Part 8 – Get in the ring, Gellhorn
There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit at your typewriter and bleed.
– Ernest Hemingway
Still dazed, I walked silently to my room which is an outhouse at the back of my parent’s house. They must have been sleeping, so I was able to sneak into my back room without having to go through platonic conversations. Switching on a dull light, I threw my bag to its usual corner of shame, and sunk into my bean bag. The bulb I chose to switch on was truly dull and it made the room look like a darkroom where olden day films were developed. I liked this shade of light as it made me feel like a criminal mastermind.
The silence of the room was so pin-drop that I could manage to, though barely, hear the beat of the heart in my ears. On cue, the next procession of thoughts began streaming. When I was 12 years of age, I remember finding myself in the semi-finals of a regional tennis tournament. Being a left handed player, I found that most other players, being right handed, found it difficult to gauge the left handed spin of the ball, thus enabling my swift advance into the semis. The semi-finals was a really tough match, my opponent was a right handed player who played his heart out and countered my every top spin, and persevered and won. After losing the semis, I shook his hand without being able to make eye contact, stormed out of the court and cried my heart out hugging my brother, who was the only one who stuck to watch. I was crying because I had lost, and because I wasn’t as good as I thought I was at tennis. That was the last time I had ever cried after losing. That was the last time I had cried for being sucky. After that, the marching of the years had found me an average man doing average mundane things and not giving a damn about being better and doing better.
I came back to the present and found myself sitting still on the bean bag. I will do better, I said to myself. No, this time, this time, I will really do better. I deserve better. My friends deserve better. My colleagues deserve better. India deserves better. None of these deserved to be kept average. The colors of the magician come out when he tips his hat, a white dove flies and the crowd goes ‘Woaaaahhhhhhhhh!!’
A gust of wind swung open my broken window and swooshed into my room, whistling and whispering stories from the outside world.
‘Typewriter.’
Whispered the wind.
‘Huh?’
‘Typewriter, you idiot.’
The wind said again.
I was not sure whether it was because of the high, but I was pretty sure the wind was talking to me.
‘Fucker, what typewriter?’ I demanded.
‘Fucker, your Grandfather’s typewriter, dust it, and start punching the keys.’
‘Oh’ I said, ‘Okay. Good idea. Thanks.’
’No problem. I shall leave now. By the way, your neighbor aunty is changing her nightie by her window, you can have a peek if you want.’
Saying that, the wind swooshed out from my room, going into someone else’s room to help bring them their next naughty idea for the night.
No, I did not go by the window to spy on poor neighbor-aunty. Instead, I bent down and from under my bed I pulled out the vintage typewriter. It slid out like an old bike wheels out of a rusty garage. It was a black Godrej typewriter my Grandfather owned when he was alive. And now, the same dust which had settled on his photo frame, had also settled on his old typewriter. Dusting the typewriter, and also, because I was reminded of it, dusting his photo, I set the typewriter on my table and sat on the chair in front of it.
Fingers poised, I hovered over the keys, thinking what to write. Nothing came out, although a million thoughts raced and competed in my mind. One voice in me said,
‘Write about Preeti.’
And to that I replied,
‘I barely even know her.’
Another voice said,
‘Write about Marijuana.’
And to that I replied,
‘I dont’ know enough to write about it.’
Another voice said,
‘Write a romance story.’
And to that I simply replied,
‘Ugh.’
Then another voice said,
‘Write about how bad your engineering days were.’
And to that I said,
‘My engineering days were one of my best, most cherished days of my life so far. There’s nothing interesting to write about happy days.’
And so, more voice offered their opinions and pretty soon it became a noisy back and forth session in my mind, like the chaotic sessions of the Parliament. And finally, I offered my personal opinion to the agitated crowd,
‘I will write about my struggle to follow my dreams. What else do I know better?’
Nobody replied. All the voices quieted down and returned to their burrows deep inside my mind.
Finally, one voice heralded the change by shouting Hemingway’s famous (as imagined in a movie) outburst on Gellhorn (his third wife).
Banging the desk with a thud, he said,
‘Get in the ring, Gellhorn! See what you are made of. Start throwing some punches for what you believe in!’
I began punching the keys thus, there was no ink and hence the keys only left impressions on the one sheet that was reeled to the typewriter, not minding, I typed through the night. By morning, these impressions would be erased and I would have no proof of what I had written. The wind came from time to time to put horny thoughts into my mind, but I brushed them all swiftly aside for, you see, I was finally busy.
Something had flipped inside me that night. I am not sure whether it was from the slap or from the pot or from anything else for that matter. But a switch did flip. I wanted to do better, and try to be better. I still truly believe that what I wrote that night is one of my best yet, for it was supremely heartfelt. Writing, I would soon realize, was everything other than just writing. Each word comes, when summoned correctly, from some deep well of emotions. And in order to summon them, the writer needs to lower himself into the depths. As I would soon find out, that was going to be the most difficult of tasks, a task which I’ll surely spend a lifetime trying to achieve. It was also going to be a fatal battle between the person I was and the person I was meant to be, in which one person surely had to die. Pity, that by next morning, I would forget half the things I wrote that night. I decided then, that it was probably a good idea to use a laptop from next time.
Part 9 is out!
