Behind The Words

Long ago, in Bangalore, I had joined a writing workshop called ‘Still Waters’. Back then, writing was the last thing on my mind. The  idea was to make friends and emerge from the comfort zone of solitude in a new city. On the first day, when we met in the conference hall of hotel Ramada, I was visibly nervous. The other ten participants were working professionals, amateur journalists and literature students. On the second day, after informal introductions, we were asked to write a short story of less than thousand words. The prompt for all of us was similar – Meera, the protagonist wants to see the world but her aunt is an obstacle. Meera overcomes the obstacle, learns to dance, and gets to fulfill her dream.

An otherwise simple task was noteworthy on two accounts.

First, I was amazed by the fact that we approached the same story in ten different ways. With a common prompt, I thought our stories would end up being somewhat similar. But I was in for a big surprise. Despite a similar outline, our stories were diverse in terms of the treatment, setting and narration.

My Meera, became a part of an international troupe and performed next to the Eiffel Tower on a moonlit night. A college student’s Meera joined Summer Funk dance classes and visited several countries via exchange programs. Another Meera, performed Bharatnatyam in the back drop of an ancient temple in Bali. A working professional’s Meera fell in love with jazz and reached Venice after murdering her aunt. Despite diverse perspectives, we all arrived at a common goal. A happy ending.

 This made me wonder how our social milieu, our upbringing, our age and our culture impacts us in the way we treat the subject. Given that I am most comfortable in writing about what I know, I write from my own perspective. Most artists follow the same rule. So it is rare for a woman to write about a murder mystery or a man to write an emotional drama. Nonetheless, excellent work of fiction has emerged when writers have explored the alien.

Second, the ten of us were asked to e-mail our stories anonymously. So while we were reading and rating the stories, we had no clue about the author of the story. Funnily enough, despite not knowing each other we could easily guess who the author was. Except for one. This reticent professional on a sabbatical had introduced explicit sex in an otherwise staid story. When it comes to writing,  shades of our personality reflects in our words. Or maybe not. There are exceptions. I write humor and satire, and I am anything but funny. Or witty, or clever. Perhaps, I am so dumb that when I write serious, I appear a bit funny. Perhaps, it is because I enjoy watching and reading things that are funny. So clearly, being a funny person and being a funny writer are two separate things.

And yet, we do leave traces of our personality in our words. Unintentionally, of course. More so on social media. We create a certain image about our upbringing and our thought process when we interact on the internet. I interact with several virtual friends on a daily basis. When I meet them in real life, they turn out to be exactly as I had imagined them. We need not be mind readers, but it appears that creative writing can reveal several aspects of the writer’s personality. Written words are more transparent than we give them credit for.

What do you think?

(Related Link: Can You Guess The Gender Of The Author?

Anshul a discerning reader and a prolific blogger could read the logical mind of the author in the anthology, Mango Chutney.She turned out to be a student of mathematics from IIT-Delhi. Read Here )