By Noel Alex
Writing, a skill once reserved for scholars and poets alike, is said to be one of the most essential skills that elude the general public today.
Being a good writer is usually judged by getting your work published, or if you were raised in an Indian family, judged by how intensely your mother brags about it to unsuspecting neighbors and relatives.
When it seemed highly improbable that mothers across the country were raising an entire generation of elite writers, the whole thing had a suspicious stench of maternal delusion to it. So there was a need for a more standardized metric, if you will, for mothers to validate said brags.
Enter - the writing contest, or as I like to call it, writing for sport.
Writing for sport is like when the opportunity for sex presents itself unexpectedly. You go in thinking like you’re gonna nail this, but every decision you make is judged by a voice in your head that says ‘I had no idea I was so bad at this’.
Yet I always felt that I had a knack to identify what to write to win. Not what to write to melt the reader's heart, mind you, but specifically what to write to win.
I recognized this once in school after winning an essay writing competition on Mothers Day. When I returned home with a smug smile and presented the trophy to my mother like a roman champion, she had no idea what she was feeling proud about. For if she knew what I wrote about her, I doubt my homecoming would have been welcomed with such grandiosity. Nevertheless the shiny trophy was enough for her to get on the phone and spread the joy to everyone she ever knew- starting from those who’d turn the greenest in envy, to those whose opinions she cared least about, and finally my Dad.
After the dust settled and when there had been enough stroking of the ego, she asked me the question that I’d hoped she would have asked me before her telephone rampage.
‘So what did you write about your amma?’
Well, she passed out when she heard the first line, but in retrospect, her reaction was probably justified.
For the essay called for us to write about ‘My mother’ and the first thing that I felt I needed to communicate about my mother was - ‘My mom is really fat’.
What! Give me a break, I was 8! Hardly the age to understand political correctness. I can barely do that at 29. Next line - ‘She is one of the most sweetest people in the world-
Mother sighed in relief,
‘- except when she is mean to me for not doing homework
or irritates my brother for not coming first in class
or when she screams at the maid for not doing the dishes-’
This went on for a while. She looked like she needed someone to fan her some air and a tall glass of water. I do not recall what I wrote after that, although I’m sure for every compliment, there was a trail of unsavory remarks that followed.
I do however remember how I ended the piece.
‘P.S - Sometimes she fights with my father’.
During the contest, as I peeked into what my competitors wrote, all I could see was unsubstantiated and empty platitudes like ‘My mom is the most beautiful or smartest woman in the world’ or ‘Mamma is an angel’. To which I figured, if everyone was doing this, the only way to stand out was to tell the brutal truth. In my defense, the fact that it was brutal only occurred to me much later in life.
My mom had become an overnight sensation in our school and the entire teaching staff was eagerly waiting to see the mother of ‘the boy who spoke the truth’. On our class teacher's insistence she arrived at the next PTA meeting like a celebrity facing the press after a recent scandal.
To her relief, everyone praised her for raising such an ‘honest’ and funny kid to which she could not help but feel proud of. The pride didn’t get her carried away this time though and she chose to take the position of cautiously delighted. For she realized for the first time in her life, when it came to her son and his writing, caution was critical. With great power comes great responsibility - said no one to me ever.
Some critics would say ‘writing is sacred and like any artform, it should not be used for competition’. I could argue that a lifelong pattern of losing in said competitions is what made them bitter critics in the first place.
Competition has always brought out the best in us and art is no exception. Michelangelo once snubbed Da Vinci for never completing a horse statue in Milan to which Da Vinci replied ‘your statue of David should have had its penis covered up’ (Errmm… touché?). Immature arguments aside, I’m sure they pushed each other to become the best at their craft and history thanks them for it.
So when it comes to writing for sport, I say more please. The worthy need the validation and the unworthy need to have honest discussions with their mothers.
But what do I know? I’m just a writer with an annoyingly honest sense of humor who loves his fat mother.
END
By Noel Alex
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