From a very young age, I fell in love with words.
My mother was a poet, and wrote incessantly.
That may have had something to do with it.
The newer the words, the bigger the words, the more unusual the words, the more fascinated I was.
2 of my older sisters left India for good.
Another went to Calcutta to study.
I wrote letters to all 3 of them.
I used all the new and wonderful words I picked up from the dictionary.
*Sobriquet* , *ennui *, *zeit geist*, "Floccinaucinihilipilification".
"We can't understand a word of Minoo's letters" one of my sisters wrote in a letter to my mom.
Nevertheless, I loved my big words.
I thought I was making a super cool impression on everybody.
They made me feel superior.
I managed to find multiple outlets for my love for words.
For instance, when a family friend Janet taught me and my brother the guitar, I started composing songs, and writing my own lyrics.
I ended up with 30 compositions, and no college degree.
I also wrote freelance articles for Deccan Herald.
Cupid’s arrow struck.
Providing me with a new way to use words.
By creating romantic cards.
The cards were a simple folded piece of paper. Couldn't afford anything better.
"You're a magician" is what I might have written on the outside of the folded slip of paper.
"Whenever I see you, everyone else disappears", is what I might have written inside the folded slip of paper.
When I became a copywriter, I discovered I couldn't be pompous, or mysterious, or ambiguous with words anymore.
Multi-syllable words like palatable, delectable, and epicurean had to go out the window.
The finely-honed Shashi Tharoor part of me recoiled, but I got the memo...
"Tasty", "yummy" and"finger-licking good" were the only way to go.
You can read about how advertising changed my writing here.
In time, I also discovered crosswords and scrabble.
Crosswords perfectly suited my introverted nature.
But I loved Scrabble.
I TRULY LOVED SCRABBLE.
In fact, I don't think there was ever a time in my life, starting from when I was a teenager, that I didn't own a Scrabble board.
Padmini and me would play a quick Scrabble game during the lunch break, when we both worked at HTA.
While Mira Prabhu and me would would play back to back games, sometimes all day long, every time we caught up with each other.
My most memorable Scrabble game was played with Eugene Titus one MAA Day.
A game worth recording for posterity.
My early and obsessive love of words, would result in me landing my first copywriting job on my 20th birthday.
I would continue being a career copywriter, until I moved to the U.S.
Today, I am a freelance Commissions Analyst, but I continue to express my love for words on my Minoo Jha Life Strategies blog.
And I also write on Quora, and on Linkedin.
If I had to pick a symbol to represent my childhood and youth, I would pick a dictionary.
With its sobriquets, and ennuis, and zeit geists, and floccinaucinihilipilifications, and coddiwomples, it is a perfect symbol of my lifelong fascination with, and devotion to words.
And now, it seems to me, it's your turn.
If you had to pick a symbol to represent your youth and childhood, what would it be?
Maybe it would be a dictionary too.
Have fun thinking about that.
Actually, have fun pondering, contemplating, debating, considering, entertaining, weighing and cogitating what would that be.
Oh how I love words!
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