Blog Baby

 BLOG BABY

I was 9 years old when I wrote my first blog titled “The first time I ate a samosa”. It was for a competition in school, and we were asked to submit our entries.

I was so proud of what I wrote, so much that I kept reading my own many times. I do that now too and I appreciate my own writing and I am my own critic as well.  

The writing was about 2 pages long. It had description about the Samosa, the taste, the texture, my family and about me closing my eyes and looking up to the sky for the very first bite. Before submitting it to the school, I thought I should let my mom know. I showed it to her.

My blogs have always been around Humor genre. I tend to hide the actual painful experience of the situation behind humor. It works! I smile at my own situation. I laugh at my own jokes. This little writing was behind a sad story, which I somehow managed to convert it into a funny experience.

We were poor. Not poor as in being homeless poor, but poor like, we need to save money for your marriage so there is no money to buy a Samosa kind of poor. Fair point, considering that in 16 years we were to have around 10 lakhs worth of money from not eating Samosa’s. It was a good excuse to deny me money for the food stall event in school. This was back in the 1990’s where having a junk food stall at your school was a big thing. It was first of its kind for a 4^th grader like me.

The menu was not out yet, but the instructions given was to bring money to eat from the various stalls that are open. The proceeds of which would go to charity. Come to think of it, most of such events, the proceeds go to charity. Don’t we have enough money by now to eliminate poverty? Just asking… for a friend.

Anyhow, after many days of begging my mother to give me 50 rupees, which involved a lot of lectures about how to save money, why attending the charity event was not important and about “You are 9 now, it is time you show some maturity”, I finally had the money to eat the bare minimum. I finally was able to walk into the gates of my school with a sense of “ok! I now possess in my bag a huge amount of FIFTY RUPEES, and no one will know I am poor”, kind of feeling. I do not know the actual word for that feeling. State syllabus, synonyms did not help either.

We all know how much worth that money was in those days. If you do not know, I am sorry you were born too late. No, seriously, I am feeling sorry for you.

For most of us kids born in the 70’s or 80’s, the joy of finding a 5 paise coin on a muddy road while walking back from school and running to a yellow fritters or gooseberry vendor, eating that before we reach home and clearing evidence of salt and chilly powder from our hands and lips was equivalent to your current joy of having 1M followers or views. Maybe more joy because that was real joy.

Yes dearies, 5 paise was a thing.

The event began. I ate my first ever samosa. It was tasty, maybe because I have never had one before. I admired its shape, it’s texture and relished every bite until I licked my fingers clean. I did not have more money to buy another, because there were few more stalls to visit.

Many months later I would be writing a small comprehension as it was called those days, about my experience of eating a Samosa and now to think of it, who knew many years later, I would be writing a blog about the blog I wrote about that day! Sorry if you must read that again, I am confused myself.  

Anyhow, going back to my 1^st submission to my mother. If you remember, I handed over the writing to my mother? Today as I recollect, that was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Because my blog journey ended even before it began. Wondering why? You see, not everyone has the maturity to handle humor. My mother took offence of my remarks about poverty. I remember writing about how she refused to give me any money and about how I cursed my stars for being born in a poor family. She took so much offense that she shredded that paper right there in front of my eyes and the submission never went to the school.

With that ended my writing dream, until 14 years later I rekindled my passion for writing and swore I will never do 1^st submissions to mom again.

Irony of this entire story is later part of my blogging life, my mother happened to be my best critic, and best marketing agent. She would mass forward my writings to all her friends and talk to them with pride about it. Funny. Poor woman does not remember ripping apart my Samosa paper, but it is fine. I forgive her. I would not have won anyways. Apparently, I was the only one who had not tasted a Samosa before so my writing would not make headlines.

29 years later, today, I remembered my writing, and I took to my laptop to write.

The reason I am writing this today, is because of a huge discovery that has made me so elevated with joy, speechless and so much to say at the same time.

While I was clearing my son’s bag of lead powder, shredded sheets of paper and dirt, I discovered few papers stashed away in a book.

I opened them to read and there were around 5 to 6 pages of some writing. The topics are: 

-          The second Bruce Lee

-          The Glitch games.

-          The football boys

-          And few more untitled writings which I am yet to read.

He is 9. 

 

Thanks for reading.