Honestly speaking I am not sure what to write here. First of all, this whole thing is kind of about me. I think the biggest part of me is the ‘thinking-about-all-random-things-somewhat-deeper’ guy wiggling inside my brain, and I have been honest to reveal that part all over this website, limited by time and other mundane things in my life.
But I do respect you that you have come here to explore a bit more, beyond this soliloquy thing. So let me be more genuine than this post or more serious than this imaginary conversation (with you).
My name is Pratap Chandra Adak and I am from a Bengali Hindu family brought up in a rural part of West Bengal in India. The real meaning of my name, Pratap, which is an archaic one, is vigor or the power usually associated with the big kings.1. So lots of kings in Indian history had this name as common. But I am not sure why my maternal grandfather found this name cool. I do forgive him for not anticipating that the baby would turn out to be a soft-spoken weak-hearted ‘a-guy-whom-no-one-can-detect-in-a-crowd-at-all’ type introvert. But I admit I fail the name. My childhood stories say that at best I would sleep on the bare floor whenever I got a chance but I would never make any trouble to anyone around!
You have probably started noticing that I am again diverting from saying the actual points about me. I guess ‘about-someone’ most closely means ‘about-someone’s-job’. And if that is correct, let me reveal that I am not a ‘wild-hair-don’t-care-about-anything-else-in-life’ type scientist 2, but my profession is to do research in physics. Currently I am doing my PhD in TIFR, Mumbai and if you want to see what I do there you can visit my professional homepage here.
Now back to the track, about me: I have already told you that I am soft-spoken. But in reality if you are not someone whom I know for a while, I shall hardly speak to you. That is because from my childhood I am very pathetic at conversations and in meeting new people and in making new friends. Instead, I feel quite comfortable writing my feelings down. If God would offer me two options- one world where you can speak but not write for interacting with your fellow people, and the other one where you have to write everything down but can’t speak at all, I would definitely choose the second one.
That’s why I write here. Though I am not sure how that reads if anyone stumbles upon them by chance, I write because that is the most natural way for me to express myself. Rather than using the word ‘writing’ I should probably use the word ‘writalking’ – a form of talking in a written way. Because for me writing things are much like talking where I write and do not look back. What I mean is I write in flow and do not change back the track. While talking, as slip of tongue happens, similarly slip of finger (or whatever you would like to call it) happens to me and I do not always correct them. Because if I look back, the whole piece sounds shit to me and I just end up in withdrawing it. So I rather do not do that. So for me, the writalking is obviously not any literary thing. And this is not just maintaining a blog either3. It is a bit bigger for me which I cannot explain.
I think I should stop here. Writing about oneself is dangerous. It leads one to an awkward conversation. It leads one to one’s narcissistic bubble. And one stops realizing that whatever one is talking about or writing about or writalking about, does not make any sense. Or maybe, the very imagination that someone wants to know about me is driving me crazy and opening up this weird chatter box. So I should obviously stop here.
I think you may better read this post if you want to know why this guy has made all these things.