We are all Writers

One of my friends once said that every person has a story to tell; he or she is just waiting for the right person to share it with at the right time. Life is a journey, and each one of us starts alone on a solitary road, with an empty earthen pot on our head. As we walk on this road, it occasionally rains. These rains are what we call experiences. We collect some of them in our earthen pots. We collect them, preserve them but keep them to ourselves. And on the warm sunny days with clear blue skies, when we have all the time to introspect, water sometimes seeps out through the porous walls of the pot. That is when our fellow travelers can see a part of us. They know us through our stories. The stories that are shaped out of our experiences. These warm sunny days are when we reflect upon ourselves. These warm sunny days are when we tell our stories. These warm sunny days are when we write.

When on the topic of writing, I get reminded of the tens of times when tens of my friends have reminded me the most obvious fact — that I have not been writing lately; and that I SHOULD be writing. While their allegations are justified, it is not true that I haven’t thought of writing lately. And it was during one of these ‘thought’ sessions that this weird thought came to my mind that I have not been all that dormant these days. I have been writing. In fact, all of us are continuously writing. A researcher has been writing articles in journals, a reporter has been writing columns in the newspaper, a musician has been writing new music, a painter has been writing new paintings, a player is writing new milestones.

Writing is penning down stories and embedding emotions and experiences in them. This embedding need not always be in words. In fact, most of us don’t write words. Painters tell their stories through paintings, photographers by their photos, and dancers by their dance. Most people, however like their stories simply spoken to an individual. Everyone writes stories. Everyone shares their experiences. The only factor that changes is the people with whom the stories are shared.

The longer we walk on the road of life, the more water does our earthen pot collect. Water is heavy and so are the experiences. We all walk along until the pot is too heavy to carry. The pot then topples and eventually falls.. And all the water spills on the ever-thirsty sands; and all that remains are marks and a fading trail… Until we pick up another empty pot and embark on another journey again…