What I Missed While Walking Past the Kanchi Mutt

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A place I passed every day without really understanding it. As a kid growing up in Malleswaram, devotion wasn’t something we discussed — it was just in the air. The smell of agarbathi in the evenings. The noise of vendors lining up on 8th cross before a festival. The quiet expectation that you showed up, bowed your head, and moved on. Ganesh Chaturthi. Varalakshmi Vratam. Deepavali. Janmashtami. Ugadi. The calendar moved, but the pattern stayed. The Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham in Malleswaram was part of my daily route to school. Not something I questioned. Not something I deeply understood. Just… there. Every morning, on my way to school, I would slow down for a second in front of the Mutt. Just enough to bow my head toward Kanchi Kamakshi from outside the gate — and then hurry along before the school bell. It was a ritual for as long as I can remember. I don’t know if it came from devotion. I did it because my parents did it. The street...
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Writing style

Writing is a favourite pastime, and it is highly variegated for obvious reasons. No two individuals are alike, and it is not a surprise that no two people have the same style of writing. All the same, it fills me with awe to look into different writeups on the same subject, but with very different and contrasting styles. This can be easily observed when in your school days, you look into your friends' essays and wonder How I wish I could have written it that way! But, at that point of time, you don't realise that the feelings are mutual. It is all the more interesting for school teachers to examine hundreds of essays, see the various viewpoints and thoughts originating from such a big group, and observe the subtle and not-so-subtle differences in style.

The popular authors of the last century have inculcated within them a style of writing that makes it easy to identify them through their works. A topic can be approached in many different styles - humour, wit, sarcasm, philosophical, sentimental, superficial, intense, terse, descriptive or simple. Writings influence people, and it is easy to determine the nature of a person, by just knowing his favourite author. His favouritism to an author conveys so many different things that may go unnoticed when you observe the person through your lens. It is also important to notice from where a person gets his school of thoughts. There definitely is that intricate source which propells him to write the way he writes. But, ultimately, the way you put forward your thoughts ultimately rests on the writer. It is very difficult for a person to change his way of writing come what may. A person can write on many different subjects with ease, but the underlying style remains consistent for any topic.

At a point of time, it becomes easy to identify the author from his works. It is easy to read a particular sentence, and attribute it to a particular author with authority. Be it journalism, movie/book reviews, essays, novels or short stories, the writer would have stamped his seal in his composition. At the end of the day, it is this style of writing that tends to bring the fan base to the writer. The content is the same, the meaning conveyed is the same, the views are the same, but it is the style that makes the final difference.

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