I feel like I have walked into a clear stream with mud covering my feet. As I look down to really see how I got here, I wish I had seen what my journey was really like. I’ve been blogging and writing for a long time, so long that I thought I was over it. The more discomforting truth is that I’ve lost my own voice with all this writing. I could turn to the well everyday and draw up something to write about, I could read or hear something that might taste like water to the dry pallet I had for inspiration. Long into the process it was all inspiration reaching into an empty well. Much of what I’ve written is just echoes of better work and of what I liked. So much so that repetition and rephrasing became the meat on my bones, I’ve been creating an assortment of platypus like creatures just to keep publishing and farming readership for nothing of value. So after this brief reprieve, I’m going to go back to writing but actually reach for the water. I’d rather write to hear my own voice than continue with the same old nothing. I’m tempted to discard everything I’ve written so far if I’m being very honest but I haven’t taken that decision yet. For now I will rest and get a taste of my own voice.
Tag: blogging
Dry Fountain
Old haunt by water
My shadow slips,
Fall to starless night
I’ll walk your footsteps
Steal them for mine.
Serious E-Stalking
It’s one thing to google yourself, but stalking people who share your name is a far more interesting and rewarding experience.
Psychologists say people like hearing their own names and I guess its true. I don’t know many people with my name and it’s unusual enough for no-one to have ever made a nickname that’s stuck. Maybe that’s what makes me feel like the name is mine and maybe that’s why seeing people with the name is so weirdly fascinating.
The many websites that explain what Rijul means also list an bunch of stars and planets that go with the name and even offer you advice on what Chinese zodiac signs or birthstones you should get for your self. But that’s just the usual crazy.
Most of the Rijul’s I found had the surname Jain. I always figured it was a Jain name but was surprised to find that it was unisex. If Google images is to be believed nearly all Rijul’s wear suits and a terrible number of them are on LinkedIn for no reason. Seriously there are teenagers called Rijul on LinkedIn sharing Dragon Ball Z memes.A surprising number of these teens wear suits which makes me feel bad because I might have only worn a suit twice in my life. And I still haven’t found a single Rijul under the age of 30.
But the most Bizarre thing about the image results is the large number of images of cakes with the word “Happy birthday Rijul on them.” There are easily more than 27 of them that come from a website called “HappyBirthdayCakePic”
On twitter the most prominent Rijul is a Rijul Jain who says NASA launched moon missions with computers less powerful than out phones while all we do is launch birds into pigs. He hasn’t been active since 2011 and like all the other Rijul’s wears a suit.
There is a website “1happybirthday” that offers birthday songs that you can download. It even has Spanish translations of the happy birthday song dedicated to Rijul’s. Unfortunately its sung by a white lady who keeps saying bday and reeejwel so it sounds kinda weird.
There’s also a blog that is run by another Rijul who extols people to be gentlemen and women. I also found a video called Rijul at 9. It’s a video of a small kid playing at the park. The fact that the park is deserted, the video has no previous views, the video-maker makes no noise and seems to be filming from a far away location make the video really creepy. And of course even the dam kids was wearing a suit.
The uncool-est thing I found was an urban dictionary entry about Rijul. The entry goes :
An awesome name of a dude who likes to play guitar and basketball. People enjoy being around Rijuls a lot. Rijuls are party animals who love to socialize.
Girl 1 – That dude is so awesome. I wish he was my boyfriend.
Girl 2 – Yup, he’s a Rijul.
Girl 2 – Yup, he’s a Rijul.
The entry has an equal number of up-votes and down-votes.And of course it made by a guy called Rijul. I don’t know how to feel about this.
There’s also a website dedicated to some Rijul’s wedding. There are plenty of “pre-wedding photo’s” of some other Rijul’s on Facebook but none of them go so far as website Rijul. No not even the Bengali blog that has picture of another Rijul (in a suit) signing his marriage documents goes as far as website Rijul. Because website Rijul has three websites about his marriage that is yet to take place. The websites tell you all about what they want their guests to buy, where in California they are getting married, about their family members, what their friend think of them, what their siblings think of them etc.
Their about page has been edited. Possible because the previous entry made it clear they had never met each other and had been forced into the thing by their parent’s. Now it has some generic messages about love. And of course the numerous pictures of Website Rijul all have him wearing suits.
You might ask what the point of all my stalking and this essay was. I don’t know, I’m usually the one rolling my eyes at the people who stalk people on Facebook. But I had an hour to kill and at least it was entertaining.
How people find my blog
Most of the 1000 vistors I got that this year are people who know me in real life, follow me on social media or on WordPress.
However WordPress has a “search term” feature that tells you how some lost souls came across your blog.
Here are the more interesting search terms that took people to my blog:
- Story of peeing of with mother others in paddy fields
- My poor malalala
- My poor malayalam.com
- Smelt strange
- Cume side rijhul
- www. How to make a ballal side
- Rat flower
- Public Press Word
- Window stories
U Word Essays
Underpants, umbrellas, uterus’s, understatements… I’m really starting to wonder if I should dump the current word essay format and write stories about underpants and umbrellas.
These word essays have become a writing journal of sorts and are rather pleasant to work on but they’re starting to make me a little impatient. Write fictions seems more interesting now, but I can’t use the word essay or word story challenge till I’m done with this challenge I’ve. So the stories about flying umbrella wielding mermaids who are out to lay eggs inside the heads of unsuspecting… Maybe I shouldn’t give the story away just yet. And yes my head does have a tendency to come up with disturbing fiction.
Untamed, unspoiled,utopia, uncensored… “U” seems to spend most of it’s time working as a prefix. Do letters feel bad about not have a lot of words that they have exclusive access to? “U” seems like the sad chap who always has to rent his suits. For every usual or umpire there seem to be 40 unclean, uncertain, un-this, un-that.
A lot of words that start from U feel serious in a bad way. Uniform,umpire,undertaker etc. they seem to scream somber. Utopia- that’s not a happy word, it means happy things but doesn’t seem very happy. It drab and serious in comparisons to Paradise- which seems to leap at you with excitement.
A sort of unsoiled utopia. That’s what the exams would have been if there weren’t so many holidays between each exam, and if the exams started in the morning instead of the afternoon. I would have have just walked in and out, writing about stuff I heard heard through the year and spent the rest of the day at ease.
There’s a species of happy laziness that can’t survive with too much free time, and there’s no way you can “study” for journalism so here I am writing, and speculating about future stories involving flying mermaids.
Writing about not writing
“I’d slit your throat for a trinket”. Over and over in my head it rings. It’s been two days since I stopped writing daily, and I’ve realized that addictions always come as a surprise.
Mount and Blade: Warband, that’s where the line is from. It’s a Turkish video game about a fantasy medieval world, started by a husband-wife duo (imagine those arguments!). After lecturer V suggested I stop trying to post everyday and take some time to pay attention to the world, to see what that would do for my writing, I’ve been unsure what to do with myself.
I spent first day repeatedly opening new tabs, making notes of ideas until I realized I wasn’t supposed to be working that day. It felt like something was trying to claw it’s way out from inside my head. I rolled over and told myself I’d find something better to do all day. I then realized it was 5:30 am and I was thinking about writing even before I was fully awake.
The next day, the semester was over and I downloaded Mount and Blade again, since I had nothing to do during the study holidays. After a day of gaming, reading, being attacked by bandits who kept telling me they’d slit my throat for a trinket and trying to convince emirs to invade Nordic lands etc. here I am again. Writing.
Rijul Ballal 