Praise for My Books


"Manreet Sodhi Someshwar is a gifted writer of great promise. I have a gut feeling we have a new star rising in Punjab's literary horizon. She has an excellent command of English and a sly sense of humour."
- Khushwant Singh on The Long Walk Home

"An enjoyable tale of a sassy girl's headlong race up the corporate ladder."
- India Today on Earning the Laundry Stripes


Thursday 22 November 2012

Words


All my life I have loved words. Their sound. The way they roll off differently from different tongues. What they evoke. Lemon scent. Azure sky. Cloud tufts. My father's hands. Mustard fields. Thistles in my dog's fur. Lahore. Cities I have never seen. Places I have visited without stepping out of home. Foods I have tasted yet never eaten. Scones in childhood, caviar now.

And yet, words don't flow off my tongue - they flow off my fingers. I learnt this early on. When I tried to recreate the magic of words for myself, my tongue came short - it gobbled up words, garbled syntax, and came out all clumsy. Clearly, I wasn't mean for political office.

When writing waylaid me, it reconnected me once again to a pencil and a writing pad. Feeling like my childhood self I started to scribble, tentatively at first and then furiously, scared to stop until I'd emptied myself. It almost seemed atavistic, the way in which words seemed to have a forged a path from within me to paper with me as conduit. Not surprisingly, I found it entirely magical.

Those initial days I would approach my daily writing with trepidation: would the words come? Some days they did, just a trickle, at others a torrent. I wondered at my own inconsistency, at my inefficiency - 3 hours and 2 lines to show, my engineer-MBA self questioned.

But I stuck with the ritual and learnt to listen to its rhythm. I learnt to silence my inner critic and reconnect with that child. I learnt that writing was magical but that magic demanded patience, fortitude and a whole lot of stick-with-it-iveness.

Into my twelfth year of writing there is only one thing I can say with certainty: each writing day is new, when I have no idea of what it'll yield - a trickle or a flow; all I can do is show up at my desk and hope to be rewarded. 

4 comments:

  1. Waiting for the last two paragraphs to happen to me.

    Thank you, I needed to read this as I struggle in a life full with being a new mother, a translator freelancing to put bread and butter (and the occasional wine) on the table, taking care of my toenails, trying to have a quiet cup of tea with my husband, and scratching this incessant urge to write.

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  2. All my life I have loved words. With a heart filled with lead..with eyes waiting to burst..with a smile on seeing the teacher's note on my writings..with dreams of things that never existed or never will...loved them beyond words...written or unwritten!

    Such a nice read!!! I so love your posts..I feel like they bring me closer to my childhood and myself.

    I know your time is scarce, but I will be highly encouraged in my stick-with-it endeavours if you are ever able to visit my blog. Here is one of my popular posts. Thanks in advance.

    http://mallikaunwritten.blogspot.com/2012/06/walk-to-remember.html

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  3. Hi Manreet..Thanks so much for visiting my blog and more so for your encouraging words. Your passion for writing is so visible not just in your own books, but in your love for the great works as well as your support for amateurs!
    Have a great day :-)

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