Word Thief.

“Artist, Poet , Scientist, Thief?”

In my head, once upon a time there was no question as to which of these I was: thief. I could not make my own pictures, so I stole them instead. I was never a poet – writing creatively has never been my strong point (analytically is another story altogether), but I could find things very easily that I wished to appropriate for my own. Thus, I was a thief. But in my head I was a Picture Thief. The concept that I could be anything other than never entered my mind. Through GCSE, A Level, I knew what I wanted – Art School, a pretty camera, peers who understood and a creative outlet. But now I have those things, where am I left? I’m left doubting whether I’m really a Picture Thief, or a Word Thief.

The concept has somewhat shocked me. I never really considered studying literature. Clearing was basically pot luck, and I was just lucky I had passably good grades to back it up (let’s not kid ourselves. AABC never got anyone into Oxbridge). I had a whole plan for the scenario of “What If I Don’t Get Into Uni”: CRC. Art foundation. Hate it. Do it. Come out after a year with no morale from being surrounded by art kids who can draw (I struggle with stick men) and THEN go on to university. The big ones. Camberwell. Wimbledon. Goldsmiths. They all shot me down without even an interview because I didn’t have an Art Foundation. With one I felt it was possible to conquer the world.

But this one essay for photography was opening the lid to Pandora’ Box. I missed literature. I missed reading for meaning, constructing arguments, getting my point across and writing like a pretentious dick with every cause to do so. Photography is essentially the same thing, but with pictures, not words. Maybe I was never adept enough at expressing myself visually. I’ve always been able to articulate myself orally, but now I notice, not pictorially. Or at least, not to the standard that I want, that I deem acceptable.

I’ve always set high targets for myself. I remember my whole world crushing when we got our AS grades back and I found a C in literature. God forbid I got a C in anything (except Psychology. That never counted for me anyway). Everything just stopped for me. I was happy enough with a round 88% in photography, but that C broke my heart. I thought I could do it. I worked hard. I read and analysed the novel to within an inch of its life. And then we got the letter that they misplaced our papers and we were to re-sit. Hello 100% without effort. Balance restored.

You would have thought that that would have been enough to make me realise maybe I should reconsider my choices for university, but alas, it did not. I was enjoying the creativity, the freedom, the part of me I could never express in words because it was all too personal and deep, and meant so much to me I wanted it out there, but hidden. That part of me is what enjoying photography the most. But literature? It’s still calling out. I want to learn more. I don’t want to stop learning. I want to know about those stories that not enough people are reading, to understand them and to live them. But I can’t give up photography. It wouldn’t feel right. A world without observation? No comments, just observe and steal. I couldn’t do it.

So this was on my photo blog, but I figured why clutter it up? I had a blog, deleted it before uni, and now I have this. Enjoy.


This project we've been set of Tracing Memory has only just recently got the grey cells working. A few days back when I had a friend stay round my house, I found an old blog. I'm not talking "few months" old, but insanely, years old. It was ridiculous. But back then I was dealing with similar problems to now. Only I figured the problems have gotten bigger.

Like most people, I live a life. And like most people, half the time it sucks. But unlike most people, I know exactly why it sucks. Back in the day, I just moaned and bitched and whined about all the things I could do and all the things I wanted to do and why oh why wont it happen for me cause life would be so much better with it. Then I did do the things. All the things I wanted to do [well, within reason. I'm a fairly amicable wimp]. But did they make me happier? Did they put me into this state of reverie when I'm thinking "Fuck yes. Give me the world and I will take it"? Nah meight. Cause that'd be making things easy wouldn't it?

Point in case. Living at home. It's always been nuts. It's always been a little on the difficult side: living with a strict muslim bengali mother, her strict muslim bengali husband, my wimpy, moaney but adorable little brother: things were bound to get strained. Only, looking back, things were more than strained. You know you've fucked up when you're crying on the floor for 4 hours desperately trying to call the one person who can make you see sense when they're busy. Or when you've left the house out the back door and your mother is pounding on the house of your best friend, freaking out the kids.

Now I'm living in a block of student flats in empty Kent, I find myself asking, so what REALLY has changed? Granted, I no longer tear my hair out in frustration or spend days at a time crying, but I'm still arguing from afar, still trying to move out, still resisting. Surely it'd be easier to hang the old gloves up and give in. Get married to a doctor at 19, have kids at 21, give up any shred of ambition or sense of self that I have? Fuck having a career, the only career you'd need is “how clean REALLY is my house?”

Yeah. Funnily enough I can't do that. But that trip down memory lane really DID get me thinking. Living away from home, being able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. Going out clubbing, kissing strangers, crying blind drunk to a friend in a hotel room cause of a door, has it made me a happier person? I mean, for once, things are on my own terms. But even then they're not. I still, like any normal person, don’t know what I want. I don’t even know what I am. I’m a religionless heathen [but only at term time], an ethnic minority, a little brown girl in a sea of white friends. But even then, apparently, I’m not seen as a minority. And when I’m at home, what am I? I’m the middle kid, the only girl, the first to go to university, the first to get a decent education. The first in my whole extended family to NOT to medicine. I’m also the second wild one [the first being my drugged up, boozed up, egotistical brother]. But then the rules are different for me. I still have to answer to that crazy lady who never stops building a house. But my brother just plods on at community college, with no level 3 education at 19, always partying. He doesn’t have to hide things for fear of a marriage to some backwater oaf. My parents know what he is, and it’s okay cause he’s The Boy. I still have to fight her against it. The woman who I can't live with. Only, try telling her that her daughter's moving out. Somehow, it just doesn't sit well.

End of the day, all I can do really is to take arms against that sea of troubles, but quietly, hidden in secret. Get married to a best friend just in case my family really do go fucking nuts and try to marry me off. Hide away in this life I've built for myself, the one with more and more lies and blasphemies and sin, hide away from everything. But come home, be a passably "good" girl. No alcohol. No cigarettes. No drugs. Hide myself from my family's world and slowly, just slowly, go fucking insane. After too much thought, you begin to wonder what’s better – to face the truth and the consequences of your actions, to denounce all that your families for generations have held sacred, or to quietly go freaking nuts.