WORDS AND WRITING! #BLOGCHATTERA2ZCHALLENGE

 

Words have always had the power to enchant me ever since I was very young. The thrill of putting the right word in the right place started when I began playing the popular word game 'Scrabble'.

I spent two years with my paternal grandparents in Shoranur, Kerala, when my Army father was posted in an obscure station where there were no good schools. Every afternoon I would come back from school, and there she would be, my darling grandma, waiting to play Scrabble with me.

I have always wanted to be a writer, and after I wrote my first poem at the age of ten, I never looked back. I would scribble on every bit of paper I could lay hands on and hide them away in little niches not even allowing the room to be swept. Years later, my mother, herself a talented writer, put all these scraps together and brought out a collection of my poems titled 'Deeparadhana'.

All through school and college, I continued to write, trying to hone my vocabulary. The deliciousness of juicy words which sparkled in a sea of writing broth! That sense of joy when a poem or a story was published in a college magazine!

I am, now, in the process of bringing out my eleventh solo book, and having a story nestle in my thirtieth anthology along with other writers. Do I need further proof of how significant words have been in my life? How many people do I thank for this gift - my grandparents, my parents, my siblings, G, my better half and his family, my uncles, aunts and cousins? P has been a silent observer of all my writing, and she is the first person I send my stories to. She gives me good sound advice.

However, it does not end there. Every person I have come across in life has left an imprint on my writing; my teachers, my offline and online friends, my writing groups, my editors and my publishers. Writing is not done in an island, it may be a solitary activity, but it is the sum of total of influences and experiences that one has gone through in life.

When I was doing Literature in college I came across myriad lines in poetry that remain etched in my mind even today. Here are just a few examples.

                                                                                            Ode to Autumn - John Keats

W.B. Yeats

Ode to a Nightingale - John Keats

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

                                                                                           Pinterest images

Today, when I sit and play Scrabble on paper with Zo and Sam, my thoughts go back to those balmy afternoons when I used to play Scrabble with my grandmother. How life has come round, full circle! I enjoy watching them both, scrabbling for words, as they put them down with avid interest.

                                                                                Pictures Credit: Deepti Menon

This morning, we went to Hamleys, the toy shop, to buy the actual board game of Scrabble so that I could share the magic and the mystery of words with my two little ones. The moment we got home, we sat down, P, Zo, Sam and I, with V putting in his pennyworth, helping the little ones to create their words. I was back in my treasured space.

                                                                                          Picture credits: Priyanka Menon Rao

May words continue to inspire us all!

 I am participating in the #BlogchatterA2ZChallenge2025.

https://deepties.blogspot.com/2025/04/words-and-writing-blogchattera2zchallen.html