Urge To Fly?

So I finally have a blog of my own. I have been mulling over this idea for a while now, but somehow I just didn't know how to start. First, there was this natural resistance to the concept of blogging itself. Being a very private person, I wasn't sure if I really wanted to put my thoughts for the whole world to read and comment upon. This was indeed the toughest hurdle to cross. It took me a while to convince myself that being private and expressing oneself through a blog were not mutually exclusive. After all, I would have complete control of what I would write about.

Then came another hurdle- not a major one, but quite significant. I love to write in Hindi and Urdu; in fact, I feel (some definitely disagree) that I can express myself better through Hindi and Urdu poetry. I have been writing in Hindi and Urdu for many years now; and if I had to start my own blog, it had to offer me the flexibility of choosing the script I wanted to write in. Even if I had the flexibility of writing simultaneously in Roman and Devnagri scripts, that would suffice. (Urdu can be written better in Devnagari than Roman - that's my personal belief). So, I searched around a bit and found a cool tool that could help me do that.

Finally, what should I call my bog? I didn't have to think much on this, I knew it had to be either "Scribe's Pen" or "Urge to Fly". Very odd choices, you might think. There are two of my Urdu couplets that I'm particularly fond of and these words come from there. They don't translate particularly well in English though (Khaama-e-Kaatib = Scribe's pen; Khwaahish-e-Parwaaz = Urge to fly). Here are the two couplets (शे'र) I'm referring to:

अशग़ाल-ओ-रोज़गार की मसरूफ़ियत जहाँ
चलता वहीं है ख़ामा-ए-कातिब भी ज़ोर से
(where one's busy with one's vocation
the 'scribe's pen' too runs with all its might)

क्यूँ न आग़ोश-ए-तख़य्युल में मैं उड़ता ही रहूँ
दर हक़ीक़त है मुझे ख़्वाहिश-ए-परवाज़ नहीं
(In the embrace of dreams why shouldn't I fly
In reality, I don't have the 'urge to fly')

(Don't even comment on the translations. I can't afford to get Vikram Seth to do them for me!!)

In Urdu I would have chosen "scribe's pen" (simply because I like the way it sounds), but I feel that "urge to fly" translates better in English. I could have chosen the original urdu words as well, but can you imagine anyone remembering khaamaekaatib.blogspirit.com??

Anyway, the name's chosen and that's what it will be.

The scribe's pen has an urge to fly.

How that urge gets expressed, it will soon unravel.

P.S. The phrase Urge to Fly also happens to be used in one of the songs of my favorite Pink Floyd. However, that was never a conscious source of inspiration for the name of my blog.

"I've got a strong urge to fly. But I got nowhere to fly to, fly to, fly to....."
- Pink Floyd (Nobody Home)