December & Orwell

Our creative partner in Gurugram, Haryana just outside of Delhi in India writes about the last month of the year and what that means to you especially if you're a writer

It’s the last month of the year. A time to reflect, take it slow and prepare ourselves for the newness that life has to offer. But before that can happen, we need to empty ourselves. And that’s easier said than done.

Well, I have developed a few coping mechanisms. I have recognized the magic of sleep, nature’s phenomenon of pushing the refresh button every night. And what better way but to snuggle in the blanket and hibernate, during winter or should I say December?

The other one is reading my diary. Journaling has been an integral part of who I am, since childhood. A habit, I have adopted from my grandfather. I don’t write daily though, unlike him. Nah! That’s not feasible. However, I am in the habit of writing whenever feelings tend to overtake me. Thus, any emotional life event automatically drives me to my diary. My heartaches, turmoil, happiness, and ecstasy are all imprinted there. And it is no longer a physical diary. It’s in the cloud for me to access anytime, anywhere. ;) 

Reading my diary at the year's end provides a bird’s eye view of the same event which earlier I couldn’t comprehend because I was embroiled in it. In retrospect, as I unfold the events, I can always spot my mistakes, learnings, landmarks, and blessings. If I look close enough, every year follows the same pattern, a bell curve with one or two big humps and slumps.

This year, a lot happened at the personal end, with us losing two close family members. I realized that, in the face of death, everything else becomes obsolete. It was difficult to assimilate. I tried absorbing my feelings, and moods, thus, at times even pretending and complying with social obligations. 

I was in my cocoon, just grappling with thoughts, emotions, and the world around which looked like spinning too fast. There was a rumbling of thoughts desperate to decode the meaning of life and the cruelty of death.

And I did what best I am at. Whenever I am at the crossroads, I read, a lot. Thus, I was back at my couch, decoding the words that entered my brain thus, creating a new hindsight for me to look at the world.  

It was at this time, that I read the book George Orwell Essays. Orwell argued that any person who writes has to have four reasons for doing so because writing is as strenuous a job as any.

Quoting Orwell: “Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living.”

According to him, a writer’s sheer ego, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose are the main four motivators to go through the grind. Hmmm….. a few decades ago, as a teenager, I would have disagreed to the hilt. I would have debated that the sheer excitement of writing was sufficient and sole motivator. Today, I would say, that’s how you start…..writing. But, to continue writing, the urge has to be more than just the sheer excitement. Thus, with four decades behind my back, I couldn’t agree more. Sharing Orwell’s words:

1.     Sheer egoism

“Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death………It is humbug to pretend that this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen……But there is also the minority of gifted, wilful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centred than journalists, though less interested in money.”

2. Aesthetic enthusiasm

Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact or one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.

3. Historical impulse

Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

4. Political purpose

Using the word 'political' in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

I have to accept; I write for all four reasons. I have involved myself with children’s literature despite having no background in it; for the sheer reason of inculcating the values of inclusion and diversity among the future generation, something very close to my heart. And that’s a political purpose right there in a polarised world. It is definitely a historical impulse to work in whatever way I can towards creating and being part of the new history. And in doing so, if I may blush myself with sheer egoism and aesthetic enthusiasm, so be it! I am just doing my bit.

To each one of you reading this, I would say, ground your emotions (after all, we are emotional beings) by writing, pour it on the paper, let the words emerge, make a New Year resolution, and you will witness defrosting your thoughts has the power to heal your soul. Do that! 

We aren’t a six billion human population, we are six billion breathing, walking, sleeping life stories…..all unique and yet all connected. 

I would love to read your story this December! 

Thus, arouse the sleeping Orwell!

I wish everyone Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year

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Dr. Shruti Shankar Gaur is an inclusion and diversity leader. She holds a Ph.D. in inclusive education. The University Gold Medalist, recipient of the Certificate of Academic Excellence by the Ministry of Human Resource & Development, Government of India, and being nominated for the Shiksha Rattan Award, Dr. Gaur is the founder of a start-up Research & Innovation InEducation, RIEDU. She is a passionate edupreneur, a published poet, an ardent researcher, a sustainability enthusiast, a hard-core dreamer, an empath by heart, and much more. She is a Fellow at the Center of Excellence on Human-centered Global Economy at The Digital Economist, New York, United States, and creative partner with Sankarsingh Gonsalves Productions. Her work can be explored here:

https://drshrutishankargaur.com/  and she can be contacted here: shrutishankargaur@gmail.com