IMAGINATION RUNNING RIOT - #BLOGCHATTER #WRITEAPAGEADAY
“Love what you do and do
what you love. Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do
what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.”
Ray
Bradbury
When I was just a little girl, people would ask me, “What
do you want to be?”
Pat would come my answer. “I want to be a writer.”
The answer was instantaneous, not because I was a
prodigy. The reason lay elsewhere. I had this friend, a trifle older than I was, who would come over in the evenings with
a diary filled with her writing. Poetry, essays, stories… you name it, she had
it. She would irritate the life out of me by showing off her literary treasures
to my mother, who would give her a hug and praise her to the skies.
“Anything that dratted girl can do, I can do better!” I
would vow to myself, my lip reaching the ground in sheer petulance.
Today, I wish I could remember that girl’s name, her
face, for I would hug her myself for having irritated me to the extent that I managed
to turn into a writer, and happily so. She was the first one to draw out my
potential and lead me onto the road not taken.
I would cover reams and reams of paper with writing…
there were scraps all over my room, scraps that would leave a trail in hidden
corners, inside pillow cases, the cubicles in my mother’s dressing table and
the drawing room cabinets. I wrote my first poem when I was ten. It was called ‘My
Blue Marble’ and rhymed perfectly. A hundred poems later, I turned to writing
short stories.
However, when I was seventeen, I turned back to poetry.
Maybe because my father suddenly succumbed to a heart attack, his first and
last one, and I needed to mourn his passing somehow. I wrote my most poignant
poems at that time, trying to contain my emotions so that I would not distress
my mother or my little sisters. Writing was a panacea to my sorrow, and I put
down my feelings in words and imagery.
College Days were filled with activities as far removed
as participating in the English Drama where I won the Best Actress award for acting
as a 14 year-old-boy in a college that was co-educational to acting in a short
film that never saw the light of day. Even more bizarre was taking part in
college politics and standing for an election in which I had zero interest.
However, through all that, I did win prizes in many a literary contest, which
warmed the cockles of my heart.
My father was in the Army, and when I got married to an
Army officer, I metamorphosed from Army brat to lady wife. Life had come round
full circle. Army life was fascinating, the Army family even more so. I was
surrounded by a galaxy of positive folks, senior ladies who took care of the
young brides who had come in, and officers who were the epitome of chivalry and
good humour.
There was so much to write about… every aspect of that
life from the accommodation to the Officers’ Mess, and the maid servants to the
Tambola evenings went into the heavy old type writer that once belonged to my
grandfather. Like him, I found myself pounding away at it in the wee hours of
the night, and it was as if his spirit urged me on to put down my thoughts.
Not long after, I found myself publishing my first book
which took a light-hearted look at my life as an Army wife. It was titled ‘Arms
and the Woman’, inspired by Shaw’s ‘Arms and the Man’ and was published by Rupa
Publishers, Delhi.
My writing journey continues, unabated. Over the decades,
I have written myriad short stories, humorous articles, essays, poems, books…
every time I see my name in print, it still gives me a feeling of warmth
within. For as Kobe Yamada put it,
“Follow your dreams; they know the way.”
Amazon.in
Good you enjoyed your life with a sense of fulfilment. As a young gury, I wanted to be a writer too. Did I become one as I longed to be? Well, I became a blogger at least. Author of a few books too though most of them were utter failures :) But looking back, there is no regret. I will leave the stage with a sense of fulfilment. Not as a writer but as a teacher. I loved that job, so that was not a job (ref. your opening quote).
ReplyDeleteThank you for your detailed response. I think anyone who takes the risk of writing and is read by others is a writer. So, there you have it. You are a writer as well. Plus, there is no better vocation than being a teacher. When I deal with children on a daily basis, I feel a sense of joy and fulfillment.
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