The 100th Post.........

6 years of writing, 100 posts, numerous comments and feedback, many thoughts written, many not written, many blog posts drafted and left unfinished, many posts started with some idea but ended on completely different note, some posts written to please people, some to please me, some to tell the world I can write, some to tell myself that I can think, some to bookmark events of life, some to capture time, my blog has seen it all. It has been a medium to motivate people or to vent out my frustration, it has been a diary, it has been a complaint box, it has been a career guide, and it stood still like a silent spectator of my journey from a small city to one of the leading b school of the country. It has been my shoulder when I had nowhere to go, it has been a smiling face to celebrate my victories, it has been a silent friend who stood with me in my loneliness telling me there is hope in life, it has been a careful watcher, it is a part of my life I return to time to time. It is me, my soul in encrypted form, witnessing and capturing every aspect of my life. It’s my subtle perspective.

Voldmort was very intelligent to have a diary as a horcrux. You may not be always there, you are a perishable product. But words and thoughts are immortal. You can always be there as a memory. You can have your presence felt. Many of the quotes we share on FB are said by people belonging to different ages and culture, but they are with us and in this age of information, words can make any person, celebrity or non-celebrity immortal. I doubt Anne Frank had any idea that she will be such a well known personality and a emblem of Jewish holocaust when she was writing her diary, she was just a little girl capturing the world from her eyes but she is immortal now. 

6 years back when I started it, I had no idea I would be able to carry it to such a long time. I have habit of switching from interesting activities. I have fantasized myself playing a music instrument and to be a Rock star, singing and mesmerizing everyone, dancing and making people skip their heartbeat, all the mainstream ways of impressing people and making an identity I have thought through, tried a few and then stopped it. It turns out I shaped myself more as a writer with time and here I am writing about what I could be and what I am. I am everything I want to be because I can write. I can make characters and put my soul into it. I can be a singer in a story, a guitarist in another. I can create my own fantasy world because words are powerful. Words are powerful than any other entity in the world because they let you create your reality and your fantasy. If you are not happy with your reality, you can create your fantasy and once you learn how to do it, you won’t find reality much difficult to cope up with.

What started as an experiment turned into a life time memoir. A boy who reads and writes mostly in Hindi started his venture in the world of English, a language associates with high class. I was never comfortable in English, to a large extend I still don’t find as much comfort in English as I find in Hindi. I have been ridiculed, thrashed and insulted for my poor grammar. People have laughed on my posts in front of me. I have been mocked and I have enjoyed every part of it. Because, it was an improvement cycle. I have not edited any of my previous posts. I still visit them, look at all the grammatical errors, poor sentence construction, use of misplaced tough word to flaunt vocabulary and I also laugh at them now. But I know how much I have improved only by writing, nothing else. I have tried reading wren and martin for more than 20 times and I have never gone past 10 chapters. I have tried many other ways but never continued but I didn’t stop writing. As it turns out, practice indeed makes a man perfect.

Writing is definitely not an easy job but at the same time it is not as tough as people have made it look like. It’s not arrangement of some hardcore tough words which are rhyming and makes you appear cool. It’s just expression, the only question is can you dare to express? Can you pour your emotions out in public or even on a paper in private? Can you dare to give a physical form to your inner turmoil? Writing is not about syntax. Lots of people know grammar and word, it is about soul and we all have soul, we just need to put it out. If I was focusing on grammar, I doubt I would have completed 100 posts. During my 1^st year of engineering, many people started their own blog. In fact, at a time there were 13 blogs running parallel with different people sketching different thoughts on the canvas of blogger. Unfortunately, no one continued it, not even for 6 months. Life has a way of taking us away from our hobbies. Even I have my phases of ‘writer’s block’ during which I fail to write a single line but somehow I always return to writing.

Also, you can’t write solely for the purpose of impressing others. I have tried and I have failed, many have tried and they have also failed. You can’t write to get Facebook likes and favorable comments. You can try, but it won’t last long and if you aren’t a professional writer, there aren’t any rewards or motivation associated with this hobby. People may like 1 or 2 of your post, then you would lost into oblivion again for a long time. Many of your posts will go unnoticed like a deserted field with no traces of any happening ever. Many of your posts will draw criticism or may be people will laugh on them especially in the beginning. The reward never lies in the no. of FB likes you get, it will happen on one fine day when a random person who you may not even know or know but never talked will message you that he read one of your post and it changed his life. It made him pursue his goal again, it restored his faith in life, it made him laugh or smile, it made him looking forward to read more. That’s the reward you will get, nothing in public just a few smiles and appreciation in private that will keep your engine running to write more.

A write writes for the silent spectator. Those who would never express their opinion or give any feedback but those who want to read. They are the people you will never met in your life but they know you, they know you’re thinking, they know your reactions and they wait for your posts. A writer writes to give voice to those unheard people, a writer writes to bring out their frustration, a writer writes to let them know that they are not alone, a writer writes to show the world that it’s roughly same for all, we all have similar experiences in life. A writer is a messenger that connects reality with imagination.

Having said and claimed all these big statements, I know that I am not a great writer. I have been blessed with the gift of words by god and I have developed an ability to express. I am far away from being good but it’s a process not a competition. The aim is to write something good that will touch few lives and not write a bestselling book. I know my limitations and I am happy with them. May be someday I can write something worthy, till then it’s roughly my own life experiences and life from my perspective. I hope I will improve with time, I will read more and read better to improve myself. I will encourage others to write so that they can also paint their own picture.

So whoever is reading this, I request them to start writing, not frequently not much, just some words once in a while. You will feel good, you will get to know about yourself. You can revisit yourself few years back, you can see the changes in you. You can stay in touch with your past and you can smile. You need not have a fancy blog and lots of followers, best writing is often never revealed to world, it's too precious to share with world, just have a personal diary. Write in it once in a while and you will have something precious forever. 

PS: This picture is of Ajit Agarkar's celebrating his century at lord’s, a big achievement which even Sachin failed to do. Life is all about persistence, you may not be a legend but you can do legendary things if you try. Keep writing people.