“TO WRITE” – Nayana Nair

I wonder sometimes how nice it would have been If I could write. Though not just write, but being able to write those beautiful words that can inspire somebody, that stays in their heart and if lucky enough move them to tears. That wouldn’t be just nice …that would be the best thing that I could have. But sadly, it seems as one of my favorite blog writers said “there are people who have stories and there are people who can write”. And it seems that I can’t be categorized under neither of them. Nor do I have stories and neither can I write.

I do try, try to think of stories. And rarely, it does occur that, I’ll get some pretty good idea. But then I’ll spend days , nights and months, trying to expand this idea into a story. But maybe I expand too much, then the idea becomes bleak amidst all I would have thought up. So before I forget them, I try to write down whatever I would have come up till that point of time. The first two pages are quite nicely written, but then after some days I end up with loads of rubbish scribbled on paper, that deserve only one place: dustbin. So, my all efforts to do something related to writing is just a waste of time. But the problem is even though experience proves that I’m an awful writer, it seems I can’t get hold of that idea, nor do I think I’m ready to accept that reality. Maybe I’m wishing that if I keep writing, if I keep trying, my dream will come true. But maybe all dreams don’t come true, irrespective of the fact how much you try. And maybe this is what I am, and maybe I’m trying to be something I’m not…how can you succeed at that.

But then a part of my brain says: maybe I’m trying too hard. trying too hard to write what you can appreciate, what people can appreciate, what can be worthy enough , good enough to be called an art. And maybe I’m being too hard on myself, by judging what I write too harshly. And I believe that is the real cause of my problems, my worries, my feeling of failure in this area…that I’m not being myself. That I’m not trying to put into paper what I feel just the way it is, but editing and modifying it such that it matches some criteria to be good enough. In this editing maybe I loose what all I want too say. And I end up with this bundle of paper with soulless writing. Where I was trying to hard to be someone else, the writers I look up to.

But that is not at all the purpose of writing is it? I mean writing should be projecting yourself, your creativity and your thoughts on that paper. To put a part of you on a sheet, that won’t change with time, that won’t change with you, that won’t change with people. It just remains what it is, something just for yourself. Maybe that’s why I write, to put myself on that sheet, if I don’t I get suffocated, maybe I’m not trying to be a writer, I’m doing what gives me relief, what gives me peace. Peace to put down all the voices into your head in front of you so they finally make sense. Peace that when I read what I wrote, I don’t feel lonely, I don’t feel alienated but somehow find a way to identify myself with people , who are trying to find myself. That self that is changing every minute, to understand the only thing what I want, why I think the way I do, to know how  do I affect the lives of people around me (in a good way or bad). And I end up seeing in those insignificant lines that I’m like everyone…I want happiness, I want love, I want a sense of self respect, I want people to acknowledge and accept me as I am, I want to deal with loss, pain and confusion I have. That’s what everyone is trying to do here. That feeling of knowing that you fit in this world…maybe that what gives me pleasure of writing.

I don’t know whether that perspective will get me anywhere in life. But I’m kind of enjoying where I am right now. To know and to understand that life’s not fair to anyone. And I should accept it. Even I’ve not been fair to everyone, so why should I deserve anything else. Only when I accept that, I can see, that amidst this loss, pain and confusion (that I have lot, which you can guess by the number of times I use word ‘maybe’) there always was love, there was an understanding, I just didn’t see it. That part of life that kept me alive, that made me hope for a better tomorrow, which gave me the strength and patience to endure one another day even when days were hopeless. It was love of all these people I never thanked, and who didn’t need my thanks to be with me, that kept me alive, and through what I write I want to keep them alive, I want to keep alive the kindness people have shown me , I want to keep alive the smile and the embrace that made me feel worthy enough for all happiness, the small help I received from even the strangers. But then I also want to keep alive those who hurt me, those who weren’t worthy of words called “love” and “trust”, who back stabbed, who lied and cheated. I want to keep them alive so that someday, someone who feels lonely comes across these lines I wrote, and feel what I felt when I penned them down, the feeling that they fit in. That they are not alone. The way the poems I read, the books I read, the movies I saw gave me the very same feeling. The feeling that I’m not alone. If I can do that for someone, that would be the worth all the efforts I put into writing, and all the papers that found their way to trash.