On Reading And Writing

I always wonder why writers write. Is it a calling? A compulsive need? An ego driven exercise to say, “I want you to see what I see?” I always wonder if writing is a conscious choice. A technique that you should master by reading a lot, becoming more and more aware of the manner in which other writers write, by learning to contextualise as if you were mixing elements in a lab, polishing, elbow greasing language till it shines to a sparkle?

Is there an intention behind it all or just something that drives you rather than being driven by you? I don’t know because for me life is a stimulus and writing is the way I respond to everything contained in it. I do not read much but I connect with life and it is a window into a story, a phrase, a character. The other day, at a writing workshop where I was one of the guests, a young, successful playwright began to peel away layers from my writing process by asking deeply intellectual questions that at first intimidated me and then confused me. I know she looked disappointed when I told her that writing was not an intellectual process for me but an organic one. I do not plot. I follow the plot.

I read and write instinctively and I cannot read writers who want to show me what they know. I only want to know what they feel because if they do, the feeling translates into their narratives. There is something compelling about books that write themselves. They don’t pause to manipulate. They sing, cry, dance on pages and inject themselves into your memory streams and become a part of your flesh, blood and tears. There is a reason why critics panned Love letters by AR Gurney as too simplistic, Love Story by Erich Segal as shallow, Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay as a wanna be Biryani Western, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love as self-indulgent. They did it because everything seen through the mesh of intellect is found wanting. This is not to say that any book or any piece of art can be created without intellect but intellect and acquired intelligence/knowledge can just be great tools. They cannot however, form the core of anything because everything begins and ends with emotion.

There is a reason why the heart must be at the centre of every work of art. Yes, emotion can be manipulated too in cinema and books to evoke response but when it is real, not synthetic, it is as unselfconscious as a river and you are swept away when it hits you.