Most people these days aspire to be writers. Writing was something that always came naturally to me and it would fill me up with this strange sense of bliss serenity and peace. I had become ‘writing’s most devoted handmaiden. As I grew up and cast an ambitious gaze around myself, I experienced this tremendous need to be published. The number of rejection slips that I have received has filled up one whole folder. I took solace in the fact that Ruskin Bond and Rudyard Kipling also had to face such disappointments in life as they treaded that ‘inky’ path to ‘writerdom’. I felt very proud that I owned that folder! I called it the ‘folder of encouragement’! I had stopped writing for myself..that I guess was the biggest mistake; as I went astray.

Almost every day “wannabe J.K.Rowlings” are born. A cousin’s daughter, who is fourteen years old, harassed her mother into buying her a laptop because she convinced her mother that soon she was going to become a writer and earn back the money she spent on the laptop…as she would be spinning the money mill just from royalty!

Recently, I met an old acquaintance from school, a mediocre student who used to just about manage to scrape through her English tests. We exchanged notes and one always has this feeling of deja vu on meeting somebody from school. She had indeed gone through an image makeover, dressed in a very Fabindian-arty style, with kohl lined eyes and speaking to me in a lilting accent I couldn’t really pin-point from which country! “You know, I am a writer now, I am so busy these days finishing another book,” she bragged. I thought maybe I was ignorant about who were the latest hits in writerdom except for a Jhumpa Lahiri or an Aravind Adiga.

I was really excited and enquired about the list of books that she must have already written. Well, she just needed a little goading, there and then she invited me to a cup of coffee and a very, very ‘one-way’ conversation, or should I call a monologue. “Oh! I already have a book on that epic for children, the Ramayana and another one on the Mahabharata, all published by foreign publishers, you know. And three have already gone to press. I tell my publisher I want an advance of not less than ten thousand grand. All you have to have is contacts you now, some intelligent socialising and a set of mythological books at home. Then you just copy the story, change one or two words here and there and one book is ready. And nobody can take you to court because of plagaring!”

“Plagaring?? Oh you mean plagiarising”, I enquired. “Yes, yes that only and these big, big publishers having very good editorial team, they do most of the work for you. Illustrators decorate book very well for you.” (Ved Vyasa and Valmiki must be turning in their graves).

Phew! That was some sure shot recipe to become a writer. Now what would you call her – a “copy” writer?? This was when I sensed a moment of truth and realisation dawned and again I started writing for myself.

Well, if you seriously want to write, take it upon yourself as a holy calling, and please do not judge yourself by the rejection slips that you receive. Work on, enjoy writing. Helen Keller had said, “The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were not limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.”

Navanita Chakraborty Varadpande