Reading/Writing/Books/Creative Spark
Leila’s Ripples
Passion Clouds, Book Cafe, Catching the Ray
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things” — Steve Jobs
I ‘ve lost count of how many times I have approached this thought.
Yet occasions don’t cease to drop in my mail box, serendipitously!
It is like that photographer clicking her favourite subject from all possible angles to ensure a perfect frame.
I am yet to ace that piece which correctly and wholesomely expresses my emotions or pin-point that moment as to how the gift of writing came into being for me.
Maybe this is how I will evolve, my words will sharpen and in every new step I will stand and look back, stories will unfold in a new attire for me.
Plugging every nuanced moment that led to this day seems like a process continuum, memory opening petals like a new bloom.
Thanks to my sister, Jhumpa_Lahiri’s Pulitzer winner book Interpreter_of_Maladies landed on my table one fine day years back. A collection of short stories mostly about the Partition of India/ Bengal heard by the author as a child through a distant relative who came visiting their house.
A first generation immigrant, Jhumpa Lahiri, conjured her idea of her own country through these stories, now written with amazing sensitivity and imageries that moved like movie scenes and took me to that time and space, which I too have only heard from my elders in the family.
A few pages into it, I felt my first prang.
Every inch of my coiled and recoiled gut squirmed to release the words that screamed to come out, but wouldn’t.
The haphazard throw of phrases, sentences pulsed out in every direction vanishing in the white.
No attempt to catch them and fill my pocket worked.
After some uncomfortable, anxious minutes the words left me.
But not the feeling.
As if life was not busy enough then, I was gripped with a new kind of incompleteness.
Little did I understand it came from the suppressed words and thoughts, totally famished, eating out of my flesh and tissues holding the writer in me.
By the time I completed reading the book for the first time I shed my inhibition and addressed my intrinsic desire to spill out the wordic-mess that ran amok inside, and gave a subconscious nod to the writer in me.
Thinking may be I will touch that chord following my superannuation !
Needless to say, I found all her books and finished it in one breath and to my surprise my retirement came much ahead of its time.
Tending to my chronic health issues that loomed large little later, I would spend hours how to re-direct by life fruitfully and writing, which was a far cry from my then current profession, slowly made its foray into my being.
I knew nothing then but one, that I have to write the way I enjoy reading: words painting imageries that pass through my vision every time I read a book I love. Just the way I experienced Jhumpa Lahiri’s books.
Initially, they came in small phrases, a few excellent ones but not with fitting blocks to the unfinished puzzle.
That was the time I started reading poetry and wrote my first, rather course one, following a personal tragedy (of some other kind).
They came small, spontaneous, incomplete , abrupt — but most importantly they kept coming.
Of all the excellent books I grew up reading, the classics, the best sellers, the pillars of English literature, many a times a wish sprouted that
‘If I could write like that…..’,
but it was never so intense till I read Interpreter of Maladies.
A phenomenon I am yet to decode.
The ripple that gift of the book created and fueled the seeds of writing in me converted into a pond, a lake and then a sea where words floated, danced, dived and drowned at will when thoughts were ready to spill through the capillaries.
Then came 2020 with its undeniable presence and character, when one evening I wrote my first piece on my observations from a visit to the countryside and pressed published.
And the rest….now what do I say ?!
“Books are mirrors: You only see in them what you already have inside you.” — Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
This is in response to Yana Bostongirl’s invite to write in response to Ali Hall’s Spread the Ripple February prompt Gift.
It was fun working around this prompt and anybody inclined to attempt please refer to the link above👆🏻
The Leila Series so far:
Spread-the-Ripple stories I enjoyed reading :
A simple story told simply with lot of meaning. Read The-illusion-of-reflections by Shameem Anwar here.
A powerful story of self . Read The-gift-of-a-life-of-independence by Dr. Preeti Singh here.
A gift of book from a daughter to a mother is precious indeed. Read Because-two-people-fell-in-love by Toni the Talker here.
Time to ripple away from Soul Bay. I keep repeating my pleasure to be read, engaged & inspired by you.
Leaving you with a composition named ‘SEEKER’ by Chirag Katty in Sitar/ Electric Sitar, Enjoy :))
