#SachchiAdvice : The people whose advice made a difference in my life.

Each one has one person in his/her life that makes a difference in their lives. My life has 2 such persons for the same reason. Not related to me by blood but they have a special place in my life. Others may quote different things of motivation in this regard but for me both have given me advice which is not motivation exactly but a bit different thing and where have they advised me ?? Let me tell you… blogging. Consider the fact that none of them are bloggers themselves. So let me introduce them to you.

1. Anshul Mathur – He is my immediate senior from my MBA days in Jaipur and I am probably the only junior he must have seen taking up blogging as an interest in quite a few batches he has known students. When I started working honestly on my blog from 2010 onwards, a few years down the line I used to send him one or two posts I had written for his views. Once I wrote something poetic and romantic and requested him to make his wife read it and let me know her views. Hilarity ensued when he got back to me saying, “ मेरा तलाक़ करवाएगा क्या ? तेरी भाभी कह रही हैं की इसको देखो कितना अच्छा लिखता  है और तुम हो की..” (Will you get me divorced? She is saying that he writes so well and here are you who don’t say anything). 

I had written it for someone and it seemed to touch a chord somewhere to both of them. Laughing first on this incident and then on a serious note he told me, “ Never stop writing Mathur. Years down the line you would see the difference in your writing style and how you used to write things in the past and now. Your choice of words and emotions would change but never change your style. Its that what makes you different from the others.” 

2. Paddu Menon- I haven’t met her ever in person but she is so much to me. For her I am a “ kiddo” who can have severe mood swings and for me she is my “ teacher ji”. She reads whatever I write and the problem being a personal blogger is that emotions and heart is my ink. Whenever emotions overwhelm or the heart aches it either comes out on paper or gets a writer`s block. I vividly remember her being astonished on the few starting posts in my series “Heroes” (which is my effort about bridging the gap between the people and Indian Armed Forces). She could probably sense what I was trying to achieve through this series. 

There was a stage once when I told her that I don’t want to blog anymore, thinking of shutting down my blog forever. She said to me, “Kiddo if you ever feel that you cant write, think about Heroes. Think about how you are trying to change people`s thinking towards the soldiers, how you are making them come close to them, realize their hardships while doing their duty, with just your one series. If you don’t want to do it (blog) about yourself, do it for the soldiers. Do it for them”.

The impact- When I look down the years the line by Anshul sir holds true. In over 200 + posts, I have seen a drastic change in my writing and I haven’t stopped. My style of writing has remained the same- damn descriptive for events, even critical of sponsors if something went wrong, poetries, thoughts.. I have come a very long way in this regard. Surely haven’t put down the pen until now. He is another keen reader of the Heroes series and more often than not prefers to acknowledge me as the “ Pilot”(after my craze for the air force).

Whenever I think about closure, Paddu ji`s lines stop me. I had started the series with the aim of not letting the soldiers fade into oblivion until I live and in some 2 + years and 27 posts later I have kept my promise still. With articles as wide as feeling of a prisoner of war, a war disabled soldier to the more awarded ones of the Kargil war, Param Veer Chakra, I am trying to think of more such things everyday.

To both of you, your words have made me go the distance much farther from where I would have normally stopped the writing journey.

"I am participating in the #SachchiAdvice Contest by MaxLife in Association with BlogAdda.”