The Perfect Words

Me and my colleague had just completed a telecon with clients. It was a complicated discussion and seemed to have led nowhere. Plus, some of our questions remained unanswered. But due to time limitation, they had to wind up the meeting. I informed my colleague that we needed to pen down the summary of our understanding (not the minutes, because we were not the meeting organizers nor were we scribes) and highlight the open items in a mail and send it across.

I opened up a blank Outlook mail and started typing. I kept it short and sweet, moved some sentences here and there, edited a few words after review and the mail was ready. It had taken me about 5 minutes to compose the mail, with all the intricate details subtly put and ensuring a speedy response. I looked at my colleague and asked if it was fine, before I could hit the 'Send' button.

My colleague was gaping at me. He said, "I could never have written it so well. How could you manage that?" I felt happily embarrassed. Well, I waved it away as if it was nothing.

Couple of times, my manager comes to me for a write-up on something that he needs, and I will be more than happy to oblige. Of course, if I feel for the topic, there will not be a single review comment. But if I do not like what I am writing, the whole thing ends up in a 'recycle-paper' bin!

But it doesnt mean that I want to be a journalist. Nor do I think I can be a novelist. But I like writing and writing well! Although, I sucked in Verbal section of the GRE. I scored an abysmal 380 out of 800! Yet to come to terms with that!

Not that I am the greatest. When I read some of the blogs, I will be stunned at how well people write, how they play about with the language, the story, the humour and the subtlety. I really feel then that I am no match.

Nor is it that I have a clear cut clarity of thought. I am utterly hopeless when it comes to perspicuous oration. I stutter and stammer, and mix words, tenses, sentences, falter, pick up and, at the end, I am better off being silent. But give me a nice topic and give me a piece of paper and its all glory for me!

To this day, I feel good about what I wrote (impromptu, and with no correction), an essay for the Infosys written test. And I can never forget the 14 page marathon I had written in one shot, small font, with absolutely no mistake (pardon the handwriting though!), on my dear friend Sandhya's farewell diary! I liked it so much so that I requested a xerox of it for myself!!

Recently read somewhere that Ms Sudha Murthy had written a novel on a bride getting leukaemia. This story inspired someone to such an extent that one groom actually went ahead for a marriage with a bride with leukaemia! Truly, this is as good as it can get to a writer! To change someone's life by your words...

Although I cannot change people's lives by writing, it still feels good when I can articulate other people's thoughts into the perfect words and make them say 'Thats exactly what I wanted to say' or 'Thats exactly how I feel about it.' It is nice to see moist eyes when people read some of my touching blogs. It is a warm feeling when someone leaves a comment on the style of writing than the content. For, content is what I feel, and style is all about writing, and writing is an art, and there can be no more happiness for an artist than appreciation of his art...

Let me finish with those Perfect Words...