Treading water, typing words

Of all the promises I make to myself, exercise is the most easily broken, followed by writing. And I do not make many promises to myself so that's a hefty percentage! Why is it so hard to make time for either of these--both in their way life-giving? 

But that's not what I want to write about. I actually have nothing to write about in this post. This is a treading water, typing words post, intended to remind me of how good it feels to write. If I keep typing, I will remember that it is possible to write. It is possible.

All through the day, I am writing or typing perfectly composed pieces on this and that--in my head. I could be jotting them down on paper. I could be typing them into my phone as Notes or even, into a blog interface. I could be opening a new document on the computer. But I leave them in my head and like a rice-flour kolam, they are slowly consumed and disappear. 

That is fine. Must everything be documented and recorded for posterity? Life itself is a temporary condition. "Everything must change,"as the song goes. I do not lament my lost words. 

This exercise is about treating myself everyday to the physical pleasure of writing--somewhere, anywhere. It is not about preserving my thoughts and words. It is not about readers. It just feels so good to do this. I must indulge myself more often. 

The writing treadmill

Every now and then, I promise myself I will write everyday. My work routinely involves writing so by this promise, I mean that I will write with purpose and with focus, and then, to make myself accountable in some way, I say I will blog. So I must sit, have some thoughts (harder than you think!), compose them and produce them in a place to which I can point my three faithful readers.

It is really hard to create the quiet space to do this and frankly, what is the point, because there is enough evidence that we hardly read as much as we write these days? That question looms ever-larger in my head these days as I redefine my work-life as centering around words.

Writing everyday is to my chosen professional (non-NGO) identity as a daily workout is to an athlete. Without that discipline, any work I undertake--an op-ed, a book chapter, a report--all are that much harder to start. With a daily writing routine, once I have an idea in place, things move fairly smoothly.

But even in this treadmill exercise on the blog, I find I don't always have a topic in mind. That is when the post is about writing, usually. I have a thousand posts and articles in my head and always beautifully composed and full of meaning--but virtually none of them get written. In the gap between the idea and my arrival at the opportunity--time, space, quiet, implements--to write, they have vanished. So, I write about writing.

Writing to keep a promise is like walking the treadmill on a day when you have no energy and the music does not help you find a rhythm. That is me, today, trying to catch up already on the sixth day of the year on a writing backlog.

Written. Check. Over and out.

The fear of not writing

There really is no need to be so freaked out over words not written. After all, they are words no one is ever going to read.

But being read is incidental to the need to write. Which is about the words that run through my head day and night, barely allowing me to sleep, crystallising into dreams in which books are read and speeches are made and letters, life-changing letters, disappear as you are reading them with anticipation. They must be continually emptied and my brain defragmented. Unlike my cupboard.

The need to write is about reminding myself that I am alive. Somewhere beneath the endless smiling and supervision and editing and showing up... I survive in that little space deep within all these external layers that I have to wear to be an adult in the world.

And as that world transforms into something I deplore, writing is resistance. Even when no one reads it, writing is resistance. It is the only form of resistance I may perform competently. But today, this kind of writing is time-bound. News happens and if you haven't outraged, written, published and gone viral in five minutes, do you exist?

To which that voice inside me asks, luckily, 'Does it matter?' Does it matter only when you respond immediately or does it matter that you do not respond at all? I am going to go with the latter, and still write all these blogposts that have been in my head, waiting for my body and mind to synchronise just enough to put them down.

If I do not write, even belatedly, I will be the weak link that lets the chain down. 

What's on your mind?

Every social network prompts us: What's happening? What's on your mind? Having hit some mental wall made of thermocol and sawdust, but desperate to blog--to show myself that I am still moving--I am going to answer that question.

Very mundane things are on my mind.

Why has no one designed a sensible way to store saree blouses? I have kept them in drawers. I have kept them on shallow shelves and deep shelves. I have kept them in organizing racks. But before you know it, they are a mess. All that ironing wasted and never to be found when you need. This is on my mind as I rush out to a campaign meeting every morning. Why has no one designed a good way to arrange saree blouses?

I am also thinking about do-nothing vacations because I would really love one, thank you very much. I want to go somewhere--no, not Pondicherry--where I am not required to do anything. I don't want to feel guilty that I am not seeing everything there is to see. I don't want to feel like I am wasting nature by not wanting to vigorously walk. I want to eat, read, sleep, daydream, stare, and rest to the point where I am then ready to do some yoga and strolling around. And no unnecessary chitchat. I don't want to be responsible for anything. I Googled 'do nothing vacation' because those who can, go, and those who can't, Google. I must say that everything listed sounded like hard work--and also full of non-Indians, which means that some desi creature comforts, like tasty vegetarian food, are unlikely to be available. And no, I don't want to go to Pondicherry--because I would take a car from Chennai, and then feel responsible for the welfare of the driver.

Finally, I am thinking of fruit. Because I am so very tired that fruits are the only thing that appeal to my palate right now. And for some reason, I alternate through the day between craving cranberry juice and Indian-style nimbupani (not sweet lemonade).

Gender violence is not on my mind although I do a satisfactory simulation thereof when I am at a campaign event. Therefore, despite setting myself this blogging goal, I seem unable to pull myself together enough to say anything about anything relevant to #nosgbv.

So, in answer to those who want to know, all -3000 of you, this is what is on my mind.

PS: As I write this, my heart wishes it could be at Sharanya Manivannan's poetry reading and book launch but my body and mind will not budge. Also on my mind.

The warm-up post and the sabbatical

(This should be sub-titled: What you can write because no one is reading!)

It is far easier to think up a blog project or blogpact than to keep up the writing. Obviously. Writing for one's own blog is like exercising--it only really is for oneself, so how important can it possibly be? If you don't do it, no one cares. A couple of people may care that you don't exercise but that you are not writing--absolutely no one cares.

To me, not writing is like losing sight of a lifeline in a large ocean of infinite responsibility and duty. This is about the only thing I do that is for me. Everything else I do because I am supposed to, because it is an obligation, because it is my responsibility, because it is my duty. If I don't, who will. But with writing, if I don't, who cares? Well, I do. And this is the one thing I really try to keep up in order to remember that I am alive.

But the press of those responsibilities and the growing limitations of my body mean that if I miss a certain window in the day, I simply cannot make the time to write. The demands of the day have consumed me whole.

More frightening is to discover when you do fight your way through the jungle of everyone's needs and sit down to write, only to find you have not a thought in your head. You are so weary that every thought or idea has been sucked out, feels stale... you are not really living but simply putting one foot before the other, minute to minute.

And so yesterday, I dragged my body to an event, praying fervently that my mind would keep up. It managed. But I was struck by how difficult it all felt and started talking about taking a break. It feels do-or-die at this point. But I cannot go away, and unless I do, I cannot detach from all the demands--the one urgent question that becomes a one-hour discussion, the cheques that I must sign--the document that must be read... I am stuck.

But I must find a way to truly detach, especially from the work of the NGO, which is now becoming unbearably overwhelming. My great failure is not to be able to walk away at ten, not because I don't want to but because I have not raised enough money to hire enough full-time staff with a professional leader that can manage everything.

So the challenge this morning is not just to catch up on those SIX blogposts I should have written on schedule, but also to find a way to come unstuck and free myself so I can do the things that will help me reclaim my time and space for work that I love.

Am I really a writer?

Yesterday, I did a radio interview that was surreal for more than one reason. I thought I was going to talk about a Prajnya project. It turned out to be a literary show. I wondered what I was doing there but thought, and was reassured that we would still be talking about the project. Then, I got there and it was about paperbacks--which I have never written. But at that point, inertia set in with disbelief and while I kept trying to insert our agenda into theirs, somewhere along the way, the second layer of surreal set in--were they really interviewing me--ME?--as a writer?

Sure, I write. And someone told them I inspire others to write (thank you, you know who you are!), whereas I seem mostly to beg or bully people into writing. I write a lot--tweets, FB posts, email, SMS, blogposts, work writing. I said in the course of the interview, that I wrote 1000-2500 words most days. That may be quite inaccurate, but if you count the words I write in my head and the words I want to be writing, you would overshoot that number.

I do have publications to my credit--but yesterday, when she asked me, they seemed quite lame!

"What do you blog about?"
"Honestly, mostly about blogging! Or not writing! Or not having anything to say!"

"What is your beat for the column?"
(Should I confess it's hardly a column for how infrequently I write it? I let that pass!)
"Gender, politics, IR." O-kay, that's kind of true.

"What are your academic interests?"
Finally a question I can answer without pretension.

"What is the title of your upcoming book on disasters?"
The true disaster--I cannot remember the exact title! I am not expecting to promote the book but rather an election checklist for voters. I cannot remember and I cannot access the Internet from that studio.

Am I really a writer? Or am I just a person in love with words and with the act, the process of writing?

I went with the flow, quelling a sense of dishonesty as I sat there, because I was curious. I wanted to see what the masterplan was and I would never find out by resisting. I thought about the last year or so and how much writing has come to matter to me. I thought of the great joy I got--and get--from wandering around with a notebook and pen, writing down my travel notes. I thought of the longing I feel for those very rare times when I can do that. I thought of the thrill of saying, "I am going off to write this morning," which I could and did say in Colombo at least once a week and I never do in Chennai. Here were these people, who knew seriously less than nothing about me, calling me a writer and forcing me to admit that I was one, in spite of my misgivings--what is the masterplan?

Each time I have said, "I am going to write," or when I say, "This is my writing desk," I feel a happiness that nothing else gives me. Writing belongs to me as no other part of my life does. It's the only thing I own--the process and pleasure of writing.

As we talked, I mentioned the joy of writing as I travel. Seemed like a safe thing to do; after all, I post many of these travel notes on my website. Then, she asked me about the places I had kept notes on--Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Portugal--and it was like slipping through some subtle layer into another world. I forgot all about the election checklist, and just wanted to share the magic of those moments. The trees of Peradeniya Garden. The wind at Cabo de Roca. The memory of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan singing in an open-air amphitheatre.

If my joy in finding the words for those experiences makes me a writer, then I might be one.

But then it could have also been the old person's joy at finding a captive audience. I have lived here for over a dozen years and not one person has asked me about my own experiences in life--which have been very interesting and varied, and many, quite unusual. People here are content to transact, broadcast and leave. I remain to the most people in Chennai as featureless as a wall of plain acrylic--useful, practical and forgettable. The invitation to share unforgettable moments was irresistible.

When I write--truly write--I actually don't care about readers. I am quite sure no one is interested in my writing and so I write more or less for either the joy or the relief of the process itself. Because I don't expect people to read, I actually am freer in the moments when I write (like this) than when I do almost anything else. That freedom is addictive. I crave it.

I love the framing of an idea or an experience. I love choosing words. I love to arrange them elegantly and simply. I like to re-read and re-live.

But am I really a writer? None of these takes away from that feeling of being a rank impostor in the interview yesterday. I hadn't solicited the interview. I kept trying to correct them. And then, I gave up and enjoyed myself, talking about writing.

But that does not make me a writer. Or, does it?

There is a secondary question: Do I want to be a writer? Do I want to be a writer with everything that it means today--writing, pitching, rewriting, promoting, partying? Isn't what I love the act of sealing myself into a shell with just my thoughts and words? Who the heck are all these people milling about my words? That is the topic of another post!

The trouble with writing

... is not with writing.

It is with reading. It is with thinking. It is with the habit of conversation. It is with practice in discussion.

Sometimes I think that the trouble I have with writing comes from the fact that I have nothing to say. But somehow, even I can't believe that.

I think the problem is that my writing sounds like me. Or like a textbook. It doesn't ever sound like people I read, people who get quoted, people who get RT'd. It just sounds like me.

And I am not sure that's good enough.

So I twist my writing self into knots and contort my writing to look like something I don't quite get. And then I hurt--from the effort and from the idea that somehow just sounding like me is not good enough.

The trouble with writing then becomes the trouble with my whole life. Try fixing that!