Discovering my own Malgudi. And encouraging teens to write.

        

        I discovered my own Malgudi in recent times. In a biggish village in south Kanara.

On the trips that I make to that spot along the west coast, the local bus station is my hang-out. I need to buy my daily newspapers there, that is if the few that are supplied don’t run out. I can sit here and sip a cup of tea and just look long. Even blankly.

I noticed an old post box tied to the pillar of the bus station office. Thoughts floated in me. Maybe I could walk up to the local post office which was also in that zone, buy some inland letters and write randomly to friends whose addresses I had on record. Or amble to the weekly 'sandhai' ( market) and wander from shop to shop - red chillies, greens, lemons, melons, tamarind and jaggery . .

Just write what I saw in my Malgudi.

I got talking to the drivers of the local auto stand. They had many little stories to share but they would bolt the moment they got a customer. More later, they would say.

I would ask them - but why aren’t there any autos in this place after seven in the evening?

Nobody needs autos and buses then, one said.

Another half-smiled.

We too need a break, he chimed.

Some of them would meet at the watering hole on the edge of the bus station. Order their tetra-packed drinks, lick the freshly-made mango pickle and zoom home after an hour of unwinding.

I have notes for a little book now!

I carry my Pigma Micron pens with me since I have begun to doodle. 

In the mood, I pulled out a pen and tried to draw the bus station scene before me. Rows of buses with fancy, colourful legends stuck to their sides.

I felt good on that afternoon in early May.

At Mylapore Times, we launched the Online Magazine for young people last weekend. We have been doing this for a year or two now. Since our neighbourhood teens are on a big break and some creative souls may want others to read, admire and react to their work, we want students to contribute their poems and short, real short stories, artworks and cartoons, anecdotes and essays, short essays may they be, to this Magazine.

On the weekend, we received two contributions. One from a student of Vidya Mandir: she has already published a book and it is sold online. The other, from a Sivaswami Kalalaya student, who showcased her ‘animated’ art.

Both are posted online - at the Magazine link at www.mylaporetimes.com

You have three weeks to send your creative work to us.

The details of what you can do and how you must send it are all there, online.

I am sure all of you who write well, or paint or doodle, or are poets in the making. Or even jot down scenes of your holiday or of life around you. All this and more can find a place in this Magazine. 

It feels good to be published. To be read by people.

Start young; start now. Our weekly neighbourhood newspaper is offering you the platform.