By Trisha Sakhlecha
AS A child, I always loved writing and for the longest time, I thought my future was as a journalist.
Though I chose to study science and mathematics in high school, the only subject I genuinely enjoyed was English. My library card was always maxed out, I wrangled my way onto my school’s editorial board and when the time came to apply to university, my first choice was a BA journalism degree at Delhi University.
It was a prestigious course and part of the admissions requirement was a three-hour-long entrance exam that tested applicants on everything from grammar and composition to general knowledge and current affairs.
I sat for the exam feeling confident and perhaps a little smug. I had just graduated from one of the best schools in Delhi, I had always been told I was a good writer, and I took particular joy in correcting my brother’s grammar. An entrance exam? Easy. I would sail through.
Turns out, it wasn’t easy at all.
I failed. I did so badly that I didn’t even make the waitlist, let alone the course. It was my first real taste of heartbreak and god, did it hurt. Like all devastating teenage heartbreaks, though, I survived. I studied design instead.
Over the next decade, I moved to London and built a career in fashion, returning to my love for writing time and again, but always sideways – helping a cousin with an essay, writing the odd piece about the latest fashion trends or far more frequently – and secretly – scribbling in my journals.
Though the idea of going into fashion journalism was never far from my thoughts, I refused to give myself the permission to pursue it as a career. There was no point. I couldn’t even get into an entry-level journalism course – which I knew by now wasn’t quite as prestigious as it seemed at the time, a fact that only made my failure feel bigger.
The truth is, I was scared. Was my fear simply a reaction to that early failure or something deeper, cultural conditioning that led me to believe that an Indian girl couldn’t realistically expect to make a living as a writer? I don’t know. But I understood what I wasn’t. What I couldn’t be.
Even when I joined a creative writing course years later, it was because I was desperate for a distraction. I was trying to pull myself out of a very messy, very toxic marriage. I needed space to discover who I was again; and for me, the best way to do that has always been through writing.
I write to discover what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling and quite often, what I’m trying very hard not to feel. Writing was an escape, perhaps even a lifeline, but it was always a hobby. Never in a million years did I think that the novel I wrote to try and make sense of what was arguably the worst period of my life would end up getting published or open up a whole new career for me.
Even harder to grasp was the idea that not only did a major publisher want to publish my work, but they also had so much faith in my writing that they were willing to offer me a contract for my second, yet-to-be-written book on a 50-word synopsis. The fact that a few sentences got me a book deal when thousands of carefully written words all those years ago couldn’t get me into a degree programme still feels utterly, completely unbelievable.
Despite that, as I prepare to pitch my next novel to my editor, that old fear resurfaces – do I have it in me? Can I be a real writer?
My second novel, Can You See Me Now? has just been published. It’s a psychological thriller set in India that deals with toxic female friendships, power and privilege. It was a difficult book to write, one I’m particularly proud of and as I look at the copy on my shelf, I remind myself that I do have it in me to be a real writer. I am a real writer. I just need to keep the faith. And this time, instead of looking outside for validation, perhaps I need to look inside.
Trisha Sakhlecha is the author of Your Truth or Mine? and Can You See Me Now?
Crowds storm the US Capitol after the rally
The BBC office in London
