She introduced yearly schoolbook project back then and challenged each of us to do something unique for the book. Idea was for this piece to reflect our individual personality.
For reasons unknown to me back then, I got drawn towards writing. As I began to explore what I would write about, I ended up writing a poem. I remember how excited and joyful I was. Someday when I manage to go visit my school again, I will try to get hold a copy of that book to post it here on my site. So I can confidently say that my earliest memories of my passion for writing goes back to those days where I wrote a poem.

I remember when I finished my tenth standard (Indian education level in the school) and went back for summer holidays at my parents, they were elated with joy and gifted me an A4 sized diary. They asked me I could write whatever I wanted to and that would be my journal, sort of. In my PUC days (Indian education level in college), I began to pen all my thoughts and if I recall this correctly, I had written over a hundred poems/short articles. We moved houses and this book got lost somewhere. I remember vividly how disturbed I was back then.

I moved on with my engineering college and began to work and in time, I had forgotten about my writings. It was in 2007/2008 when we got introduced to blogspot.com. I remember how my friends and I were equally excited about blogging. This was the era of personal blogs. All of a sudden, everyone had a blog. Everyone started to write. Well, I did too. Here is my old blog. The pop culture of that decade, lifestyles, work and so much more influenced me to write. When I look back at what I wrote back then, it is quite unbelievable how I was as an individual back then. Some posts were good too. I must have written over a hundred posts again.

And then life happened. I moved out of India and came to Singapore and moved on with life. I got so busy that I consistently failed to find time to write.

Fast forward to 2020. Covid struck. Life changed forever. Priorities changed. Everything changed. Once again, there was a burst of the need for personal brand, online presence and a constant need to stand out. This got me thinking. This gave an idea – why not have my own website and get back to writing? Result? Similar excitement to what I experienced in my school days when I first began writing. This time, with more determination to take this forward and in the journey, learn and become a better individual, hopefully mentoring, motivating and bringing about change in people who read my articles. In a way, this is also my way of giving back to the society, sharing from my learning and experiences.

So here I am, with my own website. Finally!
https://mithunivalkar.com/