The unfinished manuscript is the story of my mother’s unfinished manuscript and how it inspired me to write. In July 2013, I lost my mother. She was dying a slow death. Her kidneys had shut down and the dialysis was not helping. But the suddenness of her death and the shock nearly killed the author within me.
I say nearly, because for the four months after her death, I did not write a single word other than work related writing. It was as if the creativity within me had simply disappeared. During those days, I used to work as a consultant in the energy management. I sought refuge in my work, and spent a considerable amount of time writing reports. It was a form of writing that was mundane, and the reports would be read by very few persons at best.
Discovering my mother’s biography
Around October that year, I came across my mother’s unfinished manuscript. It was her biography; one that she wanted me to read so that I would to know her story. She had even attempted to narrate a part of it to me once, but I had felt that it was a sob story, and she never spoke about it again. She kept writing her thoughts in a spiral bound notebook, and I found it when I was emptying out her closet. As I sifted through the pages, I learnt that her mother had also written a book. It was the biography of her spiritual advisor, a sage who considered my grandmother as her sister.
My mother had once mentioned that her sister’s husband was one of the authors of the Constitution of India. That’s when I recalled that an aunt from my mother’s side has published ten books. She became a published author on her seventieth birthday. Long story short, I came from a family of authors, and it was a strange yet an uncomfortable feeling.
I spent the next several weeks thinking about the situation. Writing was in my genes, so to speak. But then was it a burden that I carried, or should I write simply to carry on the family tradition of sorts? What about my mother’s and my grandmother’s writings? Should I get them published? But they were in Marathi language, while I mostly wrote in English. I was not sure if I could translate their writings, and finding a translator was not only going to be difficult, it was going to be time consuming and expensive.
Audio to the rescue
One day, it occurred to me that I could narrate these books in the form of audio. That would be the fastest way of publishing their stories. Moreover, my friends and family could enjoy these books without having to read them. The younger folk are unfamiliar with the script, and the elder ones have failing eyesight.
As I started recording these books, I began to feel inspired to write again. Over the next few months, I not only finished my debut novel, but also planned a series around it. Somewhere in between, life happened, I took up a new job and changed cities. Travelling for work put the audio project behind, but my writing had found momentum. Earlier this year, I finally completed the audio recordings. During this period I also became a podcaster. And in July this year, on my mother’s second death anniversary, I become a published author.
In many ways, my mother’s unfinished manuscript had a profound effect on me. But most importantly, it inspired me to keep writing.
What my mother’s Unfinished Manuscript taught me
Writing must have been tough for my mother. It is not easy to hold a paper and pen and write, when a needle is stuck in one’s hand for twelve hours a week. It leaves behind pain or a tingling sensation, sometimes both. When the eyesight is failing, one cannot even write in a straight line, let alone write legibly. And the weakness prevents the author from sitting in one position for longer than a few minutes. So the writing happens in spouts. Sometimes, the effort to find the eyeglasses, the notebook and the pen alone tires you out, leaving very little energy to write. But the unfinished manuscript deserves to see the light of the day, simply because it has inspired one author to keep writing. Maybe in the days to come, it will inspire many more.
A PDF version of this post will be available here shortly.
This post was originally written in March 2016, but somehow was lost in the sands of time. My goal was to submit this for publication in a collection of short tales. In March 2021, exactly five years later, I came across this writeup while sorting and backing up data and decided to publish this on my blog.
This post was updated on 23 Feb ’23.