It’s funny how people say after reaching a certain milestone that “It feels like yesterday when I started.” For me, it is as if I have always been writing. It has been my second nature and still the primary medium for me to convey my thoughts and relish in my muses.

But how it all started, really? I have been asked this quite a lot. Let’s answer that today.

Back during my childhood days, I used to enjoy reading stories and comics, like many of us might have. I have always found reading to be more fascinating than studying (obviously) or playing out.

So reading Tinkle within 3 days of getting it in my hands, finishing all the stories from my English textbooks during a boring class, getting hands on new and different books now and then were the initial signs of getting drawn towards this medium and falling in love with it.

What’s interesting to note is : even though I was fully into exploring and reading these literature, I never actually came across the kind of books a normal bibliophile would. All the Harry Potters, Wimpy Kids ,Twilights or any of the inspirational non-fictions never met me. Those who did, were Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi during my high school days.

This love for getting immersed in reading is what compels me to write as well. The essay writings and the letter writings, which many used to despise, I found myself giving extra efforts in writing them. I knew I was good at it, but never knew I would actually love it so much.

Then, Manipal happened. It’s a place which encourages to explore yourself. The clubs, the events, the people – they all inspire you to tap into the part of yourself that you didn’t knew existed. I was initially reluctant to join any of the clubs ( so that I don’t “lose my focus on studies” ) but then at some point realized it’s worth a shot. But what can I possibly do?

I saw the recruitment poster of a certain startup or organization which had “content writer” as one of the roles. Out of all things, the words “content writing” striked to me as something interesting and worth trying.

And thus, the journey began. It obviously took more time to come up with articles than it takes today. But thanks to reading, I didn’t really struggle with the vocabulary or grammar. Words just flowed naturally. It had some traces of an amateur sure, but I was able to self-criticize and keep improving. The ideas kept coming and I kept writing. I used to do those listicles when it wasn’t even a thing.

The organization though, always distanced me for some reasons. I wanted to be more inclusive but they never allowed me to. The website and the organization collapsed (which correspondingly made all my articles vanish, but thankfully I have most of it in word files) and the writing took a halt. Not entirely though, as I had discovered Quora in the middle of all this and I had written a lot over there (It’s still my go-to place to write something out of the blue. Follow me there if you’re interested). My biggest takeaway from my first organization has been the knowledge of using WordPress, which was going to help me at some point.

All this happened at the end of first year, immediately after which I joined the Social Media category of Tech Tatva ( college fest ) as an organizer. I thought there must be some work in here to continue with my writing. The story from here can deviate to how and what I did with that team, which I have already written over here. But somewhere in the middle of this work, I knew I had to make a blog of my own at some point.

The first post might have been published on 8th Feb, 2016 but the work on it was on for about a month. About 2 years now, and you are reading the 86th post on the blog. Hard to believe, right?

To all those who think making a blog is a huge thing – it isn’t really! If you love reading, observing things around you, writing them down isn’t a hard task. Writing, for me at least, has always been about what you want to convey to your readers rather than how you convey it. Don’t let the vocabularies and grammars scare you. I know for a fact that even with so much of writing, I still have a lot to learn. But if you really enjoy the process, none of it matters!

As cliched as it might sound, but it’s the love for reading that propelled me to love writing. My exploration with this field continues, and I intend to hold on to it till my last breath.

Here’s to many more years of TVT!