ilm producer and theatre director Kanwal Khoosat’s Olomopolo Media operates out of a quaint maroon house in New Muslim Town, Lahore. They call it the Olo Junction. With swings and rustic log tables in the attached garden, the house is an inviting pocket in a narrow street. Today, there is a small ‘hobnob’ session here with Indian writer, Natasha Badhwar, visiting Pakistan from Delhi.

Scheduled to start at 6pm, we are finally invited into a room at around 7. The combination of eerie lighting, two central sofa chairs and leather cushions as the main seating arrangement briefly brings to mind a cult meeting. There are a few people here, mostly acquaintances of the management and literati.

The author and the host, filmmaker Farjad Nabi, step into the room in a flurry of movement 10 minutes later, apologising for the delay. Clad in a striped cotton sari and printed blouse, Badhwar is vivid, both in her appearance and articulation. She takes a seat with Nabi, whom she calls her long-time friend.

The discussion begins with an issue dear to most aspiring writers (and established writers): finding authenticity in a capitalistic world. As the author began her career, the one thing she knew she didn’t want to become was a writer. In her words, “School nay confidence torr taarr kay haath mein dae diya tha” (School tore away any confidence she had in herself). She never wanted her craft to be commercialised, afraid of losing the truth in her voice. As you have it, passions have a way of manifesting themselves. By the time the author decided to quit her corporate job, her secret, anonymous blog had a dedicated readership, resonating with people.

Badhwar’s area of specialisation in writing is memoirs. First, in the form of blogposts, then as a 13-year running column, which was finally published in her two essay collections, My Daughter’s Mum, and Immortal for a Moment. She says that she started her blog because she didn’t “know how to speak.” She wanted to “practice.” Her identity had become compartmentalised: a daughter here, a mother there, a wife somewhere else. And so, she titled her blog My Daughter’s Mum: the newness of parenthood symbolising her journey as a writer, distancing her past baggage from the blog’s contents.

Writing, then, becomes a sort of exercise to evaluate oneself, to unravel the threads of everyday conflicts, and to brush away the dust to gauge one’s true standing, following wherever the words lead, so that you can understand yourself. For Badhwar, these small essays and blogposts became a window into the past, the immortalisation of a moment.

In sessions such as these, and workshops, revising and rereading the same chapters, can one pinpoint the moments of change and delineate one’s growth?

The discussion begins with an issue dear to most aspiring writers (and established writers): finding authenticity in a capitalistic world… As you have it, passions have a way of manifesting themselves. By the time the author decided to quit her corporate job, her secret, anonymous blog had a dedicated readership, resonating with people.

The conversation shifts to censorship in media. The author feels that the situation in South Asia, and much of the world, is bleak for writers. Case in point, one of the author’s columns on living with her Muslim husband during Ramazan was considered too controversial to be published due to election tensions in India. The author reads out the piece in question, a meditation on living in dichotomous conditions yet remaining true to your roots. It has no provocative material whatsoever.

Continually working under editors can also tamper with one’s personal voice. The author is convinced that taking time away from strict schedules and engaging in workshops with dedicated groups is the way to polish one’s voice and retain its originality.

Another thread running through Badhwar’s work is nationalism and rootedness. She has been to Pakistan four times, once as a journalist; once as a researcher; and twice as a writer. Her father-in-law features in her writing often, a larger-than-life man who heads his village. At the time of Partition, he chose to remain in his ancestral home in Uttar Pradesh, while his brother migrated to Karachi. Badhwar finds her faith in a borderless subcontinent validated and repeats the personal history. Her niece from Karachi sits witness in the room.

This takes me back to how the author first started writing to uncover herself, and the world around her. Today, her words reach audiences, performing the same function for other people.

The session draws to an end with a happy, albeit awkward, group picture. I am glad I waited the hour. The author hands over signed copies of her work. Nabi only asks for “support” for Olomopolo Media.

Badhwar concludes by stating that small steps can often lead to transformative changes, her starting a blog out of frustration being an example. Writing becomes a way of giving back, a way of being kinder to yourself in Badhwar’s essays and blogs. One sows and reaps, gives and takes, the pen to the paper, the paper to the life.

The writer is an interdisciplinary student of literature and sciences at Lahore College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at fajr.rauf5@gmail com