Sitting by the window on a 'snowy' evening

I looked at my subject book sourly and shut my eyes in obvious irritation. Exams again. Those boring, unchallenging exams that waste your time. I could not bring myself to open the notebook so early in the day when just a couple of hours should get me through easily with eighty percent. I could not help the slight smirk at the thought of some of my classmates slogging away on this – exams! I had these dreams, so what if the exams suck, I will just go ahead and read up the subject I have come to love so much. But sitting in the exam the next day, always made me like Economics a little lesser, rather demotivated me to such an extent that there was no positive energy left to indulge in productive activities. Perhaps, using the time post one in the noon to immerse myself in things I love and in the way I love doing them, would have made up for the five dull hours at college. But me being me, I unfortunately used the second half of the day to crib about the first half.

And one day something pulled me out of this vicious cycle – Sa*. As I sat up writing my first article, trying to meet my deadline, I realised that I had sat up and finished the article in spite of the long day; I was dying to hit the bed with some aspirin for company. I could not have sat up with that searing pain in my head, even if it were my final examinations the next day (!). I did not want to delay my first article and forced myself to start, half way through I was furiously typing having forgotten the world around and by the end of the article I was energised to write away the whole night. I still cannot find the word to describe what writing did to me that day, what writing has done to me always, liberating me is the closest I get to. I’d forever be indebted to Sa for making me realise this. I have written before for a daily newspaper, but writing for Sa was different. It was the first time I was writing to argue without screaming my lungs out, first time I was writing to make a point, first time I clearly took a stance, first time I realised that this is what I wanted to do for life and first time I was walking out of that vicious cycle and easily! After doing that piece, there was this sudden urge to sit and read, read about feminist movements, autobiographies, essays, it was a splendid domino effect that initiated a flow of positive energy in me.

I have sometimes missed deadlines, sometimes produced pieces that need to be drastically edited, but writing for Sa is one thing that has kept me going – what with the sudden dislike to wake up and trudge to college every day, Sa did wonders to me. And I suddenly had readers. There were people who enquired when I missed an issue, people who regularly left me constructive feedback, people who wanted to discuss and well, some who removed me from their facebook list after heated arguments. But I was being read and I was being told by my readers ways to improve in order to connect with them better. There are some writers who have total disregard for their readers, I remember Jayakanthan being one, a Tamil writer. He once told a journalist that if people did not understand him, they need not read him, he wasn’t asking to be read. That quote made him famous, a mystic writer. But I disagree, what is the point in being a mystic writer? One of course writes because one loves to. And that love leans on the fact that writing is the most powerful tool to communicate – it can build relationships, it can spearhead revolutions, can change the way the world works and even create a whole new one. Writing is so beautiful because of the powerful purposes it creates or the little ones it serves. So when one is blessed with the art to weave words into magic, it needs to be put to the best possible purpose it can solve. I may be a person who most of the times does things that have a purpose. But the other few times I indulge in things that don’t. I strongly believe in what Aamir Khan says in Taare Zameen Par, “Why should everything be done with a purpose?” So if writers like Jayakanthan love to write, just because they love admiring the way they write, then they should probably write blogs like this, why publish a book asking for readers to read, but not clarify or explain when asked to. That is not the sign of a great writer but of an arrogant fool.

As usual, I have digressed. Back to Sa. Sa did wonders to me in not just the ways I have mentioned above, but it brought into my life a good friend, a person whom I look up to, and who sometimes is my source of the much needed inspiration– Sneha Krishnan. She introduced me to the world of nonfiction, to Guha and Ray and Nehru, and is the best editor I have ever know – she refuses to edit a word written by another writer. Even if there’s just an hour left to publish the issue, she will wake the writer up from bed, give suggestions and let the writer of the piece make any changes if required, thus maintaining the authenticity of the piece and retaining the writer’s soul in the article. There are editors who mercilessly rip the piece apart, there are still others who introduce their own style in the piece and some more who ultimately change writers’ writing style into mere imitations of the editor’s. Sneha is the most brilliant editor I have ever come across, and I hope I get an opportunity to work with her in many more portals (I will work hard to meet the deadlines!).

 This is just to say – thanks Sa.

*Sa – the online feminist webzine that I write for – www.savadati.com

*Sneha Krishnan - Co-founder and co-editor of Sa