Of Muddy Boots & New Beginnings

Best things in life happen by chance. Or maybe they happen by design that seems more like chance. 

I started writing by chance too -- or maybe design that seemed like chance -- some three years ago. It is strange how I had always wanted to write but, until then, had never picked up the pen to actually write. I mean, if you want to do something, you do not take twenty years to do that, do you? Well, I somehow did. 

I began writing for no one in particular. My words at the time were only an expression of my loneliness, and sometimes, frustration. I had no one to talk to, and, if I did have someone to talk to, I did not have anything to talk about. Writing therefore came in handy.

The other thing is that I have always been poor with the spoken word. I fumble and stumble, and often end up putting my foot in my mouth, when I do not do that, I end up putting another persons foot in his mouth. Staying quiet therefore is usually the best thing to do. Writing, the second best.

And so I wrote. Sometimes purposefully, mostly purposelessly.

It was another stroke of chance, (or design?) when I got the opportunity to write for the paper. This was also something I had always wanted to do, but hadn't done anything about it before. Probably the time was now. 

Writing for others gave me confidence. It was reassuring to know that there are people, other than me, who want to read what I write. Like all writers, the obvious next step was to dream of my own book - to travel the world alone, to go where no one else has ever gone, to be where no on else has ever been. And to write about it.

But the bigger the dream is, the longer it takes for it to come true. 

A book therefore may be sometime away. I really need to feel that I am ready for that, or, as a friend puts it, I need to do enough riyaaz before I get on to the stage; but what I am surely working on is the first step towards to book -- my own travel page.

I intent to make That Girl In Muddy Boots my practice ground for all my travel work until I am confident of having enough riyaaz to back me up on the stage.

Although my travel work now moves to That Girl In Muddy Boots, New Beginning remains my first love and the place where I will continue to laugh, cry, rejoice, rant, and love. 

I hope you continue to love both.

If you do not mourn

They say you die everyday, if yo do not mourn those who have gone away
That with every one who leaves you, a part of you is also gone,
That you lend some of your soul to the dead if you do not mourn;

They say you begin to lose your hopes, happiness and joy
That you start living in a world that will never come by
They say never again are you your own, if you decide not to mourn;

But you don't listen to what they say, for you have always been the one to have your way

So you cling on - to the people, the dreams, the relationships - in your heart and in your head
You hold on to the ghosts of the past and expect life to come back from the dead

You hope that your uncle with return someday, and your child will come back from her grave to play
You wait for the relationships to thrive, you look forward to the slightest of reprieve
You live in hope each day, for mourning the dead has never been your way;

And one day you realise, what they said was perhaps the truth and not lies

With every loss you haven't mourn, a large part of yourself you have torn
With all those who have died - people, relationships, dreams and hope, some of you has also gone
So much so that from where you stand today, apart from skeletons you can see no other way.

 

Of Madness & Writing

You know you have finally got off the dry spell when you get off the computer after hours only to realise that your house looks more like a battlefield and less like a home.

You know you are finally coming back to your element when you realise that you have burnt the lunch, left the clothes in the dryer too long, almost forgotten to pick the child, and haven't seen a human in hours, if not days. That you have unanswered call & messages; that your half drunk coffee cup is on the chair since morning; that your children are wandering in the house, wondering what to eat with no sign of dinner on the table or kitchen.

You know you are a force to reckon with when you have spent a large part of the day, or night, messaging friends incessantly with your passages & ideas seeking feedback, not bothered about their work or time.

And if you are a struggling writer, who has been carrying the load of a dry pen for weeks at end, you profusely thank god for the mess you are into.