This is the 65th time I am writing this column. Do you know what is dreadful about a weekly column? It comes weekly! Suddenly it's the weekend, and I realize that I must write a column! But I just did that!! Yeah, usually that’s the way it goes for me for this particular space. But hey, you may think that I am complaining, but I am not. I am just trying to be truthful. I usually write this column sitting on my couch by my bedroom window. As I do this now, today, it is rather gloomy outside and the little street is shining with rain water. Rain is different around here compared to back home. It is cold rain here, compared to warm monsoon rain that we are used to back home. So this rain is not inviting, my fireplace is inviting. I can sit here for hours and try different things.
For example, I am trying on glasses. Yeah, that’s right. I never had any, but finally I think old age is catching up to me. Lately, my eyes water a lot looking at the computer screen. Also I am having difficulty reading the small fonts of paperbacks. Yeah, I still read paperbacks. So like on kindle, I can’t just increase the size of the font. I got a very light, thin, titanium frame in blue. It doesn’t have any metal at the bottom of the lenses. You know the kind I am talking about? The ones with rectangular lenses are held only at the top. They are very light and almost feel weightless. I am unsure how long these will last but so far I am enjoying them. I don’t have too much strain on my eyes at the moment.
Back to the rain, nah, it doesn’t look any better with rose colored glasses. Nah, mine are not rose color lenses either. But that’s a valid thought. As a lot of people tell me, I always look at the world with rose colored glasses. This is quite true. This column itself is a testimony to that over the last year and a half. But why is that an issue? It is my column and it is my choice if I choose to look at it through rose colored glasses: As Paul Gauguin used to say...
“How do you see those trees?... They are yellow. Well then put down yellow. And that shadow is rather blue. So render it with pure ultramarine. Those red leaves? Use vermillion.”
Oh sorry! The rain!! Yep, it has stopped now. The street is still wet though. There isn’t any traffic on this neighborhood street of ours. Mostly kids play here on Sundays. But from my perch, I don’t see them now, maybe they are playing at Miriam’s. I like that a lot, as the kids are planning on a Christmas Play. Whether that will happen or not is up to the kids, but it is the planning that matters. Maybe to escape the rain and cold kids are planning at the garage towards the corner of the neighborhood. Good for them. Anything to stay out of the rain.
“Once upon a time I got curious and from there my journey here started and the journey has not been easy.”
The beginning of a journey is often riddled with stumbling blocks, crossroads of uncertainty and ambiguity, along with the most meticulous critique by your side, that is yourself - this is the pep talk that she had given herself over and over again, yet sometimes she felt (still feels) it’s hard to come to terms with it while she finds her herself at the starting point.
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Meanwhile, she hasn’t come a long way, but a mere few steps ahead from where she started, though the length of the journey is still quite unknown to her, and sometimes she finds herself off track or a colorful eye-catching attraction has caught her attention, somehow she manages to get herself back to where she left and pick up from there.
To her, this journey is not only about the dirt road that she’s taking, but it’s also about smoothing out the path or making it anew, while she knows she can take different routes or completely change her path and destination, albeit tempting prospects, she hasn’t done that as for now.
Often she struggles with what to write and coming up with half-decent materials is difficult numerous times and let’s not forget writer’s block or just a simple “not-in-the-mood” graces its presence, unbelievably so, she never thought she’d face them so early in her journey; after all, she’s a naive novice.
A novice she is, and she’s well aware of that but the determination is there; yes, determined she is and practice she will; she doesn’t want to become a writer so eloquent, and there’s a certain lack to the vocabulary, however, what lacks in refined and exquisite words, makes up for the strength, simplicity, and perhaps likemindedness.
Ahhh writing!
The sweet, sweet torture I drown myself into whenever the mood strikes! But alas! Like a delicate yet haughty Victorian woman, she is hard to court, so I often find myself struggling to bring out anything that can be digestible.
Still, she is a mistress I can’t ever escape from, so like a lusted madman with tainted pride, I run behind her over and over again, hoping she will be kind enough to glance at my way once in a while.
This little conquest of mine, I’ve been doing it since I was only twelve. Although back then, most of my pieces could only be considered childish attempts that held no depth.(not that they hold any depths now!) At that time, writing had been easy. There were no rules and no expectations and I used to write without an ounce of thought given towards what is being written.
That was, until I grew up and decided to grow bags of expectations and tastes! Sigh...
Along with this sudden burst of expectations and quality, came the dreadful self-doubt that suddenly made all the colourful little rubbishes I wrote seem lower than trash. So out I went to figure out ways to make them look better.
And the first route I took was the road towards reading and reading, and more and more reading.
I won’t say I am an avid reader who has read through half my age worth of books. Hell, I might have not read even a thousand. I’m still a lost little sailor in the vast ocean of great novels and novellas, who loses herself more into characters and emotions instead of observing the way the words are written down. But still, I can’t refrain from reading. Cause if you don’t read, how else will you ever write? Imagination is a tree that needs watering, and books are the rivers you go to fill out your buckets to keep it alive.
Reading did somewhat enhance the way I write things, and I’ve found my muses in writers like Oscar Wilde, who helped me see the world in a new light. The way we view the world, to me, is also something that lies deep into the core of writing. We all see our surroundings differently, and if we don’t even know what we feel and want from what we are seeing, how can our written words hold any depth?
After all this high and mighty talk, in comes my demise, which comes in the form of emotions...
Ughhh, oh how I hateee...
It’s a general belief that writers should be able to write at any given time or situation. But sadly, my brain didn’t quite get the memo regarding this, and off it went to relate my written words with all those intense bumbles of feels that I have, which in return left me unable to produce anything without a particular sort of emotions backing it up.
If I don’t feel it, I can’t write it. I’ve tried a thousand times to get out of this tiny cage I built for myself, but every time I stepped out of it to write anything without any emotional attachment, all that ever came out was fragmented verses that held no meaning. I think I acquired this little habit(?!) of mine through reading. Because it's only books that make me feel something are the ones I hold close to my heart, so now, I just write about things that I hold close to my heart in return. Just like now, as I’m writing about my one true passion that holds a mighty ocean of emotional attachments...
I’m not gonna go into all the detailed educational talk about how I set up my plots and characters, because, one, everyone has their own unique methods and two, I do not know how I do it myself...(See how messed up I am?! Completely uncoordinated!)
As I said before, I write based on emotions. And those emotions come to me in forms of certain scenes or conversations, which I then write around to make it seem more realistic, or write towards while keeping it as my end goal. I never write down detailed descriptions of events that will happen in my pieces, because like any reader, when I write, I also explore the world I'm writing about.
So yeah, that’s what writing is for me.
It’s an agony, a damsel who keeps me up at night, a cruel wife who causes me more headaches than anything else. But even after all this, I wouldn’t have her in any other way.
Because what I have with her, my friends, is considered true love. And this mindless lust and thunderous affection I have towards her is a thing that's gonna last in me, forever.
It's been a while since I've opened my notepad to pour out something. Perhaps this long abstinence goes along with the theme as I have to reach into myself and wonder anew how do I commit myself to writing.
When I approach writing something, I don't really pick up the keyboard and blast away. I have a subconscious state where I contemplate what I will write and how. Often I even articulate sentences in my mind (in the language I will write the piece in) while doing chores or other mundane stuff. This happens without me actively trying to do it. This is surely an advantage and I believe I've developed this technique, or more accurately adapted to it over a long period of time through consistency.
Sometimes when I sit and start typing, I don't go start to finish in one go. I might add key points on the topic I'm writing on first, sort of like bullet points. And then I elaborate on those points accordingly. This is also useful when I have a few topics to write on but my hands are tied. I write down only the points so I don't forget what I wanted to write and how I wanted to write it.
As for prose, I am quite oblivious about how I pick my sentence building. But it is safe to assume it came from literary works I love but turned into a watered-down version due to my own incompetence. Perhaps this is why when I finish writing something and if I'm not all too pleased with the prose—I go back to emblemize the piece with shiny wordplays in an attempt to make it more appealing. This practice will not be to everyone's liking but that's how I do it.
And the final point—I try to be impartial and as factual as possible on any given topic. May it be a book or cinema or social issue, I have a tendency to seek out the most accurate consensus on it and even then, be impartial to it.
- @Hyacinth
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Cosmos of words I have known of,
how many descendants have gone off,
with many echoes revising the echoes
of words that stay stuck on my mind in reverse.
Coming in contact with you makes me rethink
of the choices I make deliberately,
how many a times do I think of you exhaustedly,
how many a days has it been that we are together?
Yet verses make me relish my moments with you,
verses make me cherish the blossoms we have created,
Verses turn, verses twist, verses makes me cherish,
Cherish the rhythm of trust and first,
the first day I met you.
Uncanny, taunt words make their impact,
leather, feather unleashes lost words into the wind
of many chaoses, held by words, shielded,
with many rhythms up close,
I have met the charms of words loose.
The day of ambush may seize the way I think,
may it take all what I hold closest to me,
because of the many reasons I hold on,
do you think you only exist within these,
you exist in words, I speak, I breathe, I freeze.
Cosmos of words I have known of,
how many descendants have gone off,
with many echoes revising the echoes
of words that stay stuck on my mind in reverse,
they exist to show the true meaning
of written chances glanced by the intense
the gaze of the singing alarms,
that voice up shore for meanings,
meanings that refer you to me.
The dim light from the lampshade could only illuminate the bottom half of his handsome face, which held an eerie smile that would make anyone feel uncomfortable.
"Tell me, Yohan, what do you think 'truth' really is?" he asked as he gazed at the young man like a predator from where he sat.
"What are you trying to say? Speak clearly." confusion was evident on Yohan's face, and it only made his grin grow wider.
"Well, I think truth itself is an illusion. A bundle of thoughts and actions, of words and conviction," he spoke while leaning back, "You see, it all works like a programme. Write the correct codes, you get the right result. Or grammar; place words in the right order, and you get a meaningful sentence. It's all about belief and the choice of believing. If I convince you to believe it, then it is the truth."
Despite the confusion, Yohan's voice was steady when he spoke. "And if you don't?"
Upon hearing the question, his eerie smile finally turned wicked, "Well, If I don't, then I am not doing my job properly, now am I?
The cat has been on the W-o-W trance for a while, jumbled thoughts making her erratic than ever.
Crumpled papers littered around her space, coffee stains on her makeshift table while unwashed cups are decorating that tiny space almost as is her headspace and her writing room are all but one - all are a vivid presentation of a failed attempt. A cat’s gotta do what a cat’s gotta do and even though the mantra isn’t awe-inspiring but still doable and for now works as a push hard enough that the room has become a witness to the cat’s determination.
Yes, determined it was and practice, it will; the cat doesn’t want to become a writer so eloquent, however, there’s a certain lack to the vocabulary but what lacks in refined and exquisite words, makes up for the strength, simplicity, and perhaps likemindedness.
Hence, the cat keeps trying; the smudged black ink in its soft light fur hundreds of papers with few words that were not satisfactory to the cat are proof that it’s trying, and try it will.
The way she was W-o-Wed it’s quite troublesome for her, therefore, she went on days trying to figure out what’s could she write about Writing on Writing; she’s a novice and not a seasoned writer and her journey merely started and she scribbles whatever comes to mind, albeit hard but try she does.
লেখকঃ অপরিচিত
আলসের শিরোমণি লেখে ছয় লাইন,
হেডক্লার্ক এরই মাঝে খায় মাছ বাইন।
বাইনের মত সে মোচড় মেরে পলাতক,
চকচকে আয়নায় কলম-কালি মহাঘাতক।
দিন রাত কেনা-বেচা, লাভ-ক্ষতির হিসেব কষে,
তল দিয়ে রিসোর্স পুল নষ্টেরা খায় চুষে।
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