Slight confusion, annoyance and an epiphany

A while back, I wrote an article for my college magazine (which I mentioned in one of my earlier posts). I thought it wasn't completely horrifying so I am sharing it here.

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“She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read.” 
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

From the time my father handed me Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield when I was ten years old, I have loved reading. I read everything. It didn’t matter whether Dickens was talking about the rampant industrialization or the moral degradation of England. I read it for the sake of reading. I liked how the characters felt like my friends and family. I liked that even though I had never been to England, I could clearly see the streets. I especially liked the fact that through a book, a mere novel, I could feel the pain of young David.

By the time I reached high school, I had read two of Chetan Bhagat’s novels which made me wonder- does today’s youth know the first thing about writing novels? After reading ridiculous “novels” churned out on a daily basis by IIT and IIM students I finally gave up on modern Indian novel. And I am not talking about writers like Arundhati Roy, I am talking about these young “novelists” who write God knows what and use long words and even longer sentences. Unfortunately, they come off as pretentious rather than artistic or clever.

But it is not their fault completely. In a country where engineers, lawyers, doctors and government officials are placed on a pedestal, what is a writer supposed to do? They aren’t given equal importance, pay or even opportunities. From a very young age we are told- “become a doctor” or “go to IIT”.  No one ever taught us how to write. Sure we have been taught the necessary grammar and syntax. But no one tells us how to write.

The best advice about writing, for some ridiculous reason, I think is this-

It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly.
- C. J. Cherryh

I decided a while back that rather than criticize other writers who have been courageous enough to put their thoughts out there, I will work on my writing instead. Every work of art is derived from another work of art and that is what has been taught to us by our professors and with that I completely agree. I will not say that my work will not be derivative nor will I say that I will become the best writer in the world. But what I have promised myself is that my writing will be truthful because I have come to understand that great writing comes from the truth. Being chronically shy, I will put my thoughts on paper. No matter how dreary, repetitive or even idiotic I sound; I will put my insignificant little thoughts on paper.

And hopefully it’ll be as easy as Hemmingway claims it to be-

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” 
― Ernest Hemingway

But obviously I will do all of that at a laptop because let us face it, only people born before 1930’s still use typewriters.

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Moo x