I Fell in Love with Writing. Again.

I love my life. Because I write for a living, and writing is my passion. Sometimes I write good stuff, and sometimes crap I’m not proud of.

I fell in love with writing.jpg

Whatever I write though, I edit. People say crisp sentences are strong, and have a stronger impact in the reader. And that’s why I taught myself to “kill my darlings.”

And during one of my self-editing sessions, I fell in love with the language all over again. Because I learnt an important lesson: Longer sentences can be strong too.

I had this sentence.

Writing is one thing technology can’t conquer, because writing is human.

My internal editor went berserk, and we ended up with this.

Writing is human, and technology can never conquer it.

At first, both sentences made perfect sense to me. And then I read and re-read them aloud. And that’s when it hit me.

Everything about these statements was different.

Writing is one thing technology can’t conquer, because writing is human.

The sentence starts with “writing”. That says writing is important. And then it says why writing is important. Because it’s the ‘one thing technology can’t conquer.’

It’s ‘the one thing.’ That’s to say, writing is beyond all things technology can conquer. We acknowledge the power of technology, but declare writing is more powerful. And why is writing so powerful? Because, ‘writing is human’.

When you connect writing with being human, it’s clear that technology isn’t. It’s emphasising the obvious. But at the end, writing seems in the better light, because we can relate to it as human — that it’s the one thing unhuman technology will never conquer.

There’s emotion in this sentence. There’s human.

And then there’s this.

Writing is human, and technology can never conquer it.

The sentence, again, starts with writing. But, instead of a period there’s a comma — a pause as if we’re waiting for something important — and then comes the phrase, ‘and technology can never conquer it.’

I read this line, and realised: I had combined writing and human in one phrase, and added technology in the immediate next. It had deteriorated the power of writing which was evident in the previous version. The emphasis, now, had shifted to the word “technology.” But as a reader, I’d be reading out ‘technology can never conquer it,’ in just one breath — not a breath-taking line.

I had confined the most important part of the sentence to the first line, and made it sound bland. With the comma, I had brushed aside the human element in writing, and focussed on technology instead. And that had made the whole sentence more of an observation than an emotion.

Sometimes, we say things in an impulse, in an emotion. And sometimes, this spontaneity needs much editing before anyone sees it. But in some odd cases, we just over-edit. That’s what happened to me.

I wrote, I rewrote, I read, and re-read my words. And when I saw the difference, I felt a rushing love towards the English language. How can a language be so beautiful, and so complicated at the same time?

The Animal Kingdom

During my recent trip to Darjeeling, I had the chance to visit the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park. And within it, a museum.

zoo 1

The zoo was wonderful, of course. With so many different animals basking within their “open cages,” monkeys chattering with each other from their enclosures, and parakeets of hundreds of kinds chirping notes too varied to comprehend.

Th kids in our group enjoyed every inch of that vast expanse of animal reserve, but to me, it was just a bigger cage than the usual ones. And yes, photography enthusiasts had a field day with all kinds of experiments. From point and shoot, the lighting, the macros, and zoom ins, to the last resort, auto focus — because all experiments headed downhill.

I always prefer odd-shaped rocks over humans, and flowers over wilder animals. But most other tourists preferred to point their cameras and thoughts at the big blue sheep. Which isn’t a bad way to spend a vacation. The animals were mesmerising, of course. I had never known that so many animals existed among the lesser ones.

I tried my hand at it photography too. I should have looked like a weird lunatic to all those pointing their cameras in the opposite direction — at a majestic tigress.

zoo

I was more keen on the little things that grew unknown, and uncared for. There’s so much beauty in crisp white petals striking through the dusty, brown leaves on the ground. So is the plump red fruit handing from what appeared to be a dying tree. The mysteries within those round and thin skins, the tiny, almost invisible, seeds, and the plush flesh of the fruit. Whatever is that fruit called? What if it just appeared irresistible, but would resist blood to your veins once you eat them? After all, poisonous berries do co-exist with the sweet ones. Not unlike us human folk.

One good thing about the park visit: It tempted my muse.

Telling Lies…

“My friends say fairies aren’t real, mama.”

— “Fairies do exist, dear. They spray their magic dust to make the flowers bloom.”

“These cookies are so tasty mama. Can I eat them all?”

— “Don’t, my boy. Leave some of the cookies for Santa. if you had been a good boy, Santa and his elves will leave you anything you asked for.”

“I’m scared, I don’t want to go to sleep.”

— “ Shh, it’s already past your bedtime. Wee Willie Winkie would be running through the town, checking if the kids are in their beds. Close your eyes now, and try to sleep.”

“Mama, what would I be when I grow up?”

— Disappointed.

Advice for the Modern Age

hamlet

Body shaming is a thing now. Having experienced it a few times myself, I can say it’s not new. For a long time now, the world has been mocking those who don’t have pear-shaped bodies.

One man has the best advice for those who shame other people. He lived well ahead of his time, hinging on the period he was born into, yet thriving even four hundred years later.

And how does he give us a his piece of mind? He shames his lover for a start.

“If hairs be wires, then black hairs grow on her head.”

That was, of course, in a time when blond curls ruled the day and any woman with straight hair was un-ladylike. Things have changed since, I know. Nowadays, people pay fortunes just to get their curly hair straightened. Nevertheless, body shaming hasn’t changed at all.

And then there’s this image of rosy cheeks and powder puff.

When I face my mirror, I know I have no rosy cheeks. There’s no chubbiness that every man’s supposed to like, there’s no colour, or flush, or blush. When I see myself in the mirror, I only see what shamers told me: A dull face, and cheeks too thin to be beautiful.

Shakespeare said it too:

“But no such roses see I in her cheeks.”

But here’s the question. Why would anyone expect a woman to look more like the sun and less like a woman? Why would anyone want a woman who resembles a child’s doll, when she’s stronger than that in real life?

Again, Shakespeare has the answer. And his answer — four centuries old though it is — is unmatched even in this age.

“And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.”

To be or not to be a body shamer. That’s not the question anymore. No matter how much we compare a person, woman or man, to an image of perfection, it would be just that — an image. Pretty face and fair skinned, or spotted and dark skinned, there’s just a skull underneath.