{"id":470,"date":"2008-05-19T09:58:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-19T04:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/?p=470"},"modified":"2021-01-09T13:28:35","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T07:58:35","slug":"long-before-we-had-single-button-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2008\/05\/19\/long-before-we-had-single-button-publishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Long before we had single button publishing……."},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days back, a friend buzzed me on GTalk to ask if i was the kind who contributed to magazines. She had seen a 1996 issue of Reader’s Digest which had an item with my name and hometown, a combo which was too coincidental to not check out. And right she was.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Took me back to 1996, second year of Engineering, a time of upheaval. I was still getting used to staying away from home, and books were something i clung on to, not the engineering type, but fiction, perhaps as a link to a life i left behind. And since RD was something we subscribed to, at home, i sometimes carried it to the hostel. Incidentally, Dad still subscribes, and when i go home, i still get laughs from ‘Humour in Uniform’,’Life’s Like that’ etc.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n

I remember the time when, after reading the ‘Towards More Picturesque Speech’ section, I sat down to make spanking new oxymorons. It didn’t matter that i had no clarity on whether ‘Picturesque’ was made of two separate words i knew, though i couldn’t see what sense their joining made, or it was a totally new word. Meanwhile, dozens of oxymorons made their way to RD, but only a few managed to get published. Maybe they are still laughing at the ones that didn’t get published. <\/span><\/div>\n

\n

In the old days of India Post exclusives, I waited for the postman to bring me news of RD accepting my entry and er, paying me. When, eventually they did, I also remember the thrill of getting paid, and for the first time, seeing my words and name on print. Of course, I was also asked to explain the humour in (for example) ‘Mutually Exclusive’ and why it got published. I usually failed. For that particular example, the one that got published in 1996, I remember the picture on the cover too, because that was the last entry i ever sent to RD. Something must have changed after that.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n

Have you ever tried to look back into your past, a sort of bird’s eye view? And sometimes, while doing so, have you ever felt conflicting emotions? Sometimes I cannot understand myself and why i’d done things I did. And sometimes, I understand myself totally and wish someone had been there to give me a hug that I was longing for. And that still brings a lump to my throat. Maybe I haven’t changed after all. <\/span><\/div>\n

\n

until next time, published<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days back, a friend buzzed me on GTalk to ask if i was the kind who contributed to magazines. She had seen a 1996 issue of Reader’s Digest which had an item with my name and hometown, a combo which was too coincidental to not check out. And right she was. Took me […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[412,7],"tags":[403],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-yesterday","tag-readers-digest"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15305,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions\/15305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}