound nice and read nice. But however nice and sweet it may sound, it is sad that some addresses never receive letters promptly. Well, my letters are such and so are the letters written to me by dear friends. I have come to the conclusion that my address does not sound and read well because I have lost precious letters in transit. What happens to the lost letters, anyway?

Who benefits from my lost letters? Where are they? Are they struck in some old and rusty post-office or have they been dumped in some junkyard?

When I was about ten years old, there was a case in the newspaper which reported of a post-woman who bundled up all the letters and sunk them in the common water tank. Ah, what was wrong with her? How can she so mindlessly dump messages of love, success, failure, birth, death, wedding, crush and others into the water tank? When I think of my lost letters, I think of that post-woman. My beautiful purple ink would have been lost in water. Death of letters by water! I shudder to think of my letters meeting such a fate. That's about my letters. What about the letters that were posted to me? I am yet to receive five letters and they were written long ago, sometime in August or September. I took a conscious decision to avoid some friends on Facebook and communicate only through letters. Alas! I broke my self-imposed vow and inquired about the letters. The letters, they say, were posted long ago. Missing in Action/Transit?

Well, is someone savouring my letters? Are they reading it and throwing them away? I am not able to put my finger on any valid reason. Should I blame the inefficient postal system in India? As it is, the news is pretty stale when I receive the letter and yet I relish the joy of the letter but now that small joy has been snatched away from me. Where are the letters I wrote? Where are the letters that were written to me?

I believe that I am one of those rare species from another era who still writes (W.R.I.T.E.S) letters but everything seems against me.

And inspite of all, I am still an optimist one . . . perhaps another rare trait, in these days of pessimism and whining. I wait for my letters. And, please don't write any letters to me until I send you my new address.

Will you write to me and shall I reply.

Image: Internet

Squeezing the creative juices but forgetting the filter

Writing blog posts has somehow become quite addictive. I see it as a means to squeeze my mind and force the thoughts to spill over as posts. But I come to realize that this exercise sometimes takes a toll on me. I find myself questioning the minutest things so that I come up with a curious post. There are days when the post presents itself to me that I cannot but sit and have to record them down. But sometimes these posts don’t arrive and knock at my door. On days when the posts don’t arrive, I am left with an urge to write but cannot do so as I find nothing interesting to me. On days like that, I am left staring at almost every plausible thing and wondering if ‘this’ could be the victim for my post.

Many writing gurus always remark, “Write something every day.” But what does one do when one cannot write anything. It is during those dry spells that I try to squeeze and extract the remains from something which has already been squeezed dry. Since there is nothing much to squeeze, the filter is discarded. As a result of the discarded filter, the posts don’t seem satisfying. 

Blogging saved me from a terrible patch in life (when I started out) and I’m glad that it is a worthwhile addiction but I also cannot disagree that everything has to be prioritized. Well, well, don’t get ideas that I’m taking a break or quitting blogging. This is a frank declaration of a passionate blogger.

Or perhaps, I forgot the filter when I wrote this post :)

What say?

Image: Internet

'Waiting for something nice to happen'

writing after a brief gap of sorts make me wonder if i actually did write all my posts? that's a very moony notion of the whole act of writing. the title for this post is inspired by an older post that incidentally belongs to me and brought to my notice by a kind person, ND. at that point of writing my entry, i was waiting for something nice to happen. you must be wondering (as a reflex action) 'did the nice thing happen?' well, i realise that nice things don't happen. we should make it happen by our thoughts, our words and our deeds. the given order is given consciously as first the thought occurs, which translates as words from our mouth and finally manifests as deeds. well, so when we hold the key to what we think and what we say, we can make nice things happen to us. reader, be informed that this is not an original thought but this is something which many philosophers, scriptures and wise men say. don't you agree? well, i guess you should! when we have our thoughts in control (i think 'control' is too forceful a word but still i use it for any other word would dimnish the effect) we make things happen to us. if it is so easy, then why do we always wait for something nice to happen? (as i did previously) probably we sit there doing nothing and allowing the mind to force its thoughts of helplessness, negativity and nothingness to influence us. when the same mind which can force all the negative aspects can influence us, why not try and tune the mind to a tune of positive well being and thus in the process make nice things our way of life.

Why do I not smoke but write and talk . . .

a quality that i am very proud of! why do i not smoke but write and talk? let me make myself clear that i am not against smokers or smoking. maybe i have some health concerns with being an active as well as a passive smoker but absolutely nothing with the quality of smoking. i am sure about that, you see. well, that is why i prefer to talk and write. talking with people, writing long hand written letters, tapping away mails on my computer and off late writing these blog entries. i frankly do not know who is following my blog, i do not even know whether anyone is remotely interested in reading my meanderings and ramblings but still i write. i write for me, myself. like hamlet who said, "let me and my bosom debate a while." this quality of hamlet struck a chord with me during those days and still is struck to the being, that is me. well, that is why i precisely write - to allow a debate with me and my mind, heart or whatever. the 'high' that one gets from smoking and drinking and see it as a way to lift oneself from whatever situation (maybe they genuinely feel it that way), i do with writing to people and of course talking to people. for a long time, i did not talk, the way i am talking vociferously now. i kept myself from talking and sharing but now i talk and talk and meander and coax people to follow me, my thought processes, my feelings and my pains. by talking i share and force my inner dialogues to hit the outer realm, i.e. my mouth. when i talk, i get responses, maybe they are responses that don't make me comfortable, maybe they are responses that scare me, maybe they are responses that soothen me BUT i get responses nevertheless. what say, reader? smoking and drinking can be a social affair or an individual one but there are side effects like cancer (i cannot think of anything more) but talking and writing, do they have any side effects? maybe they do, of a more deeper kind. whatever the case, they are not as painful as the insides being slowly eroded. and talking and writing is an addiction worth flaunting. that is why i write and talk instead of smoking.