Between Ink & Intuition

Srishti Padathiyaar ‘Slash’ A forgotten Writer

What happens to a writer when he or she suddenly stops writing?

That question has been echoing in my head since 2011.

Once upon a time—yes, I’ll allow myself that dramatic opening—I was an avid reader and writer. Days and nights disappeared as I devoured every book that caught my fancy. I wrote about anything and everything that demanded an exit from my mind. I even had a small, humble community of readers who waited for my blogs and poems. We discussed each post, pulled apart every thread, argued, agreed, disagreed. It was intoxicating. It made me want to write more. Life, then, felt like one long, sprawling Indian tale.

By 2011, however, life stopped behaving like the stories I was writing.

That’s when my ink began to dry and my blank pages started staring back at me—unblinking, unapologetic. Slowly, gently, almost politely, the creative flow came to a halt.

Every now and then, family and friends would remind me of my long-lost talent. Energised by their faith, I’d write a page or two—only to stop again. Nothing sparked that fire inside me anymore. Nothing urged me to tell the world that I, too, had a perspective worth narrating. And so, silence took over my planet of creativity and ruled it—for the next fourteen years.

I did write, though. For a living.

I paid my bills by writing professional, purpose-driven content—building brands, shaping ideas, and helping businesses find their voice. Not a single word during those years came from love—and I didn’t try to change that. It felt almost sacrilegious to disturb the grand scheme of silence I believed I was meant to live with for the rest of my life.

So, what changed?

Tick. Tock.

The alarm clock inside me finally rang.

It told me to wake up. To look at the world outside. To tell people that the time had come to step out of the safety shell I had been hiding in. Enough hibernation, it said. Enough waiting.

Alas, my time has come—to live again.
To be the being I was born to be.

And just like that, the clock starts ticking again.
I only hope this clock runs on solar energy when it comes to writing—charged by daylight, truth, and time—so it never has to stop again.