When I was in the 7th standard, there was a question for a 10 mark letter writing test. The question was, to write a letter explaining to your Father what you had done when the lights in the house had gone out. I wrote a four page letter for a whole one hour about how I was the elder brother and my little brother had gotten locked in the bathroom. I wrote that I took a hammer and broke the door down.
This actually happened to me when I was a kid. Chandan mama broke the door down with a hammer, my Mom was in tears. I still remember the broken door. The teacher was Mrs. Rana, she gave me a 7 on 10 for that letter, that was the highest you could get on an English Language test in school.
In the 9th standard we had a literature teacher, Mrs. Rollins. Our syllabus prescribed us a "some collection of short stories" book. That book had three of the most awesome stories I've ever read. The Diamond Necklace (written by Guy De Maupassant) and Dusk (written by Saki) and The Sniper (forgot the writer).
She never taught us a single thing related to the syllabus, being the most coolest old anglo-indian lady that she was (ICSE schools are the best) she'd tell us about the writers, and she'd tell us more stories ... but never about the syllabus.
I always ate in class, I still do. She caught me eating a packet of BonBon biscuits once. She just looked at me said, "I see Mr. Dawara hasn't gotten any breakfast in his tummy yet." She made me read the story Dusk aloud, and then promptly allowed me to return to eating my biscuits.
In the 10th standard, I hated all my teachers. Except the Maths teacher, Mr. Varghese, he made me like Maths like I never have.
I wrote my first piece of pure fiction in a class composition test. I hated the topics we had, I don't even remember what they were. All I remember was that I wrote a four page composition (way over the prescribed word limit) on the last human on Earth's dying struggle. AI had finally won, and this was the last man. I wrote four pages about his dying thoughts. The teacher never read or graded those papers, but I felt like a bird by the time I was done.
10th standard prelims, the topic for the composition was "You run into your friend of long ago." I wrote my second piece of pure fiction. I wrote that not only did I meet my friend but I shot him for money. I spent 40 minutes plotting out the minutest of details. In the same test, or a different one I think, we were supposed to write a letter to our parents back home about one night in school. I wrote that I saw a movie and when I came back, I thought I was being stalked and heard screams and other such assorted eerie sounds. I wrote that I faced and conquered my fears that night only to find out the next morning that a murderer had killed my best friend. I cleverly put the newspaper headlines outside the letter.
She failed me that test and threatened to call my Mom to school.
11th standard English class. The textbook for this time was HSC prescribed, and utter potty stuff. I got thrown out of class and banned from attending all English lectures in the future. Thank you maam!
11th standard final exam. The topic this time was about writing a letter to your friend describing how your Father took you to his workplace. I wrote that my Dad was a archaeologist and when he took me to some ancient village I touched something and contracted an ancient plague. When I went back home, I spread the plague which ultimately led to the downfall of the world around us. I gave it a Skeletons of Society motif. Very nice, it was.
In the same paper there was an essay topic about your first day at work. I wrote that I was hired as an assistant to some Physics professor ... ahhh Mr Feynman. Slight discrepancy, I wrote he also invented the bomb. He and I reversed the effect of the nuclear bomb, turning all the energy to one big blob of harmless mass. The end effect was that the he lost his mind. I remember writing that at the end he was cradling himself with the words, "I don't have to be afraid anymore" The cleverness of it all was that the whole essay had a motif of how I was not afraid of my first day at work.
She summoned me to her office. She said if I continued writing like that especially in the HSC papers I would fail.
I wrote many stories at this point. I gave some of them to her. She gave me some good criticism and encouraging words, but told me I'd have to write simple to get marks in my exams.
I gave my 12th standard English paper and skipped 16 marks because I never read the questions.
I got 52 in the 12th standard English paper.
My first year of engineering. I wrote my favorite piece after watching the duel between Saruman and Gandalf. It was about two men fighting, I called it "At Dawn They Wake". I ended it with the lyrics from my favorite Megadeth track.
A year later I wrote my next favorite piece about a family of Dragon Slayers. The setting was quite nice. The people fed the dragon every now and then, and it left them alone. Except this one guy couldn't take it. So he hunted it down. Twist was that the dragon was invisible, so it charred the brave fool. His legacy lived on though. A tale of revenge is a sweet tale to tell.
A year later my had disk crashed and I lost that story.
Six months ago me and a couple of my very good friends made a 45 minute documentary on a local heavy metal band and how it was a struggle to write original compositions that fans can like because all they expect from local bands are covers.
It was an utter crap movie, but it was our movie. I filmed two songs live, one of them being Children Of Decadence by Children of Bodom. It was a very fulfilling forty five minutes.
I haven't written anything in ages. Sometimes I miss being a kid, sometimes I don't. It's quite an odd feeling.
"The Gods made heavy metal,
And they said that it was good.
They said to play it louder than hell,
We promised that we would."
Manowar - The Gods made heavy metal.
