Tasting Raindrops...How I Went From A Dreamer To A Doer

Written By: Devangini Mahapatra Chauhan (My Writer Story)

A writer’s soul knows no bounds. That is the crux of my story. I began writing at the age of seven. How? Don’t ask me. It came as naturally as eating, sleeping, breathing and ducking homework. My parents would tour the length and breadth of Orissa, in search of that next turnkey project for their budding interior decoration business. And I would get to know each port of duty in my own unique way: by the smell of the paper napkins that came with the meals.

I would collect these paper napkins by the dozen, sit patiently while my sister would divide each into four squares; and then run downstairs to the receptionists’ to have the entire bunch neatly stapled into a book of sorts. Then, I would find a quiet spot in the garden of the said guest house. I would station myself below a large, shady tree. And write.

I wrote about cat and mouse games. I wrote about jungles. I wrote about homes and their owners. I wrote poems on Autumn and Spring. A teacher at school once accidentally found a poem buried in the deep recesses of my notebook. I was asked to recite it at the Assembly the next day. A writer is a reluctant advertiser, and I was ill at ease throughout the exercise. But the encouragement remained in my heart and mind. My parents whole heartedly took up the case and signed me up for a creative writing course once I was done with high school. After that, there was no looking back. Articles in newspapers, magazines and writing assignments soon followed. As did the struggle.

Even after an MBA degree, I knew there was only one thing I could do: write. I struggled with a deep pain from not recording ideas that would visit me while I lay down to sleep; I struggled with cobwebs that mental blocks inevitably brought; I struggled with low key, low paying writing jobs that would not accord me even a byline once published; I struggled with the vagabond life that an Army wife faces; I struggled with low confidence and self-doubt. I struggled with it all.

And today, as I stand on the balcony, looking at the night sky, knowing in my heart that I did the right thing by following my heart – I can say that I have finally succumbed to the magical world of doing what one really wants to do. And what I felt was right for me. And what I thought was a journey I could not avoid…and all.

That’s how the name struck me. The words that I concocted into sentences would leave much to my imagination and I realised that the sky really was the limit. So why not have it all? “And All”, my publishing and media house was thus born.

On the 12^th of October this year, I release my first book, Speed Breakers, and launch my first online magazine fashioned as a think tank: Studio And All. The official Facebook page for the book ended up with a 100 likes within eight hours of its conception – 8 Hours. In all of this, I have also found a platform from where I am beginning to garner outside interest. Content related projects are slowly trickling in. I have found a way to contribute to issues, to contribute to workforces, to solutions, to ideas…and all.

And that, my friends, is only the beginning. The beginning of a long awaited, and much delayed journey. A journey that I am eager to relish. A journey where I am tasting those raindrops, falling on me like blessings, drenching my soul in happiness and satisfaction.

Devangini Mahapatra Chauhan, Author – Entrepreneur

Devangini Mahapatra Chauhan has been in the business of writing for the past 12 years. From corporate to academic content, from copy writing to editing, from articles to her first book: she has done it all.

Her experience and expertise helped her set up her own media and publishing house, And All.

A creative writing course from The Writer’s Bureau, Manchester (UK), was a bend in the road for this MBA graduate, and she eventually succumbed to the calling that had been with her since her childhood.