On writing

I started my other blog as a tribute to my sister whom I lost to complications from breast cancer. But four months ago I lost another person I loved. My father. He was bedridden for a while after a stroke.

I am still learning to live without him.

It’s going to take some time getting used to writing again. The art both my parents, my mother, an author and translator; and my father, a well known author and veteran journalist, passed on to me. Each time I write, I know I pay tribute to them. I shall cease to exist the day I stop writing.

I always find solace in words, but there is a time when I didn’t. That was the time my sister died. Everyone who came home spoke the usual gibberish consolers speak. I longed for them to stop. But they didn’t. They all kept saying the same words intended to comfort us. But I was tired of hearing them. Then a neighbour’s son came to meet us. He didn’t say anything. He just hugged me. And that was all that I had wanted.

Over time I have made my peace with words. After my father died, the same people returned with the same words they had spoken when my sister had died. This time I succeeded at keeping both of them away. And now, four months on, I am accepting words back into my life. The last time I found solace reading ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’. This time too, it’s another book and another experience. It was my gtalk status message saying ‘Can someone lend me a copy of ‘Eat, pray, love’’ that made my friend G buy me a copy of the book which was delivered to my home.

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote the book when she was 36 – my present age – and lost in life. I had heard a lot about the book and wanted to read it. Honestly, I didn’t enjoy it in the beginning. But as I read it, I began to find solace in it.

I don’t know what I will read after this book. But one thing’s for sure. It has made me want to think about what I want to do in my life. And I do want to write.