Now that I have your attention, please lay down your pens, put down your coffee mugs, minimize your excel sheets and pause Winamp. No No, this is not the new program installation message that I have written for Microsoft. This is just a preface to the many secrets that I am going to lay bare today. Some readers who are too secretive prefer to send emails rather than post comments; I have also noticed that emails contain more direct questions and sharp accusations than in the comments section(of course I understand you cannot ask me such questions on a blog where families with young children come to spend a quiet evening. You naughty boy. Yes, I know that "sensible_girl@*****.com" is a guy. You naughty again). But I'm targeting a slightly more mature audience, therefore, I will post the answers here. Feel free to comment now. Concerned mothers would have already taken off before the last full-stop.
Why do you write stories that deal with violence and death?
If you know me personally, you would know that I'm very very dramatic. I present even mundane, everyday situations very dramatically. I was once telling my lead about a snippet of code that refuses to compile, and till I got to the last part, he thought I was asking for a day off to stay at hospital with somebody who had a terminal disease. On another occasion, when I was instructing my young Gulf-born cousin on how to light a Diwali cracker(he knows how to cap oil wells and calculate peak production rates, but lighting a bijli was not his area of expertise back then), Mom thought I was explaining the big-bang theory to his elder sister who had a physics exam the next day. The bottom-line is, I'm very dramatic in real life as well as blog-life. Violent-themed stories have a lot of scope for drama. (For ex., Amit pushed the light switch. The click of the switch resounded in the quiet room and the room was bathed in incandescent light all of a sudden. Amit jumped.) You get the drift, don't you?
Why do you write stories at all?
Excellent question. I don't have an answer for you at this moment. When I launched a blog, I tried to choose an area of writing I would bore readers to death with. It was not an easy choice, mind you. I briefly considering writing humour, but then discovered that it is not at all an easy task; and without humour my daily life would at best read like an online diary that could be made into a sad art movie. I briefly toyed with the idea of writing poems, but then, writing poems requires rhythm and prose - you might have a sense of my rhythm from reading a few posts here; I have no rhythm, I'm all over the place all at once. It was late at night when I hit upon the idea of writing stories, and since I was very tired from all the evaluation procedures, I went to sleep without debating on the idea. I have tried to give you a picture. That being said, I do not usually write stories at random. I write mainly against contests and challenges, where a theme or some other constraint is given. If you have something you would like me to write about, write in or leave a comment.
Why do you write at all?
Alright, now I guess you're exasperated. I write because at that moment, I have nothing else to do. My friends are all dead drunk, only waking up once in a while to tell me that they love me shinsherely, I have run out of movies to watch, the future of computer science research looks bleak, it is the dead of the night and I cant go out anywhere, etc. Nobody is born a blogger, it is society and circumstances that turn him/her into one. So there.
How do you pick topics to blog about?
I'm giving away the next secret. I pick out ideas from everyday instances(For ex., I see a man slipping on a banana peel. I'm already thinking out a blog post as I help him up). I pick up inspiration from blogs of friends. I also strike gold when I receive emails from phony ids. So please keep all those emails flowing in. I will never run out of ideas to blog about.
Did you have a love failure? Or more than one? I thought so from one of your stories.
Yes. Many. So many that I can start a blog where the stories are exclusively about my escapades. So many that all these stories could be called my Signature collection. Infact, so many that I am thinking of adopting "I love failure" as my personal punchline(Did you get the pun in the punchline?). You are not the first one to read my stories and think so. Female colleagues shot me sympathising looks with mascara-lined eyes and included me in their gossip sessions(thereby shooting down any further romantic opportunities in that direction) and male colleagues took me out to pubs for days together after "Snake in the grass" was published in the company magazine. My manager even suggested I take a vacation for a few days.
Does somebody read your posts before you publish them?
How did you guess? No, though I would like to have such a mechanism in place.
Last question, do your "close friends" encourage your writing?
Thank you for asking only so many questions. By the way, why are close friends in double quotes? Typo, right? Ok. I have very few "close friends" who encourage my writing. Most of the others consider the Sunday editions of a particular newspaper to be timeless literary classics. They don't just yet see the point in starting another blog when there are so many already around. Someday, when I'm a world-renowned blogger, they will see my perspective(Yes, I had dreams of becoming a world-renowned software engineer, a world-renowned bungee-jumper, a world-renowned flautist, a world-renowned fighter pilot, but that's not the point here). I can see the looks on some faces when that happens. Takes me back to the only time I stood first in class. In 5th standard, I think. I was at home with chicken pox and everybody else in school was involved with preparing for the school day. I had nothing to do, so I studied, while the others were distracted. As luck would have it, I came first on that monthly test(I still remember the amazement. I thought the ranks were being announced backwards). Later that evening, when an equally amazed Amma was buying me chocolates at the local store, I remember the shopkeeper lady shooting poisonous looks at Amma and banging the change on the counter(shop-lady's son was the traditional first rank holder), which Amma ignored. The trend didn't continue, since chicken pox usually happens only once in a lifetime, and school days only once a year. Oh no, I digress. I just wanted to say I can see the looks on their moms' faces when I become a world-renowned blogger.
Ok, I have to stop now, or I risk losing the loyalty of the handful of readers that this blog has. Last week's news should be up in some time, so please come back soon. Till then, ciao.
2 comments:
Ha ha ha.... First of all congratulations on standing first in 5th std... One of my Qs have this as a basis.. Haven u wished tht u keep getting chicken pox agn n agn so tht u continue to be first??? ;)
And yeah i could feel the "pun" in ur punchline :P :D
Enjoyed readin the post!!! :)
@Divya: Thank you :) Yeah time and again I've wished for chicken pox, but to no avail.. I gave up after 10th.. I'm just not made for scoring ranks!
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