Stop Reading

Why one becomes a writer? 

Somebody had asked, why one becomes asst. ticket collector on Songad railway station on an obscure railway line between Surat and Manmad? Actual name of the station was Shenoli, but I too am not aware of it so…... But that’s totally besides the point. One accepts the job of TC at any indiscreet railway station because he has to fill the pit within. That’s not so with the writer. In fact anybody who is a creative person has to be born with ingrained genes that can be honed or polished but he cannot be made like ‘Made to order’ And for the same reason every artist has to be original, including writer. 

There is only one Baird who invented television. Scientists added myriads of applications thereafter, like sound, color when N number people toiled and now it has become so smart that it can do virtually anything that was unheard just a decade ago. But Baird remains Baird. He was the original, he is the original. And to be original you must stop following somebody else’s footsteps. So if you are a writer, if you call yourself one, to be original stop reading what others have already written!

 
Reading is a passive process. You are enjoying what somebody has already written for you. Call it ‘Tailor-Made!’ You like a particular author only when he says “Your Words’. If his writing goes along your way of thinking, you keep on liking him but as soon as he deviates and writes something that goes against the very grain of your being, depending on the degree, either you don’t like it or you plainly detest it. ‘What humbug he writes!’ is your first reaction. And to have this or any such type of reaction not only your genes play the part but their expression, that’s how you are brought up, what was your ambiance in your formative years plays still a broader role. Your liking or disliking for a particular writer, author, and artist has seeds sown in this period! 

I like to cook. It acts as catharsis. So many a times I keep rustling through Cook Books for recipes, though I know, I hardly am going to try any of them. Just visual/virtual satisfaction. But there too, I turn on the pages faster when the recipe is of ‘Roasted Mackerel with pan fried dill or Kale’. Because I don’t like Mackerel and Dill and Kale too. But for its very smell that I detest, there are those numerous fish lovers who would die for it! 

Exactly same thing with reading. We read only those write ups which tell about us, that matches our persona, our thinking process and thus the rest becomes wastage of time. I challenge, name only three writers they have contributed to ‘Mill’s and Boon’ series! 

Knowingly, unknowingly, mostly knowingly because the quotes that the author has penned down, that you have liked, linger on for a long time in your thought process, and may be are simmering on the back burner and they suddenly surface whenever the right situation arises. But mind you, that’s not you, that’s him! That’s where originality counts a big deal. 

Expansion of a quote, a famous and popular quote by equally famous personality does not make you a writer. Writer is summation of his experiences in totality for which he has to live every moment of experiences, his own and through him others’. 

No where I’d say that ‘Don’t read’ because to read is a job of reader, not writer’s. When I realized that one could get carried away by the thoughts of a powerful writer, there are many, I stopped reading! I always had that itch to make my own world on my own terms so in the process I had to discard the ideas that were borrowed, like a terminally ill patient on the borrowed breaths of ventilator. Once it stops you stop to exist. So to exists on your own, you have to breathe on your own! 

 And it’s true for every artist, every creative person. N number of singers tried to emulate, but there’s only one Lata Mangeshkar! Why Picasso could make a niche for himself because he went away from the beaten track deliberately though he was good in realistic paintings too! Why Late Pt Bhimsen Joshi, Smita Patil are remembered reverently even now for their craft because they never copied! Role Models are for school kids, in the adult world you are on your own, always! 

So if you want to be a writer ‘Don’t Read, Scratch your brain, develop your own style’ and if it is 24 carets, sky is the limit!