Why I Write - Version 1

I don't write that often. There are a million excuses that I can put out there for not being more diligent and consistent about it. But in spite of all those reasons, I keep coming back, to write some more. Why do I write? I write because I love to put my thoughts into words. I feel contented by putting out a few words that can potentially immortalize the modus operandi of my quirky, idiosyncratic, cantankerous brain.

I have always loved words, ever since I can remember. My earliest recollection of remembering words is from a news article called - 'The Rape of Lebanon'. The only two words from that title whose meanings I knew were 'the' and 'of'. I was 4. I have always admired the miracle that can be created by stringing words together, how a bunch of seemingly unrelated strings of letters, in the hands of a canny raconteur, can paint a picture as vivid as a photograph, or create an indelible memory. 

Needless to say, I have always loved to read, mostly fiction. Facts, no matter how poignant, relevant, or exhilarating, have never appealed to me much, maybe because, in my mind they are analogous to taking the Mona Lisa and trying to paint it a little differently, or even a little better. No matter how well it turns out, you still started with a master piece. Fiction, on the other hand, is analogous to creation. You start with a germ of a plot, you nourish it and nurture it in your brain, feed it with tidbits of information, marinade it with nuggets of your own experience and personality, fortify it with additional sub-plots, embellish it with fictional characters that you have created yourself, and then put it on paper using your limited vocabulary. (I say limited, because no matter how many words you know, you still know only a very small percent of all the words that exist!). Then you rewrite it over and over again, to make it more succinct and coherent, to smooth the rough edges. And finally, if you are lucky, you have a story, an original piece of work, something that hasn't been told before and will never be told again in the exact same way. 

This is how Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot and Howard Roark were created, characters that have withstood the test of time and become immortal, without ever being real. It would have been no different if these people had really lived and done the things their fictional equivalents did and the rest of the world had read about them from newspapers articles. Such is the power of good fiction. I too fantasize about someday having such a character of my own, a fictional character who will become real in the minds of millions of young, impressionable minds, a character well-defined enough to become the role model at least one human being, and heroic enough to inspire several others. I want to feel, for a fleeting moment, like God did when he created people like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or Martin Luther King or Farrokh Balsara. 

That's why I write!