Stop Sending Me Random Messages, O Random Stranger

IMPORTANT: My family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, who forward text messages (SMS) to me are not supposed to take this piece of writing personally because it is NOT about them :-) Some other “menace” has been addressed here.

Oh I wonder how much time do these “idiots” have to pointlessly spare; and also how much money do they have to spend. They keep sending text messages, day in and day out, regularly, without fail; and lots of them (they flood the tiny memory of my mobile phone). The length of one message could even extend up to 4 or 5 text messages (or even more, gosh!). They never fail to say Good Morning to you. They tuck you in your bed at night with the Good Night message. Occasionally there are Good Afternoon and Good Evening messages as well. Sometimes there is a quote and sometimes the message contains poetry. The limits are crossed when such imbeciles send religious messages. Are they trying to prove their piety or something to me? But WHY?

Who the hell ARE these people? They are not family. They are not friends. They are not colleagues. They are not even acquaintances. I don’t even know them. They probably also don’t know me. They are just some random strangers who accidentally came to know that a particular mobile number belongs to a female (am cursing all those moments when I picked up the phone even when I saw an “unknown” number flashing on the screen; thinking they could be someone I know who changed their number; or thinking it could be an interview call or a reminder to pay my Internet dues or a call from my photographer about the photos).

I wonder what pleasure do these people get out of mass messaging to random females in the cellular sphere. Those messages only get deleted instantly, followed by uttering of some heavenly adjectives in honour of the random sender.

Many of you would be thinking of me as a fool and wondering why have not subscribed to any “blocking service” yet. To set the fact straight, well I have subscribed. With a heavy heart I let that service deduct monthly charges too *gulp*. But they allow me to block only a handful of numbers. And in the community where every individual possesses a big handful of SIMs themselves, it is hard to fit them all in the block list. My limit is already used up! Aaaaarghhhh!

I don’t want to throw my mobile phone away. I don’t want to close my mobile connections and cut off ties from the world from this mode of communication. I don’t want to put my phone on silent at night so that a random message from a random sender sent at an ungodly hour could wake me (and my roommates) up. I don’t want to keep using my precious adjectives in honour of the senders (I am running out of words now!).

But I REALLY DO want to get rid of these random messages. Really truly madly deeply! Yes I do! Please tell me what can I do. But don’t send me suggestions from “new” or “changed” cell numbers; or I will accidentally brand you as brazen like the ones who are not being named but are being discussed here *giggles*

When Ideas Flow, You Glow; But Jot Them & Don’t Let Them Go

One thing I have learnt while “writing”, “blogging” or “trying to write” is that there are times when bursts of ideas are crossing my mind. And then there are silent times when I am not able to write even a single straight worthwhile sentence. The times when the mind is blocked are painful. But the key is not to get depressed. Instead one should try to cash the moments when brainwaves, thoughts, words and phrases are flowing.

To benefit from my “fertile moments”, what I do is that I keep making a list of blog ideas. This list grows with time. Whenever I think of something to write about, I jot it down so that even if I am short of time at that moment to expand the idea, at least it is preserved. I have made endless lists like that so far and it feels like I have a treasure of inspiration to last me a life time of writing.

Here, a word of caution needs to be uttered. Just as food goes stale when kept in the refrigerator for a long time, ideas also decay like this if kept unattended for long periods of time. I have gone through the routine of house cleaning several times myself. Many a times it has happened that if I kept a list for a long time, I completely forgot the purpose of the listed topics and the supporting spark to convert them into meaningful pieces.

So keep writing ideas down so that they are documented and not lost in the mist. Hit while the iron is hard and your brain is on fire. But attend to your ideas timely as well so that they don’t turn to dust.

My Writing Spree - What would my Mother say?

The way my writing progress is declining, I believe that I will never be able to write like Stephen King. I again took a non deliberate day off yesterday from the writing and now I am cooking up ways to cope. When will my break come when I will be a famous writer? :-P

Had I said this in front of my Mother, she would have given me a sarcastic teasing stare. She knows I am master of making castles in the air so with the piercing stare she would have added some remarks to match. Her words at least make me realise that only thinking, wondering and wishing will not do the trick. Someone will not hand over the desired success to me decorated in a platter. I will have to fight for it, struggle for it and earn it. Only when I put my sweat, blood, energy and effort into something; it will come true.

And I know that this is absolutely true!

My Fluctuating Writing Spree

(Actually written today, on May 20, 2012 *wink*)

After writing about 960 words on May 16, 2012 (after getting inspired by Stephen King) I had an unintentional day off on the next day. And then after writing about 490 words on May 18, 2012 I again had a “blank” day the day after. Now on May 20, 2012, I have again set out to “write”. But judging from the previous progress, it seems that I am not going to be able to write more than a hundred words.

The progress is witnessing a downfall even before rising to a healthy level. It is not good, not good at all. But at least I am writing and not giving up on it. *wink*

I love writing. I know I do. I have been loving it since very early childhood. It is in my bones. I have been making up stories (though boring), composing essays and writing little poems (some were good) for a very long time. Due to the love of writing, I was an avid letter writer as well (thanks to Ammi for introducing this habit) and later in my life a keen e-mail writer too.  So I am sure that a little motivation and a dash of persistence is going to work wonders for my writing. I may even be able to write a book some day; which is my wish since my early days.

The writing spree may be fluctuating for now, but I am sure that it will resonate to very high levels really soon. *wink wink*

My Writing Spree Progress

(Actually written on May 18, 2012)

I was highly charged and motivated to start “writing” again on May 16, 2012 after reading the article about Stephen King. The progress that day was lovely. I didn’t reach my 2000 word limit for that day but I was happy with everything that I wrote. I was so excited that ideas were automatically flowing into my mind. It was actually hard keeping track of all of them.

Then the next day there was dead silence. By dead I mean DEAD. I didn’t write a word (off course except for the office work I did). Perhaps things were not totally dead as some ideas still tried to jolt me and move me to write. I even tried doing it but could not succeed due to the busy schedule.

Today I forced myself to open a word processor file and start typing something. I didn’t want the tiny spark to die out before getting lit up to full swing. So here I am, writing gibberish. But I am loving it! *wink*

How We Came to be Litterers?

On my way to the office, while passing through the same routes, I realised how dirty the roads were. Trash was stacked and spilled everywhere. There was no wall that did not have a heap of litter thrown beside it. There was no empty plot of land that was clean and was not laden with rubbish. The overall look of all the places was dusty, dirty, messy and highly unhygienic.

Seeing all this, one question rang in my mind. I thought that the majority of population of Pakistan is Muslim. Muslims believe that “Cleanliness is half Deen”. So if majority of us is Muslim with this belief, then from where did the habit of littering creep in our society? It is not a new thing either. I have been witnessing this kind of behaviour by my fellow country people since my childhood. And my parents have witnessed this too since their early days.

We attribute many of the habits and cultures of Pakistan to the Hindus of Indo-Pak Sub-continent. We have a staunch belief that we have acquired many of these traits from Hindus since our communities have lived so closely for so many years. But I wonder to whom and to which community we can attribute our acquired habit of “littering”.

I keep wondering and wondering and wondering and wondering some more that how we came to be litterers.

My Writing Spree

 (Actually written on May 16, 2012)

Many months (or perhaps a year) ago, I read an article “Write Like Stephen King: 10 Ways to Write 2,000 Words a Day”. I was amazed to see that Stephen King could write so much in one day. The article was wonderfully written too. After reading it I was highly motivated to follow in the footsteps. I made a plan and started off doing my bundles of words regularly per day. Unfortunately I could not keep up with the routine and was off track only after a few days.

Yesterday I recalled that article once again. I looked it up on the Internet, read it and got fresh motivation from it. After reading it I again made a plan to write regularly even if I could not reach the 2000 words limit.

So here I am on my writing spree, writing away on my laptop. The good thing for me is that I even have an idea or two in mind on which I plan to write. It seems to be a good start. I only hope that it persists for a significant amount of time.

Those Dark Gloomy Days

Whether I post anything on my blog or not, I regularly, rather daily check the visitor stats for it. Even if there is a single visit to the web site, I am content. If there are more I am pleased. If there are more than five visits I am overwhelmed. But the five visits are from the same person, I get quite depressed and wonder who that person is and does that person have nothing better to do than to check my “silly” blog again and again.

Likewise, is there are no visit to my site on any day, I feel gloomy. I feel as if I am alone in the whole wide world and nobody cares about me. This feeling lasts for a fraction of second and then I move on to something else *wink* But recently I noticed that there was no visit to my site for three consecutive days. May 14, 15 and 16 were the gloomy dark days for my blog and myself. Not a single soul passed by the only lonely cluster of writings by Monazza. It was depressing indeed.

I know that nobody had much reason to visit. Even the regular visitors had no reason to visit since nothing was posted there for a really long time. But at least an accidental random visitor could have stumbled upon my space on the WWW. But nobody came during those three days.

I was nearing slipping into a state of deep trauma or a deep slumber of 100 years; only to be woken by the kiss (or “click”) of true love; when suddenly an angel accessed the blog on May 17. I returned from my state of semi-trauma with a gasp. I ogled at the visit stat for a long time, like a wonder struck person, as if seeing that for the first time.

And then in a few seconds I moved on to something else. *wink*