Notes & Letters

When you say that you are going to write something, but eventually end up working weekends or playing Age of Empires, you think that you can get away with it, because even though you made a promise, it was more to oneself than to the people following your blog. And all promises to oneself, like the countless New Year resolutions, are meant to be broken. Or so I thought.

I was made to come out of this illusion, when one of my two followers here, Mahavir, asked me at office the other day why I was not writing anymore. It must have been one among the umpteenth topics he finds to talk about, or a conversation filler, if not anything else. Anyways, it was enough to get my thought train running.

The oft repeated phrase while commenting on my literary works has been “nice way of telling the story, in simple, easy-to-follow English”. I don’t know if people are talking about a unique skill I have, or are taking a dig at my mediocre vocabulary (though I prefer to believe it’s the former), but I never thought they would want to read more from me. For me, the best work I could make has already happened (refer previous post), just like the best video I will ever make is the only one I made.

But to have a person actually ask why I’m not writing (forget that it might have been just a conversation filler), made me happy to say the least, like any ego-centric guy you can find out there. In the discussion that followed, I tried to blame a fictitious writer’s block, stopping the perennial flow of fiction from me, but in small quantities you see in my status messages.

Well, he played along with me, saying that it was hard to write anything without actually having a mood to write. He compared writing to playing a guitar (something which he does well). He could practice some song or tune all day, and still not come up with anything original, if there isn’t that elusive spark in our mind. On the other hand, if the spark does visit us, there will be no dearth of creative wealth.

With a few more words, he left me to mull over these points. And that’s when it struck me. Writing and playing a guitar are one and the same; with their obvious differences of course. Both are intended to please an audience, while showcasing a specific skill of the person, who does the show. And both need practice and a certain knack to attract people.

It also requires a certain sense on the part of the audience to really enjoy the “performance”. You can’t perform a rock song at a senior home, and expect to get a standing ovation. Likewise, I don’t expect you to understand what I write. I’m a normal 22 year old guy, with a decent job, who doesn’t know where the hell his life is heading. He’s going with the flow, and trying to make the least effort possible to get the maximum kick out of his life. What I write is basically aimed at people falling to a category, same or similar to my own. So, if you are some 25 year old entrepreneur, worth $100 billion bucks, I can assure you that you won’t understand anything here. But if you are a non-descript, aimless guy wandering through life as if it’s a museum, then you will feel like home here.

Guess I digressed too much with the boring details of my weekly self-evaluation. Coming back to the topic at hand, music and writing are like peas in pod. Similar in all respects, but visible only for the people searching for these similarities. When I write something, it’s actually like I’m writing a musical score. But unlike music, the audience doesn’t need to have someone perform for them. They can go to a place where it’s available (like my blog), read and eventually enjoy it.

And to sum up all the crap I have been talking about into four sentences…

Let it be a prose, a rock song, a poem, or an acoustic song; it all means the same thing. A way of communicating between people. And as long as we have Notes & Letters, I will keep writing and he’ll keep playing. Nothing, and I mean nothing can block that. \m/