Struggle of Writing

Sometimes you really want to write something, but you don’t know what to write about.

Write about love? The most written thing on planet earth. No. It’s over rated, its judgmental, its private, it’s just you and me. May be on a different day. Then? What next? Political issues? Its not my cup of coffee. Social Causes? Most of them are misread and misinterpreted at many levels. What do I write about then? Friendship? Hmm, not something from my bucket list right now.

Then what? Then let’s write about the "Struggle of Writing". Let’s write about now. This moment. These lines. Let’s write about the fact that you want to write something but you don’t know how to begin, how to end or how the flow should be in-between. 

Writing can be a bridge we make between the mind and the finger tips, if the bridge is well done the write up is interesting to read. But if it’s not well done then it crashes with its good intention to pieces hard to gather.

  

So what to do. Let’s first start with one sentence. Just ONE SENTENCE. This is the sentence I want to write. Slow down my mind. Slow down a bit more. Pause a bit. Take a deep breath and literally watch your inhale and exhale. Hold on, pause, again take a deep breath. Do you feel a bit different now? 

A writer can always read her mind. Her mind is just like the newly wed daughter in law who is a child at heart, who walks and jumps in the verandah that stretches across the rooms of her in laws palatial house again she can be quite as the cat to walk down to her husbands arms very softly, slowly yet confidently. Let’s ask the writer not to have multiple thoughts in her mind. Request her to stop making the mental grocery list, stop thinking what to wear for the evening party, stop worrying about the promotion her boss is never going to give her, STOP STOP and STOP. 

Just start to write now.  Now her mind has a headwaters from where the stream of words start flowing. Now they start taking their own turns, make their own path and start flowing. They now start making sense and they now make their own river and you a writer.

Is this part of a couplet?

Heart speaks mind agrees
Where are the burning trees?
The wide sky has engulfed them,
Now life looks blue and green

A new inclination!

My newest inclination now is photography. And not only photography but building a story and presenting it.

For me a Frame says a lot. It talks about a moment and just like a Dancer makes a movement and uses her body to communicate to her audience. A photo uses the still to communicate to the reader. Usually I refrain from giving too many pictures in my blog but then from now onwards you may see some pictures here and there popping up.

Hope you like them and if you dont please let me know that too. I am too new in this category of art so anything that comes my way is a learning for sure.

Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) - What can I say? Its never to late to read a good book and so I was not late to read a good book. A bible in its own way

 

Adultery (Paulo Coelho) - Learn to Love :) With all the dogma set down author defines Love in a more realistic sense. Loved it!

 

Forbidden Desires (Madhuri Banerjee) - I simply love Madhuri Banerjee. I find her candid. Desires are often forbidden in this land of diversity and how different characters dealt with it made me smile. I shared this book with 3 of my friends

Naw Hanyate (Maitreyi Devi) - Some books are legendary. So is "Naw Hanyate" (meaning It Does Not Die) written by Maitreyi Devi. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam the movie is based on this book.

Love is eternal and that is exactly what the book says

 

Like the Flowing River (Paulo Coelho) - U dont want to read a lot at one go but you want to finish the story. This is the book for you. Short write ups that are inspirational in their own way. Brings in different colors of life :)

Drama

This planet, the soil, the air, the water, the gossips has just too much melodrama in it. Sometimes its unbearable. Its weird how we do not want to empower each other but we want to make people be dependent on us all the time. What happens when the ladder of dependency goes, won't it be better to show someone how to hunt rather than hunting for the person each time and coining that with the word "Love" Its weird how we all use each other under sentiments that we term as "Love" Its sad how emotions are exploited under the name of "Love" How standing strong and saying no to emotional exploitations makes one insensitive and how drama makes things very nice easy and acceptable.

How dramatic life gets on with relations and relations that gives you only headaches and no peace of mind

3 words that hold tremendous value in each one of our lives - "I Love You" has been exaggerated, dramatized, emotion-ed with, sulked for, so on so forth.

But there are so many other 3 simple words that could and would have made life simple and easy like
"I don't know"
"I won't do"
"I can't adjust"
"I will stop"
"Immediately get out"

So when we have words which makes our lives easy why run after words which make our lives complicated

Dus ka Dum

Today morning I was talking to a friend from USA. He asked me “how do you pamper yourself?”

My answer was “Pamper = read, write, do nothing at times and travel at times. If I don’t do the first 2 I get into depression” Honestly the fourth one is not happening much and that is something that I am pretty unhappy about. I need to pull up my socks and do something about it. When? I don't know. A friend told me, most of the times my responses are "I don't know" but that is what it is what can I do? when I don't know I simply say I don't know. When I know I will surely say I know :) Writing this makes me wonder. Am I this confused a soul? (let me park it for later)

Prelude

Pulling back - My answer was “Pamper = read, write, do nothing at times and travel at times. If I don’t do the first 2 I get into depression” 

This is so true. My last weekend was much drained emotionally, mentally and I got into unnecessary conversations that I feel I could have best avoided. I was feeling sick within. I couldn’t wait for Monday Morning, when I would come to office and during my break write something. I am not talented enough with the art of writing that whenever I want I can write. Something needs to strike me. Not intentionally but unintentionally. It has to come in a flow, like how a river flows with its own essence.

So today I was very excited to write but nothing came to my heart that wanted to voice out. So what I did was I was listening to music. Music doesn’t come too often to me. They come to me only in quality not in quantity. In the mean time I was chatting with a friend from Middle East. He asked me “Do you ever work?” He thinks I get dressed up and come to office simply. I do nothing. Sometimes I am listening to music, sometimes I am writing a blog, always I am online on Whatsapp and prompt with responses, so on so forth. So I described him with a pic from Google how one looks with and without music. Now he asked me how I looked at that moment.

PC - Google Images

So I clicked a snap of mine with my laptop camera and did send it to him. Most of my friends and family don't live in my city so I cant catch up with them in physical existence as an when I want. Thanks to whats-app I can send and receive pictures through Whats-app. Its easy and almost real time. I feel close to them and may be they feel close to me.

My Afternoon Date (about whom I have mentioned before) she told me she liked my picture. It was just a boost within that I did the right thing.

Coincidence

After my first set of duties at work I was reading random blogs. I have some of my favorite bloggers. So somewhere I saw this video with renowned authors where they are encouraging people to write and one of them said “You write because some-days that’s the only way you can stay sane” This is so true. I couldn’t agree more. For me if I don’t write I loose out on my sanity. Like it happened last weekend. I didn't write and I think I was loosing out somewhere. Sometimes I share my writings and sometimes when I am not very comfortable with what I wrote I keep Silent. But I write. Few Days back My afternoon Date told me, “Write what you want to, but keep a check on your spellings” The next post I did I was trying to be careful. Later when I re-read my blog I saw so many mistakes that I felt embarrassed that some of my friends already read it with all the mistakes and still applauded. May be that is the beauty of Friendship. No matter what they never stop patting your back. But I have imbibed the awareness. Even in this blog I want to read and re-read at-least a couple of time before I post it and that is exactly what I am doing now. Another friend told me “When I see my blogs that I wrote previously and the ones that I write now, I have emerged as a writer” May be that is what writing does to one. It makes you think well. Categorize well. Articulate well. Me the person is a haphazard one. I am the fraternal twin of Obsessive–compulsive disorder. I live in impulse and I choose to do that. I am too predictable at times and too unpredictable at others. I mix being upfront and insensitive. But that is how I am. I can’t change myself forcefully. That will be utter mess. But writing has started giving me some clarity.

Ten and Go

As a kid when we used to play Chupa Chupi (Hide and Seek) the one who had to seek, had to keep their eyes closed till the count of 10 and all the ones who had to hide, had to search their best den by then. As a toddler the number 10 came as some milestone, some completion and some success. And today I see I have finished 10 posts in my blog and it feels like an achievement. I have 10 stories to tell to people. In one of my whats-app group a friend said, "Payal needs to write 10 blogs" and that is when it struck me to check how many actually have I written. I didn’t tell him I am already done with 10 but may be now I should look for 100 or 110. I have not thought about it what should be my next milestone. But this day I secretly celebrate my 10 writings of the blog.

The best part of having a blog is it’s so secretive. It’s like you are in a crowd and you can still whisper in the special ones ear and say “I love you” For me my blog is almost like that. I never post them on Facebook. I keep it here and I share it with people I want to.

New Born

Everyday something is born and today is a friend’s and fellow colleague’s Blog is born. I did pester him to write from yesterday. I know he writes well. He has a very good comprehending power. And I feel if he is not writing in a structured format a lot of people are going to loose out on his story telling capacity and he is loosing out from the joy of writing. I was ones pursued by my Afternoon Date to write and now I have given the baton to someone else. There is a oneness between all writers I feel. May be I will never write a book, may be no one will read my writing other than few of my friends, but my joy lies in "Just Writing". I remember one day I had seen an unknown person to comment on my blog. I went and checked his profile and his blog. I kept on looking at his blog page for a long time. I kept thinking someone somewhere whom I don’t know has taken the time out to read my blog. I felt ecstatic. What more can I ask from God. Thrilled!

PS: So now I have my 11^th post today :)

Kichir - Michir

(Disclaimer* Kichir – Michir is a Bengali hyphenated word. The literal Version of it will be chirping)

Early Morning (Time 9:30 AM, Monday Blues)

So I came to office today a little early and my zodiac mate colleague who was present at that time looked at me and said “Wow, You have come early today before 9:30 am” I smiled at him. I had all blues in me at that time. Sky blue, navy blue, Persian blue, Powder Blue and most importantly midnight blue. Why Midnight blue so important. Because my friend from UK wanted to talk to me at that time when I wanted to sleep and another friend from UAE didn’t want to talk to me at that time because he was angry why I didn’t answer his call earlier. This is how my friends are, they are very short tempered, emotional, impulsive and now a days I do babysitting a lot more than what I used to. I love them too much so I am fine doing it.

Friends are like babies to me. They try to crawl to me at times, roll from happiness to laughter, cuddle me with love most of the times, gets angry and frowns if I don’t answer their call but more importantly they understand when I explain them and are always forgiving, happy and smiling. So it’s a great thing to see these babies and the friendship grow in the process. Yes I love to see my friendship grow. Few days back I read somewhere that if you have crossed 7 years with a friend then that means it’s a lifetime of friendship you will have. Honestly I don’t believe that. For me if I have accepted a person as friend 7 mins back that person is as lifetime as someone whom I know for 34 years = 3+4 = 7. (Pardon my weird logic)

So my zodiac mate colleague who was there like an early bird told me lets go for tea downstairs. I work for a well reputed company and the building, the Tech Park, the Doors, The Windows, The corridors, the chairs, the cubicles, the AC all are very comfortable, gigantic, elaborate and NICE! I like being here. It gives me happiness. It’s not too crowded that one would get lost again it’s not too scantly that your shadow is the only one with you.

So we went down and we were having tea. My colleague keeps talking, he likes to talk I guess. He is not that talkative with everyone but he thinks I am a senior citizen and he is a kid so he can say anything and I will listen to him. So when we were standing at the parking lot of our building we saw this very pretty bird. I am not a very flora or fauna person so don’t ask me, the family or sub family name of the bird. I will extravagantly say PASS to it.

It’s very difficult to describe shades and colors which nature creates. I honestly believe God has the best paint brush but still I will try to explain how the bird was painted by God or by one of the Nature Fairy (I was watching Tinker Bell before I went to sleep last night, so the hysteresis remains). The bird on the first look seemed to be an over-sized sparrow or an undersized parrot. If you mix sea green and grey the color you will get that was its base color, and very thin strips of dark blue or dark green or may be black. I couldn’t quite figure it out. My colleague and I kept looking at it for a while. He commented how peaceful he/she is. No deadlines, no emi’s, no tension for future, only looking for food. Yes! The basic necessity is food for any living being. I kept thinking aren’t we all looking for food only? Or have we made our own rules of how to hunt or graze them which has just become very complicated.

So we finished Tea and came back. The working day began with logging in to Office Mail ID.

Throughout the day there were some other chirping that happened too.

Chirping Session 1

Sex - Girl, Height - 5 feet 4 inches, Complexion - Dark, Stature – Thin, Dress – Jeans and Top

Age - Between 25 and 27

Location: Hallway

Time: Around 12 Noon

Chirping partner: With someone on the other side of the Mobile Phone

Chirping: Tu leke ja tera samaan, mujhe nehi chahiye tera koi bhi cheez. I want to be clean

My Ask: Are you fighting with you boyfriend? Is he moving out?

Chirping Session 2

Sex - Female, Height - 5 feet 2 inches, Complexion - Wheatish, Stature – Plump, Dress – Patiala, Kurti, Dupatta

Age: Between 22 and 25

Location: Parking lot and Smoking zone

Time: Around 3 PM

Chirping Partner: A Group of Male and Female Colleague

Chirping: You know it’s a one year paid holiday. You take the cruise and go around the world. You can work and earn and Enjoyyyyyyyyyyyy! She had vibrant lipstick and her dupatta encircled her neck and was hanging from her shoulders. She looked excited and was LOUD. Maine mummy ko bola hai, ek saal de do phir main wapas aa jayungi aur mere shaadi kar dena. All her colleagues were listening to her and was eating her words with amazement

My Ask: Aur agar Dilwalein Dulhania le gaye toh? What if you meet ur SRK in that one year? Will your dad say “Ja Simran jee le apni zindegi”

Chirping Session 3

Sex - Female, Height - 5 feet 6 inches, Complexion - Fair, Stature – Oversize, Dress – Kurti and Leggings

Age: Between 29 and 32

Location: Parking lot and Smoking zone

Time: Around 5:30 PM

Chirping Partner: Two Male Colleague

Chirping: “Didn’t you quit smoking?” The guy for whom this question was replied – “Yes for one week” She had huge kadas (Thick bangles) in her hand and said pretty authoritatively “Why did u pick it up again?” Both the guys giggled and the one who had to reply said “Aise hee”

My Comment: Ok Miss President

Chirping Session 4

Sex - Male, Height - 5 feet 11 inches, Complexion - Dark, Stature – Athlete, Dress – Folded sleeves shirt and trousers

Age: Between 35 and 40

Location: Parking lot and Smoking zone

Time: Around 7:45 PM

Chirping Partner: A Male Colleague

Chirping: “Yaar ghar dhundna hai, kaha milega bol toh?” The reply – “Arey idhar se 5 km dur main ek mast jaga hai. Sulekha, common floors try kiya kya?” “Nehi re nehi dekha, Mera landlord kaal hi bola makaan khali karo, kya dimaag ki shot hai”

My Comment: Hope you get a home soon

Chirping Session 5

Sex: Female, Height - 5 feet 9 inches, Complexion - Wheatish, Stature – Thin, Dress – Kurti and Jeans

Age: Between 22 and 25

Location: Parking lot and Smoking zone

Time: Around 8 PM

Chirping Partner: Another Female Colleague

Chirping: “Yaar Prakash bhi aaya hai neeche. Bol raha tha uske saath jaane ko. Chal wapsi main hi bol dungi” The other female nodded. “Acha sun now I need to go” Hugs Hugs. “Kaal milte hai”

My Comments: Go back home safe and nice to see you walking back with Prakash

PS: Sometimes I feel, these few seconds overhearing conversations makes me realize 2 things.

May be God also hears us like this - Time and again. May be he is watching me writing this piece now.

Second these few seconds of overhearing leaves behind so many thoughts and life stories of so many individuals, that I don’t feel alone in the crowd.

Conversations are always Interesting. Deep inside I look forward for some more conversations this week.