How to write a profound leisure column
Pick a topic. Food, kids, love are usually the most favorite topics. For food you need some skill. So let’s leave that. Love or kids is the easiest to write about. But before writing you should become popular. How does one become popular?
Rule 1:
Get onto social media and socialize. Socialize means comment on popular peoples tweets/ FB posts etc. There is a catch here. You should look at popular people, but not go for extremely popular people. For instance you cannot reply to a Narendra Modi’s tweet or Shashi Tharoor’s tweet. Stay away from politicians on twitter. Depending on the direction the wind flows you might be called a Sanghi or a sickular person and your reputation is doomed. But still if you have itchy fingers and write about politics you should portray yourself as neutral. For every anti congress tweet, you should post an anti BJP tweet. Vice versa. If you know to utilize the words ‘What about’ you are a neutral person.
Rule 2:
Act cool. There are multiple ways of acting cool. You can spend entire morning sealing the plastic covers with rubber band. But if you say that publicly you will be termed a loser. Instead say ‘What better way to spend a Saturday morning than with your favorite band?’. Also acting cool is liberal usage of Apple products, alcohol and frequent usage of terms from episodes of Games of Throne, House of cards etc. And by chance if you have little bit history knowledge utilize it. If you directly say Nandini from Ponniyin Selvan had excellent characterization no dog will turn your side. But if you say ‘I see lots of similarities between Nandini and Khaleesi’ you have a winner.
Rule 3:
Language. You should know to use words at right time, which no one has heard about. Don’t try too hard. Usually British newspapers have written about everything on earth. For instance if you wish to write about Sridevi just a simple google search of ‘Sridevi Guardian UK’ will land you articles like this http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/oct/04/english-vinglish-review from where you can pick terms like repudiation of homophobia and use it. But be careful what it means before using it.
Rule 4:
You should be an art lover. It’s very easy to show off that you are an art lover. There are million poets in twitter. Retweet some poems. And sometimes try to be a poet. A tweet like ‘Rain or shine a crow never drinks wine’ will take you places. Happily retweet other poets tweets. Randomly post tweets like ‘Chitra kala parishath has special paintings of kollangudi karuppayi. Anyone going today?’. Post such tweets on a day when India is playing Pakistan or say CSK vs MI so that accidentally also no one will say ‘Me too’.
Rule 5:
Tweetups. Attend as many tweetups as possible. You can also come up with innovative tweetup ideas like ‘porai biscuit for anyone who helps me do my dishes.’
Rule 6:
Liberally do combination of above for close to 2 months. And once you are followed by atleast one posh tweeter, start sending DM appreciating their tweet or some work. But don’t overdo it as it might be considered as stalking. Take their suggestions for the first article you are going to write and remember to mention their name and give lots of credit. This will ensure they retweet your article. From then on its up to you to become popular in the social circle.
Now that you have become a cool person write a leisure column. Take a profound theme but give a shock title. Like ‘Let your child cry’. Huh? Yes exactly. Start with a crazy paragraph. When it rained I walked slowly not because I wanted to get wet, but because it can hide my tears. And later transform it to your theme. You can say the first thing we do in this world is cry but once we start growing up parents panic when the child cries. You should argue that you are depriving your child of something which it did when it came to this world. Crying is an important tool the child can use when it grows up and how when we cross through the rocky path of life there will be lots of scars and tears are the lubricant that keeps you going. Please don’t argue that single malt is a much more effective lubricant. That is the advice meant for adults column and this is for kids. End with a flourish on ‘Next time it rains go out with your family and cry your heart out. Let the child within you out’. Trust me. A million people will retweet and endorse you without even reading the article. And you get popular.
