I walk but not alone... (standard:Flash, 1514 words)
Author: Indrani Bhattacharyya	Added: Nov 10 2011	Views/Reads: 3057/1830	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
its a flash fiction reflecting my own philosophy..

‘So you are ‘the writer'?', assuming the question directed towards me
with this  heavily accented  tone, I made a little upward movement of 
my head from the poster where I put my soul into at that moment, to 
identify the inquisitive face . I couldn't though; he was a total 
stranger, a pretty stout man of average height, most probably in his 
mid sixties and owner of a pair of unusually bright eyes. With a faint 
smile, I gave a small affirmative nod.  Considering some other time, I 
would have been really happy to welcome him on board to discuss some 
writing stuffs, truly speaking I would consider myself really fortunate 
to have a tête à tête with one of the readers, an opportunity I don't 
get to have every day. Most of my interactions with the readers get 
restricted through mails and facebook. But today is a different day. 
There was an unexpected deadline waiting which left me in an out and 
out screwed up state. ‘I have read few of your stories - they aren't 
bad you know, actually some of them are quite good, I thought you must 
be a little more older to write them than what I see now' was the next 
set of sentence thrown at me with a mischievous crackle . I thanked him 
politely and tried to concentrate on my poster for the 100th time. ‘So 
when's the next one coming up, I don't think you write very often', he 
seemed unstoppable. To give myself some momentary relief I had to 
silence his whine. ‘thanks a lot for being so eager to read my next, I 
would surely come up with something as soon as possible, meanwhile you 
can Google to find some of my old writings, else get me your email id, 
I will send some links'- was the best I could said. My attempt was in 
vein when he replied ‘That's exactly not the answer I'm looking for my 
dear, all I want to say is you should write more, much more as that's 
the only way to sharpen your already existing potential'. I could feel, 
in spite of trying best, my patience level was slowly exceeding the 
threshold limit, an agitated me answered back ‘honestly sir, thank you 
very much for your concern but I write just for passion, I can afford 
to spend only certain amount of time for writing, it's not something I 
can pursue on a fulltime basis, at least not right now'. ‘Umm I see', a 
little frown was clearly visible on his face. ‘Ok tell me what you do 
you actually', he asked sincerely. ‘I am currently doing PhD in 
Biophysics' was the shortest feedback I could come up with. ‘Ohh! 
Sounds great, so you do PhD for a living'?? I was absolutely sure that 
I didn't miss his deep sarcasm this time. ‘Enough is enough. I had 
entertained this man for long, it was time to be a bit rude. Clenching 
my teeth, I pulled back my chair to face him, looking straight through 
his eyes, I wanted to counter his mocking remark without being much 
bitter. ‘look sir, let me put it in this way, I am afraid I may not 
sound much gracious but you can't do science for living, you can only 
dedicate yourself towards it if you have love for the subject, one 
needs to have much stronger emotions associated with than just making a 
mere living out of doing research'. ‘You mean passion'? He chuckled. 
‘well-yeah, you need to be passionate enough even to think of pursuing 
science for rest for your life' was all could I fumbled as I was 
superficially sensing where this discussion would lead next. I was 
wrong. Little did I realize this conversation would change my attitude 
towards life. ‘That means, my dear, you are passionate about both 
science and writing, may be the intensity differs, right'?!  My mouth 
fell open at this too direct and straight forward inference but I had 
to keep quiet as the grave was dug by me. ‘See if it's all about 
passion, why don't you mix them together'? - He asked me innocently. 
‘Mix what'? I got puzzled to the core. ‘Write while you do science, 
think of science once you write', he told gently. ‘That's impossible', 
the protest came almost instantaneously from my side. ‘Have you ever 
seen any painter varnishing the canvas? All the colors are kept 
separately in a paint box, while the artist carefully or carelessly 
makes a concoction together and his creations gradually become 
alive'-for the first time I noticed his previous  not-so-serious 
intonation had changed completely and got filled with a rich sense of 
sympathy. But I didn't have farthest clue of what this man was upto and 
why he was citing such out of the blue example. Completely overlooking 
my dumbest ever look, he continued,' why are you holding back yourself? 
 Come out of that self created shell, shed out those inhibitions and 
explore the world'! A sudden chill ran down my spine. It didn't bother 
me anymore that I had a deadly deadline to meet and the half done 
poster was lying ahead on the floor. ‘Who is he? Why is he saying all 
these? Is he a thought reader?' my brain was being torn apart with a 
series of questions for which I had no answer. By that time a soothing 
smile reached his twinkling eyes and the sparkle was evident when he 
spoke ‘why don't you infuse all your emotions together and let it flow 
through your pen. Isn't that something you have always wanted to do'? 
‘Well, yes, I want to live through my words'; I was almost inaudible 


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