Literary Dreams: How literal are they?

There is a reason I don’t blog much.

And it’s not about me being lazy which you would have thought—which, on second thoughts is a good reason—but since I consider myself pseudo intellectual the reason I have is more profound one.

I think mostly what I write is crap.

When I read other blogs, I just find my writing and myself so inadequate.

 My writing which gets influenced by who I am reading at that moment flip-flops between styles. I mean I know fully well that I am not Zadie Smith or Atwood or Arundhati Roy, and can never be but there is a constant struggle within me to write something which I would feel proud later on.

And, for the record, there are things that I am proud of.

Now, the previous line was added as an afterthought, when I had written the entire post just to make it funny. But I find, this line looks very forced and artificial. Probably, I am not funny in real life. My humor gets restricted to sexual innuendos and a few one liners from American sitcoms. Yes, no jibber jabber here!.

It’s weird but in dreams I compose passages which are almost like the styles of writers I mentioned before. I don’t speak English much in real life ( meaning I don’t think in English), I learnt english very late and  started reading english texts much later in my life therefore it’s a mystery as to how those words which I see myself writing so clear.

There is nothing vague about the whole experience since it happens very frequently especially if I have read anything by writers I liked, before sleeping.

Since I have already mentioned, my favorite hobby is people analysis; and for lack of many real people in my life, I practice that a lot on myself.

I have an explanation for everything.

Every tiniest action that I take.

I see this whole writing in dreams as a portent of something similar that used to happen a few years ago.

Circa year 2000, I enrolled myself in one of those English speaking courses. (Embarrassing though it may sound, it was the only option for me since it was near impossible to find and convince someone to speak with me in queen’s language in my  town). The institute forbade people from using any other language except English in premises which created quite funny situations which I think I should devote a separate post later. But the interesting thing in those days was when I started dreaming that I was having an actual conversation ( without faltering, stuttering or  even worse mispronouncing words) before I could have a actual decent conversation one in real life.

Taking a cue from this, I am hopeful that I might write better in future and stop having writers dreams.

If you haven’t got it yet, I have stopped having dreams where I have conversation without faltering, stuttering or mispronouncing words. I have those conversations in real life and people inevitably ask me if I am a product of one of the most famous schools in the town I short lived before moving to Delhi. ( I secretly smile )

As an aside, I saw once an interview of a little known writer who when asked how one wrote good prose responded by saying that in order to write well, one needed to read well first. Those words got entrenched in my mind and I was determined to read as much as possible. I feel that I have made up for those years when I had little access to quality books in last few years since I have become financially independent and moved to a bigger city. However, there is a still a sense that I am not as articulate, expressive or funny as I should be.

There is something else which I read somewhere to the effect that every blogger secretly wants to write a book. This may be true for me and many others.  Because notwithstanding the fact how boring life I lead, there is a book in everyone’s life. They all want to be published.

Before I end this, I have a question. Do you think about the writing process, style, humor etc while you are writing or it just comes naturally? And do you want to be published?

I do but only when I have a little better craft.

Boy's don't cry!

For those of you read my last post—yes, I am referring to USP and Ramby—and didn’t get it, the guy in the second incident was me. I tried to distance myself from that incident and didn’t want to come across as sentimental hob. However, I thought I must confront it and accept who I am  the way I am.

 It turns out that I can cry at the drop of a hat. Well, it was not like this earlier when I used to cry only over issues of global importance such as pimple breakout, my ever increasing waistline or every time I saw food I didn’t like. I have a confession to make since I am already spilling beans on my personal stuff. I hate to look myself in the mirror. Unlike most of the guys who don’t leave any chance to run through their hand in their hair, puff their chest or adjust their crotch the moment they encounter any reflecting object, I would deliberatley duck away from such devices in those frightiening moments.

No prizes for guessing that I would always find fault with something in my body: The surprising thing was that the body part will never remain same. One day I find to my horror that I have a very big nose ( still smaller than Shahrukh’s) and other day it would be my ears ( still smaller than Amir) and on other days I will start looking with quizzical expression as to what was wrong with my ears, nose ,lips...Hope you get the drift.  This shame/ guilt/ anger would last forever and no amount of increased frequency of operation "mirror watch" would make me get used to my own self. 

I mean isn't it the case that if we something long enough we don't notice the obvious flaws. 

Case in point is Dev Patel-- with his perennial goofy expression and lanky body, I don’t know what Freida saw in her, and what I think of Freida’s beauty is very different-- who I have got used to seeing if I can use the expression and find him 'tolerable'.

Coming to my original confession, I don’t like to face mirror –and yes, I hate cameras too, if that was not obvious yet—however, and this is where the big surprise is: I look into the mirror every time I cry. 

I don’t know why I do it, but let me tell you I don’t do it to check how horrible I look.

Do I look to check if I look better ( I am so bored with using ‘look’ so many times, how vain can I get? ) with all those tears, bleary eyes and a running nose. 

Yes, I believe so. How many people can seriously look brilliant while crying? I think I can. With my eyes welled up, ears getting a crimson hue and the lone tear falling on my cheeks, I find it so..so...so not me. I kind of feel I am looking at a different person who I don't know. Who is smarter, better looking, more humane and vulnerable.

P.S. I guess this is one of the most weird post which I have written ever. But I can't help it if things are turning weird for me-- which I will post sometime soon. Now, I am gonna make a mean biryani ( there was a Hailstorm in Delhi, and it's so much cooler now) and eat it.