Wrong? No I wasn’t…


Everyone loves going down memory lane. So did I the other day when I came across a magazine with which I had worked as co-editor. Not that I had any special association with it but yes, I had worked for it very hard. In fact, it marked the beginning of my professional writing. Though there was nothing to brag about, content in the magazine for school children was reasonably fine.
Turning its pages, I came across a few articles I had written. As I ran through them, I was a little taken aback. Was it I? Was I so immature? I must confess I wasn’t comfortable reading what I had written a couple of years ago. An article I had written about nature and poems could be the worst of it. I had quoted eminent English poets, mentioned their rhymes and written my own interpretations. Today, I feel most of the interpretations were wrong. The article didn’t have flow, flair or some message!
Adding to my guilt feeling was this poem. Yes, of course, mine. It was worse than the write-up (Remember, I’ve already called it the worst). It was like a child’s muse, rhyming words ‘at any cost’. Again, there was this series I had written on some successful professionals. Overall, unpardonable!!
Was I too raw? Why am I fuming over it? Again, why should I think about my writing skills a couple of years ago so much when I didn’t aspire to be a writer then? What do I do with the magazine now? I thought of destroying it so that no one could read it. What will people think of me if they did? 
Thank God, soon those moments passed and I regained my cool. Yes, I find my writing two years ago shallow but I am not ashamed of it. Today, I am an evolved person and it certainly doesn’t befit my thinking to destroy my own creation in a fit of rage. Can such an act undo what has already been done?
I looked at the magazine and smiled. I showed it to several others and together, we had good laughs …
I could finally see the larger picture. There was nothing to be ashamed of. I could see that at that stage, language wasn’t the only problem. Overall thinking was haywire. On a brighter note, it was an attempt to stay creatively busy. During college days when most of my friends watched movies, I was the burning midnight oil to take out the school magazine. Some qualities of a reporter were evident even then. My compilation skills were not bad either. I was able to take out a publication.
This stage must be coming in everyone’s life. There must be some acts in the past one feels uncomfortable about. Why not accept it? To err is human…
And who says mistakes are all bad? These are the steps that help us move higher. Past mistakes don’t define a one’s personality but lessons one has learnt from them and one’s evolution do. Everyday, one must be a better person that what one was the day before. That’s the bottomline.
-KanChan
                                                                                           





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