IGNITE from within the confines 2020

Just when I almost thought I hit the writer's block, especially as the sunlight started receding here announcing the onset of winters, two things happened. One - I got an invite from Deepa Gopal who I had got introduced to by a fortunate stroke of luck few months back, when another terrific writer Sonia Dogra whose writings I am a fan of introduced me to her. The invitation happened to be for the event 'IGNITE from within the confines 2020'. Just by hearing the concept and the theme of the event I could not help but accept the invitation. Even though I was really not sure if I could get over my writer's block and be able to compose anything at all. I only knew that the theme resonated so well to my soul that I had to be a part of it and contribute with whatever it takes. Just then the second thing happened. That is coincidence number two - I got tagged for an eight day poetic marathon. And when one of the jury members of LIT Digital Awards 2020 tagged me for this marathon I had no other go but combat with my writer's block. 

And what came out of it, out of these two sheer coincidences was a feeling I did not anticipate and that is PURE GRATIFICATION. Both these coincidences made me overcome a few of my self created barriers and introduced me to a few more of my firsts in my writing endeavour.

First time I used FB as a medium to post my poems which I had never done earlier. Again, because of various reasons starting from self doubt to more on not wanting to spam the timelines or be a topic of discussion among that fraternity which doesn't appreciate artistic flavours. But with this tag of 8 day poetic marathon I overcame that. How, if you ask? Well, I really do not know! Probably because I did not want those barriers inside me disappoint someone who really wanted to see my work. And as I said it left me in awe and felt nothing but gratifying to see the comments and responses from people who appreciated and valued. Someone even suggested to me if I can build all the poems on the theme of glass and that was another first too to try something like that. And at the end I thank my luck again for the tag as that helped me in contributing one of those freshly written poems towards the captioned event as well going ahead. 

My another first being trying to compose my verses around a professional artist's art work. As was the concept of the event ' IGNITE from within the confines ' that 8 artists were paired with 8 poets and each were to submit 5 contributions. So, when Lauren Rudolph's art work got assigned to me I was actually left spellbound seeing her work. Her life like portraits were so real that I didn't feel it was a painting but a real person sitting across with bottled emotions spewing a thread of magical communication with the viewer's soul. It's definitely one thing to admire the strokes of hues and marvel at their hidden nuances and a whole other thing to be able to do justice to them with your words. I sincerely hope my attempt at this atleast took me half way there in doing justice to such intense art forms. 

And yes, finally this event brought me out of my blanket at last and made me brave the camera. I must confess here that I always knew I was camera shy but I never fathomed an inanimate object can make you fumble this much! 

Apart from my  scuffle with the camera (with me at the receiving end ofcourse.... Breaking the phone because of the camera fright would have proven too costly in this lockdown era!) this was also the very first time I recited my own poem and heard myself. Ofcourse without counting all those times that I had heard so far recite the poems in my own head! 

But more than all this the sheer pleasure of seeing each of the contributors works unfold at a scheduled time daily from the start of the event has been a tremendous experience! The brilliance of each of their contributions ....oozing with talent, passion and intensity is sure to rub off some of that inspiration on you to stir up that energy within you and truly IGNITE that what is within. 

And all this makes my belief even stronger now that universe does have strange ways to operate and bring about such coincidences which awaken you in some or the other way. 

The link to the entire event 'IGNITE from within the confines 2020' is below:

https://ignitefromwithintheconfines.blogspot.com/?m=1

Link to my contribution - click here

Some encouragements that came our way to cheer us all along thanks to the multi talented curator Deepa Gopal:

Media coverages by The Hindu, New India Express, The Khaleej Times and many more - Click Here