Disclaimer: I’ve just finished a dystopian novel series. So anything I manage to blog now is susceptible to the after-effects.
Why blog at all? This question might have crossed your mind at some point. Believe me, I’ve asked this myself more times than all of yours combined. Ok, I want to write. So what? Wouldn’t it be better to spare the general public the torture of it – be it those who suffer the hyperlinks I send and kind enough1 to click on it on the hope that I finally have managed to jot down something useful for once, or those, by fate’s cruel nudge, come across one of my posts while surfing the net – and write a diary or something?
A few days back, I sort of had a premonition that I’m about to forget how to write. To allay my fears, I planned an experiment wherein I’m supposed to write one page of text on paper. When I thought of what could be written in one page, the first thing that came to my mind was leave letter2. Until a few years back, it was the most frequently written article by me. It was a time when I wrote pages upon pages of stories on paper for something called marks. The only thing which I restricted to just one page was the leave letter. However, if you cut out the accessories3, it is just one sentence. So, I decided to write down some random article found on net4.
The results, as you might’ve expected, were disastrous. I know that even while I was in peak form, my handwriting and elegance could be rightly considered as antonyms. But what I managed to write down in my little experiment was hardly legible. If I let the paper drift away in the breeze, the person who happens to notice it may mistake it for some other language, or an encrypted text, or a collection of mythic symbols, or a message from aliens. To prevent such increasingly worrying probabilities, I gave the paper to a shredder.
So, typing is the way to go for me, until the world runs out of electricity and typewriters. I’ve also found how to project this positively – I’m saving the environment you know! Save paper, save trees, save the world.
Oh, and if you are of the logical thinking type and couldn’t find any reason why I shouldn’t be content with storing what I write in my personal laptop, please be informed that I happen to perform R & D on my laptop and force it to go on strike every now and then. If I want to store something precious in digital form, my laptop is the last place I’d choose.
As for the “reading dystopian novels” part, be assured that I haven’t given up optimism yet. I read utopian novels as well. The “underdog defeats bad guys”, “farm boy defeats evil wizards” types too. Though I might occasionally pass a few tongue in cheek comments on the “one man army” scenarios, I’m not against it either. I personally found it difficult to fight one opponent and judge his moves5, but it might just be possible that some people can single-handedly take on scores of opponents and walk away unscathed.
I digress at an alarming rate. It means I’ve to stop this post right here. See ya!
1 Just to make sure you notice: I’m thanking some of you here.
2 A side story: I remember one of my friends (not sure who or when) got bored of writing leave letters and created a Word template, which he duly printed, signed with a flourish and submitted. Unfortunately, the approving authority took this badly and tore it up into infinitesimal pieces. If you have surmised that such an efficient idea is sure to be mine, you are not wrong. However, it was not me who tried to put it into practice. Such innovations are never appreciated immediately. Perhaps they allow it now, who knows.
3 Place (as though you are going to send it to opposite corner of the world), date, from (complete with address), to (again, complete with address), and parts where you portray yourself as the most humble and eternally grateful human being. I know it’s part of the System and it’s civilized and all that, but couldn’t help an impartial observation.
4 Not from my blog…
5 Another side story: Me and my friend were supposed to demonstrate our Taekwondo skills to a crowd of wide-eyed beginners. What was supposed to be a smooth display of two equally skilled professionals attacking and defending in perfect rhythm turned out to be a lesson in reality when a dust particle kicked up by my friend entered my eye when I neatly blocked his kick. I blinked my eyes in reflex and bam! A solid kick on my right cheek. I opened my mouth to say, “Hey wait a minute buddy. I’ve got dust in my eyes”. Did that bugger let me speak? Bam! Another solid kick on my left cheek and bam! another on my already stinging right cheek. On a flare of anger, I ducked, swept out my leg, tripped his leg, lost my balance and fell down with a completely dried up throat and burning cheeks. I was later informed that leg trip is a nice technique, but it is not allowed in all forms of martial arts. For once, my innovation was lauded, but I was told to avoid using such untaught moves as it might give ideas to the youngsters.
