Why can I write?

True, this is a correct sentence. But something at the back of our mind tells us that something is not right. The question looks right if we use ‘can’t’ instead of ‘can’, right? There we have some clue to the strange sound of the title. When we can’t we want to know why and we ask why. When we can, we simply take the ability for granted. We never bother to ask why we can do something. When we can, we don’t want to know why we can, but how we can. Obviously it is a different question demanding a different answer.

This is a question that we should encourage the writers to ask themselves. They might be able to come up with some answers. I asked this question to myself recently though I can’t claim to be a writer of any notability or notoriety. But there is something that those who know me have figured out about me. I love writing. To me, the key board of the computer is better than that of the piano and for audible reasons too. I love to hear the tapping sound on the keyboard and surely, I have a preference for certain well sounding keyboards. After I learned touch typing, the sound of each key seems to be chasing each other with the backspace key coming in between and wiping it all out like a green monster in a child’s video game.

There, almost 250 words already and I have not said anything I intended to say. I am relishing it, revelling in it.  I also delete a lot of what I type, like a child making sand castles.

But the question remains. Why can I write, well or ill, while many can’t. Why am I different? Is it an ability to be proud of, a difference to be put right or a disability to be made use of? I asked this question to myself one of these days and came up with several reasons.

I write because I can. I can because I don’t fear. Growing up with people who didn’t know much English and among books which never had the guts to point out my errors, though they themselves were impeccably error-free, I was never a singed cat. I learned a little bit of grammar from a favourite teacher at school, just enough not to be laughed at. Nobody took the pain of making me feel bad about the errors. I corrected myself when I found that I didn’t mean what I had said and hadn’t said what I meant. I think the unsinged cat says it all.

And there is the passion too. There is music in the words, apart from the tapping of the keys. This is not new knowledge to anyone. Everyone knows there is something in writing like humming an old song. But there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. Something inhibits their motivation, external or internal, to write. They do want to write and many satisfy themselves by talking or talking about the writing they are going to do. As I see it, it is just the fear of standards we set for ourselves or we let other set for us that prevent us from playing on this Apollo’s harp which can raise not just cities but an entire world, the Middle Earth for one.

Thus I believe that the magic potion that makes a prolific writer out of any kid we meet is nothing but our forbearance or shedding of our fastidiousness. When we think of the occasions when we correct them, if it is an honest introspection, we may find new answers. Were we trying to show them an error or show off our knowledge? Pedagogue of pedantic?

We should try to see a child’s writing just the way we see his drawing. It is not correct. But then his drawing is not realistic either, though he intended it to be. Bear with them. Let it come. Let it gush out and remove the clogging in the conduit. Let it come out in quantity and then we can work on its quality and accuracy. That is, if it has not gained them by then and in all probability it would have.