My pen ran dry

Anita Nair the best-selling author of The Better Man and Ladies Coupe bids adieu to MiD DAY readers and wishes them all the best

Anita Nair the best-selling author of The Better Man and Ladies Coupe bids adieu to MiD DAY readers and wishes them all the best

Two years and eight months ago, I started writing a column for MiD DAY. While I have had columns in other publications, this was the first time I was taking on a weekly column that had no specific focus.

Columnists who have a certain premise to build their columns around have it a tad more easy than the freewheeling ones. While everything may be grist for a column's mill, the danger lay in writing about what everyone or someone else was writing about. And perhaps with greater authority. A film director slaughtering Slumdog Millionaire would have greater credibility than a writer doing so. For that matter a chef on food, a sports writer on cricket, a political analyst on elections - in a world so filled with experts, the freewheeling columnist walks a rather precarious tightrope.

And thus I had to teach myself to look for column ideas. Nothing was sacred or spared. From a book I read to an art event attended; from a chance encounter to a scrap of conversation overheard; from a flight to a hospital waiting room; from the wind to Valentine's Day, my columns explored my world and the world around me. I had to learn to engage myself with life.

It was a timely enough event in my life for I had chosen to move away from the city. If I chose to I could have remained secluded from life itself. And what could be worse for a writer? Especially a writer of fiction. Gated communities might make for a great quality of life with their club houses and swimming pools and neighbourhood parties. But books or columns cannot be written on the limited anti-septic experience they provide.

A weekly column necessitated my having to climb down from my ivory tower. It goaded me to seek objects of interest as once the royalty did to fill up their palaces. There was neither limit on how far I could go, nor any restriction on where my eye could settle. It truly was freedom of expression.

However, there were also weeks when I rued having taken it on. The weeks I was travelling I have had to scribble a column, fax it to my office and have it keyed in and mailed out to catch the deadline. Other times there were a million things that needed my attention and a column was both a millstone of a commitment and a drag.

What eased it was a system I worked out. I kept aside a book to record ideas. And a pen to write my column with. Apart from it seeming like a sentimental piece of eccentricity, there was a particular piece of practical wisdom attached. I know almost precisely when I had written 500 words. My pen ran dry!

However the time has come for me to let this particular pen's ink run dry forever. My freewheeling mind can settle for a while in its tower of clouds and to all those faithful readers who have read me, here's wishing you adieu and god speed.