Amrita Writes on Writing: Did She Forget the Wastebasket?

Writing about ‘writing’!! Funny as it may sound, but let me share (or write?) a few thoughts about 'writing' and the ‘writer’ who finds the wastebasket ,his best friend! Finally….I realized that this unbeatable tool deployed (or should I say ‘exploited’?) to vent off the wildest of imagination, ideas, emotions and expressions needs a better acknowledgment. Why don’t our dear writers ever end up writing about ‘writing’ itself?? Writing about stuffs ranging from worth raking up issues to the so-called social taboos find hard escaping the gaze of a sensitive writer….nonetheless the art of writing still doesn not lure that frequently. Fine….but since the idea did (ultimately) visit my mind, judiciously I shall not not let it ebb with the thousands other frivilous ones.

What gives writing an edge over speaking or any other form of expression ?? Well, this inexperienced little brain is naïve about any hard core theories…. but then, let me try answering…The best part about writing is ,it always succeeds in giving the writer a chance to make his/her point at least once!Isn’t writing like speaking uninterrupted?? I mean, how often do we find people who want to listen to our bla-bla?? Isn’t it always so, that any offbeat issue that we want to be considered, is mercilessly belittled? I must not be mistaken for accusing the listeners. Its just that we don’t have the option of deciding the congruent listeners and what follows is that we prefer to remain dumb and keep things to our inner being .But according to Carlos Fuentes ,writing is a struggle against silence. And here’s where the writer wins. Everything that is on his mind is also in black and white. What more?? He never fails winning over a chunk of fascinated lot who are ever willing to give ears to him. There definitely exists another race of those who don’t miss on lambasting a writer’s view, but only after going through the inscription once!! And who cares afterall, because by then the author has already made his point. Moreover, if at all ,there is an ‘anti-view’ the confrontation also proceeds in a the much likeable , decent non-violent and the ‘holding-no-hard-feelings’ way ,that is, through writing.

Shakespear called ‘mercy’ ‘doubly-blessed’(for blessing the one who shows mercy as well as the one who receives it.) . Isn't the art of writing a similar thing? For, writing entertains those who do it and also those who read it! It certainly is a doubly-blessed art. And adding yet another feather to its cap, it can also be considered as an antidote to every ailment with the immense diversity of the product of the art that is available. We have all kinds of writers whose works can be rightly described as ‘a heart-warmer’, ‘a mood-chiller’, ‘a wound-healer’, ‘a true-guide’ ,‘a support-in-times-of-strife’, ‘a worthy-companion’….and what not? Man aspired to capture the images of certain moments in life,so that ,they last not just for a split second ,but a lifetime.Technologists breathed life to this dream by inventing cameras. So why would the writer lag behind in lending a helping hand when man endeavoured to make some invaluable thoughts tangible and immortal. Well said, that writing is not apart from living.Writing is a kind of double living.The writer experiences everything twice.Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind. The act of putting the pen on paper briefly pauses the reflections and makes us more familiar with life itself!!

MISS ORIGINALITY: THE PAST PACKS QUITE A PUNCH by Smriti Ranjan

Smriti is into the third year of her Engineering graduation; also a member of the English Team, Enginium. This is her first write-up on Freespeech. The second is being edited and will be out soon.


Fashion is a strange word. By fashion I mean not just the fashion of clothes (which incidentally is a concept alien to me. My wardrobe has been in a state of inertia for quite some time now), but fashion in terms of trends, moods, styles governing every conceivable aspect of human life. It is strange, not because it is ‘strange’ strange, but because the more things seem to change the more they remain the same. Time, they say, goes round in cycles. It is a circle, not just a contiguous one but in fact a continuous one. If looked at with this perspective the past, present and the future are the same thing. Call it our love for compartmentalization that makes the three appear to be such different entities. It is like having the same pizza crust garnished with different toppings, where the crust and the crux is always the past. The past is the scaffolding, it is the buttress. And it will always pack quite a punch (heavier than the one Mohammad Ali landed on Joe Frazier, if you please).

It is not for nothing that you see remixes- from Lata Mangeskar’s songs to Shakespeare’s plays, reenactments- of past dictators’ lives to new boy bands trying to do the ‘Beatles’, re-stirring-of grandmas old recipes and pickles to history itself, to discussions about the relevance or non relevance of Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre and their ilk today, to researchers who spend their entire lives trying to disprove the theory of relativity to others who spend theirs trying to find new applications of Newton’s laws, to well this can go on. But the point is, be it philosophy or fashion (of clothes, that is) or music or food or just about anything under the sun, we simply don’t do things the way they were done in the past.

Everything ‘past’ has a certain magic, a halo of enigma, a tinge of mysticism, a certain permanence about it. From the Hippie culture and the sexual revolution and the Osho phenomenon, to the world wars and the Berlin wall and the rise and fall of communism, to Pink Floyd to Naxalbari and naxalites, to Indian democracy to American dominance, African emergence to Asian resurgence. Even the dictators seemed more bedazzling, more enigmatic. It is no wonder then that the present generation is on a perpetual borrowing mission, in various degrees of course. It is always on the lookout for new toppings to make things appear brand new or just trying to mix and match and repackage the earlier ones.

The past is more in our blood than we realize. And even if we do realize then we are busy coining up terms like ‘fashion cycle’ to make up for our lack of ideas, creativity, ingenuity and sincerity. Do not get fooled into believing terms like fashion cycle-they are all euphemisms for borrowings in various degrees. We cannot shake the past off. In this sense nothing we will ever create can be truly ‘original’ or no event that takes place can be treated as a stand alone, independent entity. For everything we do will be more deeply entrenched in the past than we can ever imagine.

The past is more present than the present itself; for it is the foundation that we stand on, it is the influence which guides us, the thoughts that make us, the music which satiates us, the enigma that bedazzles us, the tenderness which nurtures us. The past is the maker of our present and probably also our future. The past packs more than a punch.