9/07/2015

Letter to Daughter X

PS: Yes my love, yes. I return to write to you. And yes, do not learn this trait of putting the PS at the beginning of a letter. This is not how it is done. Please.

Dearest C,

Today I will share with you one of the world's biggest myth, and attempt to break it. Yes darlingsome, myths like Ram, Ravaan and Cleopatra. No, not Tom and Jerry and Nibbles. That supposedly deadly thing is called 'writer's block'. Right, love, the same that Granny-D says you have to save your skin when you do not complete your homework (of course because you play extra and sleep extra and are spoilt extra when she is around). So, what is it, and why am I telling you, of all people, about it?

Let me begin with the latter, first. Why you? That's a biiii---iiig question, completely opposite your pillow-size. You see, little one, excuses are convenient things, I agree, but not very nice. And two, there is no substitute to honesty (especially for lazy daydreamers). So, when, on certain guilty evenings you try and convince me, with eyebrows all over you in a geometric semi-circle -- 'Momie, Tucks choo'd mah pincil', or, faking with your tiny hand over your chin -- 'My teeths are paining', or the more trending one, your sharp brown eyes rolling -- 'My life is a mess!', let me tell you at the start dearest, that the right pronunciation is pen-cil and there is no plural to teeth, it being the plural to tooth and that I am impressed at how you pulled that last sentence through. That is perhaps why too much grannying is not good!  Well, it is thus why I tell it to you -- each excuse stands the tallest chance to expose its loophole in the most unreliable manner at the most unpredictable time. Why face the brunt, loveliest? It is only a crappy piece of homework you are way grander than. Just defeat it enthusiastically and you will never need to learn up Granny-D's 'writer's block' excuse, sugarcoated in your extremely distinguishable spelling, or pronunciation -- 'raaitar's blog'. Sweetheart, it does not exist. Period.

And now for the more important part-one of our topic, what is it? It is a myth, mostly. No, totally, as I believe, a fancy phrase to catapult an expression to a distant land from where it would take some considerable time to reach articulation. A writer's block is an idea that has passed on for generations across cultures trying to explain one's lack of productivity. Darling, on the contrary, it is a habit which we fall off from. Should we just decide we will write today, what (or, who) on earth can stop us? Our minds are rat-racing with millions of images, some real, some not very. Put them in words. How difficult is it? Put them to music, put colours on them -- regularly. And then you would see, there is no such thing as a writer's block.

Look at what Momie did the entire last month. She didn't that is, write. How pathetic, and more so, the reasons which she was trying to give herself. Like we poop, like we brush, we must do once a day (at least) that one thing we love the most, make it not a habit, but a part of life we do not even need to spare a thought about. And you will have found the not-so-secret route to bringing back emotions, their articulation.

Like this.

Thank you for helping me break the myth.

A kissie here, and a kissie there,
Momie.

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