Thursday, March 04, 2010

Writing as a Hobby

You know what; writing is my hobby, that’s what I say when someone asks me about it. But I’m not sincere about it at all. Though there are couple of incidences about my writings which I remember fondly and am going to share now.

First Diary: When I was around 10. I saw two diaries in my father’s suitcase. Let me say one big one (A) and another smaller one (B). I used to wonder what did he write in them? Why kept in locked almirah? So one day I discovered where he kept the key. Next day, I got my hand on the key when he left for school (He is a teacher), opened the almirah carefully such that no one in the home could see me, and then took out the diaries. I don’t remember exactly what was written in B, it was almost blank, but A had something interesting. In the front pages there were some tables full of numbers, probably about his salary, expenses, month wise for past 5-6 years running thorough many pages. And then as I turned pages from the end side. There were around 10 pages full of Hindi songs’ lyrics of Manoj Kumar type movies, written immaculately. It was totally unexpected, as I never heard him singing or even humming. All he used to do was listening to News on Radio. So I just put back the diaries and closed the almirah and took the key with me completely forgetting that I’d to put it back. In the evening he might have searched for the key. He looked around and then noticed something in my shirt’s pocket. Here it is! "Why did you take it? Did you steal something from there", He asked. “I wanted to see the diaries”, I said. “I want the smaller one, its empty!” I continued with the demand till he got me a diary. For that he just cut few A4 size papers in 4 pieces each, pinned them together. Then gave me, my first little Diary, saying, "Get yourself a Big one when you go to college". After some time he wanted to see what I’d written in that? It was full of details about the songs, like title, singer, Music Director, Movie Name, which I used to listen on the radio or watch in Chitrahar and Rangoli on DD-1. All he gave in return was a Smile!....as I had a totally unheard of hobby....collecting song details.

First Letter: Letter writing was taught in primary school and then repeatedly in every Hindi and English class before exams. But It was around 4 years later than the unique hobby, at the dawn of adolescence. The letter was to be written to impress the recipient. To tell her that how much I admired her smile and what did she mean to me. It took 2 days of calligraphy to write those 3 pages, and one more day to draw the symbol of heart pierced by an arrow. On Jan 14th, I thought,” Today is the Valentine day celebration as we celebrate Makar-Sankaranti”. I handed over it to her in front of whole class. Most of the female classmates got their hearts broken as they saw a drawing on the last page. For next few weeks quite of a hailstorm was raised by my schoolmates whom I used to consider my best friends. Letters continued till I got my mobile, but recipients kept changing.

First Essay: Just like letters, Essays too used to come in exams, but this time it was different. It was an Essay writing competition. We, the class 11-12th students, were given few topics. I chose to write on “India’s Population problem and possible solution”. It was to be written in about 1000 words. But what I submitted was a total mess. It ran through at least 15 pages, I wrote whatever I could think of, examples of families I which had abnormal sizes with dozens of children. Examples how a limited family can have batter share of available resources...etc. After a week the evaluator came with the result. I obviously didn’t win the prize. But he asked in the class,”Who has written this drama?”

First Novel: This is something still to be finished; Last year He got the idea to begin on this. He found the topic, even the characters were decided. Story was progressing well, Characters behaved as they should have naturally. Their conversations were recorded. However in the end one of the characters requested another, “Please do whatever in your life but don’t become a writer”. He still doesn’t understand what arose this plea. And He said “Don’t worry I won’t”. Ever! So probably this dream will be unfulfilled unless new characters are found.

PS: Report the mistakes in the comments below, I've got 99.18 percentile in verbal section in CAT-09. but you understand well that exams can never check a person's mistakes...they are bound to be there.

3 comments:

  1. the way you portrayed s good.. i ve enjoyed all the writings.. :)but abt t first novel, i feel like, i ve seen t request in Chetan's life..

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  2. sahi hai bhai..mast likhte ho..bas letters ka recipient fix kar lo.. :)

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  3. @Barath: thanks...You almost got it.

    @Abhi: Haha :)...ho jayegi jaldi hi.

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