Writers
The Hand That Holds the Pen Writes the Story
What drove me to pick up the paper & a pen?
Growing up both my parents👫worked and my older brother👨🦰 had the afternoon shift at school while I was in the morning shift. So I spend a lot of time on my own.
We didn’t have any devices and obviously, there was no internet back then. So my only companions were written words📚.
My parents made sure that I read📖 so I got “Nonihal” (a kid's monthly magazine in Urdu) and the “young world” (a weekly kid’s magazine in English). I enjoyed the stories & Bait Baazi (poetry) section in Nonihal.
Few of my aunt and uncles were into Shayari (Poetry) so guess I picked my interest in poetry from them.
I borrowed story books 📚from the library at the community education center. Once I remember I went to a book fair with my late father and bought the book “ Patras k Mazameen“ (a collection of satirical essays) by Patras Bukhari. I was drawn to it because of the book cover. It had a yellow background with funny faces drawn over it. As far as I remember that was the first-ever book I purchased to read.
So that’s how my fascination with the words begin. I was amazed at how one can create a world in their thoughts and bring it to life on paper. It was magic 🧙♂️
But I started writing ✍after I lost my father to process the grief 🙁. I am still not over it. I feel this is going to stay with me till the end of my life. A few years back I wrote a “Nazm” (Poem) on his death anniversary. I haven’t shared it online.
Later in life when I stepped into the land of mindfulness I wrote ✍to resolve confusion on the mental plane.
I am a very selective reader🧐. I was mostly into Urdu books and especially poetry. But in 2006 a colleague handed me the English translation of the novel titled “Sophie’s World”. And I was completely lost in it. The word Sophie comes from the word Sophia which means wisdom in Greek. So the title hints that you are about to enter the world of wisdom.
It was about a girl Sophie who got a course on the history of philosophy from a mysterious teacher 🧙♂️. My God, it was a page-turner😮. I totally fell in love 💖with the writer, “Jostein Gardaar”.
His stories are very unpredictable. Gardar loves to surprise his readers. This book had a profound impact on my thought processing.
It is only recently that I started to share my writings online💻. I am not sure how long will I be sharing my stuff. But so far I am enjoying the journey. That was my story.
So what drove you to pick up the paper & a pen?
Thank you for inspiring this Rimsha Salam
Peace 🕊
Thanks for reading 💖
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