Stalk-taking

She was a short woman. It was a nice little boutique…and she was somehow hovering near me. Her size and mine were not the same. My mobile phone rang. I usually do not answer in public places or tell the caller I’d get back. This call was from Pakistan and I had to take it. In the course of the conversation there was a mention of writing…I was mumbling really, but this woman smiled. She just refused to leave although she had not picked up anything.

After the call I took my purchases to the cash counter. She followed.

“Are you a writer?” she asked.

“Sort of…” I said.

“I am also a writer.”

“Okay.”

“What do you write?”

“Nothing much. And you?”

“I write poetry, started six months ago….” And she wasn’t young.

“Hmm…”

“I haven’t published anything. Give me your contact number. I will read out the poems to you.”

“I am sorry but that is not possible.”

“Okay give me your email ID. I will send you my poems and you can correct them for me.”

“You know something? I am not good enough for that.”

I heard the clerk laugh and tell her a bit about me.

The point is that people want to just sponge on you and they think they are writers.

Of course, they believe everyone wants them to write. But they “don’t have the time”; they “don’t want these works to appear on such websites” where they are anyway parked most day…

For me the lady at the boutique was a classic case of a would-be stalker. I find it immensely amusing when people mention how they are being stalked. If you say, “Aa bail mujhe maar” and the bull takes you up on the red rag, then that does not mean stalking. At this rate I would have to call everyone who has criticised me, abused me, responded to my work (and it has been a red rag often) as stalkers.

Heck, if you want to talk stalking, I can give you enough stories.

I know of people who choose to be where you are, befriend who your friends are, and when that fails try to befriend who they think are your opponents.

I know of people who use other people’s way of addressing, their way of signing off notes…I know of people who pick others’ ideas, episodes and weave them around in such a manner, with change if location and some details, that it appears as their own. I know of people who even use other people’s likes and dislikes. I know of people who even use other lives – not to write about those people, but to make it seem as though it is their own.

Oh, I have been the recipient of such ‘stalking’ where even my life’s moments have been plagiarised.