Poetry writing sessions

How green is the paddy,
O, look at it granddaddy…

I was sitting at the windowsill
Enjoying the beauty of the hill,
When I noticed there was a mill….

By now you get the drift. Yes, I confess I was the wordsmith (not to be confused with Wordsworth) behind all these beautiful creations. Now, when yours truly was in Class 6, she discovered the world of poetry thanks to William Wordsworth, Shelley, Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath and a lot of such luminaries whom she met regularly in her English textbooks. Now I being always with the literary bent of mind, had to try my hand at poetry when I saw the beauty of their poetry.

The only rule, which was drilled into my head, was that for a bunch of verse to be called poetry all the verses should rhyme. Things like meter, intonation and other inane things never entered my 11-year-old brain. So began my crazy poetry writing sessions wherein I was finishing notepads at alarming speed. I was like a man (in my case girl) possessed.

The approval-seeking girl that I was, I would run to show off my creations to dad & mom for their appreciation. I never did understand why Dad had sudden bouts of coughing or why mom’s lips twitched after reading one of my most beautiful stanzas (of course, all perfectly rhymed).

Then, all hell broke loose when my sister also got into the picture. Whereas dad merely coughed, sis guffawed outright at my face after my poetry recitals. Now I know for a fact that literary souls are very sensitive and they do not take any reviews other than glowing appreciation kindly. So yours truly used to go into bouts of depression at frequent intervals. She could never understand as to how her own flesh and blood could not understand the greatness of talent, which resided in their house. Her only solace in those moments of depression and self-doubt was the famous age old Malayalam saying “Muttathe mullayku manam illa” (Meaning you don’t appreciate the things in your own home.)

Now sis being a person of the long tongued variety started pulling my legs at all family functions about my poems. I, being the elder sister brushed her off and couldn’t bother less as I had discovered something new. Yes, my dear people, leaving my beautiful poetry aside, I had moved onto something bigger; story writing.

P.S.: Effects of my story writing on my family call for a separate article in itself.