I started writing because I used
to be a painfully shy kid who found it difficult to speak. I remember being
asked questions by adults and knowing the answers, and saying them inside my
head and wanting to say them out loud, but my mouth just would not open and the
words would stay stuck inside. One day in school, during recess, I was sitting
inside the classroom while the other kids were out playing. I picked up my
pencil and started writing down the thoughts in my head. I even remember what
they were.
I was 9 years old and I’d just
found out that I was being sent to boarding school at the beginning of the next
academic year. I was secretly excited because I thought it would be like the
boarding schools I used to read about in Enid Blyton’s books – pranks, midnight
feasts, fun and games! Of course, when my Dad first told me about it I
pretended to be upset at being sent away. The funny thing is that he didn’t
actually tell me, I first found out accidentally when I saw his written
application to the school lying on our dinner table. I wailed out loud and made
a scene and Dad did his best to pacify me with promises (most of them were
white lies like how he would come to visit me every week!). But in my mind, I
was just so happy that I could go away to a new place far from the monsters
lurking under my bed. I did briefly think about how much I would miss my Dad
and brother (well, as much as my 9-year-old brain would let me at the time),
but I was excited as hell!
So there I was sitting in that 4th
grade classroom at my school in Bombay, writing about how I felt at the time. I
had one friend that I was very close to and I remember writing how much I would
miss her. She was an Indian kid whose family was in the US and she herself had
been transferred to our school two years earlier. She had an American accent when
she first arrived and I remember the kids making fun of her and calling her
strange. I sensed that she was lonely so I went up and started talking to her
one day. We became friends after that and found out that we shared a common
love for reading, so we were always exchanging books. I remember her giving me
the Little House on the Prairie series
and I just fell in love with those books and devoured them!
Her parents were in the US and she
lived with some relatives in Bombay but they weren’t very nice to her. Back in
those days, we had our meals brought to us from home during the lunch hour. Her
lunch would often not arrive and she would look so despondent waiting at the
gate, so I would ask her to share mine. She really enjoyed it too because my
Goan Catholic meals (fish, beef,
chicken) were exotic compared to the dal, chawal, sabzi that she would get from
her place, when her relatives bothered to send her any that is (they were quite
mean to her and she often spoke to me about it). So when I told her that I
would be leaving school she was pretty upset and even cried a little. I wasn’t
able to process my feelings until later when I sat down and started writing it
all down.
Writing is like breathing for me.
I may not do it well all the time and I can certainly get better, so much
better at it, but it’s still something that comes naturally to me. The world
doesn’t make sense to me most of the time, and even though I am a people person
I also find it difficult to relate to them sometimes, and writing helps me cope
with this dichotomy. It also helps me heal because it’s like using sandpaper on
a rough surface of wood. I try and smooth out the edges and I do this without
gloves. So I end up with my fair share of nicks and cuts as well. But then that
is what keeps me whole and also keeps me going. Sometimes I also write for my people, the ones I’ve imprinted
on (to borrow a cheesy term from Twilight,
yes, I’ve watched a couple of those movies!), because it’s the only way I can give
them a piece of me that will forever be theirs and theirs alone.
2 comments:
I wonder what happened to your friend.
I fight writing tooth and nail, I resist, I don't know why. Yet it is the thing that makes me feel...what's the word...fantastic inside. I have two manuscripts waiting to be published. Unfortunately, it shows some awful stuff from an awful time in my country and...let's not talk about govts that scare people...
Hi GG! My friend and I managed to stay in touch over the years :)
And don't fight the urge to right, even if you can't publish now for some reason... Just keep writing. There's nothing worse than unwritten stories and with a fine writer as yourself, it's an absolute crime.
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