The Beginning

I was reading up about Mary Wollstonecraft and listening to some lectures on youtube about her. Something that caught my heart was that she wanted to earn her living by writing and that she had said 'i would be the first genus of women to do that'.  Somehow that statement made me very happy. I see myself as someone who wants to make a living with writing, at least partly. So the fact that one of the first feminist writers also thought that was something cool. 

Writing is something that has always captivated me, for me writing is the ability to create something, the ability to express things, the ability to form a political discourse, the ability to analyse the past, and the ability to tell a story, writing has been so many things for me. When I was in cottons, writing was something that helped me form a sort of escape, I would be in my imaginary world and try to write something. Most of the time I was writing about more or less the same thing I suppose, my crushes or my love interest at that time and so on. But just writing about it was some sort of wish fulfillment for me. An added bonus was being able to write good composition in the exams, and getting good marks. I can never forget the joy of seeing my marks on composition, it was particularly special because I was struggling with english when I firs went to cottons. I think it was in my 9th Std. I saw that the topper of the class and I had secured the same marks in composition. I was so overjoyed. It was such a boost of confidence. I went from being the girl who struggled with the language to a girl who scored good on composing something in that language. I think that one incident gave me a lot of reassurance that may be I can write, it sort of pushed me to write more. So I remember I would just write something and keep showing my English teacher, particularly, Mrs. D'Souza. I remember how I would visit her in the staff room and nervously hand over my writing to her in the morning and would go in the evening to discuss it with her and she would talk to me about where I can improve and also about what I had written. Those conversations with her were so memorable. I think this also had a role in my becoming an Anglophile. I remember how much I used to look up to my English teachers even in college.  I don't think I wrote as much i college, my writing was limited to many assignments we had to turn in.  I used to listen to my english lecturers, in awe of their vocabulary and wanted to be able to speak like them, conduct myself like them. One person I liked so much was Ms. Ruth Chandy. She made me fall in love with Poetry and the history of English literature as a whole. I used to love her classes. no matter what classes I bunked, I would never miss hers. When had  Robert Burns' 'My Love is like a Red Red Rose' as part of our curriculum. As part of studying any poet we were to study some other works of the poet and the time they wrote it and the historical context and so on. So when the discussion about 'Auld Lang Syne' came up I raised my hand enthusiastically saying I knew this one. She made me come up to the class and sing it for everyone. I remember I was so nervous to sing, because I didn't think I was much of a singer, but I sang anyway and the whole class joined me. It is such a beautiful memory. Sadly she left our college after our first year. there has never been a day in college when I didn't miss her and wished that she would come back and teach us again.  Another teacher I really loved in School was Mrs. Ninan. She taught us Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in 9th std. I think that is when I started liking Shakespeare, after Mrs. Ninan took over. For as long as she was talking out pens would keep moving, it was like she had this wealth of information and we had to somehow capture everything that she had to say. 

Looking back now I think i liked all my English teachers.