Learning to write again

For days I could not write. I mean I can always write but during the past few months, the writing was not coming from deep inside – it wasn’t flowing except in short spurts. Writing to me is an urge, a need , a compulsion – if it is dulled then my life seems lacklustre. I may not ever become anyone great by writing – perhaps my words will be as ephemeral as a puff of smoke but even then I cannot let go. So one day after my interminable whining and postponement of the ‘WRITING OF THE BOOK’ – yes the capitals were intentional, my brother told me I had to stop.

I have been writing since I was 9 – that was the time I read my first book and began thinking in print. To write a book had been my earliest dream and my longest lasting yet and therefore my brother rightly pointed out that there was no excuse whatsoever for my behaviour. I wanted to write, I could write – so what on earth was stopping me?

He then handed me a notepad and a pen and told me to lock myself in my room upstairs and just write whatever came into my head. I wasn’t to look at my laptop. I wasn’t to listen to music. I was definitely not supposed to look at my Blackberry to which my family fervently believes I am completely addicted. I acquiesced meekly enough considering he’s my younger brother. I sat on my bed propped against the pillows and took out my favourite pen. I was so used to typing that my handwriting looked completely unlike the beautiful script I used to possess. Within moments I was lost in writing. The physical aspect of putting down words on a paper while feeling the effort in my fingers and the tangible aspect of turning yet another filled sheet to encounter more opportunity in the next page was very enjoyable. My hand moved, the pen moved, words began filling the blank lines like magic.


What I wrote was not important – certainly it is nothing I would put up to read but the good thing was that it didn’t matter. It started the flow. I then went back to my laptop and typed out a 2000 word story effortlessly. I have gone back to writing on paper when I feel the need to think a bit clearly and then when I transpose those words on to the screen, the style changes and the story or article or essay becomes more polished and definitely more readable.


The beautiful part of being able to let go like this is that you automatically become that much lighter. It is with a huge sense of relief that I walk around now. To have something in you that wants to be freed is an unsettling feeling but once it is let out and you do what only you know how to do, it is sheer delight. Sometimes it takes years to learn that a simple piece of paper and a pen and silence is what you needed all along. And yet to learn a valuable lesson, however late is a blessing in itself.