Soliloquies- A decade into Writing and Painting

In 2008, I began to write my thoughts. Until then, I never felt the need to pen down my thoughts. Dad always got a diary for each one of us at home on new year eve. I was enthusiastic to write my own diary. Till then, I never heard or bothered to care about the concept of diary writing even though there's some teaching during schooling. 

Until 2008, I was more into spoken poetry, monologue, debates. I remember my principal Sataynarayana from Adarsha High School encouraging me to participate in elocution and poetry recitals. I never stopped myself from performing or speaking to large audiences. I grew up seeing my dad addressing big meetings at various contexts. 

In 2008, I felt the need to write down my thoughts to read what I think. I never had difficulty to write down my thoughts either as I never bothered about being right. I wrote how I felt, even if it's full of grammatical mistakes. Also, I didn't had any reader to criticise my thoughts. My parents never bothered to check my writings either. As they say, when you're ready, right people and right pages appear in your life. A few years into writing, I met Swathi and Susmitha who introduced me to the world of books other than the books we see in our schools. Sky is falling by Sidney Sheldon is one of the first books I read out of interest rather than syllabus reading. After schooling, Susmitha left for another college and we hardly talked of books. However Susmitha is that one friend who helped me appreciate the handwritten words. At the same time, Swathi and I shared a great journey in the world of books. Thanks to her, I got introduced to a lot of classics and read a lot of wonderful books. As I began to enjoy reading, my writing was also evolving with the subjects I read. Since schooling, I always enjoyed poetry and tried my hand at poetry. I took a great interest in reading telugu classical poetry-Nannaya, Tikkana, Vemana and other poets. During my schooling, I wrote one or two poems in telugu as well.

As I continued my writing in diaries and journals, I also took courage to share my thoughts on the internet. I took inspiration from Chinmayi Sripaada. Around 2009, when I discovered that Chinmayi founded The Blue Elephant and does everything she does- VJ, singing, translating, writing, I was in awe of her work. After reading her blog, I immediately opened a blog of mine. I named it after Chinmayi's blog title- What to Name it!

I took a great pride in following her foot steps and wrote posts once in a while. As I continued reflecting, I enjoyed paying attention to little details and continued writing in my journals. I never acknowledged that I pay attention to a lot of things until A told me that I'm good with remembering dates, events and details. As I began to write more and share more with the lovedones, I took a great joy in written expression. I was also trying to understand myself better through words. As I continued writing without a worry of external audience, I was writing poetry, prose, journals.

As I continued writing my lived experiences, I could find a beginning, middle and ending, the basic framework for any story. I continued to read more about story writing and I found a great joy in learning about the story elements, character improvisations and a lot more. Without being intimidated by all these terms, I was confident to express despite the fear of critcism. There's an urge to express. Right, wrong, I never cared. Out of such strong impulse, I was honest in my expression and always tried to stay as honest as possible to my expression. I'm glad I never allowed myself to believe that 'creativity' is a special trait of only few. I strongly believed that I'm creative. It's just that people around me never bothered to believe me and I neither sought their approval or always tried to prove them wrong by expressing my creativity. 

In 2015, I took a great interest in painting and writing. I continued doing both at different capacities. IP Tharun mentored me in the process of turning a story into a book/novel format. A lot of friends came in at the right time helping.

Regarding Painting, I recently learnt a term- 'Creative Injury.' In 2002, I had a teacher named Ann Tressa in my 2nd grade, who gave us a homework of drawing assignment and I did that homework with a lot of care and attention. The teacher ignored the homework as it's a drawing assignment. As a 7 year old kid, I perceived that drawing is not to be seriously pursued. I took it to heart and always treated drawing with a lot of reckless attitude. 

I was very much interested in geometry, drawing circles, triangles in my high school but, never allowed myself to draw/paint without fear. 

In my engineering course, Engineering Drawing was taught by Shivraj sir who generally teaches only M.Tech students. I liked the way he treated students with a lot of respect always referring us with our names and addressing us in a polite manner. We were given an introductory manual drawing class by Shivraj sir. After that, we were oriented to AUTOCAD. I got intrigued by AUTOCAD, perspectives, orthogonal projections and alot more stuff. In 2015, I allowed myself to experiment with 3D projection and did an art project in college. I was telling myself that I'm doing an mechanical drawing on a different medium-black tar road. Back then, Kashyap, Karthik, Kittu, Pooja Sr., Meghana Kovvur, Bhavana, Akhil, Lohit and few other juniors joined me in this project. I was too afraid to associate myself to be an artist then. I was confident to associate through words but not with colour and lines. 

People around me also never took my creative pursuits seriously until I came out with the news that I have a novel and that's published. 

In Aug 2015, my first novel- In between the Bridge got published through CreateSpace publishing house. Kittu designed the book cover. Kittu Sr. Shashank, ED Cell team helped me for a big book launch. Charishma also travelled with me in my first book journey. Thanks to Kiran Sir, I got introduced to Harry who was the chief guest of my first book launch. After our meet, Harry took me under his wings and taught me the facets of life. Grateful to his time, words and mentorship. 

I was aware that my novel was not good on many lines- be it in language perspective or book formatting but, I was sure of the honesty element I had in that book. The act of writing a book changed my perspective on authors and business around books. 

Soon after my book got launched, there were few people who never bothered to worry about my journey kept asking, how many books were sold. Earlier, they used to guage my worth by my acts, now by my book sales. Thankfully, I had friends around me who looked at me beyond my author label. They never bothered if I'm a writer or not. Grateful to all those friends who helped me stay grounded. Also, the minute I stopped worrying about the sales, the books were bought by many and I remember being recognized by random strangers referring me to as author of In between the Bridge. Felt sweet but, was also learning what it means to be recognised by myself and others. 

Riding high on the confidence I got as first time published author, I continued writing stories. Managed to get another book published. In September 2015, I had an idea for my 2nd book- Rainy Summer and worked on it extensively. In December 2015, I went to Kerala on a month holiday, feeling I'd write well if I seek some inspiration in a nice place. Writing I did extensively and managed to get it published by March. 2015 was such a year where I felt I need to act rather than just think of acting. 

Since 2016, I had many ideas for many novels and continued writing. As life took over with alot of interesting twists and turns in life, I continued writing and was curious how the manuscripts are turning out. In 2018, I met A.R.Rahman during my hitchhiking and decided to write a travelogue memoir on Jishan's suggestion. However, by end of 2018, I ended up preparing poetry collection and got it published by March 2019 as The Wordless Conversation. The month when I moved to Rajasthan with a hope to start my travelogue manuscript. 

Since 2016, I was carrying pocket books in which, I was keen in dabbling with lines and drew a lot of lines and patterns. In 2019, I began to paint with water colours as I got encouraged by my students who used to paint with a free mind. 

Since 2019, I tried my best to write the travelogue at my free time. Instead of waiting for large chunk of time, I used to wake up early and write chapters based on the vague outline I had on the book. I finished writing the first draft by March 2020 and COVID happened. I used the COVID time to edit the draft, receive suggestions and finish a lot of work, Work, I finished but, I couldn't take it up further after the lockdown weighed heavy in all our lives. I kept it aside and continued writing poetry whenever possible. Meanwhile I continued painting a lot with the paints available in Sirohi. Till 2021, I was sketching, painting on small canvases whenever I get a chance. I was proud of my progression from paper to canvas. I was still dabbling with different mediums trying to create my own visual language. 

In 2021, when I moved to Jaipur, I had access to wide variety of paints and canvases of different sizes and also a huge studio space to experiment. Since 2021, I was painting extensively with a lot of discipline and rigor. In retrospect, I was learning to inculcate discipline in practicing art rather than wait for the inspiration. The inspiration was always abundant through muses, stories and travel journeys. 

In 2022, I had an idea of another poetry collection- Colourless. I worked on it with a lot of discipline and everything fell in place. Publisher was found and by May 2023, Colourless got published. Along with it, I finalised a few paintings I've been painting since 2021 and opened a solo exhibition at Jaipur. In that manner, 2023 was another big year after 2019. Colourless was launched in Bangalore and Jaipur. A lot of responses and reviews were shared. I was elated with the response. Soon after that, I moved to Switzerland and immediately I managed to work on the idea I was passionate about- Empty Spaces. 

I opened an exhibition- Empty Spaces Mayanadhi in Oct 2023. Though, I didn't had enough resources, I decided to use postcard as medium and painted a few paintings. Since November 2023, I was painting extensively till March 2024. I nearly painted 300 post cards and 100 short canvases. 

I had another exhibition in March 2024 titled Empty Spaces-Flow. At the same time, I designed the book- The Gratitude Book which got published at the Graduate Institute. I collaborated with Sanjna and contributed to the book along with Kiana. 

I had an invitation to participate in Group exhibition- Journey to Liberty in Germany. November 2024 just before I turned 30, I had my first group exhibition in Germany. 

Now, 2025, I had another month long exhibition titled M3-Climate, Culture, Code. A couple of writing and painting projects are in pipeline. Looking forward to how 2025 would unfold. 

A decade into writing and painting.