Character 5 A Struggling Writer

Character 6

A Struggling Writer

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Today, I left the office at 5.30 PM after completing a report that I was supposed to submit to my boss. Right now I am sitting at the Marine Drive, which according to me is the best place on earth. The sea looks a little blurred to me. It’s not because of pollution. It’s because I have tears in my eyes. It might sound strange but I am not even trying to stop these tears. In fact, I have been waiting for these tears since the last 4 years. These tears are no ordinary tears. They are tears of joy. Even though chemically they are saline in nature, they have a lot of sweetness in them. In fact, this day is one of the most special days of my life. Tomorrow, my book called “Tears of Joy” is going to get released. I have been imagining the release of my book since the last 4 years. Looking at the incessant splashing waves, I am able to imagine the loud round of applause after my speech on what my book is all about. I am able to see the pride in the faces of all my dear ones who will grace the occasion of my book-release and will be proud to have me as a part of their life. I am able to feel what it is like to be a ‘writer’.

It all started with a small blog that I wrote four years ago. I had a senior from school who had a habit of writing blogs. Being a huge fan of his, I used to read his blogs regularly. I used to wait for a new post every day. Slowly, somehow, I felt that even I should try writing blogs. Somewhere deep down in my heart, I had a doubt regarding my writing abilities. The first article or rather first story that I ever wrote was called “Help Us”. It was a story about an old couple thrown from their own house at the peak of their age. I had written it on 17^th December 1998. It was for a story writing competition in my junior college. I overshot the date of entry and wasn’t allowed to enter the competition. But that day I realized that I COULD WRITE and that I could pen down my mental images, thoughts and feelings. My first blog was on “perfecting the art of fooling people”. After completing the blog, I sent the link to many of my friends and to my surprise, almost all of them liked the blog. I also sent the link of that blog to one of my favorite uncles. He was very kind to call me up and tell me how much he liked my blog and encouraged me to write further.

That night, I went to Marine Drive. After the office hours, I took the train from Andheri and got off at Charni Road. From there, I kept walking on the promenade of Marine Drive. In that 30 minute walk from Charni Road to Churchgate, I kept thinking about my writing ability. I sat on the promenade and kept staring at the sea waves. I like the fact that we can’t easily see the end of the sea. I like the fact that the sea waves incessantly keep coming to the shore as if they are challenging the boundaries and are shouting at them “hey you boundaries, you know what, you are just a structure made of rocks and cement. We have all the power to fight you and destroy you someday. We will keep splashing against you till the day you are worn out. We won’t give up easily.”

That evening, there was this urge to BE SOMETHING in life, to SHOW the world who I am, to PROVE ALL THOSE PEOPLE WRONG who thought that I would never be able to do anything apart from getting good marks in school. I wanted to achieve name, fame and money. I had heard stories of great writers who had started writing stories while sitting on park benches, in trains, etc.and had gone from rags to riches just by writing good books. I wanted to be one of them. That evening at Marine Drive, I told the sea that in four years time, I would polish my writing skills so much that I would come again to the same spot and at the same time to tell the sea - “I am now a author”. The sea nodded in agreement by generating a large wave and splashing water on my face.

While I was coming back home from Marine Drive, I was thinking about how happy my mother would be when I would break out this news of my attempt to be a writer. I was thinking of scenes where my mother would take me in her arms and say “I knew it beta. You have a lot of potential. Job to koi bhi kar lega. Alongwith that, become a writer and make me a proud mother.”

I reached home and told my mother that I wanted to be a writer. She had never ever screamed at me that loud! “What? Are you mad? Are you drunk? You are an engineer. Why do you think you did engineering? Jo pagal hote hain wo book likhte hai… ghar ki responsibilities nahi hoti unko… sirf apni duniya mein rehte hain… pagal ho jaate hain… take this thought of becoming a writer out of your mind! Samjha? Sojaa chup chaap…thappad khayega warnaa…”

Boy oh boy! Was I shocked to hear that! I mean, not even in the wildest dreams had I thought of getting such a bad reply! I mean, you already are good at your job, you earn decent salary and on the top of it, if you project some EXTRA talent, then what the hell is wrong with that? It’s not that you don’t need to explore some new qualities of yours when you have a degree certificate with you! But, I guess this world is driven by straitjacket rules.

After getting such an unexpected response from my mother, I went to sleep thinking whether I should follow what she said or should I sail my boat against the winds of the unknown seas. By morning, I was clear that I was going to try to accomplish my dream. It would be ok if I don’t succeed. I strongly believe in the words “few years down the line, you would repent more on those things that you didn’t try than the ones you did!” I chose to explore my creativity through writing.

Needless to say, I was about to walk on a road which I had never thought I would walk. First of all, I thought of all the things that I would require to become an author. Firstly, a good sense of observation. Secondly, good imagination built on the strong foundation of observation. Thirdly, good language and style of writing. Fourthly, a good and varied set of critics. By ‘varied’, I mean - teenager, old person, a school going kid, a businessman, a banker, a person who never reads books, etc…

To improve my creativity, I started reading books by EdWard De Bono. It really helped me improve my imagination. His books taught me how to create situations or scenes out of objects, human beings, etc. For example, whenever I looked at a glass filled with juice, I used to imagine how that piece of fruit must have been transported from the place where it was grown to the place where I was drinking that glass of juice. I used to imagine what the person who made that glass of juice must be feeling the whole day. I used to imagine how his day must have started, what expectations he must have set for the whole day, what promises he must have made to his family, what trauma he must be going through the whole day, what his aspirations would be… So, in short, I used to observe people and try to imagine about their line of thinking, dreams, and wishes.

The above way of seeing the world through others’ eyes helped me a lot in improving creativity. You wouldn’t believe if I said that as a child, I was not AT ALL creative. It was only by meeting a few friends in my college and by following my senior that I felt that I should focus on improving my imagination. I had also read somewhere that even Einstein believed that “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. And yes, that’s true. If you don’t have imagination and can’t apply your knowledge to new problems and come up with solutions, then you can never innovate! If you do the same things over and over again, you would get the same results. If you want something different in life, then you need to relook your approach. Anyway, I am just trying to reiterate the point that imagination is important in life.

One thing that comes naturally to me is humour. Every company has its own newsletter. Once there was a mail from our Newsletter team asking team members to contribute to the ‘creative section’ of the newsletter. I felt as if God was creating ways for me to proceed in life. Newsletter, I feel, is one of the best platforms for any new writer to showcase his/her writing skills. See, there are 2 advantages of contributing to the Newsletter. Firstly, you get a chance to challenge your creativity. Secondly, you get a good base of readers who you can use that base of readers for your book, if you happen to write one. I modified the first blog of my life – “Perfecting the art of fooling people” and gave it to the Newsletter team. Boy oh boy! Was I happy to see the reply from the editor of the Newsletter! She replied “awesome… hilarious…I can’t stop laughing…and I think this is one of the best articles I have ever read!” I had not expected such a positive response. After reading such an encouraging reply, I couldn’t control my tears. I went to the rest-room and cried my eyes out. I needed that encouragement. I needed that motivation. I needed someone to believe in me and my writing. I needed someone to have faith in me and tell me that “yes, you are an awesome writer. Go ahead. I am there to read your articles”…! And that reply gave me what I was looking for and needed the most!

That night, I wrote the second article of my life – “Tears of Joy”, which I later expanded into a book, the one which is going to get released tomorrow.

That night, I wrote a small note to myself - “today, you got your first admirer in your company. Tomorrow you will get one more. Keep writing for those admirers. You have to make them happy. If your readers are happy then you will be happy. Don’t think about those who don’t believe in you. In life, there would be hundreds who would criticize your writing skills. Keep writing for those who long to read your article. Note down the names of your admirers. Don’t forget to call them on the first book-release of yours…” I still have this note with me. This note is more precious to me than any other piece of paper in the world. Whenever I thought of giving up, I opened that note and motivated myself. By the way, self-motivation is one of the most important things in life!

Soon after I wrote my sixth article, I challenged myself to start writing a full book! I thought, instead of writing fifty articles of four pages each, why not write one book of two hundred pages! Being a software engineer, it was easy for me to put down the feelings of a software engineer. So, I started to write a book on the life of a software engineer. You won’t be able to imagine the excitement I had while writing “life of a software engineer”. After writing every five pages, I used to treat myself with my favorite chocolate - Cadbury’s Temptations.

Motivation is very important when you start some new venture! After writing every five pages, I used to tell myself “only 195 pages left, only 190 pages left…” When I had embarked upon this new venture of writing a book, I had shared this news with a few friends of mine. One would wonder why I informed my friends even before I could complete half the book! The reason is simple: to be motivated by my friends and to keep myself obligated to achieve my goal. If I felt like quitting, I would give up that thought and finish the book at least out of shame.

My daily commute to office and back home used to eat up five hours every day. Coming from a middle class family, I didn’t even have a desktop computer at home. When you spend your childhood in a one Room-Kitchen house, you don’t expect much in your teenage years either. I had just started with my job when the “writing” bug bit me. During my train journey, I used to keep writing my ideas in a book. Sometimes I used to even draw what I imagined to be a funny scene for my book. There used to be times when I didn’t have a book and pen in hand. At those times, I used to create SMS and save it as DRAFT. I have even used the RECORD functionality of my mobile! You should have seen fellow commuters stare at me when I used to blurt out my ideas to record them on my mobile. They must have thought that I was some crazy guy or some spy speaking some code language! Then after reaching office, I used to type up all the ideas. As a fresher, I used to be overloaded with work. So, I used to eat my tiffin at my desk and use the remaining “Lunch-time” to think about my book. But, somehow, I felt that I didn’t have the right resources to help me in my book-writing process. I wanted a laptop so that I could pen down my ideas directly and modify them during my train commute or on the beach or wherever I chose to work. As per the company policy, I would not get a laptop from company. So, the only option was to buy a new one. A branded laptop costs some Rs. 35,000! I had no option but to take a personal loan and then buy a laptop. You wouldn’t be surprised if I told you that I had a big fight with my mother over the issue. But, I followed my heart and I bought a new laptop anyway! Now, I had the right “tool” to make my dreams come true.

I wrote some seventy pages of my book “life of a software engineer”. I couldn’t stop being happy that I could write seventy pages! By the way, writing seventy pages is no joke! But, maybe, God had scripted a setback to my writing career. My laptop had some technical glitch, because of which it had to be formatted. I took the laptop to the repair shop. The guy asked me if I had taken the back-up of everything important. I said “yes, the most important thing is my book. I have its soft copy with me in my pen drive. Go ahead and format”. I was going to get my laptop after three days. I couldn’t hold myself from working on my book. So, during office hours, I tried opening the pen drive from office computer. Boy oh boy!!! Little did I know that it had virus! And that bloody virus deleted the contents of my pen drive! Seventy pages of my book wiped out in a second! I was so damn baffled that I couldn’t do anything but just stare at the stupid office computer and curse! I went to the rest-room. I kept flushing the toilet so that colleagues don’t hear me sobbing. That was the day I realized that BACK-UPs don’t help if you are destined to get screwed up! Maybe, I should have taken 3-4 back-ups of my book. I was so depressed because of this mistake of mine that I didn’t write for 8-9 months. The laptop lay idle in my bag. On the top of my depression, my mom, who was already so pessimistic about my writing venture, kept taunting me “This is how you waste money! As if you are Ambani’s son! Rs.35000 ki cheez lee aur rakh dee dhool khaane… I had told you not to be stupid!” There were times when I used to stand on the foot board of the train and think of leaving the support from the bar and end my life. Failures accompanied by taunts such as “you are a loser in life” can force one to take any damn extreme step!

Three more months passed by and then I thought “If I don’t start writing again, it’s gonna be my loss only! The world is not going to get affected at all if don’t write a book. But, if I do write a book, then I will get name, fame, satisfaction and a chance to see happiness on the faces of my book-admirers. So, it is better that I let bygones be bygones and start with a new book…”

Humour has been my forte since childhood. I have been complimented on my humour so many times that I have lost count of it by now. So, I thought of trying that Genre. It took me 20 days to come up with a “the-whole-world-will-like” type of character. I had jotted down various plots around that character and finally started writing my new book called “life of Lallan- from UP to USA!” I had the whole story in my mind. I just had to find out time to put that story on laptop. I used to write three pages a day. That was my target. I wanted to challenge my creativity and the pace with which I could imagine new and beautiful situations. In 35 days flat, I completed 100 pages of my book! Before approaching any publisher, I thought of sharing this book with a few friends of mine and getting reviews on the book. I mailed this book to 10 friends of mine. Man! Was I happy to hear comments like “too gooood Sasuraa…” or “amazinggggwaa…. I loved it like anything…hamkaa bulayega na book release pe?”

I could not control my excitement and found out email ids of the top 5 book publishers in India. I didn’t know how a book proposal ought to be. I did the best that I could. I created a synopsis of what the book was about and added 3 chapters to it and then I sent the book-proposal to those 5 publishers! I waited for 2 months to get their replies. That day I started disbelieving the saying “Sabra ka fal meetha hota hai”… each of the 5 publishers rejected my proposal saying “Thank you very much for your interest in publishing with us. But we are sorry. Your work doesn’t fit our requirements at the moment. All the best for finding another publisher.”

Now, I was so hardened by failures that I was not willing to let my confidence wane. I wanted to become an Author and I knew that I would! 15 days after I got my last reject, I started thinking of concept for my new book. I brainstormed a lot and then thought of writing a serious book this time, which actually wasn’t my forte. But, one of my friends in office believed that I could write serious stuff better than humourous one. I thought “ok. Let me try what he is saying” After imagining many plots, I recalled that once I had written an article called “Tears of Joy”. Then I thought “Why not convert that 3-page article into a book?” You won’t believe if I said that I wrote 15 pages of that book that night!

Before I could move steadily ahead with my new book, I sat down to do a causal analysis of what went wrong with the previous book. I mean, my friends liked it very much. I myself liked it very much. Then what went wrong? The only thing that I could think that went wrong was the BOOK-PROPOSAL, i.e. the way I presented my idea to the publisher. Then I visited sites of the top authors and I mailed 8 of them to guide me about the book-publishing process. I waited for a reply for a fortnight. Again, I mailed them. Still, no reply. After 34 days, one of them replied to me. “Call me at my mobile number. I will help you out”. That day I knew that God now wanted me to be happy and achieve my dream of becoming a writer.

I called him up at the mentioned time. That phone call was kind of a revelation to me. I realized my mistake. The first book proposal was so crude as compared to what was expected in the market! That conversation changed my life. I did exactly what he told me. I made a very detailed book proposal. I explained why the book should be read, why they should publish, how I can help market the book, how is the book different from other books and also provided 3 chapters of my book called “Tears of Joy”. I requested one of my friends to make a good cover page for my book. He made it so well that I knew for sure that this book would get accepted!

I mailed this book proposal to the top 10 book publishers of India. In 2 months time, I got acceptance from 6 and rejection from 4. I didn’t care about the rejections at all! The day I got an acceptance from the top-most book publisher in India, I was on cloud nine! That night I went to Marine Drive and told the sea that a very good book publisher has liked my work and in a few months time, I will be an author! The happiness that I had that night is just ineffable. Needless to say, I cried, out of happiness of course. After reaching home I was in a dilemma as to whether I should break the good news to my mom or stay mum. I preferred the second option because anyway she wasn’t bothered about me becoming an author. It took me 5 more months to complete the book. Then I signed the contract with that publisher.

When I look back at the last 4 years, I feel like patting my back for having the self-motivation to achieve what I had thought of achieving. I am proud of myself. I am happy that the editor of the newsletter of my team encouraged me. I am happy that I met such a wonderful person who always pepped me up when I had even a tinge of self-doubt. She always made me feel that I was very good at writing. Everything happens for a reason. My becoming a part of that team which had her as the editor of the newsletter, my courage to buy a laptop on a personal loan, my never-give-up-easily attitude…! wo bolte hai na “ koi cheez agar tum dil se chaho to poori kaynaat tumhe wo cheez dilaane mein joot jaati hai…” I can vouch for this statement! You can achieve anything you want. The only thing that you require is persistence and ability to learn from mistakes. Keep telling yourself “I CAN DO IT”. At this point in time, I cannot help but recollect what Will Smith says in the movie ‘Pursuit of Happiness”. He says to his son “Don’t ever let somebody tell you that you can’t do something. People can’t do something themselves. So they wanna tell you that you can’t do it. If you have a dream, protect it. If you want something, go, get it. Period.”

I wish I had the power to fast-forward time!  I can’t hold my tears, my anxiety, my fears and my happiness till 4.00 PM  next day when my book will get released. Right now, sitting at Marine Drive, the clock has struck 11.00 PM. The cool breeze is trying to dry up my tears. But, I am sure that my tears are not going to stop. Strangely enough, I am the only one sitting on the promenade at this time. In fact, I am enjoying this moment of loneliness. But I better move on so that I can catch the 11.18 Ambernath Fast train! I have been sitting here since last 4 hours. In these four hours I just ate one packet of groundnuts. When a dream is about to get accomplished, we start getting impatient and forget about food, water, people, and surroundings. I can tell you this from my experience, because you know what, I have this huge craving for fancy cars that zoom past at Marine Drive. This is the place where you will find any car that you can think of. But today, it doesn’t matter to me whether Sachin Tendulkar is enjoying in his Ferrari or Amitabh Bacchan is waving at the people from his Rolls-Royce. Today, I am in a different trance. Today, I am in a different world. I have never appreciated the full moon shining amongst the stars. But today, I am in such a mood that if I had a pen with me right now, I would have penned a poem on moon! Today, nothing can be compared to the tears flowing from my eyes.

These tears are tears of joy….