A Tale of Two Writing Workshops

and the auntie who always asks "How Dare You?"

I have a pesky neighbour. Her name is Mrs. Doubtfuley.

She lives in the second floor of my mind.

Doubtfuley Kaku, as I call her, is a middle-aged Marathi auntie. She is always chattering loudly in her balcony. Always taming her long hair into an oily plait. Possessive of her Tupperware dabbas, she loves peeping into other windows of my mind, eager to report dangerous activities. A good citizen, she speaks in Marathi, except when she asks her favourite question in English, “How Dare You?”, dragging the day-arrr with a Marathi accent and auntie judgement.

My bio reads this — raju tai is a friend, writer, teacher, and a friendly writing teacher. Mrs. Doubtfuley disapproves. “Friend? After so many break-ups? How dare you?,” she evaluates. “Writer? I didn’t know you wrote a book. I toh didn’t see any...,” she taunts. “Teacher? Vhery goood! Ejjucation is good only, but how dare you think you can teach writing?,” she challenges.

Most days I ignore her, the way we ignore desi aunties at family functions. But an internalised auntie lives in the mind. She is harder to ignore.

Yet, I continue to write and teach. Since I conducted my first writing workshop in 2017, I haven’t searched for my “purpose”. There is nothing more fulfilling for me than teaching writing, except writing. I switch between being a student of writing and a teacher of writing, many times a week. I’m no expert. But boy, I am enthusiastic.

Memoir 101 Workshop

Earlier in 2022, I realised that I am so devoted to teaching writing precisely because I have missed a nurturing space to write when I was young. So I try hard to create it for others. And while I love to teach and encourage myself, I miss walking into a space warmed by someone else’s encouragement. I crave to be read by someone with more experience, someone with the same love and awe I feel for my students.

In April, I stumbled upon a Memoir 101 workshop poster on Substack. It was being conducted by author and columnist Natasha Badhwar. I had read Natasha’s name previously, but not her writing. I discovered a piece written by one of her workshop students. I wasn’t sure if it was produced in Natasha’s workshop. But I was arrested by its depth and detail. My gut said, ‘I want this’. I went back to the poster. Doubtfuley Kaku nagged, “How dare you? What about the money? But aren’t you moving cities that month?”

In a rare event, I shut her up - “Keep your doubts in your dabbas. I am doing this workshop.”

When the sessions started, my Bangalore boxes were still unopened in Pune. I simply reunited my chair and table, and ‘Zoomed’ into the eyes of the workshop participants, as we started our time travel to the past. Within a few days, I had to bust out my ergonomic keyboard from my samaan, for Natasha’s assignments demanded rigorous digging. Knowing that I wasn’t doing this alone helped me unravel and fall apart on the page, only to be put back together in the next session.

In a workshop subtitled ‘the transformative power of personal writing,’ you don’t compete with other participants. You can’t wish to have their talent or their story, for you will also have to take their pain. So you sit, soaked in compassion, swelling in love for these gorgeous strangers. You sigh - suffering is the most common thing in these diverse lives, but so is the urge to heal the wounds with meaning and witness. You wonder if you lucked out to find such extraordinary humans, or if Natasha is a witch, creating an enchanting place with ordinary people and their ink bottles.

Creative Writing 101 Workshop for Teenagers

In a conversation with Natasha after the workshop, my experience of teaching language and writing came up. She asked me if I’d be interested in conducting a writing workshop for teenagers under her workshop banner. Encouraged by her trust, I wrote to her with ideas, and we planned for a workshop for August 2022. We made colourful posters.

All was well, until the workshop posters went out into the world. I was struck by anxiety. Doubtfuley Kaku rushed to my floor and started packing my bags, should I want to run away from it all.

After two days of worrying about how I’ll be seen as arrogant or stupid or not-good-enough, I finally shared the posters on my WhatsApp status. I had judged some people for self-promotion in the past, and judgement is a bitch that comes back to bite. But guess what? I mostly got kind reactions! Why do I forget that kindness is also a bitch that comes back to wag her tail? Drowning in anxiety, I couldn’t see that the posters might reach a parent or an aunt of a creative teenager. I almost let Doubtfuley Kaku move in with me.

I woke up from the trance of anxiety when I saw what Swaati {a beautiful human and writer I met at the Memoir 101 workshop} wrote:

I met Rajashree at a memoir writing workshop lately, and was struck by her writing because it was so fresh, deep, insightful yet playful (needless to say, I was very jealous.😀) She made me crumble with feeling one moment, and laugh out loud the next, in spite of me. Her feedback on my writing was even more generous, careful, detailed, moved by feeling, devoid of judgement.

I think if I was a teen grappling with making sense of the world through writing, these are just the qualities I would like in my mentor. Because writing, I realise now, is less about learning the craft and so much more about having an empathetic witness who *believes* in all that you bring to the world as a writer, as a person. If your children are budding writers, make sure to let them have this experience!

Swaati’s words reminded me that witnessing and believing is far more important than having expertise.

Eventually, I had to turn to the most scared person - the teenager in me. The girl who loved to hide in her corner, the one who never voiced the bizarre experiences that amused her and hurt her. If I could help even one such kid tell their story through this workshop, it will be worth it. It’s not so much about daring to create that space, it is about caring to create it. So I went to the second floor and once again told Mrs. Doubtfuley, “Keep your doubts in your dabbas. I’m doing this workshop.”

Read more about Natasha’s Memoir 101 workshop here:

Memoir 101 - The transformative power of writing

Read more about my Creative Writing 101 for Teenagers workshop here:

Creative Writing 101 — an online writing workshop for teenagers

If you want to write from a deeper place, please consider applying for Natasha’s workshop, and if you know any cool/warm/sensitive/creative teenagers, please share the this link with them/their parents. 💚