I once met a person in a creative writing class and he was surprised to see me. 'Oh,' he said. 'I thought you would be a chubby person with glasses.' A Billy Bunter types. Now the reason why he thought I would be a Billy Bunter and not a 6 foot, dark, villain types was that he had read a few of my self-deprecating humour columns and imagined me that way. I was sorry to bust his illusion but what to do - this is how I am.
But, I wanted to say, I am also that. I am Billy Bunter inside in part. Like I am Famous Five, Hardy Boys, James Bond and Charlie Chaplin, Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh and what not. I am not what I write like, look like, or whatever image you have of me. I am only me and I reveal only one part of me or some parts of me that I feel comfortable sharing with you.
I am not the full me at all times unlike some people. (I still think that whoever you may be, the others might still carry their own image of you!)
So I I choose to be kind, loving and generous in my writing, I am not that person. I am trying to be that person at least in my writing. I am trying to explore that part of me, aspiring to be that, wanting to be that. Will I always be that - not really. Just like a comic need not always be funny and make others laugh, one cannot be what they write or appear to write.
Like when you read autobiographies of famous people you find your illusions shattered. Deepti Naval said after her book - 'people expect me to be that girl next door always. I am not.'
So beneath the Billy Bunter, the kind, loving facade, lies the other extreme also (as it does within all of us) - a villain, a person with vile thoughts, a coward, a confused person, a person with no clarity or love.
But that's ok. Take the Billy Bunter. And drop the rest. Or take everything. Your choice. Just don't peg me as one dimensional because you could only imagine that!
Welcome to the rest of me.
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