A few days ago I read an interesting and thought-provoking blog on, in the author’s own words, ‘writing, music, painting or any area of expression’. His advice to any aspiring artist is, ‘Do it daily’. Though it is a fact we know very well, yet it pays to read, hear, and feel it often so that it carves itself into our brain, and emanates out of our fingertips. Whether the inspiration is in the air or not, one has to take up his pen, write, sketch, do whatever it takes to do it. Every day. One of the first hurdles that an artist has to cross is one that he himself creates.

There was this story I read a number of years ago, wherein two gentlemen wait for a third to join them at eight o’clock in the evening for a meeting that would become the crux of the story. A few minutes before eight, one looks out the window, sees no carriage stopping at their door and says, “I don’t think he’ll turn up.” Of course he had valid reasons for doubting the man’s word.
The other says, “He will. He is an Englishman. He will be here on the dot, at eight.”
Sure enough, midway into the clock’s chime, there is a knock at the door and the landlady announces his arrival.

A generation or so ago, a majority of the people in our country lived a life far different from that of today. A life that you would call tough, astounding or impossible. They walked miles to fetch water from the river, used hot coal to iron dresses, washed clothes at a stone specially designed for the purpose and hung them out in the sun to dry. They bent double to sweep and mop the house. They wrote letters to connect with others. They did arithmetic in their mind, or on paper. They used fire to cook. They went out shopping. They fanned themselves in Summer and burned fire-wood in Winter.