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For the love of the written word

This is a story of two old friends — Rheea Mukherjee and Bhumika Anand, who met after a decade and decided to form a community for writers in the city.

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This is a story of two old friends — Rheea Mukherjee and Bhumika Anand, who met after a decade and decided to form a community for writers in the city. They share with DNA their journey and how they have done it all through their writing workshop.

From writing personal diaries and letters to posting blogs and reviews on social networking sites —— we all love to flaunt how good a writer we are. But are we really good? The answer to the question might lie in that brief silence and in how true we are to ourselves. 

But then, there’s never been a problem in the world that hasn’t come with its own remedy. “Many people come to us saying, ‘I want to write. But I don’t know how to start. I don’t know if I can write.’ And our answer has always been, ‘Write. It will come to you.’ And it always does,” says Bhumika, co-founder, Bangalore Writers Workshop (BWW).

“If you want to write, you must read,” says Rheea, also co-founder, BWW. “There’s no two ways about it. Read voraciously. Start forming your own opinions on different aesthetics. And then write. Revise. Write again. Write what comes naturally to you. Write honestly,” she adds.

“A good writer is someone who makes a connection with you through an image, a word, a character or simply makes you want to re-read a sentence. But tastes for different writings are so vast and textured. Bhumika and I have our fair share of disagreements on what books we like,” says Rheea, about who she thinks is a good writer.

To this Bhumika, adds, “I am drawn to writers who use language to change the way one perceives the world. For me, it’s not only about translating emotions and life onto the page but also about language. Good writers are those who delight readers with their craft and subject matter.”

So, can everyone be a writer? “I believe everyone has a story to tell. Given the correct impetus and learning, most people can successfully do so. However, for that wow! factor one expects from really good literature, one has to have an innate flair for writing,” says Bhumika.

Rheea went to graduate school at the California College of Arts in San Francisco and the process of a writing workshop made a deep impression on her. When she returned to India, she wanted to build a community of like-minded writers.

“Rheea and I were part of the same theatre group in college. But after I left the group and she moved to the US, we lost touch. Facebook brought us together again. We began to share our writing, and started giving each other feedback. When we met in San Francisco, we knew we wanted to create something in Bangalore.

Then in 2011, we conducted a free, day-long writing workshop that was part of Theater Jam conducted by Maraa — a media collective. The response was really good. We realised that there were many writers in the city. We took a chance, gambled with our love for writing, and founded the workshop in January 2012,” shares Bhumika.

Since then, the duo has already conducted their eight-week workshop for six batches. “We have started an online course, a course on short fiction, and we plan to have an advanced course for our graduates. We have met the most passionate, witty, and amazing people through our workshop. The response has been simply incredible,” exults Rheea.

Conducting writing workshops could have been a risky choice of profession but the two took a chance. “We were determined to contribute to literature in some way. Things just fell into place with our association with Revanasiddiah and his artist wife, Vinoda who run FORHD, an NGO that works for the rehabilitation of prisoners’ children — and have a similar interest in contributing to the cultural ethos in the city,” says Bhumika.

“There is a lack of places where one can study creative writing in India, and we wanted to make sure that we figured into that space. We were, of course, concerned that a writing workshop might not be a sustainable model as a profession. But our students have created a strong word-of-mouth network and we are finding opportunities to do more every day,” adds Rheea.

And a lot happens at this workshop. “The workshop is about concentrating on the craft of writing. We expose our writers to different texts, critical theories, cultural debates and political agendas. We also critique each other’s works. It is also about building a community — a support system of like-minded people who will always be there to read one’s work, discuss plots with, or just go out for a drink with.

We also invite published authors and publishers for guest sessions so that gives our writers a perspective on how to get published,” explains Bhumika. And talking of end results, “writers trained from BWW are more aware writers at the end of it,” say the two proudly as they sign off.

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