“I will not allow you to go alone to that market. It is the rainy season, the roads become drains, and antisocial elements of society become active. If you have company, I will allow you to go.”
My mother’s words were final.
I had asked her permission to join a typing class, but instead of the permission I had hoped for, I received a list of dangers waiting outside our home. I was disappointed and disheartened. None of my friends was interested in learning typing. They were far more fascinated by beauty products, fashionable clothes and taking beautiful photographs of themselves. I, however, had somehow developed an unusual interest in learning how to type.
Since I could not go to the typing class, I went to the computer room and decided to find my own way.
In those days, connecting to the internet was not as effortless as it is today. The internet was expensive, and every minute mattered. I dialled the connection, opened Google and typed, “How to learn typing online.” Then I pressed the search button.
Several links appeared. I clicked on the first one and discovered, to my delight, that the first lesson was free.
I eagerly began.
I learned where each finger was supposed to rest on the keyboard—the little finger of the left hand on A, the ring finger on S, the middle finger on D and the index finger on F. Then I learned the corresponding positions for my right hand. It seemed almost like learning a new language, except that instead of words, I was learning the language of the keyboard.
Suddenly I remembered that the internet meter was running.
I quickly disconnected.
The rest of my education had to be offline.
Every day, whenever I found some free time, I took one lesson and practised it wholeheartedly. There were no expensive classes, no teacher sitting beside me and no friends learning along with me. There was simply a keyboard, a few lessons I had saved in my mind and my determination to learn.
When I completed all the lessons, I discovered another way to improve. I started playing typing games. They made practice enjoyable, and slowly my fingers began moving across the keyboard with greater confidence.
One day, my brother called me. I excitedly told him, “I have learned typing, but my speed is very slow.”
He was already an adept typist and gave me a piece of advice that I still remember.
“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” he said. “This sentence contains all twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. Keep typing it again and again. Your speed will improve.”
I followed his advice.
At that time, I had no idea that this little typing lesson would eventually become the beginning of something much bigger.
While my friends were busy with the things that interested them, I was busy learning to type. And that decision stayed with me. It has now been seventeen years since I began writing my blogs.
My first blog was published on 1 October 2009.
When I look back at those early blogs, I smile. They were short because I did not yet have enough words to express everything I wanted to say. With time, however, the words multiplied. My thoughts became clearer, my stories became longer and I slowly discovered my own way of sharing experiences with my readers.
Earlier, my mother was my editor. She would read my writing and point out my mistakes. Today, technology has changed, and AI tools have become my editors. But one thing has remained unchanged—I still love sitting down and turning my thoughts into words.
Even my readers have travelled with me across the world.
Earlier, most of my readers were from India. Today, I see readers from the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, Hong Kong, Singapore and many other countries whose exact locations I sometimes have to look up on the world map. Interestingly, only a very small number of my readers now come from India.
It amazes me.
A young girl who once could not get permission to walk alone to a typing class eventually found a way to learn typing at home. That small act of determination opened a door she could not have imagined. The keyboard that I first approached simply as a tool for typing eventually became a bridge to people I would never meet and places I might never visit.
As Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
Perhaps my adventure began rather quietly—with a rainy season, a worried mother, an expensive internet connection and four letters on a keyboard: A, S, D and F.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if my mother had allowed me to join that typing class. Perhaps I would have learned typing there and forgotten about it. Instead, her refusal pushed me towards a different path. I learned to find my own way.
And that may be the most valuable lesson of all.
Seventeen years have passed since that first blog. I have written through changing times, changing technologies and changing readers. My editor changed from my mother to AI, the internet became cheaper and faster, and my readers travelled from one country to another.
But my love for writing remains.
I hope I continue to learn, observe and write stories for as long as I can.
Perhaps I will keep pressing those keys until my fingers can no longer type—and until then, I hope there will always be another story waiting to be written.
Pic : Pixabay and AI Generated
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