Mein aur Meri Tanhayee…! [My loneliness and me]

My third interest and one of the important aspects of my life is ‘writing’. I am not talented and I am not a perfect writer, in terms of world standards and requirements. But, I know I just fine to say a few things about myself and about the things I feel and reciprocate!

Now, I guess reading a lot made me write simultaneously. Even otherwise to improve my handwriting, I had written a few passages copied from other text books and borrowed sentences must have kindled the writer in me! I don’t know when or how I got into writing a few lines to few poems, few stories and then a novel [in my standards]!

I wrote my first poem when I was in seventh standard. Now, how early is that?! That was a sweet poem about a person, who was dear to me by the emotional values [Ok, I hear some musings here]! Exactly, I would not call a love poem or an expression to an opposite gender. But I would like to put it as a state of overwhelming feeling for a person in other standards a human being who had been kind and compassionate to me!

It talked about the various things that person did and how I reacted to it. It was a wonderful flow of emotions like, Wordsworth says “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.

I shared it with my friends and they all praised me…I had written it in a dairy and kept the poem close to my heart as a ‘First Love’ vista! Then, I forgot about it and about poetry as well. Even when I read it today, I can feel the presence of the freshness in mind!!!

I completely forgot about this factor in me for days, then suddenly one day I heard somebody in the school talking about poems and poem competitions…I woke up from my reverie and knew that I too did some thing of this sort. On pestiferous friends, I too wrote few and then there was some praises about it happening in the air for sometime.

They said, ‘Kavitha, it is too good. You should write more’. I said fine and wrote a few in my dairy. I wrote about my dad, my mom, my sis and about varied few things. I was a feminist, I guess in my earlier days of life! I have some poems about female sufferings and female upliftment! Those contexts are related to few of the sufferings and atrocity against feeble women I heard around the place I lived!

I grew up and my thoughts got mellowed and I wrote many others. I wrote to praise beauty, praise nature, love about nature, about my friend, about relations, about aunt, about uncles, a dedication to my friend, in appreciation of my lecturer, dedicated poems to a lady, I wrote about dowry, about man, his laziness, his pride, his love, his passion, his clutches in life, and about every aspect of life in full dimension. These writings used to be companion for me and I used to pour my feelings into them. After a point of time, these little poems became a vent for me!!!
When I was in my 2nd year of college, I remember my lecturer who handled ‘Plays’ for us was a very different teacher. She was very lively and made us do a lot of experiments with language. She did not just come, teach and go. She inspired us to write and appreciate language [I did BA English Literature, as my under graduation degree].

We looked forward to her classes and her classes were fun. We explored a little bit of her and found that she had a love marriage and she married her professor in college. She did her MA English Literature in the Madras Christian College (MCC), the best known college in terms of standards and best teaching for arts and science subjects.

She told us her story and we wanted to feel the love she explained and smiled away to glory. Then later, I came to know, that the professor she married was my maternal uncle’s professor too and he had handled classes for them apart from the regular classes and my uncle had gone to their house for classes.

Now, this is second time something like this happening to me. In school, I had an English teacher who inspired to read and learn the language! She happened to be my uncle’s classmate in MCC?! What a coincidence!!!

My lecturer keeps an eye on me after knowing that I am somehow closer in precedence and then what, I in limelight! Second year, in college in when you focus outside your text books and the reality dawns on you that you are part of the elite group who go to college everyday to gain knowledge[That, is obvious reason, but we do otherwise, isn’t it].

We look out of our text books and there is a literary event in which you take part, the literary committee for which you are an assistant secretary and there is a college magazine that requires articles and it is to be done in another 30 days!! Oh! loads of things to be done, there is a chief guest who is a contemporary writer the best in the world of writing and you have a speech in front of him! All weirdo combinations of work to be done!

The circular reading out for contributions to the magazine does its rounds of announcements and in vain there is no single written document on your hands. The lecturers pressurize you and you in turn look at the class and beg for a single article if not a borrowed writing!

You get some articles flowing in and you breathe in an ease of air…not lasting long. Your lecturer has a different idea; she throws open the floor for a poem competition and then you are trapped in it by your well-wishers. You always have them backing you whenever they are asked to do something. Like in this case, there was poem contest, many wanted to write but the fear of being ripped naked in the crowd, voice for you and call you the most read and lovable poet!!! Huh! The language has so many adjectives, now!?

I am done, or my life. The quotient that was in my dairy was being exhibited to my lecturer! That too the one who knows my uncle?! Now, that calls for serious trouble, she said the poem should be about love and nothing else, as it was Shakespeare class and we were doing ‘Twelfth Night’ a wonderful romantic play!

She asks me to stand and a few others and she said, ‘First you guys attempt at it’. She gives me a sly smile as I stand there with my head focused on something below my feet!!!

I too start raking my brain for words and I knew I am a William Wordsworth, could not churn out poetry without a feeling attached! Finally, it pours and I start writing and take it to my class. Did I not tell you the topic given to us?! Oh! Yes, I basked it in one single mistaken word –Love, but speaking very directly, it was “First Kiss”.

We all in the class fought for a change of topic but the lecturer did not budge. The next day, it was ‘read-out’ day, luckily I did not have to read out my poem, but she did make a point to ask me if I had done my share!

I nodded coyly and said ‘Yes’, don’t read out but tell me what comparison you made. I did not want to tell her, and pointed at the others to reveal first. My friends, the best companions could not resist that and made an anthill out of nothing and made me speak in the lowest volume ever possible in my entire life.

She asked me to raise my voice to audible levels, reluctantly I did and then after hearing a few lines she put her right hand to her forehead and sat! The whole class looked at me and I was under a hundred watt spotlight, glittering and gleaming!

When I finished, all she said is, “I think you have never been kissed” the whole class swept into laughter and giggles. There were secret giggles amongst us and for that she said…’Oh! This class has a lot of experiences, let me catch them next class and left!!!’

After she left there was no time gap for my class to pour in their advices or grievances. The next day she advised me a lot and said, ‘Your poem is good, your writing is good, but don’t be a Meta-Physical poet [the poets of the era of English Renaissance -17th century] but be a romantic poet and write about nature, cat, dog, animal, love, rain and all the beauty in life!!!’

I still remember her words and they echo in my ears whenever I try to write something meta-physical. I went on for higher education and along with it I continued my writing, it brought in new flair and there was a varied subject that I wrote on. I got into the writing arena of paper industry and developed an interest in writing articles, post and covering certain events for the newspaper. I parted my poems as ‘Birthday Gifts’. Since we were doing management studies, my friend suggested we could use my skill to write ‘Greeting Cards’ and sell them across world and become successful business woman and men!!!

I slowly developed articles and then I wrote my first short story, at the age of 22 years, inspired by own life and giving it a twist and turns and making it very romantic and painful at the same time. My first short story, I did send it to ‘Womans Era’ magazine, hoping that my story was one among the best short stories that were being published in the magazine. The short story got returned within a week!!

Being in an IT company, the access to the Worldwide Web, the e-media, the advancement of Technology, and the advent of online personal dairy – the blog…gave varied dimensions to my writing. At first, I was indisposed with the idea of writing something personal on a media that is accessible around the world; I came across a lot of blogs that spoke about personal experiences and only them!

My work being mainly focused on English and writing, I was asked several time by the interviewers and fellow people, as to why I did not have a Personal Blog apart from an Official Blog page, for the only reason being ‘Writing is my Primarily Skill’. I pondered over it and the proposed to have one blog page, just not to be left alone on the path.

I created one and started writing and thus continued to write…till this one!

PS: The poem on ‘First Kiss’ turned out to be fiascos coz; I had compared the event to a daily chore in a man’s life such as Brushing!!!