I’m a doctor of words

By TENG MANGANSAKAN

“How can I become a (good) writer?” is probably one of the trickiest questions that I have been asked in my life. “Are writers born or made?” ranks closely at second place. The first question denotes the existence of a step-by-step procedure similar to, say, gourmet cuisine, guiding the novice through a logical sequence of actions from mincing and chopping to sautéing and flambéing, then continuing to the delicate art of plate presentation. Meanwhile, the second question implies the role of genetics, or the difference one brand of infant formula milk makes in the development of a would-be writer.

I never considered becoming a writer when I was growing up, nor was I told that the surgeon who performed the C-section on my mother pulled me out of her womb clutching a fountain pen. Until recently, when I was asked to speak in a writing workshop, I have not bothered tracing the origins of my writing life.

Like many children I dreamed of becoming a doctor. When I was five years old I showed an intense fascination with the doctors, in their crisp, antiseptic white gowns, who were attending to my paralyzed grandfather. However, my mother was so opposed to the idea that she announced it right there and then that she will not hear of me wanting to become a doctor. Ever.

“Why?” I asked, innocently.

“I said no, and that’s it!” My mother ordered with a finality of a Supreme Court ruling.

Early on I already had a bruised self-image, and, fearing another scolding from my mother, I never mentioned my silly dream of becoming a doctor to her again. After that pursuing a career in medicine became a sinister plot only my cousins, and later, classmates, friends and teachers would know.

Perhaps realizing that her fatwa would do more harm than good, my mother placated me by constantly giving me books. Henceforth, I always looked forward to the arrival of a new Dr. Seuss title with a fanfare of a parade on Mulberry Street. Soon after my father brought home a large crate containing Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia.

Growing up with a well-stacked library, it would seem pretentious to say that becoming a writer was merely an accident. My ustadz said that nothing in Islam is accidental; everything is decided by the will of Allah. “Even before all of us were born, the wheels of fortune had already been set in motion,” he revealed.

That would answer the question, “Are writers born or made?” Debating on the merits of being weaned on Promil or am(the liquid from boiling rice) is immaterial since our fate had been decided for us. It’s a rather unpleasing idea in this modern age.

I was already poring over the pages of Berenstein Bears before I could recognize my ABCs. Nothing special. Every kid has done it. In Walter Salles’s Behind the Sun, set in the Brazilian heartland much more rustic than my hometown, we see Pacu ‘reading’ the pictures of a storybook given to him by a gypsy. It doesn’t matter to him if he could make sense of the words in the book. He creates his own fantastic, yet coherent story out of the pictures.

Imagination is the writer’s chief weapon. But if all human beings have the faculty to imagine, what sets the writer apart from the rest? Mastery of language? Perhaps. Patience? Could be.

I cannot claim that I am an expert in the language I use to write my work. Neither can I profess the same with Filipino or Maguindanaon. I was too young when I was uprooted from Pagalungan, long before I could learn the complex literary style of the bayok. The way I use Filipino borrows much from the conventions of the Cebuano language. I would write “Gikain” rather than “Kinain”. Both words are in the past tense which translates to, “Ate”.

I was not an exceptional student, although I belonged to the honors class. The only time I got an award in grade school was during a Spelling Bee contest. That was in first grade. Lessons on the parts of speech induced me into a stupor. I couldn’t differentiate an adverb from an adjective. Worse I associated gerund to a type of a shrub.

My teacher resigned to the fact that I was hopeless. This opinion changed every time she read my formal theme-writing notebook. “You write well,” she would declare. To me that was more important than determining whether a clause was independent or not.

In freshman high our teacher, in his faux New Yorker accent, mistook English for a class in stenography. His biggest requirement before he signed our clearance form at the end of the school year was for us to present him a complete transcript of his lessons. I was too lazy to write down notes. Another lazy classmate had to buy a large notebook, borrow the notes from one more classmate, and copied them page by page like a sage rewriting the Torah in fresh parchment. On the other hand, I retreated to a quiet corner in the school library every afternoon and mastered the art of forgery, making sure that the slightest arcs of my teacher’s signature were carefully ripped off.

The onset of puberty and nationalistic fervor brought about by Regine Velasquez’s winning in a Hong Kong Song Competition might have kicked some dormant brain cells into action because things got better in my sophomore year. I performed well in class, landing a spot in the Top 10. English was no longer confined to the boring dissection of the moronic and the oxymoronic. We studied World Literature, and, since it was an all-boys high school, I was asked to portray Sita in a dramatic performance of Ramayana.

With my newfound confidence I joined a school essay-writing contest. But before I could reap the reward of hard work, I had to suffer public humiliation. Proclaimed first prizewinner, I climbed on stage to receive my medallion but the teacher in charge of the contest refused to give me my prize.

“There must be a mistake,” she told me. “Would you mind waiting down stage?”