Heres a little something, I’d written after one of my first few literary pieces was ripped apart ‘graciously’.
For all those who’re a little zapped by my cordial choice of words…'Hold on'
After a three day wait, we entered Dr. Nigam’s cabin, only to be kicked out on our very first submission.’Guys, Respect your work’, he said, and before he could finish his sentence we ran past the door, into the class, and hurried to our laptop. It took us 21 min to add a date, our name write a topic sentence and get our sheets printed out, once/all over again. Today was the day; we were called in to submit our month long journal in groups of
four.
#First lesson: always be prepared to get embarrassed in front of an audience.
Consider yourself lucky, if it’s a group of four.
Keeping the past in mind,I wanted to go in second, and definitely not first.
In media,being the first is a big misnomer.You never end up with a goodie bag after being the show starter-its a thumb rule you cannot ignore.
So I went in second. It was like the entire worlds seriousness had taken over me . I was scared and nervous ,and umm all the things that make a journalists red card list . He began reading my article and stopped at the very first line. It had the words ‘assets’, ‘inability’ and ‘ruthless’ in the same sentence (big deal). What does the sentence mean, he asked.
What do you mean by ‘what’, I thought. It was the “coolest” beginning ever. My very own metaphor, my very own creation, I was dying to say. But what came out, was quite the contrary. I let him make his point and struggled to explain mine. I couldn’t even convince myself.
#Second lesson: Being convinced with yourself is not “good enough”. You need to have an argument to support every word and even a dot that you’ve typed. Even when your work is ‘crap’, and you have a strong argument supporting it,(it maybe your content or the way you say it, I sucked at both)..it might just work.(one in a hundred, but maybe)
Round 2 of this “untimely trial” had just begun. I was asked to rephrase my first few sentences, and that was it. I was just asked to open my mouth and let words flow, “any word would have done”. But I dint utter a single sound. How could it be this simple, I thought. I refused to give in, without a big fight. Even when it wasn’t required. And guess what? I did exactly what you’re thinking. Managed to look like a complete fool.
Third lesson: Sometimes the simplest things in life might just work the best for you. So stop researching and wasting hours and days over a simple article(in this case) and just let it out, like I just did(hopefully).Stick to the point, and stop complicating your life and that of your readers. For people who cant ‘think’ straight and are like me, I say.’damn’ , you’ re gifted’ , you’ re going to go a long long way.
If you think I’d done enough damage already, then you’re absolutely right. The silence was killing me. I was left with no option. I had to resort to some serious damage control. So I resumed my dead argument. But what came out as the perfect justification to me, were a series of overused qualifiers thrown at him, from all over the place. They were plain, useless words which had just made my argument sound weaker. I was
repeating his questions, not making any eye contact, and behaving like the perfect prey for interviewers like Karan Thapar to feed on. If only walking out was an option, I would’ve left a long time back.
# Fourth lesson: Never ever give your interviewer enough time to trap you in another question .Make your point in minimum number of words. Be very sure of what you’resaying. How can you do this? By simply being a good listener and answering exactly what is required of you.
I was becoming a little impatient. Strangely, so was everyone else. They had passed their test of patience a while ago, without answering even a single question. I could have done that too, I thought, maybe even better. .’Let yourself out’, and ‘stop letting the policeman control you’, he said. I hate being the target of such endless mind games. It’s the very reason, I like to play host in my ‘non plagiarized’ version of the original rapid fire.
#Fifth lesson. While I agreed to majority of the things he said that day. I learnt a little something I’d like to publish in my first book some five years later. But for now-a little teaser.’ Stop thinking too much about yourself’, even your silly girl friend/boy friend cant get enough of herself/ himself out there, to take a look at you. So stop kidding yourself. Speak your mind out aloud. Most of the times the craziest things might just
do wonders for you’
In case a lot of points were repeated throughout, don't even think of blaming the author..:-))
