Shampoo + Wine = New Beginnings.

I’ve started every second post before apologizing for not having written frequently before.  For giving excuses like I’ve had exams, a wedding in the family, a busy schedule and so on. I know I’ve made excuses to you till there have been no more excuses to make. After I’ve reached no more excuses, I’ve only made excuses to myself until I’ve run out of them, which is now.

I can’t even begin to explain everything I’ve been through since I’ve last posted on this blog. I’ve graduated college, done a post-grad course, started work teaching at a post grad institution while studying as a masters student as an English literature student and now I’m only a Masters. student pretending to be a struggling writer.

I have my excuses to have not written – I’ve been busy, it’s been a lot of work/ studying, I don’t know what to write about, I have gone beyond blog posts, but none of them stand true. If I have to say the truth, which I have decided to now, I haven’t known what to write, I have had so many thoughts at one point of time that I haven’t known how to pen them to words. Or more succinctly, I haven’t known how to pen them to words so I can stand by them.

I have fit myself into so many stereotypes that I haven’t known how to do justice to them. Perhaps this sentence stands more close to the excuse that works best than any other.

I am a very outspoken person. Very. I am also a person who stands on her own beliefs and principles until proven wrong. When I venture out into territories that help prove me right (Or wrong) I’d rather stay silent until I’m sure and then I speak so loud I deafen myself. One should only speak when one can stand by herself or stay shut. That’s at least what I have felt, till now.

As a literature graduate, I was taught to not speak until what I said was politically and grammatically correct, as a university employee, I was taught, to not say anything until what I said was politically correct in terms of university policy. As a writer, I was told to always speak out until what I said resounded with the larger masses.  Unfortunately, I never felt like I was on the right side of the crowd.  As a student of drama..well, let us leave that for another day. When it came to the home, I had a healthy dose of politics and dissent but always in a controlled environment.  I was allowed to say what I felt but contested when either parent disagreed.  As a good student, I was taught to stick to what I was taught. I only just realized, I was never completely honest to myself without a healthy dose of either alcohol or shampoo. The alcohol provided me with liquid courage or an excuse and shampooing my hair with a feeling of cleanliness and ‘sorted-ness’ that I equated to belief.  Today, with a healthy dose of both, I decide to write my first post after a very long time.

Since the followers on my blog crossed an incredibly small number (So small I feel silly even mentioning it) I have been scared. It meant my posts were no longer unread or impersonal and that they were actually read.  It made me feel a sense of ownership that I previously craved but wasn’t quite ready for.  So I stopped posting. I wrote what I had to in personal diaries or articles but not blog posts.  Until today. A healthy dose of alcohol and shampoo is perfect for realizing that if you can’t take ownership of your own thoughts, you can’t take ownership of criticizing anyone else’s. It’s perfect for realizing that you are a person and that necessarily entails thinking. The positions I’ve found myself in, over the past two years are both political and personal. I’ve struggled with ideas of class, caste, gender, and race. While they have been incredibly personal which made me scared about writing about those struggles that might just be more reason to talk about them. So now, I’m going to try.

It’s not like I’ve not had the motivation to write since I last posted. A first-year student from my college said she like reading the posts I wrote in my own first year about the struggle between co-curricular and English, a middle-aged housewife from the US she understood the struggles of a 20 something trying to understand herself and a senior I always looked up to said she read and liked my blog( and here I thought she didn’t know I existed). A combination of confidants, friends and family encouraged writing where there was none.  I’ve had company in the gap. But they’ve all asked why I haven’t posted again.

Here.  I’m trying. If you hear me and can read me, I’ll write soon. It might be a whisper or a scream, but it will be nothing in between.

If you hear me, say hello.

Hi!

UPDATE: So WHOA, I didn’t realize how long it’s been! I have so many new followers! (I still thought I was stuck at fifty), there are so many people reading from Australia and Japan(I know no one from there, or so I think) and 6 people have visited my blog after searching for ‘I May Never Stop Loving You Ruskin’. Hah, now I remember why keeping a blog was so much fun. Okay, must sleep now. Good morning World!