The perils of writing
I've been writing forever for fun, and for comfort. In general it's a benign activity. Most often private, than not. But on at least three occasions, some mischievous spirit took possesion of me and got me into trouble....I think every one of those times I was bored and looking for excitement.
The first time was when my friend Gopa and I were studying for our class ten board exams. The school year had ended in December and there was a study break until March, when the exams were supposed to be held. By February, we were heartily sick of studying the same things over and over again - you couldn't stop because then you'd forget the stuff. One day Gopa and I were sitting in my house, staring at our books with distaste, when we started talking about Saraswati pujo which was around the corner. The neighbourhood pujo was being organized by the boy next door and his friends (he had two sisters and a brother and I used to be so jealous of their large family). Gopa, who is very conventional now but used to have flaky ideas then, said "I wonder why we have boring stuff like fruit and khichudi for Saraswati pujo. The goddess of learning should be worshipped properly with meat and fish. Also wine." (Neither of us had ever been within sniffing distance of any kind of alcohol; also drinking was severely frowned upon in middle class Bangali society in those days.) "Let's write a letter to the people next door!" That was me. So a long letter with ideas for jazzing up Saraswati pujo was written and delivered through their window. I don't know what we expected, probably some laughs. So I was completely taken aback when a furious matriarch from next door descended on me the next day, "Daughters of Hindu families! Have you no shame, insulting the goddess of learning. That too right before your exams!" (Looking back, it's possible that it was the mention of wine that did it.) Needless to say, as a persona non grata to the puja organizers, I didn't have a fun Saraswati puja that year. On the day of the puja, I went to the venue and stood, briefly, with folded hands in front of the goddess. My very sweet upstairs neighbour saw it as evidence of courage and refusal to be cowed; it's more likely, though, that the mention of insulting the goddess had shaken me a bit (board exams are no laughing matter). Epilogue: Gopa and I did far better in the exams than the boy next door and his friends. I guess the goddess, if not her worshippers, had a sense of humour. And who knows, maybe she was longing for some wine.
The next time I got up to no good writing-wise was as a fresher in college. We were about a couple of weeks into the first semester and had had many encounters with our seniors, most of which were not friendly. There was a tradition of "ragging" new students. The girls' hostel was better (for the boys ragging often got physical), nevertheless, that particular day, when some of us newbies got together, we were not a happy bunch. I don't remember whose idea it was to put our thoughts into brief (unflattering) descriptions of the seniors under the heading "Guess who", but several of us were enthusiastic participants. Somehow or the other, the paper got into the hands of the seniors and all hell broke loose. The freshers were summoned to the mess (dining hall) to undergo an inquisition by the furious seniors. We were asked to stand in front of the room and take turns reading each description and saying who it was supposed to be. One of my friends stumbled upon a word she couldn't read and turned to me, "Sreela, what is this?" The seniors instantly smelled blood - aha, the ringleader had been revealed! It was no use protesting that I had just been the scribe. It was not a pleasant evening. This time too, though, I had a staunch supporter, like my upstairs neighbour in the Saraswati pujo case. The mess secretary Renu-di maintained that I was a pure, innocent soul and that, even if I had written the scurrilous lines, it was only under the corrupt influence of the other defendants.
The third episode - I suppose I was mean to some very earnest kids; that was part of the problem ..they were too earnest, asking to be teased. This was a leftist group, a minority in our career focused institute. They published an alternate students' magazine with serious articles. I don't know why a guy from that group asked me to write an article for their magazine, it might have been because we had some common friends. If you ask me today, I will say that, despite their stilted rhetoric and what seem like affectations (e.g. calling each other comrade), leftists are some of the people I admire the most for their expansive compassion and honesty. At that time, though, they merely appeared comical to most of their fellow students, not just to me. So I decided, in a moment of mischief and boredom, to have some fun with the topic - the position of women in society. I wrote an entire essay about how women are really the powerful people in society, they just let men think that they are in charge. For example, in an elephant herd, a weak or injured elephant is kept in the middle and protected by all the other elephants. Anyone seeing that might assume that the weak elephant was the leader but they would be wrong. There was a lot more to it that I've forgotten - I explored the theme from various angles. The last line was "men who in their ignorance fight for the rights of women are doing nothing short of digging their own graves." I heard later that this caused a huge commotion in their editorial group. They apparently took the article seriously enough to consider printing it as the "opinion of a female chauvinist". I guess it was to their credit that they couldn't imagine a woman so privileged and clueless as to joke about a topic like this. After all these years, I too am a little ashamed to think how frivolous and ignorant I was. Anyhow, good sense prevailed and that article never saw the light of day.
All that was then. Now, I'm not bored anymore, just boring.
The first time was when my friend Gopa and I were studying for our class ten board exams. The school year had ended in December and there was a study break until March, when the exams were supposed to be held. By February, we were heartily sick of studying the same things over and over again - you couldn't stop because then you'd forget the stuff. One day Gopa and I were sitting in my house, staring at our books with distaste, when we started talking about Saraswati pujo which was around the corner. The neighbourhood pujo was being organized by the boy next door and his friends (he had two sisters and a brother and I used to be so jealous of their large family). Gopa, who is very conventional now but used to have flaky ideas then, said "I wonder why we have boring stuff like fruit and khichudi for Saraswati pujo. The goddess of learning should be worshipped properly with meat and fish. Also wine." (Neither of us had ever been within sniffing distance of any kind of alcohol; also drinking was severely frowned upon in middle class Bangali society in those days.) "Let's write a letter to the people next door!" That was me. So a long letter with ideas for jazzing up Saraswati pujo was written and delivered through their window. I don't know what we expected, probably some laughs. So I was completely taken aback when a furious matriarch from next door descended on me the next day, "Daughters of Hindu families! Have you no shame, insulting the goddess of learning. That too right before your exams!" (Looking back, it's possible that it was the mention of wine that did it.) Needless to say, as a persona non grata to the puja organizers, I didn't have a fun Saraswati puja that year. On the day of the puja, I went to the venue and stood, briefly, with folded hands in front of the goddess. My very sweet upstairs neighbour saw it as evidence of courage and refusal to be cowed; it's more likely, though, that the mention of insulting the goddess had shaken me a bit (board exams are no laughing matter). Epilogue: Gopa and I did far better in the exams than the boy next door and his friends. I guess the goddess, if not her worshippers, had a sense of humour. And who knows, maybe she was longing for some wine.
The next time I got up to no good writing-wise was as a fresher in college. We were about a couple of weeks into the first semester and had had many encounters with our seniors, most of which were not friendly. There was a tradition of "ragging" new students. The girls' hostel was better (for the boys ragging often got physical), nevertheless, that particular day, when some of us newbies got together, we were not a happy bunch. I don't remember whose idea it was to put our thoughts into brief (unflattering) descriptions of the seniors under the heading "Guess who", but several of us were enthusiastic participants. Somehow or the other, the paper got into the hands of the seniors and all hell broke loose. The freshers were summoned to the mess (dining hall) to undergo an inquisition by the furious seniors. We were asked to stand in front of the room and take turns reading each description and saying who it was supposed to be. One of my friends stumbled upon a word she couldn't read and turned to me, "Sreela, what is this?" The seniors instantly smelled blood - aha, the ringleader had been revealed! It was no use protesting that I had just been the scribe. It was not a pleasant evening. This time too, though, I had a staunch supporter, like my upstairs neighbour in the Saraswati pujo case. The mess secretary Renu-di maintained that I was a pure, innocent soul and that, even if I had written the scurrilous lines, it was only under the corrupt influence of the other defendants.
The third episode - I suppose I was mean to some very earnest kids; that was part of the problem ..they were too earnest, asking to be teased. This was a leftist group, a minority in our career focused institute. They published an alternate students' magazine with serious articles. I don't know why a guy from that group asked me to write an article for their magazine, it might have been because we had some common friends. If you ask me today, I will say that, despite their stilted rhetoric and what seem like affectations (e.g. calling each other comrade), leftists are some of the people I admire the most for their expansive compassion and honesty. At that time, though, they merely appeared comical to most of their fellow students, not just to me. So I decided, in a moment of mischief and boredom, to have some fun with the topic - the position of women in society. I wrote an entire essay about how women are really the powerful people in society, they just let men think that they are in charge. For example, in an elephant herd, a weak or injured elephant is kept in the middle and protected by all the other elephants. Anyone seeing that might assume that the weak elephant was the leader but they would be wrong. There was a lot more to it that I've forgotten - I explored the theme from various angles. The last line was "men who in their ignorance fight for the rights of women are doing nothing short of digging their own graves." I heard later that this caused a huge commotion in their editorial group. They apparently took the article seriously enough to consider printing it as the "opinion of a female chauvinist". I guess it was to their credit that they couldn't imagine a woman so privileged and clueless as to joke about a topic like this. After all these years, I too am a little ashamed to think how frivolous and ignorant I was. Anyhow, good sense prevailed and that article never saw the light of day.
All that was then. Now, I'm not bored anymore, just boring.
Comments
Post a Comment