Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The excuse of having lost steam is ridiculous when you’ve been systematically dismantling the engine. Finally I have reasons. A) I forgot what it felt like to write fearlessly without fearing the merciless self-flagellation I’d subject myself to when I read my work again B) Words C) Heartbreak

It's been a year since I've written .No; ignore all the posts that happened between August 2007 and June 2008. I believed, till an hour back that writing for me was finished, in its dying throes. I dreaded turning into those adults who’d read my stuff admiringly just to add a wistful "Ah, I used to write too. That was so far away. I've never been able to do it again."

All these half-hearted posts and hesitant stories that I've referred to were failed resurrections. Bleak attempts at resuscitation. I was convinced that I'd lost voice, and that my fingers would never again tauten gratefully in that uniquely pleasurable way whenever they pressed Ctrl S or clicked a ballpoint pen shut. That I'd forget what I was like to settle down oblivious to discomfort with pen and paper, stained fingers, cricked neck and numb bloodless legs (the immovably weighty excitement of orchestrating a genesis in my head.) Memory is the most vital thing for a writer, and I don’t mean factual and list-like memory here. I forgot. I forgot everything. I forgot the high of writing a story just to get to an ending, not caring whether it was good or not (Later in the barrenness of my third year, I'd keep rereading the stuff I had arrogantly laughed off as "amateurish" and wish I were 17 and writing ten-minute stories again.)


Like most Madras households, we use mineral water (in cans) for drinking. A vessel, perilously placed between the kitchen and the fridge, exposed to the potential onslaught of hurrying maternal feet, was a constant presence under the unpredictable tap of our can for a long time. Sometimes it would be a mild trickle that tricked us into forgetting to replace the vessel every now and then, sometimes a regular drip-drop that kept us awake at night, sometimes when the fatigued tap unscrewed itself loose under ungentle hands, and the water would shoot out in a long-repressed jet that would drench the knees of every trouser in the vicinity. Finally, tired of waiting for those maintenance guys to replace the tap, we tied it up with a cloth and the tap was finally silenced. EPC Secretary ship nearly did that to my writing style. The prospect of writing Editorials for a newsletter, which had definite precedents and policies for every single thing, but what constitutes an editorial, is no ointment for a bruised uncertain writer. Except for five editorials, none of them gave me the reassurance that I had indeed said what I'd set out to say.

I knew I was in trouble when I started turning my nose up at the appropriateness of "of" in the place of "in" and "at" and whatnot. When I started sneaking in spelling corrections and suggestions on improving grammatical constructions under the pretext of posting comments on the blogs I read. When I stopped seeing the soul in a piece and mused instead, about his choice of tense and the hurried termination of his sentences, wondering whether he lacked the mental capacity to keep track of long sentences.

Words words words all over again. I set too much store by them. Expected to come up with the perfect words, the perfect sentence every time. It never happened. I'm no human dictionary. I forgot that I was writing, not solving The Guardian crossword. Words, how easy, how treacherous, how mutable, how insignificant. When something's bursting inside you waiting to erupt in a scream, it chooses the best words, the best form for itself. Have you noticed, people rehearse speeches, punch lines, proclamations of love, lies, but they never ever rehearse for abuse?

You have neither the time nor the opportunity to decide, in the heat of writing (or yelling) you’re just lulled into believing that you chose all those words. The words chose themselves. You don't need a great vocabulary or that glorified "writer's instinct" for coming up with the perfect word. The perfect word doesn't exist. You rake the driveway of your consciousness for that long-lost key of that perfect word, the thought, a traveler in a hurry has walked, sometimes never to return.

I had a brilliant time as Sec, but when I started playing inner editor to myself, I censored, gagged, cramped and nearly killed my writing. I was scared of being clichéd. Of sounding unoriginal. Of writing anything that didn't have the confident imprint of a "mature" writer. Anything beautiful and sacred ceases to be easy when you strip it of spontaneity, trust and simplicity to reduce it to technique, rules, jargon. Like Sex. Like intimacy. Like Art.

Earlier, I’d wait till I was all alone at home to write, I'd dream of beautiful secluded retreats where I'd be "inspired" to write. I'd protest while being served food, fretting over that tiny flickering light within me that would be extinguished by the lazy satiety of a full meal. Over how I wouldn't get back to my computer with that fever of finishing what I’d begun. Right now I'm painfully within earshot of an extremely loud television playing a rerun of an exciting Ind-Aus match. And the distracting thuds of fours sixes wickets and the pasted afterthought of post-production commentary didn’t have me groping fearfully at dark corners of my mind for fragile web-spun silvers of ephemeral thought, and hoping that they haven’t disappeared in the vacuum-cleaner drone of everyday life.

I write the way I love. That has been my undoing. Scores of people before me have used the pliant convenience of a romantic disappointment to explain away a variety of things from imprudent decisions to messed-up grades to depressed “phases” to suicidal and anti-social inclinations. I’ve said something in the context of a break up . “Sometimes you spend a long time typing a sentence, but it just doesn’t turn out right at that point of the story. Your fingers loathe every stroke of backspace because you’ve worked so hard on that sentence that you’ve fallen in love. But you know exactly what the story has to attain ultimately and that the sentence will not take you there. So you close your eyes and delete it. Perhaps, it would have fitted well within a different kind of story.” My story has suffered so many false starts, so many run-away sentences, and countless backspace strokes. I’m writing this in the wake of a deletion of a couple of long sentences. I might rethink the flow and plot of the story;but no blundering sentence can mess around with my mood or my ending. My story will end the way I want it to, irrespective of the whims of irreconcilable sentences and if they don’t blend well with the rest of the dough, you open the oven door, scoop out the hardened portions, mix willingly sweet ingredients instead and put it back in. Yeah the cake will take longer. It will get there eventually in spite of power cuts, improper ratios and bad eggs. And it will be a cake worth waiting for.

Evidently, my fixation with words has destroyed some of my relationships. Expecting people to use words in the tactful, sensitive (and sometimes absurd) manner that I did probably made life very tedious for my literal-minded friends. They never understood nuances, relied on blankly precise dictionary meaning and have always disagreed violently with me on the potentially offensive impact of our clashing definitions. Meanings. Whenever they would say something that contained even a single offensive word, I’d unerringly skip the undying layers of positive sentiment, mood and unmistakable affection straight away and take umbrage at form. I’d seize a tiny reference to the past, the most unconsciously inserted abuseTo my credit, my temper tantrums have always been quelled by even the most indifferent, reluctant apologies. I’m the most forgiving person I know and I have a very good reason to forgive easily too.

“How could you say something that hurt me?” has always meant, “How could you use the kind of words that hurt me? You could have said it in a thousand different harmless ways.” The Quarrel, for me instead of concerning itself with what he/she said focuses on the words they chose and the way they have said it. Of course, people lose patience with me- I get hurt all the time. After all they are playing an endless frustrating game of Taboo with me where the length of red listed words exceeds their capacity to remember what went wrong, to love me, and to choose. Every word they choose, every attempt at expression is strangulated, “taboo, taboo”, I keep crying incessantly and then the inevitable- they are left fumbling for the right words, which never occur to them. Because the first word that enters your head usually stays and their first words always, always gets tabooed. Vocabulary language mind your language choose your words, echoes both well-bred and boorish behavior, with temper and tact, and unfortunately for me words echo intentions. I’ve been accused of a variety of things from being touchy to acting weird to missing a sense of humor (Am I supposed to laugh with the rest of the room when I’m tripped and I’m lying face down and crying on a hard hurtful floor?) to showing off and seeking attention. I suppose I can’t let their opinion become my perception of my self. I stick to the Dreamy Idealist (read previous posts) picture of myself, rather than believe what I hear from others.

During all these furious futile battles (with warped love and twisted sentences, with empty unyielding hearts ad obstinately blank stretches of paper, with teary incoherence of unsaid things and meandering paragraphs) on the blood-splattered grounds of perceived meaning, intended meaning, and literal meaning, I forgot that it’s feeling that matters more than meaning.

4 comments:

man in painting said...

I forgot that it’s feeling that matters more than meaning....
You just summarised everything.
Loved your post.
What comfort will we all get That is not in a "writer's Pagoda"
write a lot.
Keep the fire alive.
me too blog.
do visit...

Sap said...

:)

Anonymous said...

Had to resort to google to find your blog - but worth the trouble. Nice stuff, really nice. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Keep writing. i enjoy reading your posts. :)

Madhurjya (Banjo) Banerjee said...

merciless self-flagellation I’d subject myself to - errr isn't that what's expected?