Much of January has passed and I’ve seriously not had an opportunity to concentrate on my writing. Blame it on the circumstances at work (with the examination season in full bloom and with piles of assignments on my desk to check). My birthday too came and went (I celebrated it quietly with my immediate family). Being bereft of writing has made me a tad bit disillusioned to say the least. The plot is ingrained in my mind and the characters have been fleshed out mentally, however, I’ve not really been getting a chance to even finish the Prologue that I began writing in the beginning of this month. Having said all this, I firmly believe that writers, poets, singer, painters and other people involved with the creative arts should never give up. Seasons may change, circumstances may not be conducive to our art, but we must plod on irrespective of what comes in our way. I’ve personally experienced a lot of failures during my stint as a writer. There have been innumerable writer’s blocks, work has been a huge speed breaker, I’ve not felt inspired enough and the list can go and on, however, at the end f the day I’ve seldom relinquished my pen or my art and let society get the better of me. This time too I hope to continue where I paused the written word in favor of my academic obligations and other unpalatable factors. Amen to that !
One of the most important tools that a writer uses is the Email. It is undeniably an integral part of every writer/academic’s life. Without a robust email which has all the necessary functionalities, most of our work would remain undone. I primarily use my mailbox not only to communicate, but also to store important files, photographs and other relevant documents like CVs etc. Like most people I used to rely on Gmail for a very long time, till I started getting spammed with scam emails, the Nigerian chain emails and other shady communications. My Gmail account is quite a fossil now. I rarely use it these days. For my work, I primarily use Laposte (the French email service) and store my important files on Digiposte (a branch of Laposte). It is indeed one of the fastest and most convenient email services that I have encountered over the years. Laposte is swift, has a strong spam filter (in fact I hardly ever find any spam mail in the spam box), and even has alias addresses. The only catch is that you must be fluent in French to understand and navigate properly through both Laposte and Digiposte.
The second important email service that I have chanced upon and hope to keep for the rest of my life is the Vivaldi mail service. The best part about the Vivaldi mail service is zero ads, focus on privacy, a strong spam filter and extremely swift service. In fact I have noticed that emails that I send to other mailboxes in conjunction with the Vivaldi mailbox reach late when compared to the latter. Vivaldi mail is also extremely convenient since it is integrated with the Vivaldi browser, thus eliminating the need to log into the account time and again. Further, I’ve also noticed that compared to other mail clients, Vivaldi mail allows a copy of the original mail to remain in the mailbox rather than deleting the same. I’ve often faced this problem with MS Outlook Express, Thunderbird and other mail clients.
In a nutshell, I must conclude by saying that if you are writer or an academic or anyone whose major portion of the daily work depends upon the written word, then please do invest in a reliable mail service. The Gmails and Hotmails and Yahoos have outlived their purpose. With the amount of spam and phishing mails that are delivered to those mail services, as well as the various privacy concerns regarding the same expressed by IT experts, it is time that we looked elsewhere and tried out newer and more secure emails. Apart from Vivaldi and Laposte, the few other important mail services that I would recommend for my readers are GMX (they host their servers in Germany), Protonmail (with servers in Switzerland) and Hushmail.
Good luck and au revoir and happy mailing this season !
The following are posts from my old blog. These are nothing more than the odd scribbles and notes written during the years that I struggled to complete my first novel.
Sit under a green tree. Watch a sluggish stream flow by. Caress wildflowers blossoming across verdant meadows. Sing a song when no one is listening to you. Swoon on a bed of dandelions. And grasp life by the sashes she wears around her delicate waist. Sauntering across moments…
Today memories from the East threatened to burn down my house. Darkness still lingers within long spent fires and their seductive smoke rings.
I have become the gypsy of the highways. Not even love can mend this blistered heart.Cobblestones and mementos…
The storm has passed and I am still at sea. The blue sky quivers in the horizon. Is it my imagination or are the heavens making love to the shivering waves? Poised on the edge of consciousness…
Cherishing you within the darkness of my irises I forget that you are a man. To me you become fireflies on the wing enamoured by the haunted ruins of my ancient life. The fires burn low. The fireflies smoulder. This broken body crumbles at your feet… Gliding across quagmires…
Am I a rainmaker? Are these gypsy drops mine? Will they ever water the earth? But where is my earth? Which is my earth? I am merely a barren land crisscrossed by hungry cracks…open maws shrieking at the Indian summer sun. In eternal damnation…
I was walking towards you across lifetimes. But I came to know about it the other day when your blue eyes showed me galaxies and universes unheard of. Drenched in blueness…
Love…a pearl curled up in an oyster or a seashell languishing on the shores of nothingness. Love…brilliant and brazen, soft and unassuming…liberating me from the shackles of mediocrity. On the shores of unending blue seas…
Sometimes dreams tiptoe across thresholds. Sometimes they flutter in through windows. And then sunshines flower and moonbeams flicker and time pirouettes on twinkle toes. Waltzing with my dreams…
Isn’t it better to write and not simply chronicle? Isn’t it better to write for and out of emptiness than expect an audience? Open doors and translucent windows…
Out of the blue grasses and the wood smoke rise tiny dreams of unknown lands of the East. Out of morning dewdrops and the mist that hangs like a wispy thin curtain of misplaced love rises a life so little and insignificant that perhaps a gentle nudge of a truant breeze is enough to scatter it all over verdant meadows like abandoned dandelion tufts. And maybe out of all this is awakened the desire to go back to the old..the known…the easily understood pathways…Swept away by the wind…
Precisely that is what I intend it to become. 2023 should be one of the most fruitful years of my life. With my first novel already knocking on the doors of various literary agents and hoping to find a break this year, I am already on board with my second novel. This first week of the new year saw me working on the prologue of the second novel. Though I am yet to finish it, but the initial journey has been rather productive. To make matters easier I have chalked out a simple plan that should keep me going and fully concentrated upon my project till I finish the same. I’ve decided to remain dedicated to the plan mentioned below :
I’ve decided to completely do away with all kinds of distractions, be they unwanted messages, calls or the social media. Email should be the primary mode of communication that should remain open to one and all. The only social media account that I have is Facebook. Except for certain specific events like my birthday or my marriage anniversary, I do not wish to keep it activated.
I’ve decided to keep a specific time each and every day only meant for writing. Although I carry the One Note application in my phone and type into it whenever I can, I should however keep a separate slot for my literary activities every day.
I intend to read more often ans watch less movies. At present after finishing Virginia Woolf’s “The Waves”, I’ve picked up George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and Yeats’ Selected Poems from the college library. I hope to finish at least one book every 10 days if not within a week.
I have also decided to keep stress at bay since work tends to contribute a lot towards it. Reducing work is not an option. I am due to get a promotion this year and that will mean more work. However, I hope to reduce stress by keeping work confined to work hours. Not letting work interfere with my writing should be main motive this year.
Keeping in touch with nature and spending more time in nature is something that every writer should cultivate.
In short, I hope to both endeavor and dedicate this entire year to the written word. And writing should remain my priority this entire year. 2023 should be a year to reckon with. Amen to that !
I had wrapped up last year with Yeats. This year I begin my journey through words with Frost. I should also mention over here that I have had the good fortune of visiting New Hampshire, where Frost lived and worked for many years. This poem is yet another favorite of mine and a milestone in my journey through words.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening BY ROBERT FROST
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
Writing on the very last day of the year with nothing much to contribute from my side, but with a few lines from my favorite poet W.B. Yeats. This poem has been the one poem that has always been extremely dear to my heart. Perhaps it summarizes my entire existence. Thus, sharing it with all on this last day of 2022.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
One of the best decisions I took this year was to start this blog. Incidentally, I have always been a diarist per se, be it on blogs or writing in diaries or scraps of paper. Documenting my thoughts has always been an essential part of my daily mental exercise. It is also a part of who I am…a writer at the core, masquerading as a professor or an academic in front of the outside world. The words that I use in society are never really my words. They are borrowed, for that particular occasion. My words are seldom spoken. I prefer writing them, documenting them for posterity. This blog was essentially a step in that direction. This is definitely not my first blog. I’ve had blogs before which have somehow got lost in the convoluted jungles of time. Maybe I have a couple of them saved somewhere, but most of them have ceased to exist. Thus, this particular blog was important when I first started writing it sometime in the month of August 2022. Gradually, with each passing day the blog became an essential part of me. Something that I cannot severe from my mental faculties with ease. Not only did it help me by acting as a notebook for my writings, but also as a clean slate for me to document my thoughts and understand the pathways that I have chalked out for myself completely. Furthermore, this blog also made me come in contact with various writers of repute and a community of thriving and pulsating minds. In more ways than one this particular blog has indeed become an inseparable part of me.
2023 is simply round the corner, and before ambling into the same, I would like to share a few of my writings from an old blog of mine over here. Perhaps it is a way in which I can preserve those old writings and ruminate over them in the distant future.
Night trips away on cobblestones of moonshine dust, I watch the fireflies ignite my life at dusk; There is darkness in the heavens and on earth. Dark moorlands beckon…
I have traversed distant lands And lived innumerable lives… Yet, it is against your sandalwood scented skin That I am able to sleep away the weariness of a million years, Spent in solitude… Father, O Father. In tranquil slumber…
Through the verdant softness of silence Rivers of tranquility flow, Linger on, there is a meadow of sunshine ahead… Walking on green grass…
I walk through lavender evenings, I saunter through ebony nights. In the solitude of my hermitage A single lamp throws shafts of burnished gold. Write on O confessor… Your sins are yet to be washed. Documenting untold deeds…
Perched upon life and its myriad vignettes, I clasp the delicate nuances of love to my heart, You are faraway in another universe, Yet, I write love letters bathed in my vile blood… The pen breaks…the ink scatters…words escape my frozen intellect, I welcome my imprisonment with open arms, Crawling across the filth of my fossilized sins… A writer ? No, a confessor…
I still search for you…in the air, the water, the fire and the earth. I still search for you in haunted nightmares and benign dreams. But all that I have are memories. Tiny grassblades, defiant against the merciless gales of Time. The road ahead is long and dark. Light it up with your smile…in your universe. And I will try to weave a tapestry of tears…in mine. Epistles across universes…
Moths flutter. Flames quiver. The evening trembles with unkempt desires. Amidst the unstable currents of infidel Time, My dreams bathe in crystal lakes after decades of resigned aridity. Irises dotted with hope…
The mist comes tumbling down riding raindrops encased in pale pearls.
Pearls of sighs. Pearls of treasured secrets. Riding white crests and troughs, filtered through trees washed in blue shadows.
I cup my palms to catch the mist. It slips through my fingers and my soul.
A truant lover. An unsure paramour.
Kissing raindrops…
Rude words, rude visages, rude thoughts, Are scimitars to a sensitive soul; It is better to bask in the gentleness of a cloistered life, Than be consumed by mindless cacophony. Leaving the noise behind…
At sunset the horizon bled in gold and your face bloomed like a rose. At sunrise I watched you promenade across mists bathed in my autumn dreams.
Sunsets and sunrises. Moments fly into eternity.
And here I stand clutching a throbbing heart to a hollow chest the shape of an ancient oak tree.
Visions of sunsets…
These tiny notes are nothing but disjointed scraps of thoughts. At times they simply languish upon papers and have no further utility in my life, at other times they become a part of my writing or a part of my thoughts conjuring up a character or an event in my book (s). Coming back to this year as well as 2023 and what it may have in store for me, I would like to state that I hope to become more regular with both my blog as well as my writing. I have plans for beginning my second novel at the fag end of 2022. Thus, when 2023 rolls in I will be happily typing away in my computer conjuring up vibrant characters and events and tales that need to be told. Come 2023 and I will be deeply entrenched in literature with minimum interaction with the outside world, be it through writing or reading. Wishing all those who love the written word a productive 2023 with quality time spent in reading, writing and living a life enmeshed immense creativity.
Good luck folks and wishing everyone a very happy 2023 filled with joy, success and love for the written word !
Silence is still the scimitar That carves moons out of our souls, While we languish eternally in memories Of roseate waves and yellow butterflies on the wing. We wait for life to promenade in hallowed calm And your footfalls to grace our wood smoked hearts, Someday is still far away, Someday is still an unhealed scar...
Decided to activate my Facebook account temporally in order to convey my holiday greetings to near and dear ones (since most people never reply to my emails). I was thus confronted with the usual phenomenon of “the one line wonder” or rather the common practice of keeping in contact with relatives and friends through a one liner (be it a greeting or a comment or a query). In most cases, people even tended to use GIF stickers in order to convey Christmas and New Year wishes. Another phenomenon that tends to trouble me is the system of instant messengers (Whatsapp being the worldwide favorite). There are a plethora of them these days, beginning with Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, Skype, and thus the list tends to go on and on. Once midnight set in on the 24th of December, my Whatsapp messenger was flooded with one line wonders. All this made me think about my childhood when Christmas meant lovely paper cards and long letters delivered by post. Those were exciting days when computers were used by few and most people relied on the good old postman to deliver their holiday cards. And I remember my mother stringing up those cards across our living room and admiring the various colors splashed across the same. Those cards and the winter sunshine filtering through the same were a part and parcel of my childhood and its marzipan encrusted memories. Alas ! Those cards are no more. Nowadays scouting for cards in my native city is akin to embarking upon a treasure hunt. I often hear the sentences : “Nowadays no one uses cards madam.” “Everyone is into SMS these days. That’s why we do not keep greetings cards in our shop.”
I have nothing against the progress of civilization and technology, but what I fear that this culture of one liners or “the one line wonder” as I call it would ultimately lead to the gradual liquidation of the habit of writing (be it letters or any other mode of communication). I suppose most children will hold onto this habit of daily writing or scribbling in their notebooks till they graduate high school, but after that the situation seems rather grim with the influx of smart phones and computers. With Email already being relegated to the domain of office work, and messengers taking over personal communication, I doubt how long we can keep up the tradition of writing beyond the famous one liner message. I wonder if blogs will even remain in the next few years or whether we will all be forced to write truncated thoughts and emotions tailor made for 500 characters on social media sites.
Hoping for a miracle in the universe of the written word in the near future. And wishing for the long forgotten tradition of hand made and printed cards to revive once more. Au revoir !
