The power of the written word

Before I answer that question, let me take you backwards in time to some warm summers in the 90s, when packing bags for our 2-month vacation to be spent in my maternal ancestral home in Nemmara — a little hamlet overlooking the Nelliampathy hills amid tall coconut palms, mango groves and stretches of paddy fields staring up at the summer sky — included books and a diary.

Every year, Mother could not quell her irritation in finding a couple of books in spaces that should occupy gifts for cousins, aunts and grandparents. She shook her head in irritation as I only agreed to move the books from one bag to another and not leave it behind entirely. She refused to understand that when there were cousins and family to keep me company, why would I crave the company of books.

An avid reader herself, she thrived in the company of people and preferred the joy of catching up with extended family and visiting them, to the rare luxury of sitting under a mango groove or beside the temple pond on a warm early morning with a lone cuckoo singing a melodious tune and a book for company, while my cousins were still locked in slumber.

There was an inexplicable joy in sitting with my diary under the moonlit night after an evening of play watching my cousins chatter away while I scribble a story that was born from the deep darkness of the night and feel a shiver down my spine as I imagine it come to life. It felt wonderful to be in the warm company of family and yet make solitary travels to places that existed only in my head.

Unlike the greats mentioned above, all of whom were introverts and believed that solitude is a crucial ingredient to stimulate the creative mind, I only assumed that I was odd. This knowledge can force you to fit in and push you to become everything that you are not.

I forced myself into elocutions, choir and dramatics, all of which I enjoyed but required effort and preparation to play the part between curtailing jitters and the awkwardness of being in the spotlight; however, every experience transformed into stories that sprang to life when my mind was the loudest in the quiet company of myself — some ended in awkward triumphs while others concluded in confident victory.

Once while on a job at a hospital, I was first posted temporarily in an office on the OT floor, the operation theatres were to be renovated and not in use then. The otherwise busy OT corridor was now empty aside from a few doctors who held office in there and the security in-charge who did a regular round of the premises. With only me for company, the first day was uneventful.

On the second day, a colleague joked that I might have a few OT ghosts for company, and that got me a bit apprehensive about my time with myself for the first time ever. So, to humour myself, between jobs I wrote a silly but interesting conversation that I might have, enough to buy time until the security came by, just in case an OT ghost decided to stop over.

Over the years, as I hopped onto the rickety ship of matrimony and then landed on the shores of motherhood, I have learnt to accept myself and channel my energies into doing what matters most.

I may not be the loudest speaker in the room or even likely the first to talk, yet I find my voice without speaking a single word, for I have found my voice in the written word. Being an introvert, I realised, is a superpower — one that got me to write this column.

Pranitha Menon is a freelance writer based in Dubai. Twitter: @MenonPranitha