Wani Deoras
Senior Approval Board (TY BSc Economics)
The love for reading that was instilled in me by my father gradually grew into my love for writing. Just like people have their own unique ways of expressing themselves, through art, music, photography, I knew mine was words. I started with writing fiction stories (that obviously never got published anywhere, I was yet to be that confident in my writing) in middle school and continued exploring my ideas through high school. Essay writing questions were always my favorite part about the English exams but I also hated how structured they had to be and how there was a word limit and how I always, always ran out of time. I always wanted to keep writing on and on, not stop at the word or the time limit and explain my ideas in as much detail as I could, never letting the flow of words stop. I was never a fan of poetry back then because it was too short and I never really understood what the poet wanted to say in the first attempt. Then there was this one time, I attended a 3 day writing workshop. That is when I learned that writing is not always about explaining every single thought that you have to the reader. It’s putting how you feel, how you think into words and then letting the reader interpret it for themselves. Some will understand exactly what you want to say, some won’t and yet others will derive a completely different meaning from your writing. That’s when I realized that was exactly what I had been doing this whole time with the books I loved reading so much. That workshop actually helped shape my writing a lot. I learned to put my thoughts down in fewer words, making it crisp and to the point, and once I actually started practicing it, I realized that this did not stop the flow of words, it just channeled it in a better way. And I hope to keep working on making my writing better every single day.
That was my journey of writing. As for my journey at The 810 newsletter, I joined because I felt like I wanted to put my writing out there. I was gaining the confidence that I didn’t have till high school. And the journey has been amazing through the last two years. We were the last batch to get to work directly under our brilliant super seniors who founded the newsletter. They had started the newsletter for it to be a platform for the BSc students to express themselves, raise their voice and put themselves out there. The aim of the 810 was always more than just creating content, it was creating writers. That’s when I knew I had to be a part of this team. Writing for the newsletter taught me discipline and to take constructive criticism. It has shaped my writing in ways I don’t even recognise anymore. It also taught me editing as well as people management skills during my reign as an Editor-in-Chief.
Ours was the second “Covid batch” which meant that we started our college on google meets. In those times when socialization in college only meant chatting about the most random things with strangers from behind the laptop, the 810 also became a way for us to get to know people outside our batch, people who shared similar interests and who had a lot more experience at college-ing than us. And take my word for it, high school to college is almost like a cultural shock. My seniors at the 810 were the best mentors I could ever ask for (shoutout to all you guys!)
Although we lost a little traction over the years, the 810 team is, and will always be, a team of people who are passionate about writing and about words. There’s a reason we are the longest running club at GIPE! Here’s hoping the newsletter reaches more people and touches new heights under the command of the next batch and the batch after that and the batch after that and…