For love of the written word

As a part of my plan today I opened the Microsoft Word to pour out my heart onto it and I realize that the written word we trust in.

I remember buying my first autograph book, back when let alone selfies, but, even cameras weren’t readily available as today. It was one of those routine trips to the book-store that both my papa and I used to enjoy; I largely get my love for books from him. I’d wander around the book store taking in the smell of freshly inked paper and feeling the vibrant stories vaporize from the pages and blend into my skin. To this day every book-store I walk into still reminds me of the Paico in Kozhikode. That’s where he told me that I was a big girl now and that I could read the “grown-up” books; it was my initiation into the unabridged versions of Sherlock Homes and Jane Eyre when I was barely 8. And, that is also where I fell in love with stationary. Quite often than not, I saw my father hoard on stationary that he mostly only collected and never used. So,when I began hoarding stationary who better to understand than my papa. He’s the man who “spoilt me” with my first Parker pen, when at 9 or 10 I had just begun using a pen at school. So that’s probably were I get my love for the written word too.

When I came across an autograph book my father told me that people of his generation carried autograph books to get it signed by celebrities whenever they came across one. I was instantaneously intrigued and wanted one. I got a thick, leather-bound, maroon coloured rectangular book with pastel coloured pages in it. In my excitement, I couldn’t wait till I find a “celebrity” to start filling in the pages. So I got the book ‘inaugurated’ immediately by my hero, the one man who meant everything to me-my papa. I don’t remember what he wrote in it and I have hence lost the book; which I will forever regret. Inspite of a number pf photographs I have with my papa, his written word will always remain special to me. His tiny, well-rounded letters, neatly stacked on a line, expressing whatever it is meant to, in brevity, is a vision I can never forget (He loved to take notes in uppercase, but in tiny font size).

Writing a word, a phrase or a sentence exclusively for someone, to me, is intimacy because I’m accountable for those words and I need to feel strongly to write those words. It’s a frozen moment of expressions that even pictures rarely express. I feel that when you write something for someone you leave a portion of your soul to them; for them to savour. And, because I’m old-school like that, when in love, I’ve always insisted for a love-letter, which my recent ex blatantly refused on grounds that he didn’t have a way with words. I guess it comes as no wonder that he’s an ex.  But, no matter what you write and for whom you write I believe what a reader relishes from your written word says more about them than about the writer. So, when I write to you I’m letting you set a tent somewhere in the density of my soul and it’s for you to decide what fruit you want to pick from the site. And, if you care enough to light my soul, look no further and write to me, because the written word etches its weight into the soul with a power like no other.