An open letter on completing 15 years of writing (almost!)

 

Dear Reader,

You don’t know me, nor do I know you. But let me tell you where I come from. I come from a land of emotions. I am in my thirties and I run on emotions. My parents are in their late fifties and they ran on obedience and emotions. My late grandparents ran on roles and obedience and emotions. And it continues.

Also, we are emotional about the things we care. Be it painting or coding. We treat our work as life, at times. Somewhere the work and life gets too intermingled to even have a balance.

And, writing helps. It helps the emotional fool within us to navigate the path of life, often guided my numbers and hours. Our emotions don't know numbers. But writing about it is a sign post for our hours and days. We are not machines to be guided by the northern lights of numbers. We are human to be nurtured by art. But can we organize that? We can try! 

In 2007, I started writing poetry, in August, when our city Hyderabad, known for harmony, suddenly became the epicenter of an attack, my heart sank. My emotions rode me over and I took to writing--to understand why did visitors from Pune became part of somebody's hatred? Why did some chat lover at Gokul succumb to death? Why did houses and terraces witness something so gory? Sure, this activity has become common now. But for a young college going human, it was a shock and no numbers, no hours of the day and no calendar could turn my emotions around. 

Writing helped! It helped me understand my love for people around me. It helped me quantify the gnawing pain within me. But yet, I was again, on a journey on my own. As much as I enjoyed it, I did feel a need for people around. And then, I met a community on Orkut - Ah! poetry (a post for another day). And, as years passed, I met people and we created communities. 

I have been to places outside, too, where the passion was organized and things were done more orderly. For months, I have been trying to do that to build a writers community in our city. And, I am trying actually pretty hard to organize art and make people experience the joy and the peace one experiences while writing and while doing art, like I did and like many I know do and did.

But, what I have learned in these years is writing or art can be cherished and savoured in the presence of others. We run on emotions and no matter how organized we keep it, chaos trickles in to make us better writers and artists. So, I am starting Soul Sundays, a space where writers, artists, came come along and we can all write together. The why, where, who, when and how of it, will be revealed soon. But till then, cheers to chaos, art and writing and to journeys that keep passion within us, alive!

Warmth,

A writer-in-progress