The life and times of vjkrishna!
Ever thought of writing an autobiography? I thought about this only today. I’m sure one does not have to be a celebrity to write one. Who’s going to read that then, you might ask. I’d say, yourself and if you allow, a few more people. I’m almost convinced that all lives are equally very interesting and very random that they all qualify for nice autobiographies. Because it’s not just about what happened in your life but also what went through in your mind while these things were happening around you. But what’s the point in writing an autobiography? You think about your life, you talk about your life, then why not write? If not anything, it could be fun. It’s not a crazy idea. We all have stories to tell, why not write them? As I said, if you start writing the stuff you think and talk, you’d have a book.
Generally, what stays on top of the mind are only the strong memories that really invoke some very strong emotions. There could be so many other things that must have happened. Those things don’t come to the fore unless you make a conscious attempt to think, talk or write about it. We don’t often get to bring back these memories unless we have an opportunity like meeting an old friend, visiting your hometown, visiting your school etc. And what stays in our brain is mostly the recent memories. Recent memories always have a ‘high beta value’. Something good happens, we go overboard, something bad happens we get terribly upset. That’s not the case with old memories. Old memories invariably make us proud. Proud about how we achieved those best moments and proud about how we have come through the worst moments.
If I think of my primary school, I have about half a dozen events most of which is not worth mentioning. In my high school, dozens of stories but again most of them are of less relevance. In my college days, some very interesting events certainly worth recording. My CA days have to be half of the book. Just three years and there were clear directions in various facets – life, family and career. And then comes the office days leading up to the present days. Basically, I can talk about how I was brought up, what kind of kid I was, why some events and stuff that are still vivid and what impact they had on me, what moving around meant to me as a kid, my disappointments as a kid, my backstreet highs, what kind of school I got into, my new friends, my academics, my gully cricket and how sucked at it, my love for chess and how I had that discussion with my father that I’d be a professional chess player, how I cleared the 10th a bit uncharacteristically, how higher secondary sculpted my future career, how I topped the school in 12th and the chicken pox scare just before the exams, oh, I’d keep on going!
If you like writing and if you like to revisit your life, there is no better thing than to write an autobiography. Writing an autobiography is not the same as writing diaries or making a collection of it. A diary might record things as and when they happen. Events and views would be very current. An autobiography is a recollection. It is today’s view on yesterday’s events. I get a chance to evaluate and appreciate what I have done all along. Of course I do that as soon as things happen but more often than not, it would have the bias of the recent memory. Think of a decision that you took 10 years back. The way you evaluate and appreciate that decision now would surely be better than how you’d have done the day after the decision was made or a year after the decision was made. I’d imagine that now you’d have more maturity and better understanding of the problem or the decision than you had back then. It would be so fascinating to see how sometimes things were so right back then look so wrong now and vice versa.
Also, you cannot deny that there is this joy of re-living those memories. Nostalgia is a very common human feeling. Even if you’re having your best times, you can still feel nostalgic. The joy of or longing for re-living these old memories is what makes people to arrange for a re-union, sign up in orkut and facebook, make a trip to the home town, visit those places that you did when they were young and all such stuff. We like to recollect and re-live those moments. When I went for my daughter’s school for her admission, I went back about 15 years. Just like in the movies. Almost remembered the name of the guy who got me kneel down in the sun for couple of hours. Now what I’m pondering is if I can jot down these incidents, events, memories and later on edit, arrange and organise for a meaningful mass of text. And probably, call it part one of my autobiography!
Your autobiography could even be worth sharing. Someone could know more about you. You might end up knowing more about yourself, you never know! Truly, I think, if we set out to write an autobiography, we’d know how much we don’t know about ourselves. You might have to talk a lot about your childhood to your parents, family and friends. You might be searching for that old photograph that you’re never keen to show to others, that handwritten letter which could illegibly soiled, that trophy that you won for God knows what, that gift that you always managed to hide from everyone, that piece of memorabilia that you believe is still there somewhere. To use a cliche, you’ll walk down the memory lane. And trust me, you’ll enjoy that trip.
When I say autobiography, I don’t have a 500-page book in my mind. Just a story of my life so far, whatever number of pages it takes. What will I do with that book? I don’t know what I will do with that but I’d certainly enjoy writing it and that would be, for me, well worth the time. On second thoughts, well, I can gift it to my daughter 15 years later. Not bad, eh?
Vjy,
I thought by the heading I can get a glimpse of your life, especially of your completing C.A. and wonderful moment down to Adyar flyover. where as you have explained what an autobiography for any one.
I like the way you quoted the explanation of diary as current event and autobiography as preent view on past event.
Anil – we are missing you for giving your comments, I think this time defenetly you will come up with a huge note .
santy – what you say?
Ravee,
You are right! We all certainly know what autobiography is and Vj ended up explaining the known! Rather the topic kindled my eagerness of knowing some of his secrets and finally got completely disappointed! Well we do have another way to know his biography! Contact Mr. MKP (Maasti Ki Paatshala)
MKP,
Please help Vj complete his autobiography please
Santy
Either the blog was not clear or you have the skill of deviating from the topic or both
The blog is certainly not about my autobiography. My point is each can have one. If I tell you (which is what I thought I did through this post) that you can start writing your own autobiography because you have a great story to tell, what would be your response. Do you think it would be a worthwhile exercise?
By the way, I’d start writing various episodes of my life so far. At some point, all of them together should be a logical group of occurrences that can be called an autobiography!
Vijayyy…
I Started & drafted in the same pace of santy & ravee as per the title but asusual Mr. Speed Breaker (Vijay) made me to hit the backspace button & wiped all those nostalgic memories with vijay that were about to publish hmmmmmm…
Vijay, Even I started based on the subject you gave for the post (Life & times of vjkrishna), I excited & expected to read more about you rather than the actual content that has been published about writing our own autobiography. My excitement was ON till 3rd para & was interesting to read the post C.A life the sudden marital plunge, life @ office, abroad trips… but realized the fact after the 3rd Para that the content is not as titled.
I felt it’s like India marching till world cup finals and lost in finals.
Lets comment on the content, later on the title – As well said, if we are verbally sharing our memories with old friends, colleague or any dear mates we can script them too but one need to have more parameters like patience, time, look for +ve reminiscences as these are easy to say but fails in implementation above all we will end up saying all good thing about ourselves as its going to be public. Most of us are in between 25-30 and aren’t in end of exiting life to script ourselves for publishing we can script till interval as of now I think. An autobiography is 100% of I, me & myself and one needs to write his own journey, experiences & his true life. I wonder how many of us will disclose everything of one selves? I think we are not saints, knowingly or unknowingly we do make mistakes (I mean not criminal history) and will fold all those while disclosing or may be by nature we tend to forgot to mirror our –ve or those unproud moments while scripting or while discussing atleast. One needs ‘courage’ to disclose everything.
Let’s discuss reg. the title part: Well personally I am more interested to sing the reminiscences along from your interval part because its ball of time for me and I can involve & sync more rather than just hear. I read some where that “No one knows/realizes the fact that it’s their happy moments when they are experiencing/enduring happiness”. I agree with the statement now. I wish to read your autobiography along with sruthi just to say her actual truth in whatever you have mentioned
. I think she will convince & accept if Santy, Santan, Ravee & vinod join me for evidence.
To my experience I fell good now whenever I remember/share my bad & tough times; & how I endured the pain & it’s heal to successful and I feel bad now on my good times as they not going to repeat again as sweet as they were when I experienced them.
That was just a catchy title guys
I’m sure you did not think that anyone’s ‘life and times’ can be contained within a blog post.
You mentioned about us being open and being able to disclose. Why bring in restrictions and hurdles even before we could even start? Okay, if you write your autobiography and you conveniently skip those chapters where you’d get slapped by the girl next door, so what? Look at the objective. For anyone, it gives a nice opportunity to recollect those little forgotten stories. You’ll have fun producing an autobiography. Also, it can be useful for someone. Now, no one misses anything because you chopped off the chapter on girl-next-door-slap. You know what I mean?
makes me want to write my biography now
Hi Vijay,
I have long cherished an idea of writing an autobiography on my blog but I have avoided it due to one single reason…exposing too much of personal information on the web, which I am not comfortable with..I also want to caution you on that.
Probably if you have an option where by you can restrict the readership only by invitation, then it is fine.. the techie in you should start working now..
Nevertheless, it is a wonderful idea !! One should definitely give it a try.
Venkat
I won’t tell anyone the facts that I’m a Russian astrophysicist named Dimitri working at the Pentagon
By the way, when I wrote about autobiography, I was not thinking about publishing in the blog. I thought of writing and developing it offline. Anyway, thanks for the advice. You’re right on that.