There might be plenty of reasons why one writes. I started writing for personal reflection by penning down my thoughts in a diary. It graduated to writing poems for school competitions. After I realised the potential of the written word as a powerful mode of communication, I started doing it in more organised ways.
The fact that poems influence readers at a personal level intrigues me. Literary forms of writing, such as poetry, give us the freedom to talk to readers and connect with them at a personal level. That way, I believe, writing is a deeply human act. I want to play that role of indulging my readers in an engaging discourse about things that happen around and within them.
Modern societies have clearly demarcated lines between the personal and the political. Individual apathy tends to gradually build up into social disregard. The growing numbness towards injustice and unfair practices in our society has already infested the morale of our public institutions. How do we then sensitise our body politic into a responsible citizenry? Constructive dialogue is our only way forward.
Be it fiction or non-fiction, writing is a process of awakening of the public. I write to spawn a democratic discourse. When I engage an audience, my intention is to nudge people and convince them to act. Often, it is an urge to address pressing concerns amidst them or a call for introspection.
Why do I want to do that? An artist would know that their artwork has done something when the onlooker starts responding to it. So do writers when their readers engage with their words for active contemplation. Readers who construe the idea in their own ways are but actively participating in the meaning-making process. But why do I write? Or why should one write?
Writing, to me is an account of the contemporary that has its purpose beyond the here and now. This near-permanency is what gives writing an eternal spirit. A well-written piece of work can educate masses, inform generations to come, and serve as a guiding beacon. Religious texts such as Bible, Quran, or the Indian epics, for instance have shaped human lives and have contributed to the social order despite facing criticism. One is reminded how ‘Das Kapital’ and ‘Annihilation of Caste’ have emboldened the downtrodden communities and energised them to fight for their right.
So we understand that words carry a lot of power. They can be used to unite people or break their unity, to make them think or push them to a liminal area. Words can settle things down and bring clarity or muddle the water for worse.
To an author, writing is like walking a tight rope. There is reality and there is perceived reality. There is passion for arriving at the truth and there is also a responsibility to tread that path carefully. Writers have to take the responsibility for what is written by them. From deleted tweets to hasty response articles, all tell the story of bad writing on digital platforms. Writing in a fast-paced, post-industrial society has meant communicating through characters within restricted digital spaces. How do I tell them that compressed sentences do not lead to brevity, nor do broken words make any sense?
In fact, readers with short attention span do harm to the art of writing. Books and newspapers once made reading a responsible habit. Texts have now taken digital forms and are housed in compact devices. Skimming and scrolling have replaced active reading. People have no time for closer reading of texts or for any deeper reflection. Without introspection, the reader is dead. And there is no writer without any serious reader.
But, decreasing span of attention is not our only problem. We live in extremely fragile times, where books are criticized before they are read and writers are boycotted before they are heard. Remember, Perumal Murugan? Our hypersensitive communities take hurt more easily than ever.
We need change. Therefore the goal for any serious writer is not only to write for serious readers but also to make reading a deeply contemplative act where texts are given their due attention. As a writer for, if your texts breathe life, a reader is born.
The author is a part of the Youth Ki Awaaz Writers’ Training Program.