Dec 20, 2006 03:56 PM
2646 Views
I have no idea if its just lovely winter of Bangalore that makes even getting out of your kambal difficult or just a general lazy feeling I have been having, but I haven’t written anything in AGES! Or have I hit a writer’s block being just 47 reviews old? Oh well! I am not some professional writer to do that, just a measly “star”. I am learning from Megs to leave my modesty at home! ;)
So keeping aside all excuses, I thought I will write a review about how did my tryst with writing start in the first place. I tried doing Top 5 kind of thing too, but I just couldn’t bring myself to. This was the next best I could.
Reading was something I enjoyed since a very young age. (Haan bhai writing ke baarein mein bhi natayenge!) Amar Chitra Kathas and Tinkles were staple diets followed by Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew. Around sometime in school my granny started writing letters to me and I started to reply to them. I would show it to my parents before posting em and they would always say “You have a flair for writing. You write straight from your heart.” I would happily skip away. Romance with Mayunk (sorry “s”melly!) was on email than anything else. He is a fantabulous writer and I tried matching up to that level, not succeeding too often. Now it was left to couple of letters a year, maybe an essay for college competition kind of thing. Suddenly I wasn’t writing anything at all.
One day Mayunk showed me his review on Black which he had put up on Mouthshut. I read it, loved it and told him that. But left it at that. Then my sis-in-law started writing too. Call it sibling rivalry or whatever (in law hai toh kya, sis toh hai naah) I thought maybe I should give it a shot too. I signed myself up and didn’t even tell hubby about it. Wrote my first review on Angeethi (love for foodie reviews stems from there itself) and posted it and sent the link to patidev only. *Slowly I got some hits and some comments too.
Soon, there were early regulars on my reviews. Farookh and Juzer were there and so were Karthik and Ken, always there with encouraging comments. I too started reading and rating other peoples reviews and was thoroughly enjoying the ride.
I didn’t even realize how quickly I became a part of the fast growing Mouthshut community.I was now chatting with few members, exchanging family photographs and discussing day to day life.
Within a year’s time, I had met up with a few in Bangalore and in their own cities. Be it Mags in Chennai (thanx for that awesome lunch) or Megs inDelhi (thanx again for that super lunch!) to Mayank and Santhosh in Bangalore*. I don’t do this food thing intentionally, it just happens! Hehe!
Now my day begins with Mouthshut.com just looking at what has been writing, RRCing, replying to that occasional M2M. I look forward to Anton’s n M Zee’s movie reviews, Shyam, the king of DEs’ T-I-C look at lotsa things, Sanjoy’s creative reviews, Megs imagination going great guns, Sudipto’s reviews and the banter in his comments section, Shanti’s fun ones that make me wish I could write like that and Daya’s informative ones. I am amazed at the amount of research that Ratnakar does and my mouth always waters when I read Vikram Karve’s restaurant reviews and I don’t miss reviews by Doogie Browser, Vinayak and Anish. Oh the list is endless. Mags is someone I turn to with my silliest questions and she never laughs at them (not on my face least, hehe!) Chatting with Shanti, Santhosh, Adi , Shyam and Megs is a thing I look forward to It doesn’t seem like I have jus come to know them and it just keeps getting better. I am sure I have missed out on lot of names, but there are so many who are on my regulars’ list.
It has been a journey that I have enjoyed every bit. If this review (which I know it does) comes across as a shoddy attempt, I am just trying to sharpen my brains again. So bear with me, as you always have. : )
For someone who suffers from “foot in mouth” disease, Mouthshut.com has been a revelation!!
