Pens and Pages

There's a thing about firsts. Your first friend at school, your first job, your first kiss, your first relationship, your first heartbreak, every first matters in life, except when it comes to writing. I was some 6 years old when I wrote my first script for a movie and submitted it to Dad, asking him to make a movie out of it (Dad was working on an Assamese film at that time), only to be utterly dejected to find out I was just a child with a far-from-perfect film script demanding that it be produced. I was upset for days and forgot about it soon until I wrote my next short-story at the age of 7 and gifted it to him, in the hope that he would get the hint that I wanted a film out of this one too. None of the works ever got converted to movies (well, of course), but I learned over time that our first work of writing, no matter how special they are to us, would always be horribly imperfect. My first poem was fine though. It was an assignment for the class to write a poem in Hindi wher...

Your thoughts, your feelings, The emotions you’re perceiving- What are they, if not fragments of beauty? Epitome of beauty be that mind of yours, That heart that loves simplicity, The beauty you see around- Invisible to busy eyes, Incomprehensible to worried minds. How do you pen a poem then Of the beauty you see From that heart of yours? Do you break sentences? Do you rhyme words? Or do you just read, And, after every four seconds, pause? How would you express your heart? With long words from a heavy lexicon? How long should each word be, Sitting on someone’s dictionary? And if all you want is to gently read, Write the poem a broken heart would need, Not simple meanings behind words too-long, Write your heart out to a simple song. Write the word that makes you believe Not the one that looks good on paper. Choose the word that weighs more No matter the length be nine or four. Ask yourself, what would make you believe, C...