Ramblings of a Lunatic
Gargee Dixit
SY Bsc
Editor-in-Chief (Complementary with Compliments)
Hi! I am Gargee, and I write out of resentment. I don’t specifically resent the world (that is omnipresent) but because of my own personal failings. I write because I cannot verbalise my thoughts, I write because I’m hostile towards my shyness. I write because I want to vindicate the embarrassing situations I get myself into, governed by social anxiety.
I don’t even know how I started to write. I was never a bookworm except for Percy Jackson and the occasional Agatha Christie novel and I was never taught ‘proper’ English (I am a state board student). As a result, I was never good at English in school and didn’t even attempt to write. (Unless you count angsty teenage poems as writing). This changed when I went to junior college. I don’t know if puberty made me smarter or if BMCC’s standard was that low, but I was a writer there. AND I LOVED IT. I love the feeling of the keys clacking, manically laughing and smirking at the jokes only I find funny, and pulling random topics out of nowhere and rambling.
Many people have told me my writing is very ‘ADHD friendly,’ which I’m unsure if it’s a compliment or not. Maybe it’s because my writing style is very reminiscent of a youtube video essay. (haha let’s not go down that rabbit hole). I know my vocabulary is limited to say the least, nor am I well-versed in grammar. But I think that’s what makes my writing fun. I am forced to think in metaphors or analogies to convey my emotions, precisely because ‘big specific’ words don’t come naturally to me and that’s totally fine. I’m happy being the ‘generic words’ writer, because ultimately I write for myself, to tell a story. If, by chance, it happens to be a good piece of literature, that’s just a plus point. 😉
The above exposition I gave you was to explain the disbelief I had when the current TYs recruited me to 8:10. And it was/still is one of the highlights of my life here at GIPE. Every month I love writing on new interesting topics, introducing people to concepts they haven’t even heard about, or simply to make them laugh. I am the editor-in-chief for the ‘Complimentary with Complements’ section. A fancy, alliterative name for ‘miscellaneous’. It covers the topics that don’t abide by the econ, sports and art trinity (omg rebel).
One of my most memorable experiences/full circle moments was writing my first article and being scared out of my wits trying to do my best. I distinctly remember getting lost in my topic and Keerthana (the then econ editor) trying to put structure to my article with countless edits. I was quite embarrassed by the amount of editing she had to do but I was never scolded for it. And then the last article I wrote in my first year was coincidentally also under econ with Keerthana as the editor. For that article, I received zero edits and it was approved quickly. This was my full circle moment, my ‘made it’ moment. From being scared of writing and taking days to refine, to pulling out a finished article in mere hours was my journey as a writer here. I do hope to improve and experiment more, but I am also proud of where I am today, and that is thanks to the 8:10.
Love,
From one lunatic to another