51. Yes, what fun life is!

History books claim that Samuel Pepys, born in London on 23 February 1633, was the first reported real diarist.

I have had this habit of recording daily events in a diary for many years. In fact, I keep three diaries – one is dated, another where I note the dates when I write, and the third is for recording my views on happenings around the world, notes from the book I am reading at the time, and films I see that day. Also, if I happen to meet someone I admire, visit theatres or art galleries, I make copious notes. 

So, you can imagine how many diaries I have filled over the years. 

The dated one is often a gift from an institution or a friend. However, the other two diaries are not in the conventional sense of a diary. They are usually notebooks, and I need to stock up on them. There have been times, such as from 1988 to 1999, 2006 to 2012, and again from 2018 to 2022, when I filled no fewer than six notebooks each quarter – that is, I needed a new one every two weeks.

It is difficult for me to have a good night's sleep if I didn’t write before hitting the bed.

My wife would sometimes get annoyed by my habit. Now, when she is no more, I have added another activity to my list of habits over these nine months – and that is reading a few pages from those old diaries before I sleep. 

I now find that almost all my daily notes include at least two or three lines about her, such as what food she prepared, which movie we watched together, the problems we faced that day, the guests we entertained, and what our kids did. So, while reading one or two entries each night, I feel her presence in her absence.

A diary might be just a record keeper for an ordinary person, but as Dame Ellen Terry, another stage actress who became Britain’s leading Shakespearean actress said, “As a rule, diary is a document useful to the person who keeps it, dull to the contemporary who reads it, and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it.”

I've maintained this habit ever since I went to Madras, where I shed my childish persona. I was entering an age when the desire for more independence from parents develops, and when an increased interest in forming closer relationships with friends and potential romantic interests begins. 

Now all I can say is, those were the days! It was fun watching movies in languages you don’t understand – Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada — besides pedaling your cycle in Kodambakkam, Mambalam, Guindy, and Egmore, and going all the way to Marina Beach with friends. There used to be many conversations to write about and describe in detail the scenes around.

Every year in January, which to some feels like a musical month and to others is just another month, is the time to replace our diaries and table calendars.

Not many people keep diaries and journals, and to justify on their behalf, American actress of the stage and screen, known for her husky voice, outrageous personality, and devastating wit, Tallulah Bankhead said, “only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have the time.”

If we ignore the gender part of this statement, unarguably, the world is full of bad girls. 

Surprisingly, even the good ones who keep one are not very sure of the purpose of recording each day's happenings and events.

Adrian Albert Mole, the fictional protagonist in a series of books by English author Sue Townsend, said: “I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down.”

But Mary Jane ‘Mae’ West, the American actress, singer, playwright, and screenwriter, whose entertainment career spanned seven decades, has reached another level when she said, “I always say, keep a diary and someday it'll keep you.”

It is true that once a diarist, always a diarist. The diary becomes an essential part, a part of the diarist's routine. It has been observed that while many write entries daily, as if taking a bath, others allow weeks and even months to pass without writing a few lines. 

Their number is higher. The kind of time, whether good or bad, lucky or unlucky, happy or sad, also plays a significant role. Some diarists write during times of crisis, whether emotional, financial, health-related, or otherwise, while others write when they are very happy or have received something extraordinary.

The idea that diaries are only worth keeping when some "events" happen is arguably incorrect, as human life is always characterized by ongoing activity. Even the circumstances surrounding the diarist are in constant change. 

Therefore, it is always wise to make regular entries. Similarly, some diarists maintain multiple diaries for various reasons and end up making entries in all of them. 

In 1919, exactly on this day, Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary – “By paying five shillings I have become a member of the Lewes public library. It is an amusing place full of old ghosts; books halfway to decomposition. A general brownness covers them. They are as much alike outwardly as charity schoolchildren. Most have shed their boards years ago, and been recovered in brown paper.”

The information she provides here is precisely what we wanted to know – how a library looked in those days, what the fees were, and how the books were maintained. A diary entry is always better than a history book.

Scottish author JM Barrie, best known as the creator of Peter Pan—a fairy play about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy world of Neverland—says, “The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with that he vowed to make it.” I have reached the stage which he calls the humblest hour. 

And now to conclude, Sir Harold Nicolson, an author and diplomat known for his diaries and letters from 1930 to 1962, published in three volumes and totaling about three million words, wrote in his diary on 31 December 1931: “Of all my years this has been the most unfortunate. Everything has gone wrong. I have been reckless and arrogant. I have been silly. I must be cautious and more serious. I must not try to do so much, and must endeavour to do what I do with greater depth and application. I must avoid the superficial. Yet in spite of all this, what fun life is!"

Yes, what fun life is!

(Top photo shows a page from Virginia Woolf’s diary)