Writing a diary!

A month or two before the year ended, somehow, a diary made its way home. No one purchased a diary, back then. Still, each year, unfailingly, it had an uncanny knack to reach home.  Sometimes, it was gifted by a “client” at father’s office, or it was dispatched from a “company” where some “investment” was made. It didn’t matter.  All you wanted was a brand new diary.

A diary was irresistible- it compelled you to write. May be, it was the leather cover, may be, it was the paper. A pleasant aroma wafted in the air, the moment you picked it up. The pages were fresh and silken smooth, the kind, you wanted to caress repeatedly, and rest your cheek against. The diary had an inbuilt bookmarker, a thin ribbon that took you to the page of interest. In some cases, the diary was neatly apportioned into sections, with a discrete “section divider page”.

Sitting at the desk, with the diary in front, and with a fountain pen in hand, you felt like an artist pondering over his fresh canvas, and about to embark on his masterpiece! What should you write in the diary- was the million-dollar question.

One section in the diary had to be dedicated to “Maths sums”. The “interminable transactions between Ram and Shyam” went into this section. Ram had 16 mangoes. If he had to divide them equally between himself and Shyam, how many mangoes will each get? You tolerated these never-ending problems like a toothache, with the fervent hope that one day, even this will pass away! Strangely, copying these “Maths sums” in a new, gleaming diary, made even Maths look interesting and engaging. The diary did the trick!

From time to time, some advice came your way- “How will you improve your English?  You should diligently write down the meanings of all the words that you don’t know in a diary!” While the suggestion was well meaning, implementation was complicated. Any sentence you read, whether it was in the newspaper or in a storybook, there were at least a couple of words you didn’t know. “Gloat”, “Grin”, “stealing a furtive glance”, “wearing a pensive look”- random words and expressions, filled the diary. Once this section was populated, the diary had to be kept under lock and key. Imagine if elder sister looked at this wordlist. She will surely comment, “What? You don’t know the meaning of “grin”? “Grin” you don’t know? Grin? Do you go to school or simply hang around at 5-gardens and come home?”

Off and on, you needed the diary “to vent out your feelings” and “express yourself”. These days, it is called “journalling”. But this exercise existed back then too. On the first day, you wrote, “Today, I am feeling angry”. Once this sentence was written, you hit a writer’s block. What more can you write when you are angry? The next day, you felt the same, but some modification had to be made in the sentence to avoid repetition. “Today, I am feeling very very angry!” Soon, this section resembled the “degrees of comparison” topic in Wren and Martin- angry, angrier, angriest followed by a bout of happy, happier, happiest before slipping again to sad, sadder, saddest!

Everyone wrote English poetry- at least to submit a poem for the annual school magazine. Once the diary lay open on a blank page, poetry flowed. Just as Goddess Saraswati had bestowed the “gift of poesy” to Kalidasa by writing on his tongue, I had little doubt, she did the same through this diary! “I felt on top of the earth!” I wrote, and immediately…immediately…the next line wrote itself out- “The kind, I have never felt since birth!”  Reams and reams of sublime poetry gushed forth, with not one moment’s pause or deliberation. It was unbelievable!

The most interesting section in the diary was dedicated to Cricket. “S.M Gavaskar caught Rixon bowled Thomson”. At the end of the series in Australia, I planned to have a complete analysis on Gavaskar ready- how many runs he scored, the manner in which he got out, where his weakness lay, and how he could improve himself. Sadly, this detailed research stayed in my diary and did not reach the Little Master in time.

The diary was my “constant companion through rain and shine” (to borrow an expression from the diary itself). One day, grandma came by, and said she wanted a diary. I was alarmed. Why did grandma need a diary? Is she also going to write angry, angrier, angriest? Grandma was very clear, “I need a diary to write “shri raama jayam”! Everything else is useless tinsel!”

You cannot beat the finality of grandma’s pronouncement- everything else is useless tinsel!