harder than I thought

Write everyday. Don't ever stop. If you are unpublished, enjoy the act of writing - and if you are published, keep enjoying the act of writing. Don't become self-satisfied, don't stop moving ahead, growing, making it new. The stakes are high. Why else would we write? - Rick Bass

Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy manged 5000 words before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1ooo words a day - which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like shitting a brick, but I make myself stay at my desk until I've got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book forward. Those 1000 words might well be rubbish - they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better. - Sarah Waters.

*circa 2002

Shilpa - Sir, I cannot write!

KTO, our God - Then write.

Shilpa - Sir?

KTO, also Dean of our Institute - Write. (finally looking at me) Write 100 words everyday.

Shilpa - (in shock) Ok.

Hhrrmph.

terrible threes

this boy never sits still. he climbs on windows and table tops. he draws on every which surface but paper. he pinches his sister, hits her, too. he stamps on the dog's tail, sometimes bites it, too. he throws a mean tantrum, almost always on the road. he can live on milk and kurkure and that's where all the problem starts.

he goes to school, but only for the yellow school bus ride. he refuses to hold a pencil. he throws away his crayons. he can count to ten, but holds his leap pad upside down. he hits his peers but purrs in front of his teacher.

he gobbles up his chocolates refusing to wash his hands or face or even wet-wipe. but, he has the sweetest smile, earnest eyes and the simplest of attitudes. he forgets you were angry at him a minute ago and like the dog wagging his tail, he'll be back for sure. my little boy.

the point

to this picture on my blog is that, I can't for the life of it remember why I composed it with her head cut out. I think, it has to do with posting it on flickr and the privacy factor and all. But, the very first picture with unrestricted viewing that I put of my six year old daughter this year, had her in full, smiling coyly from the branches of a frangipani tree.

I find myself doing things I had not planned for or thought of. Though some of the things like taking morning walks and carrying a camera to shoot outside the house top the 'feel-good' list for now. They also double up as stretching myself, getting out of my confort zone, so to say. They are adding to my personality.

But, I do wonder if I am throwing caution to the winds, caught up as I am in the excitement of outdoor shots in my photostream and the happiness of checking things in my list of resolutions. I want to tread lightly, and slowly, but the momentum of this high seeks me everyday.

Channelling the burst of energy to tasks (and chores) screaming for attention, seems boring, but is the perfect antidote for this 'head over heels' feeling at the start of another year.

in the middle

of the first month of the new year and decade, I am frozen in my tracks at the thought that in 2020 my six year old would be in Grade 10! I feel like I can't breathe. I find myself a perch to sit and a place for the clothes in my hand, before I sigh deeply. You know my dramatic ways!

As I sit down to bang on the key board, and let out some of the anxiety, I struggle to remember year 2000. Memories of the 50th Independence Day flood in. But, that was August 1997, and I had participated in the long rally to the city stadium alongwith students of all other colleges with the fervour of an Indian and the excitement of a first year Law student.

The next time I thought of particapating in a rally was the final year, for, then, I knew there might not be another one ever. But, 2000 - 01 was a regular year with no landmark achievement or event, at least nothing I can remember 10 years afterwards.

All my palpitating heart knows now is that the years whizzed by and I went from plump fresher to skinny graduate to plump mother with a lot of grey in whatever is left of the hair! It feels liberating that I am not bothered about the hair for now.

But, I am acutely aware of how fast time flies, life moves and we forget. There is no disappointment that I carry of the last ten years because there was graduation, journalism, marriage, and best of all, the children.

Actually, so much happened in my little individual world this last decade that it could very well be the 'golden era' of Shilpa. And, I think there will never ever be me in an individual world again. Ever.

Nevertheless, we get busy in life with life as it comes and forget to cherish time. There is always something to be done, something demanding or screaming at us for attention and so many somethings we wished we had done or wish we would do.

We don't know how many days we have left in our life, but it looks like a long future way ahead and lots of days to do all that we want. And, I, the queen of procrastination, will keep putting off tasks till one day I will have no hair left and I'll be old and frail, in spirit and body and I'll die lamenting on all that I wanted to do.

But, how wonderful it would be to look back on my life in those frail days and know that I had fulfilled my responsibilities to the best of my ability and acumen and also, that I had kept me charged and joyful with my creative pursuits. Not an easy wish, not in the busyness of life.

I can't imagine the tempo everyday would take if we started the day with something we loved. To each his own. I am hoping it would be writing for me. Writing is catharsis, closure, problem solver to me. More than that, I had been advised by my journalism Guru to write 100 words a day. I had the gall to tell him that I was not able to write anything, whilst in college!

The most important task I have resolved to accomplish this year, and hopefully, never let go of the habit, is to revel in and respect my time. To wake up earlier to embrace the day. To be mindful of the task I am at, be it the most mundane and the most repetetive of it. Tall order, but, you know how it is. You have to aim for the stars to reach the tree top or something.

Apart from being kind in thought, word and deed, and be quiet and contained to the limits of my ability and pray to be wiser and calmer, I had also in mind to start exercising. It could be anything from treadmill to yoga.

The foggy winter mornings make me wake up late. Treadmill walking is so boring and very tiring because you have to keep up. Exactly the point when exercising, the husband would nod. But, not for me. Also, the kids would wake up by the whirring.

The Universe then conspired with this friend from the school bus stop, who needed company for morning walks. We set off after waving the kids bye and actually, meander for a kilometre and a half.

I have now taken to carrying the camera every third day on my morning walks. I can't believe I am a morning walk person. The cold air is invigorating and I carry with me a sense of accomplishment and a smile the whole day. The pictures above and below were taken last week on these walks.

a little morning walk for mankind, a giant leap for Shilpa :)

a new lease

looking back

I read a secret seven mystery, after maybe two decades. It was a book my niece had left behind after her holiday. What can I say, I not only enjoyed the book but felt the suspense, too. After all, it was the summer holidays!

Since when I can remember, summer holidays meant going to Kerala where the grand parents were. And, since when my mother discovered my love for reading, I was bought a book to read in the train.

During the Nancy Drew – Hardy Boy’s phase, I could barely resist starting the book, which my prudent mother had bought only the day before the journey, in the railway station, while waiting for the train that was already late.

I always asked for and got the topmost berth and there I stayed reading and munching and occasionally, coming down to have the Indian railways meal. I barely saw the landscape then, I did not care much for it all. It was just an annual ritual, which brought much happiness to my mother and father.

Mom used to be joyous and radiant, yes, incandescently so. Dad, what with his quick humour and ability to make anybody laugh, had an air of lightness and belonging, here with his family and among his childhood friends.

I, find myself, in their shoes now. Of course, there really are no three-day long train journeys and connection trains. But, the annual ritual continues.

The pace of the days is so deliciously and languorously slow that there is no place for stress. The children are left to themselves, because unlike in the cramped apartment, there is always someone looking on them and there is always something to do.

Sometimes, it is time for the cows to be milked or the goats to be tied at a greener patch of grass. Or, a group of peacocks decide to prance through the tall grasses in all their pride. The sun hides behinds clouds and the dragonflies hover above us in the afternoons.

There are things to look forward to, like their grandfathers’ coming home in the evening with a chocolate for each of them or the nice lady coming by to drop the day’s milk.

While I am busy catching up with the news of all in the families, meeting relatives, indulging in a bit of shopping and making plans of the next get-together at either the engagement or wedding or some celebration that is bound to happen in the days we are there, little madam and chotte nawab discover them selves with a sense of freedom and independence.

(something I wrote soon after the holidays at home and forgot about)

...added because, summer holidays are always, green and bright :)

love it

when you say, you will not be able to carry me next year, when I'll be seven years old. or, when you get up really late in the morning and find everyone else awake and say, Oh I must have seen a long dream. I ask, what was your dream. You say, I forgot, but I got up so late, it must have been long.

how you love patterns, "patturms," as you call it. spots, stripes, dots, lines, waves, squiggles, and, oh so many colours. thought I'd make a little note, lest I forget in the hullabaloo of life carrying me forward, leaving me with little time to look back and reminisce.