Drapetomanic

Most of us in India are used to knowing more than one language fluently, English being one and a native or a regional language being the other. Some of us who grow up shifting after every few years, learn more than two languages. I reiterate my point here, we learn more than two languages. This learning does not comprise knowing reading, writing or comprehending the language well, it could just be knowing any one of the three verticals well.

I just came back from my critical writing class today, where  we had to give feedback to our peers on the reflection pieces which were written after reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘In Other Words’. The book was written in Italian, a language Lahiri learnt, simply because she loved it and wanted to write a book in it. Assuming that I and only few more people in my class would have troubled minds, being familiar with more than four languages, I found out that knowing even two languages could be difficult after a feedback session. Our mind speaks one language and tongue another depending on the place we are. Parents might speak the native tongue, teachers speak the professional tongue and our friends delight us with colloquial.

How much control does language have in the way we think and act? Which language helps us to reflect deep within us, our thoughts and desires?

Several voices talk lout loud within us, (some in our heads, some around us and the others in the hearts), and there are some, which we barely listen to. The feeble ones are the powerful voices, which we keep hearing again and again, yet choose to ignore. One never realizes its importance, because it is not loud enough. The loud voices are not even ours, but someone else’s whom we hear and choose to follow.

How often do we dump the feeble voice, which possibly can be our own, trying to convey just the right choice, which makes us happy instead of making the people around us happy?

 A mischievous school life. Some fun loving friends. Cool parents. Life was at its best when our protagonist was twelve. Her parents were avid readers of fiction, but she never read anything beyond fairy tales. Perhaps her interest was not reading alone. She wanted to explore the world beyond that. She loved roaming out in the corridors when classes were going. Basketball was her love, though she was not good at it. The world of writing never bothered her much. In another stint of remaining truant from class, she decided to participate in a creative writing contest. Most of her friends had come prepared for it, unlike her whose solo motive was to bunk the maths class. She chose to write a funny poem about her mother, with crazy rhyming words to pass time. Two weeks later, when the results of the contest were announced, it was a shock to everyone, especially the third prize. Because it was our protagonist who had won it. And that was how everything began.

A year later in 2006, she started contributing her writings to a children’s magazine called Gokulam, who used to send back, up to Rs. 50 for each of her contributions. The first time her article got published, a postman came to her school to deliver a small certificate and Rs. 15 to her. He could have gone away after giving it to her, but he stayed back for around 20 minutes giving her a short motivational speech. He spoke about great writers, religious texts and how writing changes many things in life for some. The spark that a stranger ignited in the kid that day, remains lit even now!!

There was no stooping after that, more laurels poured in the later years. Her essay received a commendable certificate from the editor of a leading national magazine twice. It was her dream to write a book. A lifetime wish, not to achieve fame, or earn money, but only for herself. To bring out a story, that remains evergreen, whose characters never get old, like those of Ruskin Bond or make you believe in magic like J. K. Rowling. Several attempts were made by her, to begin a book; but the conclusion was, that this was not the story her heart wanted to jolt down.

Now it was time to scribble. Just scribble random thoughts. And some peers were needed to read and enjoy her scribbles. That’s when she created her blog. It picked up really well with social media helping to get the audience for her blog. Her school teachers, college mates, school mates, family friends and relatives; everyone loves the simplistic way of her writing. Every time a blog was published, it made her more and more conscious about her audience and way of writing. She did not restrict her blogs to one particular genre, from food to travel to school life to fiction to daily inspirations.

Each blog post, is a trial run for something new and a result of small improvement from the previous piece. Now she is a part of Chennai’s biggest blogging community, which helps her to keep the blog active.

Cute appreciation from her friends and juniors, inspiring messages from teachers and uncles push her forward to bring out good quality of simple writing.

Her quest to write a book, is still on, for she will fulfil it soon!!

The ‘she’ is ‘me’ here (:

P.S. This is my entry to the Sweek contest with #ChennaiBloggersClub