A Day in a Writer's Life - Revelations and Reflections

Venkat is an Indian online writer, who took to writing as his passion after retirement from his job in the year 2010. He is a South Indian Hindu with a belief in God and has his own perceptions of social/moral values of life. He believes all religions and all paths lead to the same God or Salvation. He loves human values, relationships, and simple styles of living. He was deprived of his spouse by God in 2012 and cooks food with his own hands presently for himself and his two grown-up sons.

I thought of offering you a glimpse into the writer's way of living and his style of dealing with situations, so that you may find anything helpful in facing your challenges of the day as a writer or as any other professional.

The alarm rings melodiously from the mobile lying to his side on the bed. As if saying-

'Wake up Venkat, it's 6 am. Another day has started in your life.'

Venkat slowly opens his eyes, turns his head towards the mobile, and stops the alarm. He looks at the wall clock to the east and slowly gets up from the bed. Standing up, he holds the nearby wall to make himself straight. He walks out of the room slowly, bows down his head towards the puja room at the right side, and then moves slowly into the kitchen room on his left. Switches on the light, and opens the back door of the kitchen leading into a backside balcony. Bows to the Tulasi Plant there in a pot and then to the sky upward. Next, he returns and goes into the bathroom (by the side of the kitchen) to refresh himself and wash his face, and then, drinks a glassful of water.

Venkat prepares and drinks tea daily three times: 6:30 am 10:00 am and 4 pm.

He likes the Brooke Bond Red Label Natural Care tea. At 6:30 am he has to prepare only 2 cups one each for himself and the elder son. The other son does not drink tea at that time. After the tea boils and is ready for drinking, he leaves it there in a flask and goes to the wash basin located in one corner of the hall by the entrance side of the puja room. He brushes his teeth and washing his face, feels refreshed. Then he pours the tea into two cups and goes into the bedroom again to have the tea along with his son who was sleeping till then (that guy is accustomed to bed tea).

After drinking tea, it is the kitchen cleaning time. He cleans the gas stove with a wet cloth applying a bit of soap, if needed, and the kitchen platform also. Then he cleans the small rice cooker once again which is already washed by the maid, as it is to be used for cooking some rice to be offered to God after puja.

After this cleaning work, he attends to his toilet, takes a bath, and gets himself ready for puja. This toilet and bath consume at least 30 minutes. Stepping out from the bathroom, he goes into the puja room, wears his puja dress (a silk dhoti and what they call Kanduva (the cloth on his shoulders), and applies the tilak to his forehead. Now he is ready to offer the puja.

First, he will have to bring some fresh (pure) water for puja and cooking purposes from the running bore water below the stairs on the ground floor. Venkat is on the 4th floor. So he takes the steel pot and goes down through the lift, fills the water from the bore pipe (which is operated by the motor pump for filling an underground tank there for lifting water to the overhead tank on the terrace of the 5th floor). The water from the overhead tank is supplied through taps to the flats. But it may not be pure. The drinking water is purchased from outside water suppliers who supply through refill bottles.

After bringing the steel pot of water, he goes to the Tulasi Plant with a bowl of water and offers it to Sun God chanting the Gayatri Mantra and pouring the water into the Tulasi plant pot. Then bowing to the Sun, he takes blessings and returns to the kitchen. He has to prepare breakfast also, well in time, for the younger son who has to go to his work by 8:30 am as it takes more than 90 minutes to reach his office in Hitech City by car. So, Venkat takes the idli cooker, fills the plates with idli mixer and puts the cooker on medium flame. Then, he takes the rice cooker and washes some rice in it and fills it with required water, and places it also on the other burner flame. Now, taking some water in a tiny small pot (it is a silver pot for God), he goes into the puja room, and sprinkles water drops on all the Gods. His main God is Lakshminarayana (small silver idols of God Vishnu and Goddess Lakshmi).

Puja is done in a systematic way. After Surya Namaskar (bowing to the Sun God chanting the Gayatri mantra), you will have to take some water with a mango leaf or a flower or a copper spoon known as "Uddharini" from a copper or silver glass (pot) and sprinkle on God chanting His name. This is a method of bathing God. Then you decorate God with flowers and apply some turmeric powder or paste to Goddesses and tilak to all of them. Then start your worship with salutations to the tree line of your religious Gurus and teachers beginning with your mother and father. Then you will chant some hymns, verses, and names glorifying God and His wonderful achievements. Worshipping can be done by offering flower petals, turmeric powder and the red tilak powder known as kumkum while chanting the 108 or 1000 names of God. After prayers and worship are over, you will have to show the incense stick to Him and then the lighted oil lamps with your right hand. Then, you can offer the food and fruits by showing them to His mouth with your right hand. Then, last but not least, camphor is lit in a plate or spoon and shown around Him chanting the slokas known as Mangalasasanam (for the well-being of God).

This is how your writer does his worship. But he does not indulge in chanting those thousand names known as Vishnu Sahasranamam on a day-to-day basis. It is done only on special festive occasions by him. All this procedure consumes a complete one-hour time. That is why he must also prepare the breakfast in between this time and serve to his son. His son leaves at 8:30 but his puja continues till 9 or 9:15 am.

First, Breakfast

After performing puja, Venkat changes clothes and takes his breakfast idli. He prepares daily, at morning times, the same breakfast of idlis. Only the side dish for it may vary. He may serve it with sambar or some chutney or with a spice powder. Spice powder is generally taken on more days than the sambar or chutney. After the breakfast is over, he drinks tea and then goes down the stairs to bring milk from the milk depot nearby his building. He may spend some time viewing the newspaper and at 10 am starts his computer after cleaning it and the workplace with a duster.

Now at Computer

He logs into his mailbox and views each mail. Hey, here it is our billybuc with another stellar hub! I should not miss it. He is so nice always "helping others to spread their wings and fly". Venkat reads it and comments. Here it is Eric Dierker with his Sunday Sermon. What a great perception!!! He comments on it. Here is Gypsy Rose Lee with her "Lost in this world" and Jo Alexis (to business) with her Tribute to Bob Marley. There is a lot more with great writers like Alicia, Rebecca, teaches 12345, Phyllis Doyle, tillsontitan, Jackie Lynley, MS Dora, Catherine, the great lady Nellieanna, peachpurple, Devika and many personalities I can't recollect just now. You can spend the whole day reading their writings and getting some rich knowledge.

Then, Venkat logs into his own blogs on blogger- Lifestyle Tips (vnktchari.blogspot.in), or that of TVserials and his own website of www.mvchari.in on finance & economic topics to see whether there are any improvements in traffic. But they are not encouraging. Only articles like 'Peeing at public places" or "Clean India Drive" have received some good response in lifestyles blog with above 50 views. Others are within 20. Tv serials received in 100s excepting recent episode posts. In www.mvchari.in (later christened as economiccounts.com), only consumers surplus received above 50 views all others are in their 20s and 10s. So, a lot requires to be done Venkat, it is not so easy to get the audience.

His browsing, reading, commenting or writing fresh topics on his blog or on HubPages continues throughout the day until evening 5:30 or up to 5:50 pm on all days including weekly offs. He browses on social media sites like facebook, google plus and linked.in and newspaper sites of times of India and economictimes.com and at times on Washington post also. Everywhere there is something interesting to read and know. His comments on newspapers are saved by him on a separate blog created for this purpose which simultaneously gets shared on google plus also. He takes a cup coffee at 11:30 am, lunch at 1:30 pm, then tea at 4 pm and again coffee at 6 pm. He may rest for 10 minutes after lunch or at times there may not be rest at all.

6 pm to 9 pm is cooking and TV time

After closing computer at 5:40 pm, Venkat prepares coffee and then gets refreshed and starts cooking. First, a light tiffin "Upma" is prepared with finely broken wheat. It is the snack between his lunch and dinner. After eating it, he starts cooking for the dinner. Dinner consists of main food rice and one dish called 'dal', one vegetable curry, one rasam, and curd or buttermilk. This is the daily menu for dinner. Dal is prepared with dry yellow split pigeon peas or legume. He adds either tomatoes or green leaves or cucumber, etc. in the dal while cooking. Curries are prepared with any kind of vegetable available or with any edible roots like carrot, beetroot, etc. While dal gets prepared, he cuts the vegetables. Venkat watches only 2 tv serials presently from 8 pm to 9 pm both of which are based on moral values of life. He is fond of this type of serials and music talent shows. His tv serials blog contains these episodes only. So cooking and tv watching get completed by 9 pm and they have their dinner watching music on VH1 or other channels.

One more sitting at Computer after Dinner and then "Good night".

After dinner, he takes his daily dose of medicines and again sits at the computer for one more hour browsing on HubPages for some time and facebook or newspaper sites also to see the updates, if any, as morning starts for them when it is the night time for him. So, he is able to see some more comments or replies and respond to them. But he is wondered at some amazing update that statistics are still 45 years ago. It is very funny to notice such slips from site administrators at times.

Now it is time for Good Night

So, thank you all my dear friends, for bearing with your Venkat. Enjoy your day with your browsing, commenting and other activities. Have a nice day (it is night here).