It was a September morning in 2016 battered with torrential rainfall, clutched by the strong smell of earth, mangoes, and wet leaves. This was the inaugural day of subscribing to an English Newspaper in our household. As I leafed through the crisp pages, a magazine slid out, detaching from the limbs of the newspaper. The magazine was called ‘SHOUT’, a weekly publication of The Daily Star- a leading English Newspaper in Bangladesh. I eyed the contents with utmost interest including the engaging yet humorous articles and noteworthy illustrations. That morning unfolded as an eye-opening one, making me aware of the existence of such a magazine in the country.
Ever since the discovery of that magazine, I have been constantly writing and submitting relentlessly, losing count of the number of times my work was rejected. Back then, I would spam their emails a great deal, sending the same rejected write-ups over and over again, assuming that they had gone unnoticed by the publishers. Almost a year later, I finally got published.
On the day my writing appeared, I remember waking up at 6 in the morning; my nerves throbbing with anticipation to receive the magazine as soon as it flung at our doorstep. I remember frantically running up and down through our building in search of the paperwala, since for some reason I thought he was loitering somewhere inside the building, delaying the delivery of newspapers to other flats. Almost an hour later, the paperwala actually came (rendering my silly overthinking untrue), with his cycle-bell squeaking and back seat croaking under the weight of words and sentences, including all sorts of tragedies in international affairs such as the blunders of Donald Trump.
As I received the paper, I quickly skimmed to the page in the magazine where my poem resided in a cozy corner. I eyed each bend and curve of my writing speculatively as though I was in a daze. Such was my excitement that I failed to study for my exams that were only a week away. I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate-my name and creation were on the pages of a national English Daily’s supplement!
My parents, of course, spread the news to everyone out of excitement, despite me telling them not to.
After the news had reached every ear, my relatives began referring to me as ‘Michael Madhusudan Dutta’, a Bengali poet renowned for his blazing contributions to literature. They called me that because like Michael, who had left his hearth and home, converted and practiced English Literature extensively, I, too, wrote in English, my second language, and not Bangla.
I have spent a year writing for ‘SHOUT’. The experience exposed me to many things; revelations surrounding self-worth, the workings of a publication, the materials needed to hone the craft of one’s writing, and lastly, the importance of keeping writing in practice.
My passion for writing led me to submit my work to other supplements of The Daily Star. Although this time the rejections I received weren’t as cruel as the initial ones, I still questioned my worth. Even though my writing found its way in the Op-ed sections of selective magazines, I wasn’t content. This is because there were still other international mediums that hadn’t accepted my work. The rejections in my email came from the publications I craved to earn my place in.
Call me over-ambitious or greedy, I still find myself doubting my worth. It almost feels as though the art of writing has not settled on me, like a limb flying away from my body. I feel that I should stop being so obsessive and fastidious, but then I remember that it is because of this obsession with writing that I was able to successfully earn what I sought for.
Regardless of how discouraging the rejections may seem, I am not willing to give up. Not yet at least, because I still have a lot to learn.
The only way I swim out of the ocean of self-doubt is by reading. During my rudimentary stage of writing, someone had rightly suggested, “Read everything. If you want to write like an author, you have to read their works”. The advice upended me, throwing me into the mouth of an extreme reading frenzy.
I never thought I’d become a bookworm. I never thought I’d love the caress of a book’s spine warm against my palm. I never thought I’d sniff the essence out of a book including the smell of dead wood and letters. I am always emptying my pockets to crowd my bookshelf with the creations of amazing minds.
My struggle with writing has not only taught me about the merciless pangs of rejection and the breeze of acceptance, it also taught me the importance of reading. It is through reading that one knows things and that the eyes of the mind stay open; one walks the adventurous terrains of human motions, and their existence begins bleeding in an alternative paper-world.
There is truly no other way.
Shah Tazrian Ashrafi writes for The Daily Star. His writing(s) have appeared in various supplements of The Daily Star, Kitaab, The Metaworker and The Penmen Review. Email: [email protected]