Main Hawa pe Dhundu uske Nishaan…
'Writing' is easier said than done. It's a daunting and confronting task to purposefully sit down and conjure up words on paper. Meaningful words. Gibberish will also do. But at times, which is often lately, what I am faced with is a blank! A blank, thought less canvass. Nothing comes to mind. Absolutely nothing!
"Huh? Am I meditating then?" I think.
Meditation is a state of mind devoid of any thought, a stable state. Well, I have never been able to meditate. I tried it but bloody thoughts kept on hammering. And now when I am deliberately trying to think in order to write, nothing comes to mind. What kind of mind game is this?
Sometimes thought-provoking thoughts do occur when I am passively thinking. They mostly creep up when I am nearing sleep or at 4:30 in the morning when I get a bout of wakefulness of few minutes. So then I have to force myself to stay awake and write those thoughts down lest the thought vanishes from my memory. Many times I surrender to sleep, thinking I'll jot down them later next morning but by then no trace of them remain.
"What was I thinking?" I wonder.
The thoughts don't even leave a trail behind them. It's as the song goes, "Main hawa pe dhundu uske nishaan...". Main bhi dhundate hi reh jaati hu kal raat kya soch rahi thi. So now I make up a point to write down the thought when it occurs, even when I am nearing sleep. For that, I have to stay up to write and generally one thought snowballs into next, eventually ruining my sleep and sleep schedule resulting in me oversleeping and waking up feeling tired and grumpy next day. Such a hellish process.
Passive thinking comes easily but it makes rare appearances. Genuine inspiration doesn't occur every day. But when genuine inspiration comes, make sure you get the door. Take out the time required to write down even an outline of the idea that occurred to you. I have learnt this the hard way. Many good ideas got lost in time because when they came, I was busy doing something else. I have tried and failed to contain that situation. I've made some progress there. And have also realized that it's not wise to sit idle waiting for genuine inspiration's knock on the door. That's why William Faulkner has rightly said,
"I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately, I am inspired at 9 o' clock every morning."
Active thinking, creating a routine for it and diligently sticking to it is what churns out good writers. It's what makes the difference between words getting actually published Vs. words getting lost in time. Active thinking and planned writing schedule is a long drawn process. Something that can't be developed overnight. I know I haven't yet. But I am inching somewhat to get there. The fact that I am making even the tiniest progress means a big deal to me. As forcing myself to study or to read a difficult book comes naturally to me as opposed to pushing myself to write creatively. I'm aware I'm an academic at heart but I also aspire to be a writer. A writer of what calibre I yet not know or of which genre also eludes me at the moment. I haven't developed a writing style for myself and it is a long and painful road to establish oneself as a writer. But I have faced so many challenges in life, that I pride myself as a veteran of difficult situations and somehow I know I can get through the ordeal of doing "active writing".
Writing and being a writer is a job like any other. You invest your time to purposefully and deliberately sit down and work, conjuring stories and ideas out of thin air. It might not look like an actual work from the outside as all the activity takes place inside your brain. This tiny, mushy organ on the top of your body. Such a fragile little thing the brain is. Nice to be surrounded by hard skull otherwise it could be easily mashed up as it is so squishy. But so are other internal organs. Squishy! That's why they are...internal organs. Hmm... maybe I shouldn't write and publish every weird thought that occurs to me, like the one above. But now I have written it despite my better judgement and here you are reading this gibberish that runs through my head 😊
Speaking of writing nonsense and meaningless things down. I was going to title this piece as 'The curse of brain pearls' or 'The perils of writing', but "Main hawa pe dhundu..." sounded more apt. On a serious note, writing is also a job like no other. It's a painful, migraine inducing process. The thinking, writing, rewriting, editing and proofreading is a brain exercise in itself. A plank position held by your brain cells. So if you have made it this far in my piece I would like to thank you that you have invested a few moments of your life in reading it and getting a peak into my weird ass brain. If you found anything interesting or entertaining in there, do ping me!
