HYDERABAD: With the advent of the pandemic, many age-old habits have cropped up again — one of them being journaling. It aims at capturing life in the way we want to remember it. But, now and then, we can share a leaf or two from our journal on Instagram and get our followers all curios. CE speaks to city-based journalers, who jot their thoughts, scribble their mind on pieces of paper and, sometimes, post them on social media.
Bibliophile Aasheesh Pittie began journaling in the 1970s. For him, journals are a private space, yet a physical medium, with which he can share what seems special to him. They are also, as he says, “Great for dipping into and reliving incidents from days gone by.” He jots natural history observations, quotes from what he is reading, conversations that strike his mind, something gripping about the world in general, or someone in particular. “Journaling is habit-forming, but procrastination creeps in at times, preventing the writing,” he says.
When emotionally wrought, Aasheeh finds solace in writing up the journal. “Journaling in cursive longhand extracts emotions and neutralises them,” he says. He had started off by writing in his regular notebooks, but growing fond of stationery, he graduated to ones with better quality paper.
“Nowadays I use traveller’s notebooks for the convenient size and their beautiful leather covers. The paper is of good quality and handles ink from a fountain pen well (not showing it on the other side). I do occasionally sketch in it, and sometimes even stick in a newspaper clipping. But mostly, it’s written. The journal is my confessional, alter ego or doppelgänger. It is where one can flesh out an idea or let off steam.”
Bidisha, a young poetess who has been journaling since class III, goes by Miss Z Journal on social media. She promotes handwritten journals on Instagram, her entire feed is dotted with journals. “Being an artist and a passionate poet, I investigated the realms of art throughout my college years. This caused me to consider keeping a diary in a more artistic and creative way, which is when journaling came to mind. Since then, writing has served as a haven, for me to be myself without shame or guilt, to express myself freely,” she says.
Bidisha has two journals -- one for art that focuses on poems, sketching, using newspaper/magazine cuttings, and the other is a personal one, where she writes practically every day about how she feels. “My journals are a mash-up of several topics. There isn’t a single type of art that you will find in them. To create a very old yet elegant vibe, I compose a lot of impromptu poetry and collect visuals from magazines.”
For Sonal Sai, a part-time poetess, photographer and a full-time UX and development analyst, fortunately, or rather, addictively, journaling has become a habit. “It helps with streamlining thoughts and ideas so that I can branch out to bigger options while still being able to take a look at my initial plans. My journal has sketches/paintings based on books I have read or a scene from a movie that I might have watched recently.
Sometimes, if I’m particularly feeling creative, I also pen down some poems. I’d love to stick some pictures in my journal someday -- but for now, my OCDish mind forbids me from tearing out pictures from magazines and newspapers. My journal is my escape space where I can let my thoughts flow free and create a world that soothes me each time I take a look at it,” she says.