“Writers aren’t people exactly.
Or, if they are any good, they are a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
This was back in the late 90’s and I remember stepping into the then-colossal seeming corridor of the library, to my minute self. Books upon books lining the shelves that wove around me in a circle, as though encasing me in the warmth that seemed to emanate from them. It looked as though there was everything there that I could want to get my hands on – from the comic book section that usually was packed with little bobbing heads trying to take the latest addition to somber documentary shelves that were housed by the solemn seniors, and everything else in between. I strolled into one of the many shelves calling out to me and picked up one weather-beaten bound book. The state to some might have been off-putting but for me that was a signal of a well-read and thus a well-written book. I have always loved the smell of books, old and new. Perhaps one of the many reasons I have not been able to shift to a Kindle. This was anyway an era before electricity had completed penetrated our systems and so books remained the only way to tell stories. And so, I fell in love with them and writing and telling stories.
Now, do not take me to be an avid reader who has munched away multiple titles. I must have barely read around 70-100 books in my lifetime yet, and most of them accumulating towards the beginning if my age. I know of people who could complete that record within just a couple of years. But there was something magical about books that drew me to them a lot. In fact, there is a tradition in the tribe that I come from. A newly born child, as soon as it can crawl, is taken through this affair of predicting its future personality. There is a bundle of very many things placed at one corner of the room which ranges from the usual toys to the impractical knife (or so I am told! I am only hoping that it is the one used for buttering a toast). You also have pieces like idols of God, gold, vanity items, etc. On the other side of the room is the baby, waiting impatiently on its mother’s lap, eager to descend and showcase its newly found skill. The baby is then released to explore this small make-believe world and crawls up to the object that it is most attracted to. The event is performed three times and based on what the baby chose, it is told that they would grow up to be inclined towards the fields that those objects signify. Needless to say, I had chosen a book and a pen in my first outing as a kid and that love affair has stayed long with me.
It started with those toddler tomes of Tinkle Digest. I still had an embarrassingly elaborate collection of them till sometime ago before I gave them away to my little cousins who were much closer to the appropriate age for them. But those thickset volumes were what introduced me to storytelling. How the illustrators were able to weave just a few casual words into stories that were so engaging, was something utterly mesmerizing to me. And I continued to be charmed throughout my adolescence, finding books after books that used to transport me. I remember going to that school library, picking out the book for the week, and having finished it by that night, sometimes even on the way home. And yet I re-read them again and again through the week. What I was bewitched by was how authors could tell stories such that you felt as if you were living them. That was what stood out to me the most, the way they played with words beautifully. It was like watching a fascinating game of football or a passionate chef cook in front of you. It was magic in motion for me. And long after I had finished the books, I continued to ponder not about the story but about how they might have written the characters, what were they feeling as they penned down the words, the thoughts that possessed them.
These thoughts began to possess me as well and entice my fingers to pick up a pen and write. Now, whether due to my already ripening age or whether I was just too young, I cannot recall the first time I wrote something. But I do remember the first time something that I wrote made an impression on me. It was during my high school days and we had to submit one-page essays on our chosen topic for the English Literature class. I vaguely remember it to be something about the struggles and silliness of youth, but I hardly remember struggling over it. In fact, I think the words had come quite naturally to me. As though they were right there, indulging me in a conversation that I was simultaneously transcribing. But what stayed with me what that while it was such an offhanded project for me, my English teacher had taken much more interest in it and in fact insisted on keeping the paper with her. I now wonder whether I should have made a copy to see what I had written that settled so well with her. Or maybe she just didn’t want the ugliness of it to be unleashed on the rest of the world as well.
Either ways, I developed a penchant for penning my thoughts and I quickly realized that this is how I communicated most comfortably. I wasn’t exactly a shy kid, but I sure had a hard time speaking out my feelings. Written word, then, became my solace. I think I wrote a lot more during my high school days and dabbled in it a little through my undergraduate years. But where I did take it to the next level of serious commitment was in one of my jobs at a content management organization. The opportunity came quite out of the blue, like most ones do, and I said yes without thinking. It is still one of the best things that I did because even though I didn’t write anything of note during those times, it helped me understand the kind of love I had towards writing. Even the most mundane topics used to bemuse me, and I tried to salvage them through my words, just like how a home cook would try to make a meal with leftovers.
But as life beckoned me to move on, I went on to do my master’s in business and that meant writing a whole lot of project work and less of pondering thoughts. I still got to escape through a few articles pieces that I could craft for the school while I was there, but it really became distant from me when I rejoined the corporate world. In between demanding deadlines and ever-present ambiguity, you hardly find time to put together anything more than a somber email template. I still persisted through. I used to carry a pocket notebook that could come in handy when I could steal some moments away from reality. But as the days went by, the pages became less and less loaded with words, until you could turn over and see a blank sheaf sitting untouched, yearning for the ink-stained hug of its long-lost friend.
For more than a year I ignored the siren call of the silent sheets. I just thought that I had nothing to offer that book. But within, I was like that toddler again, yearning to be released from the grips of the practicality so that I could crawl towards my objects of affection again. I did have stories to tell, stories about my eventful past, about my ever-changing present and my encouraging future. Stories of the people I knew and those I didn’t know, yet. Stories to make me laugh and cry, to wonder and ponder. It was like I had picked up words from the experiences of each of the worlds that I had encountered, and they were now piling upon within me, beckoning for that same old conversation, threatening to be lost forever unless I gave them an ear. And so, I did.
I fell in love with writing all over again and this time I seek to make it an enduring episode. I seek to tell stories of me, my experiences, and my purpose. But also, I seek to tell stories of people who have found their own kind of storytelling – through their profession, their beliefs, or their mere existence. I seek to tell stories of those people who are in the search of their own passion and have even perhaps found it. So, this year will hopefully be the year when I am finally wedded to my words, bonded by the magic of storytelling and the vows of passion. And you are all invited.
This is the start of the series The Passion Project. To know more about the author and the origination of this series, read here.
