Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Lost and found

I don’t know why I started punching the keys now. Maybe because it’s been some time since I’ve spent time with this word file (.doc) that I’ve titled Hard-Wired. It has sequels and I have most probably lost HW1, 2 and 3 or maybe they’re there on some CD. I still remember how blogging started for me. I had been writing diaries for a few years then, if my memory serves me well, I started to write on the computer and pass on my articles, anecdotes to friends on email. I am not too sure if this habit prompted Ashish to create a blog for me. I remember it was the year 2006 and I’d gone to meet him at the Bible College in sector 47. He created my account and he was the one who named my blog jesslikethat (an interesting parallel to just-like-that containing my name). I was excited and in Ashish’s words, “You took to blogging like a fish takes to the water.”

Every night I’d sit alone in a dark room and punch in anecdotes or sometime just random thoughts that led me punch keys like a mad man. I remember it turning into an obsession. I couldn’t sleep without writing something or the other. I always had something to write about and here I am now, writing about the days that were. I initially named my blog the Sargasso Sea, owing to the meta-genomics project that I was working on. This project was bolstered in India after an American scientist named Craig Venter exploited the meta-genome of the Sargasso Sea, found novel genes and started his own big venture. We Indians followed the footsteps and explored the whole of India for a metagenomic lead to wealth but after spending crores and crores of rupees, ended up with nothing. Nothing except that being a member of the project, my interested in scientific research was kindled and I went on to pursue PhD (of course not in metagenomics) and other crazy plans that I’ve yet to execute. Anyway I changed the name of my blog to “purgatory” after realizing that I was indeed writing any and everything that crossed my head. I then changed it to something that I was at peace with “the long and short of it” for obvious reasons.

In 2006 my blog, in connivance with cupid, caught someone's attention who I started seeing for a while, during a time when my relation with my then girlfriend had slipped into a coma. The end of 2006 brought one of the greatest mental depressions I’d faced till then. I kept posting on my blog. I deleted many of my initial posts in that depression, an act that I still regret.

2007 was the Launchpad of my career. I don’t remember how much I wrote then. 2008 my PhD started and I don’t think I blogged too much in those days. Life was suddenly full of other things and I no longer had the time to write but I doubt if I ever stopped writing completely. 2009 is the year that I don’t recall much of rather a period I have willingly erased from memory (ah! rather it just faded quickly of late). This also was the time when I started to miss those moments that I spent alone in a dark room, in front of a computer, writing my thoughts.

Strangely though, I wrote articles for an online newspaper and I think I wrote three of the total four in 2009. So in many ways I was undergoing a transformation as I’d started to write about more relevant stuff about the world. 2010 turned out to be the most happening year of my life till date. My breakup, arranged marriage plans, the explosions of confusions in my life and then finally…FREEDOM from everything...and then a chance meet with a stranger that...but then maybe not. My PhD work that doesn't really invite much of my guide's intellectual input barring a few spurts once in a few months (y'know just to keep me busy). Where are we headed, what's the relevance of this work? I dunno and no one's answering anything...workwise, I feel like I'm walking blindfolded and being lead by the blind.

But writing liberates me from so many mental shackles. I can breathe again; I lost a lot but in the end I'm reunited with myself. Again, I don’t know how much I blogged in 2010. Too much happened in these 365 days, most of it too emotional, both in a good way and bad, for me to pen those thoughts exactly but I did keep my blog posted. I must admit that facebook annihilated my blogging to a massive degree. All I know is that writing is important for me and though there may be a hiatus here and there, there will always be comebacks and for now, I hope I’ll start to write the way I used to; possessed and obsessed.

1 comment:

saloni said...

hi, i learnt a new word yesterday and that is "lurker" - a person who reads messages on an internet discussion forum etc without contributing...exactly the way i behave when i read your blog.I hope i"ll start de-lurking someday :)