I Write... Just

I write because... mmm... I don't know why I write. I just write.

Why do you breathe?

Do you think about it before you inhale and exhale in your daily life, do you have to work hard to breathe. No, it just happens, without you even thinking about it.

I write... just like you and I breathe.

Does it matter to me if I am read? Not one bit, if I am liked, sure, it'll be fun to have a few people like it, but in a larger frame, no, not really. I couldn't care.

I feel those who don't like the way I write are fools, because they can't understand depth in simple words. They need deep, confusing, crazy words... so that first they get confused, then sit back for ten days and wonder what the hell did he just say... and when they don't understand it really, they think it's divine and then they'll start believing its interpretations that friends and teachers tell them - friends and teachers who themselves didn't understand it, but heard it from here and there, from their friends and teachers, and maybe after hearing it, twisted it a little to sound a little different so that it doesn't prick their conscience and then elaborate "on their own" interpretation of what they didn't understand in the first place.

I'm not much of a reader, it's because the books I have tried to read, are just so lame. The same books that they call best sellers.

And trust me, these aren't frustrated words of a struggling author. I sincerely mean this.

Maybe, it is a possibility, that I don't like them because I don't understand them - the books - the language... but what the hell, why in the world does one have to use the word 'transpires' when there's a simpler word called 'happens'?

I don't really know when the 'reading trend' started in India. And if you tell me it was there forever, I'll show you my middle finger. Coz it really wasn't.

India, in fact, was considered the worst ever market to sell any sort of books except compilation of Hindi erotic stories.

But now it's different. India is a fairly large market for authors the world over.

And knowing people the way I do, reading started as "something cool to do", at least fiction novels. To stay in the group, to be able to participate in conversations, "Oh have you read this book?"

"Yeah, yeah, I have. What an awesome book! which one are you reading right now?"

"Oh... The Da Vinci Code."

"No I didn't like that one."

"Oh really. Why?"

"I don't know. (Err... because the entire world loved it, and I have to say something different) It was too anti-Christ, you know what I mean."

"Yeah... Kinda."

"I mean come on. Do you really believe Maria Magdalene was pregnant with Jesus' child, and actually gave birth to it?!"

Yeah, that's the kind of sad conversations I'm talking about that those people don't wanna be left out of and so they read.

Or for example one of my ex-girlfriends was keen for me to read because she had dreamt of or wanted to, for some odd reason, re-play the Notting Hill scene where the guy's reading a book while the woman's lying down on his lap on a bench watching kids play around. So she obviously didn't just want me to carry a book to the park and pretend I was reading while she lay on my lap, which of course I would have thrown in as an idea. So she wished I was a reader.

Weird.

Why the fuck should I be reading? I'd rather watch Discovery Channel, or be out meeting people, or traveling around different cities, different countries.

I've seen people sit in coffee shops, in BARS, reading... with the loud music on, a cigarrette between their fingers... every two seconds looking up to see who's looking at them... I swear... grrrr... I feel like slapping them 18 times across their cheeks when I see them.

It's all total bullshit when I tell people I don't read because I am vulnerable by nature and I fear if I start liking an author, I'd start trying to write like him too and lose my own writing style. Bullshit.

I don't read because I find reading (fiction) by far the most time wasting thing on Earth. It's for those who are under-confident. Who are so scared that they don't want to move out of their four walls to face the world.

For those who are so inhibited that they can't leave their homes without a book in their hands so that they are never caught doing " absolutely nothing", if you know what I mean.

For those who aquire all their knowledge through the books they read...

Come on... I've seen people traveling ... on a vacation... and they take along books! How pathetic can you get?

There's so much to see, so much to know through your own eyes, and you have them blocked on a few pages of crappy paper which has something written BY someone else, and has absolutely nothing to do with reality, and he's making millions by making fools out of you and making you waste your time.

Like they say in China, it's far better to travel a thousand miles than to read 10,000 books.