I was always looked down at home, because of my ‘getting-lost-in-books’ reading habit. I remember amma doing test dose at neighbours’ places, where I would be immersed in some book i picked up. She will ask the neighbour aunty to call my name or ask me about something, which I will neither hear nor reply, thus proving to aunty, how irresponsible I was at times when amma needed me to do something, only because I had this book in hand. I do not remember Deepthu anywhere in the scene, and this one so vividly framed in my memory happened at Ganga aunty’s place when we were at Mamkoottam. So I am guessing she must have been left to sleep peacefully in the house – being so small, and with Rama aunty there to look after her, myself, not more than 8 years at that time. I would recognize the drama unveiling behind the sofa I was sitting on, when I get distracted by some loud noise, of either amma calling my name in a yell, or the sound of laughter that must have resulted from everyone’s reaction to my strange devotion to comic books. I would then feel so awkward, and would get up and give a feeble smile to all, leave the book and join the mainstream activity or conversation.
Thus, I consciously cultivated an awareness for the surroundings whenever I was reading a book. Sometimes I thought it just killed the fun in reading. But it took a long time to develop that. Coz, books were a reprieve for me from the outer world, which back then, at times looked blank and uninteresting. If books make you an introvert, I had all chances of growing up into just that, but strangely enough, I grew up to become the best chatter box anyone could ever find. I loved the sunny, bright and colourful characters more than the melancholic one.
The books used to beckon me from the shelves. I got sheer pleasure just from the thought of me immersed in those books all day long and getting to know the characters more. I imagined myself as a writer, who would someday write books like these, which will come in beautiful and elegant bindings, with penguin for a publisher may be, which would someday line the shelves of a carefully collected library of some book lover. I fascinated more about Penguin books, cos they stood in a neat queue in my book shelf, either when I arranged the Bernad Shaws or the Somerset Maughams or because their symbol stood out the most among publishers. There were strange dilemmas that I had somedays. I could not choose as to which writer I want to become like, from all the people in the shelf. In English I decided to choose between Maugham, Pearl S. Buck and R. K. Narayanan. In Malayalam my choices were mostly M.T. Vasudevan Nair or Pottakkadu. I toyed with Madhavikutty also for a while, but her daring writing in “Ente Katha” gave me jitters, and I decided against it. I knew I could never even think of writing sarcasm like Basheer or Sanjayan did. Those were not just my forte. Or I tried hard at imaginig situations the way they did, and to my surprise I did have an innate nature in me in finding humour in life’s simplest things, but, I just couldn’t understand how or when I will ever learn to put them into words. And that was one of the genre I wanted to try the most, satire. I could never be that poet or writer who would use the perfect alliterations, similies and metaphors to commit a theme to paper. I was never that good.
When I first got the internet, that was what I searched more about – authors. I tried picturing what their day will be like, wondering whether they will be writing all day long or just some time in between. Some stories about the writer – people’s solitary life bothered me. Some said, that they liked to live a life of their own, and never came out into the real world. And I got scared at this. I loved the colours of the world, the people, friends, and my sister and achan amma. There was an article, which I read, which talks about all the background works behind a book. It talked about how one author went in search for a character. I just sat and thought about it and the more and more I thought, it was turning out to be even more alluring. First thing, u get to travel, which was one of number one things in my bucket list, and second, even more than meeting your ‘wanted protagonist’, you will get to see more life and people, which thrilled me. It was just like what I read about the directors going in search for his equal – to – the image – in his mind type of hero or heroine. Amazing, I thought of that journey, as a search for your own story itself, for the soul of your story. I had always been a fan of travelling, though I had not travelled much myself. But the memories of every weekend journeys to Alleppey, had a lot of fun and happiness in it.
Thinking back, we were like Gypsies back then, always travelling, except that the routes were the same, the names of all the places etched forever firmly in my mind. But the people – the fellow travelers were different. Me and my sis, used to remember jokes and used to tell it to the people who travelled with us in train, giving them a hearty laugh. But she missed maybe the early parts of the journey, which we did in buses, before switching over to trains. Those parts had a special quality about them, the rustic buses, the dusty routes of the crowded city roads we passed by, the view of the streetside shops, the different houses with its courtyards and beautiful gardens that I loved to look at from the raised view of the bus windows, and much more such sweet sights. I still remember some of the friends we made, who told me stories of all sorts. There was this girl, whose house was on one side of the canal, and she had to take a boat to reach there. Wow, I was so thrilled and she promised to take me there. But ofcourse, I never met her again, and then I grew up and I forgot. There were these bus stations that stood alone in the middle of nowhere, just a big ground but no buses parked, standing there sadly like a poor but naughty kid denied his fair share of chocolates. There were also others like a chirpy one, where me and dad used to get down for a round of quick roaming about and also to make me go to the loo. Such places had lots of shops with umpteen amazing items, out of which dad always brought me chocolates and fruity. I always preferred bus journeys to trains as a kid, coz it meant more sight seeing in terms of the towns, the roads and people, though my parents would any day prefer the train. And I totally fell in love with the wind then, blowing so relentlessly on my face, making me beam with happiness, looking out from the window seat. I thought, this was the best.
And I imagined I will be travelling a lot if I become a writer – well, I needed stories, dint I ? And again, I dwelled on the lives of writers and their follies, wondering if they had any social life and all those fun times. But none of these reflections ever came to be of any use, let alone significant, as I suspected long ago, I had not just the writer’s block ( ?!, writer’s ? for me ?! ), at making a line –but also, the famous defects of the lazyness, the impotent imagination, the sheer dearth of words and what all and what not! And one day, thus, I concluded, writing, is not for me, and even the diary entries were turning out to be boring, repetitive, and merely documentative. Words I thought, had to come out in a gush, like a flowing river. For me, it came out like water dripping from a wasted tap, a broken one. At times they spurted out relentlessly, that you would think you will be swept off in that bountiful flow, in its sheer force, that it would never stop. You are thus at the height of your imagination, ready to write them all down, and then there is a burp, and a sudden block, and then it stops. Or may be, there will be a final belch or two, and you are done with. They have ceased coming. And you feel, helpless. Your ideas still hanging in midair, or thrown in the violent sea, swimming in alarm and trying to float about, but no vessel on its way to save them and give them life.
Thus I went in hibernation. I only wrote diaries and nothing else. It was then that I stumbled into this thing called blog. I was amazed. A net space where you could put your stuff. A personal web space, to write. Like an abandoned field, fertile enough for those unwanted windswept spores, that wandered around, looking for a place to flourish. And the best part was that, you could choose to either show people. You dint have to tell them. They dint need to know. But they could always find out too. Up to them, or your luck. And you will still get random readership if someone stumbles into your blog.
I fell in and out of love with people who checked my blog. Someone who said some random thing about one word i wrote. I adored them. They were my world. My meaning for existence. When I see people in and around me, publicising their articles, I get jealous. Of the courage. Of their belief in self. Or in their words. Something I lacked. Something I yearned to develop. The quintessential me was always there, lurking in the dark, always doubting the strength of my own words. Or at other times, believing in them much to stand any criticism. I wrote however, once in a blue moon, hoping to write more, only hoping for ever and always.
And if you, random reader, stumbled upon me today, you can forgive me for being disorderly in my thoughts, i'm still learning it, the art of writing it all. Penning down all my fantasies, my strange and funny dreams in the same sensuous way i see them. To tell you them in such a way, that you would feel the tickling sensation yourself, when you live that dream with me. So that, when i talk about butterflies, you will feel their wings on your skin. One day, i'll be there, until then, have belief in me, the way i have found faith now.
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