One, two, three, four…..ten.
If you’re staring at a blank laptop screen for 10 minutes and your mind’s still foggy, you’re not on the right track. Unless the topic demands extensive research and you’ve been working on it for a while, you need to beat the deadline by swiftly organizing your thoughts.
“That’s why we keep reminding you since the start of the week. Do you get it? Remember, I asked you on Monday what the topic was for this week?” I understand Anamika, Somya, or Karishma. They move from shadowy corners of the office, typing like rockstars. My approach is different.
If a topic has been a thorn in your mind for a while, it bursts forth like a flood after a brainstorm. Words, phrases, ideas, and arguments flow across the screen like a tsunami after a submarine quake. But you can’t expect a tsunami every week, can you?
At well past four in the morning, there’s no one to blame but myself, as I journey back to my roots a few hours before penning this column. It’s a perfect time to write, with everyone asleep in distant corners of the house. The scent of a new dawn and the Fajr prayer calls from my desert community mingle through the window. Yet, over four decades into this profession, I still feel a flutter each time I sit down to write a new article. It’s the same thrill I felt when I first joined the newsroom in the early ’80s.
Every article is a new journey for a writer, like each patient is a new case study for a doctor. Like every sculpture and pottery piece is a new creation for the artist. Writing a column is like fishing in a calm lake: if you don’t catch the big one in seconds, the bait is nibbled away by insignificant fish. Or like a music show, where missing the right notes in the intro lets randomness invade your thoughts.
Especially when your heart is somewhere else, like mine, on an impending journey. Every trip home releases a torrent of memories, sweet and bitter, causing a landslide of nostalgia. These thoughts cloud my mind and moisten my eyes, eventually paralyzing my fingers. I can’t write.
It’s been 36 years since I arrived in Dubai with a heart full of dreams. Generations and skylines have since transformed here and back home. Is there an old schoolmate still around for a handshake? Anyone from the neighborhood willing to share past mischiefs and fish in shallow streams again? Meera, Lily, Padmini, Kasthoori, Jagdish, Dasan—anyone to join me in flower-picking for Onam once more? Where have the innocent lambs gone? No one to play hide and seek in the orchard? Let’s run until we drop on the sandy beach once more. Who’s in?
This weekend, I’m taking a break to reclaim joys I left behind 36 years ago. The thrill of sneaking mangoes from a neighbor’s farm. Gifting a drop of attar to dear Ayisha. Rereading her little Quran. Relearning the curvy Malayalam alphabets. Braving the mynahs’ cacophony in lush groves. Snatching candies from Ramettan’s old grocery. And ultimately, reclaiming the title of a little ruffian no one could ignore.
A gentle touch on my shoulder, a lazy question follows.
“What are you writing so early?”
“A column, darling.” I tell my 65-year-old darling. “It’s Wednesday morning.”
“If you’re struggling for a topic, why not write about the journey home?”
She made sense. Is she reclaiming the role of my muse since the column began nearly six years ago?
“Thank you, dear.”
“Just don’t reclaim your good old Ayisha. Remember, three’s a crowd!”
I love her resolve to reclaim the joy of fun and pun, once more.
