The Poor Man's Pulitzer.

The news was unexpected though Mr. Me was secretly expecting it. He took pride in possessing an ingenious imagination accompanied with laser sharp words.

He even wondered at times, if his descriptive writing had real power behind it. The creativity in him asserted vociferously that if it were the case, it might not have been possible for him to put his burning thoughts on paper or a LED screen, literally burning them.

The secret longing to win the award for his decade long literary works materialized as a public announcement that he, Mr. Me, had been chosen from the short-listed nominees to receive the prestigious award.

He was certain now that some of the publishers would scramble to commission new projects or cash in on the aftermath of his euphoria.

Visitors and callers added to the excitement, which was raging like a tropical storm in his mind. All these activities rekindled the past memories of times spent in studying his subjects and gathering of choice words to clothe his thoughts. Every common occurrence or struggle of people to survive the day became the arena on which he staged his worldly dramas and melodramas.

However a sneaking disappointment hovered around the euphoria – his close family members keeping a distance from the writer in him. In the best of times he took it as a challenge to excel and when in low spirits, saw it as a cynical pessimism at his creativity. He understood, though creativity had no borders it had its invisible boundaries – normalizing with it came to him naturally. Whenever overcome by deep anguish, he recalled this wonderful sentence he had formed at the spur of a moment. He called it “creativity in a crisis”.

He was pleased that his writing skill has not become decadent even after a decade of digging for subjects and words.

The deep silence of the family members weighed heavily on his mind. Contradicting thoughts paraded through his mind – may be the mistress does not like the adulation I am getting or the son might be feeling the burden of sharing the views of the father or the daughter might be feeling left out in thought discussions fearing conflict of interest.

When sanity returned, he demolished these thoughts one by one – the mistress abhors adulation in any form; the son might have technical rather than literary liking; the daughter being a flourishing writer has her own goals. Yet the nagging disappointment kept bothering him, despite the family joining him for the felicitation.

Driving back home after the function, Mr. Me broke the ice by asking them, “why none of you feel like congratulating me?”

They replied with the following:

“You wrote about poverty using a rich vocabulary and never went back to that village or met the villager whose anguish you converted into money.”

“You wrote about social issues never failing to dictate what others should do with out ever trying to lead by example.”

“You wrote everything in a language which the subject person and a larger section of the population are unable to read.”

Mr. Me was left speechless and in the ensuing silence he recalled from memory all the topics and poems he had delivered with passion in the last one decade. He did not need his ingenious imagination to tell him that all along he has been asking people to reap without sowing. Belatedly he included himself also in the list, ruing the direction his writings have taken.

The euphoria of winning an award lasts for a short time, if the root cause for the recognition is analysed and understood in its proper perspective.

Yet his “creativity in a crisis” had not deserted him and he instantly recalled a repartee between a friend and him: Once he asked a friend, “why are you doing floor exercise?” His friend replied, “No chance for a fall injury.”

According to the latest information, Mr. Me has whole heartedly plunged in to social work in the same village which formed the back drop for his best-seller “Pain in vain”.

He had succeeded in bringing hope to the poor, raising literacy, health and financial state. He goes about telling people that the affection shown by these poor people is more satisfying than any literary award.

The writer in Mr. Me had come to earth.