Having led mostly an uneventful life. I knew that this type of existence is never the genesis of an artist or a writer. Most great art has arrived with years of practice. In my case, over the years, I had mastered being a perfect housewife.
To me perfection meant running a home like clockwork. The kitchen would have the aroma of fresh cooking, the juices would be fresh and the sheets were mostly crease free. Still it felt incomplete.
When I was alone, I would recall the people I had met in my life as a child and the life I was leading as an adult. The change and chasm was impossible to bridge anymore. But memories played its game of hide and seek. I could by now, see people in their nakedness when the lights were out. It was fascinating and thought provoking.
I thought of my childhood acquaintances. I wondered how had they navigated life? Were they like me? Searching for the mirage? Were they charting new territories in life? I tried to tell stories about them to my friends, but it mostly fell on deaf ears. Except for my son, who loved listening to them. This is where the start of my storytelling began. It was in the nights when I cradled my little one to sleep. I created stories to fascinate him and make him wonder about the world we inhabited.
After he was blissfully asleep, I wrote little notes. I was hesitant in my writing and cautious to not get caught, admiring the guts in the underdogs who never gave up in life, inspite of the struggles. I saw myself , as a freak. Why was I restless?
I must admit I never thought too seriously about a book. Books were for intellectuals. I was anything but that. So I resigned to planning tiffins. I understood over time that the title of a housewife never gets taken seriously. It bothered me, but I gave in. I was becoming mildly rebellious. I was reluctantly obedient to the rules. The fire was still raging within my heart to express. I savoured the insolence in my thoughts and found comfort with that side to me. The more surer I got, the more the pen moved. I began expressing.
I wrote mini Instagram stories. My stories were mostly melancholic. They were women suffering patriarchy, isolation, diseases. People who were displaced. The whores, the dancers, the househelp wanting to learn English to make a man fall in love with her, became my protagonists. I grew with them as I wrote about their failed attempts at life, but still being able to cock a nook at the eventualities.
I joined social media very late. It was in 2017, I learnt about this fire spewing dragon called Facebook. It was a new world. I was hesitant to write too much. I controlled my writing. I was cautious to not express my adulation for the freedom that is found in the rebels. I worried about how I would be perceived.
2018 I began writing more bravely. They were small write ups on Facebook and Instagram. It went down well with people. This was my Eureka moment.
In 2019 I bravely joined a writing workshop. It was my first solo travel. I decided to do the workshop with strangers. The workshop was in the lap of the Himalayas. This was a big turning point in my life. I met amazing people and I met myself for the first time. It was in the cold, winding roads of Sathkol, where the horse bells, grazing grass was my alarm bell.
2020 went away in personal upheavals. I do owe my book to this patch in my life. The more pain, I experienced, the more I wanted to articulate it.
2021 I wrote my book in hospital corridors. My Ma & Baba took turns to be intensely unwell. I was weeping to see them get insecure about old age and their disease ridden bodies. This decay in them made me recall the days of their abundance. I wrote about the stories I shared with them both in their hey days.
This book Nautanki Saala And More Stories is a collection of short stories of real men and women, I met during the 80s to the 2000.
Today I call myself “Author Mohua Chinappa”, sheepishly. I feel humbled and full of gratitude for all who put me down, made me feel lesser. Without them this would not be possible.
The evolution in me from a housewife to an author, is still ongoing. But I am willing to walk the mile to reach my pinnacle, where judgement of others won’t matter anymore. I will always dare. I will strive to tell the story as it is.