I am convinced that people who are great writers, have great memories or at the very least, they must be walking round with a paper and pen jotting down everything that strikes them. There are innumerable occasions when an ordinary incident touches me or a happening seems extraordinary; they get captured in words and I can construct a whole story that would appeal to everyday readers like me. However, when I sit down, all set to put it down for posterity, with a pen and paper or my fingers all ready in eager enthusiasm over a keyboard; my mind is as blank as the crisp virgin sheet of paper just extracted from a new freshly unwrapped ream of A4 sheets.
How did Wordsworth remember the Daffodils when oft on his couch did he lie? It must a pretty commonplace picture, the gentle slopes of the Lake valley ablaze with a carpet of delicate daffodils. Men and women, children and those at the brink of adulthood - with even more romantic inclinations - all must be witness to this wonder of nature. How is that all of them didn't remember it long after and pen down equally inspiring lines?
Is this thought just an excuse? Is it just the presence of a Muse that makes all the difference? In the case of Wordsworth, we assign that lofty position to Nature. For Shakespeare there may be a debate on who, but the existence of one is not debated. Our very own Gurudev who it is said could ascribe each burst of creativity to a new Muse. Is there any amount of control that can be exerted on being inspired in this manner? Or is it something that pulls at the strings and heedless of what one may consciously think or want, the work of art takes shape of it's own accord - just as some other basic instincts that most life on earth has to give into. Giving into some needs may be termed biological and brings Humans at the same level as any other animal - to be measured on the same scale. But this other kind of instinct, the one that forces Art to take form, does it then lift the same species to another height, a little step closer to the Creator of all this?
