Ok, let me tackle the first thing first.
"Why write?"
Last time I was asked this question by my dear friend (“What's in a name”, we will return to this shortly) about 18 months ago when I wrote my first blog-entry, mind you that was nothing less than LTTE and the separatist issue in Sri-Lanka, I was found wanting for answers. My friend's argument almost sounded to me as if I was trying to be just another tuti1 in the nakkarkhana2. I visibly fumbled for a convincing sounding reply and eventually I did let this encounter get to my head thus ending possibly the shortest tryst with writing, in history.
The origins...
In fact, come to think of it, I have always tried to write something “different” (doesn’t everyone secretly wish to do the same, pun intended). Even in my Std. 10th English board examination (and that’s a bigger deal for a 15-year old than the trespassing puberty), I vividly remember my essay titled “Consumerism in Indian society” starting with “In a country where its superstar ShahRukh Khan sings ‘hume pyaar chahiye aur kuch paise bhi’.....”3 How profound! That beginning and the rest of the essay I still think were very interesting. But of course you know the ending, yours truly did not figure among the aristocracy of the eventual English toppers.
Apparently my English teachers, like everywhere else, thought it to be more important to recite what a bald guy wrote 4 centuries ago about his fantasies of cross-dressers, spirits and adventures in far-off exotic places, while sitting in a cold, stony room in the middle of English winters. If you ask me, I would say, “Dude, get a life!” and if you find time after that, do write. But, then again, it’s Mr. Shakespeare that the junta will remember. Though in my defence I must point out that I tried my best to assimilate with the nobility by trying my luck while playing “Antonio” in the stage play of “Merchant of Venice”. But that bald guy never smiled and maybe he won’t unless I find a frigid, rocky room and a frustrated life of my own.
So what has changed?
First came the realization (at the peril of sounding selfish), after reading about so many writers tackling the same original question, that it’s not exactly for the readers that anyone writes, whatever they tell you to sell their books. Someone has to pay for those extravagant lifestyles of the Rushdies, Rowlings and Kiyosakis of the world. Every writer will tell you (though you might need to wait for that moment of weakness) that he/she writes for oneself; that primal need of humans to tell stories and share ideas. The want takes various forms but the essence remains the same. It’s for the same reason why anyone paints or for that matter speaks. If you have anything in your system, you have to get it out and tell the world. And, it satisfies one at all levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of human-needs if a few fellow homo-sapiens start liking what you are “creating”. Of course, the spot-light comes later, if you are still interested in the same.
Secondly and more importantly, it’s altogether appropriate that what one friend could do, can only be undone by another friend. Thus enters Jeev. He made me realize, most probably for the first time in my life, that I don’t write that bad in spite of the combined efforts of all the English teachers of the umpteen schools that I have "visited" (yeah, the tally was 16 when I last stopped counting) . In hindsight, most probably that was the encouragement that I was looking for. So a loud shout-out goes to him for goading me into this.
And, now you know whom to catch if I start boring you :)
But then again, remember, for whom one writes?
PS: The only thing that I will demand, yes “demand” in the typical VKR manner I guess, from the dear readers is to post their comments, howsoever brutal they may be. Just please, please be honest.
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1 Hindi for “a feeble sounding Indian musical instrument”
2 Hindi for “cacophonous drum towers”
3 ‘hume pyaar chahiye and kuch paise bhi’ is a line from a popular SRK’s hindi movie song, meaning ‘we want love and need some money as well’
