Awarded...!

I've not been particularly happy, no matter what I got. It’s been a tough life, after all that’s been happening to me in the last 10 years, or may be 15. I've lost count of my failures and can’t even recollect when I tasted success last! My career did not work, I got separated from my family and started living alone. I even quit my job and took no responsibility of my folks. But there was always one aim and one goal and just one dream.

I was all by myself and I was just waiting for this day. When the day eventually arrived, I became clueless. I had always wanted to be a writer from childhood. I wrote on the back of my bus tickets. I would write in the middle of the class, not caring a bit on what was being taught. When I walked alone, I imagined stories and while I got drunk in a party I kept quiet because my mind would come up with brilliantly creative stories. Those that ranged from horror to terror, romantic to spiritual. But my mind was always telling me stories. I had to write them all.

And when I was all on my own, it all stopped. Like life had completely stopped moving. The stories became terrible. Even when I started off with something, I would stop believing in it and ridicule my own idea the next day. I stopped progressing. I stopped believing in my life. I was suffering!

I slept whole day at some random coffee shop, a temple or some park. In the nights I would be awake staring at the sky and connecting stars. I stopped alcohol, only because I was not earning. I would starve for days, eat a bread or banana and drink free water that I begged from strangers. There was a point when I had to beg for bread.

It was raining and I had no energy to walk anywhere. A decent man in his late 40s looked at me beneath his umbrella and thought I was going to die. ‘If you please, give me some bread’ I asked. My ego had died, I had no self-respect anymore. It was my hunger that was talking. I should be earning my own food, what have I done to myself, I cried!

It was after that incident may be that my mind started collecting ideas once again. Stories kept coming and I scribbled in my diary. My first full-fledged novel was complete in less than a month!

I did some odd jobs and was desperate to get my story published. But none came forward. I had no contacts, none to seek for. I published it freely on my blog and elsewhere. People were ready to publish on their sites for free but not for money. I agreed nevertheless, I was curious to see the page hits. It was growing and word was spreading. A few nominations were in the waiting.

And today, I’m declared the winner of ASRUMW award. Don’t know who they are, but I've made it. My only dream of writing and getting recognized has eventually come true. I have to quickly call my family and tell them about this. I don’t know what exactly I’ll tell them, though.

It’s been 10 years since I last spoke to anyone!