For the past three and a half months I’ve been teaching Creative Writing to the SYBMM (second year students of the Bachelor of Mass Media) students in St Xavier’s college in Mumbai. If there was just one word to describe them it would be ‘incorrigible.’ It’s pretty difficult to control a class of 60 students when most of them are constantly chatting and joking around. I thought they wouldn’t do well in the tests but they surprised me – even the ones who were constantly talking.
One question in their test paper was this: Write a paragraph using the words ‘blue, minute, present, dog, wound.’ Here are a few samples written by these feisty 19 year olds
The unshaven man wound up the small object and set it on a blue tarp. Then he disappeared into the crowd, like a salmon in a shoal of a thousand. A small dog seemed intrigued by the ticking object and started sniffing it. A few metres away, a young man presented the love of his life with a dazzling engagement ring. A few metres further, a painter was completing the final touches on what would be his masterpiece. In a minute came the explosion. A massive ball of fire consumed the crowd with a searing rage. Then, there was only deafening silence.