Why I Write

 

One of the most delightful essays of George Orwell is ‘Why I Write’ which I read as a young student of a creative writing course of IGNOU. With ruthless candidness Orwell identifies “sheer egoism” as the first reason for his writing. “Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc…” Orwell goes on to say that “It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one.”

I embrace Orwell wholeheartedly here. I am an inveterate egoist in the above Orwellian sense, every bit of it including those grown-ups, and that egoism probably remains at the top of my list too if you hurl on my face the question why I write. But that can’t be the sole reason for any worthwhile writer. Orwell has listed a few more of them in his essay and I won’t ever dare to dispute any of them.

Political purpose is mentioned as the last point by Orwell. He defines it as “Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.” My writing has been driven by this political purpose ever since Mr Modi ascended the throne in Indraprastha. It is because I don’t accept the kind of politics that Mr Modi practises. Mr Modi made me a political writer.

Even otherwise there was a didactic element in my writings, I don’t deny. Bernard Shaw is one writer who defended his didacticism fanatically. I don’t write anything unless it is to teach something, he declared. [I can’t recall his exact words.] I can say the same about my writing too.

I don’t claim to be wise, however. If I write like a teacher, it is not because I think I know more than anyone else. It is rather because I feel I have a right to express my views in a world of people who are capable of thinking. Moreover, I am a teacher by profession. I know that I have influenced (and continue to do so) quite many young minds as a teacher. I would like to do the same with adults as a writer. Forgive me if this ambition sounds vain or presumptuous.

I have been told too many times by friends and well-wishers that my writing tends to be too acerbic to do good. The acid is not intended. Not usually, at least. Writing is not an entirely conscious process. The roots of your words lie in your subconscious mind. The acid belongs there too. I must borrow from Shaw once again here: “I do not know what I think until I write it.”

Frankly, I don’t write with the conscious intention to hurt anyone, not even Mr Modi whom I consider as one of the most inferior minds that ever sat on the country’s prime throne. Modi is the antithesis of all that I value: the Enlightenment ideals. When the most powerful person in your country turns out to be the exterminator of all that you hold sacred, your heart will be on fire. Acid will flow in your veins.

I write in order to cling to those ideals which are being exterminated. I write primarily to salvage my own heart.

 

PS. Thanks to Sonia Dogra [one of the gentlest souls I ever came to know in the virtual world] who tagged me in Facebook to a post by another blogger friend, Deepa Gopal, [a genius with the brush and the pen] which in turn made me write this.