I had great aspirations of being a writer one day. Would jot down poems, stories, anecdotes in a diary. Then it happened! we were asked to write an essay on how we spent our vacation. Fr. Lourdino, our school principal, was my english teacher those days, getting a word of praise from father was the ultimate.

A week later he walked into my class with a set of corrected papers. We were all waiting in anticipation, eager to hear what he had to say. Father went onto explain what he was looking for in an essay and how some essays kept the reader enthralled and so on; he had all my attention when suddenly I heard something familiar, was it not lines from my essay he was quoting, the potato vadas I had in the train - I felt a thrill run through me, I was thinking, why doesnt he take my name or roll number?

The very next moment I was thanking my stars he hadnt. " Please no batata vadas", he said, this isnt what I expect from a ninth standard student". The smile froze on my face slowly taking a funny shape.

That was curtains to my writing career for the time being !