Ladywriter.

"When I was young, tasks of writing often caused me difficulties. Almost all my writing then consisted of essays or answers to questions set as homework. Writing these essays and answers confused me. I felt that the teachers (or my father, who sometimes oversaw my homework) and I were aiming for different ends. For me, writing meant writing. I would of course answer the question, and keep to the set word count; but apart from that (I thought) I was pretty much at liberty with style and choice of words. For example, to a question like, "What happened when Silas Marner's gold was stolen?" I felt it was perfectly alright to end my answer with a sentence like, "And then Silas Marner let out a scream, and the anguish of it pierced through the village night."

But my teacher thought otherwise. While she corrected our homework, I would invariably be called to her desk. We would then have a talk.

- Swati.

- Yes.

- Where did you get this last sentence?

- I wrote it myself. (proudly)

- But its not there in the book!

- I know. But don't you think its logical that Silas Marner will scream in grief when he finds out his gold has been stolen?

- Ok. Good. But henceforth, just stick to what George Elliot has written. And no big words.

We had these conversations many times during my junior school days. Sometimes the teacher/ my father would get angry, and then they would draw a long thick red line through my answer. I would have to rewrite it. Sometimes I would have to rewrite it many times over. It was very much like a battle of nerves, wits, egos, and justice.

This dilemma troubled me less and less as I went up to high school, and then to college. In these years, I had to write more and more of analyses. As long as I knew the established theories and could explain them well, my teachers did not mind me writing out my own thoughts. In fact, they encouraged independent thinking, new ideas, and arguments. By this time, I had realized and accepted that though I loved writing, I was not a good writer. Though I sometimes had good thoughts, my language- both Bengali and English- was simply not good enough to write and develop these thoughts. This realization did not bother me. I was just happy to write.

In this phase of my life, I also worshiped my writing like my God, and treated it as an inviolate thing. If I wanted to bunk class, or not do a chore, I could easily tell practiced lies, like, "My Mother is really ill, I need to go home," or, "The Professor has set us a tough assignment, I must go to the Library." But I could never bring myself to utter falsehoods like, "I want to go practice writing now, and that is why I can't attend your class." First, I didn’t want anyone to know about my writing. And second, the last thing I wanted to do was to use it as an excuse, or tell a lie about it.

When I think back, I can only smile fondly at the intense child that I was. I also smile for all the people who are at this moment adding their own lines to school essays, or missing work to write out their thoughts.

I still write, not because I like my writing, but because I like to write. Sometimes I think I write because I do not like to talk. However, what I do definitely know is that in many ways, my writing is the most important thing in my life. This thought is frightening, and I still have not come to terms with it."