Born To Write

In my next life I want to be born as a freelance writer with supernatural confidence. Every second day our office gets a call from some freelance person or the other. The regularity has convinced us that when it comes to freelance writing, age and sex are no bar. All you need is HUGE faith in your writing abilities and choice of topic.
From 65 plus retired bureaucrat (RB) to teenage schoolgirl, they have all called. The RB, after giving a backgrounder on his illustrious career, said he wanted to write on the plight of women in India.
‘Anything specific Sir? We respectfully asked.
RB went through the roof
‘Why do you want specifics…in a country where women are still burnt for dowry, raped every second day…it is a sorry plight…If your mag doesn’t publish…standards going down the drain…Boom Booom BOOM BOOM BOOM’
I can still imagine him in front of his computer. Banging the phone on us, running his eye through a 3,000 word article (with no spell check) and wondering...hmm…now who do I send this brilliant piece of work to? Hindustan Times?
The teenage girl was far more difficult to handle. Not only was she young and vulnerable, she had a mother.
‘Sorry but we don’t publish poems,’ we informed the girl.
Mommy, who was obviously snooping in, cut in from the extension line: Oh! But you used to!
Not any more, I said. My biggest mistake. Mommy launched into a long spiel on her daughter’s creative mind, her numerous trophies (didn’t know they gave them out for poems. Ph, are you listening?), her scholastic achievements and the publications that had made her a star (Bright Youngster's Club, Pitampura). We were clearly nipping the bud, crushing the young spirit, destroying talent, etc.
Just now, the call came from a woman of uncertain age. ‘I am wanting to write,’ she said.
Goodie gumdrops! Please do so, I wanted to say but gave her the spiel about sending her CV to the ed, with sample work, etc. Also corrected her that ed was a ‘she’, not a ‘he’. Then I asked her what she wrote about. ‘Recipes. I will send them to him.’ Came the confidant reply.
Like I said. In my next life…