It was Sunday.
No one in their right mind would keep an alarm on a Sunday. But I did. 5:00 a.m.
Which might sound okay, until you hear that I went to bed only at midnight.
After the freshers' dinner, when we returned to the hostel, I stayed just fifteen minutes in the room—long enough to change into my nightwear, splash some water on my face, and pretend to be ready for bed. But instead of pulling up my blanket, I grabbed my notebook and tiptoed into the study hall at 10 p.m.
I had told myself, "Just half an hour. Quick draft work."
But something strange happened.
Once I sat down, it was like the memories from the day spilled out of my pen. My mind refused to stop. What I thought would be thirty minutes turned into two hours of non-stop writing. I didn't even feel the time pass. That's how deeply I was immersed in it.
So I had to wake up early today.
Because I don't know when the articles will be ready.
Because the lab is locked on Sundays.
Because I'd have to write them all by hand.
And because peace is rare in a girls' hostel, especially after 10 a.m. Most of them wouldn't even wake up until lunch. But after that? Chaos. Loud phone calls, laughter, someone playing music on a speaker, and someone chasing a lizard. You never know.
I knew if I wanted a calm headspace to write, this was it. My only window. Morning.
I didn't do my usual routine today—no morning prayers, no slow stretches, no idly sipping water by the window. Today wasn't a routine day.
Today was special.
Till now, I hadn't told anyone—not even my closest friends—what exactly I was planning to do with the performances, the notes, the photos, the late-night drafts. I didn't want to talk about it until I was absolutely sure I could do it.
Until I had something real to show.
So I quietly sat at the corner desk in the study hall, opened a fresh sheet of paper, and let the memories of last evening take over. They came in full color—music, lights, nerves, smiles, sweat.
And then came the Bharatham dancer.
I started the article about her first.
How she was supposed to wear her own classical costume, but it had been left behind at home due to a packing mix-up. How, at the last minute, she had to borrow a maroon cotton saree from one of the wardens. I remember seeing her near the stage stairs, biting her nails, looking pale. Not because of stage fright—but because she thought she'd look ridiculous without the proper dress.
But the same warden, who usually scolded us for everything from messy hair to creased uniforms, came to the rescue.
She Googled Bharatham saree draping tutorials.
Stumbled through the pleats.
Pinned everything with shaking fingers.
It wasn't perfect. But it was enough to make that girl shine.
And when the dancer finally walked onto stage, head held high, saree flowing like a real Bharathanatyam costume, it was not just her performance that made us clap. It was the unspoken story behind it. The desperation. The kindness. The last-minute saving grace.
I wrote all of that.
Because that's the kind of story I wanted in my magazine.
Not just the spotlight, but the shadows behind it. The grit. The grace.
With each word I wrote, I felt a little more sure of what we were building.
Of what I was doing.
Of who I was becoming.
In my last life, too, I loved writing.
But it didn't have the space to bloom into a passion. It remained a hobby—something I did between unit tests and school exhibitions, squeezed into the margins of notebooks or during lazy Sunday afternoons. I used to write poems and essays in Tamil, and I even represented my school in inter-school competitions. But English was where I truly let my imagination run wild—not with short stories (because I could never stick to the word limit) but with long, rambling novels that poured out of me. I had entire notebooks filled with plots and characters that lived only in my head and on those pages. One time, I wrote a story draft that crossed over a hundred pages—just for fun.
Then came college. And somehow, I lost the rhythm.
Maybe it was because I stopped writing regularly. Or maybe because the whirlwind of a new city, new people, new languages, new food—especially the food—took over my senses. Food, after all, has always been my first love. Just the thought of trying a new cuisine was enough to derail my attention from anything else. Okay, focus, Nila. Stop thinking about food. I'm not going to get biriyani just by writing about it. Where was I?
Ah, yes—writing.
In the lowest phase of my past life, when everything else felt like it was slipping through my fingers, writing was what caught me. It was the only thing that made me feel like I still had something to give. That I was still me.
Content writing—that phrase had once sounded so dull to me. But when I started doing it, desperate for an income, I discovered that even ghostwriting for strangers or typing SEO-heavy blogs could feel like a lifeline. The money was meagre, but the satisfaction of stringing words together and creating meaning out of chaos—it was priceless. I clung to that feeling. I needed it. It kept me sane when everything else was falling apart.
But in this life, I'm not writing to survive.
I'm writing because writing is the way I live. The way I see the world. The way I understand people, capture moments, remember things that others forget.
And this school magazine? This is going to be my first real creation in this life. A project that never even existed in my past. But here, now, it's going to exist because I will it into existence. Because this time I choose to make room for my passion, even before life pushes me to the edge.
This time, I won't wait for desperation to teach me what I already know deep down—I am a writer. And this time, I will leave behind records. Not just messy notebooks and scattered PDFs, but proper archives. A trail of articles, issues, and words that show the journey—how Nila became Nila. How a girl with a sling bag, a pen, and a dream turned her quiet ambition into something others could read, share, and maybe even be inspired by.
Maybe it'll start with a simple article about the fresher's day. About how the Bharatham dancer had to borrow a saree from the warden at the last minute because she forgot her costume. About how that same warden—who always seemed so stern and grumpy—spent ten minutes quietly watching Bharatham videos on YouTube so she could help pin the pleats just right. About how a nervous 9th-grade boy with a devotional song silenced an entire auditorium with his voice. About the way my friends, scared and uncertain backstage, transformed into glowing dancers once the lights hit their faces and the music started.
I'll write about all of it. About the way excitement hummed in the air, the way the food tasted extra special because it was a celebration, the way gossip always floated in the background like a low hum but never really touched me because I had something far bigger to focus on.
I'll write about how even though I was dressed in a bright half-saree, I didn't need attention. I needed intention. And I had it. I have it.
I don't know how many people will read the first issue of this magazine. Maybe just a few students. Maybe some teachers will skim it and smile politely. Or maybe, just maybe, it will find its way into someone's heart the way my first diary entries once did for me. Maybe one girl, one day, will read it and decide that her quiet voice matters too.
That's enough for me.
This time, I'm not chasing a dream—I'm building one. Word by word.