School days – I become a creative writer at 14 – earn six rupees!!

I don’t know just when I got clobbered by the writing bug but it happened. In those days, the Sunday edition of The Statesman newspaper had one page devoted to children. This paper was held in high esteem by one and all and a general notion was that anyone who read this would have a better grasp over the English language than others. Our seniors, including close relatives, would exhort us to read this newspaper.
Moreover, the Sunday edition was special because it was organized by a couple of persons who went by the names of Uncle Jack and Aunty Jill.

Every week there used to be competitions of different types that allowed the children to give vent to their creativeness and, in order to encourage them to participate, there used to be nominal cash prizes as incentive. The competitions embraced all branches of art and craft like making Christmas cards by using colored thread dipped in gum and laying them out on a piece of cardboard. Or – putting a drop of ink on a piece of paper and folding it to create wonderful squiggles in ink that would hold one spellbound (the best ones used to be displayed on the board in the office of Uncle Jack located in The Statesman House, Kolkata).
And then, of course, there used to be story writing … the beginning of a sentence would be given and we would have to weave a story around that input.
Well – I loved to participate in each and every one of these competitions and, unknown to me, the writer gradually emerged. It took the form of a tiny middle piece titled ‘Mortal Combat’ in 1958 – the story was about an imaginary fight that my brothers and I had on the bed. Our weapons were pillows!!
I received a huge payment for that tiny piece – it was all of six rupees and that was the first ever payment that I received from exploiting my writing skills. (to be continued …)
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