The favourite night of the week had arrived, the Saturday night. Sunaina knew she could afford the luxury of uninterrupted sleep. Next morning, there would be no pauses to it from either her mom’s or the phone’s alarm for office. She was unaware that she was about to stumble upon a brilliant solution to her life’s biggest puzzle. Sprawled across the mattress, she hugged her beloved supple, refreshingly red, an upside-down spade-shaped cushion. Sunaina was all ready to surrender herself to the magnificent melody of dreams.
However, her mind conceived the gory image of Hannah Baker lying in the bath-tub with a furious knife. ‘13 reasons why’ was the psychotic show she was binging upon. Yes, ‘psychotic’, you read it right. The lead actress, Hanna Baker, had committed suicide and was narrating the terribly troublesome details of why she had to. The story created a strange curiosity beyond the disturbance of ‘death’.
Hannah mentioned the most unique epitaph ever. They were two words, ‘Don’t Try’ by Charles Bukowski. Such ridiculous advice to writers like herself, Sunaina thought. Those two words left her perplexed. She wondered what could have been the message behind such a renowned, yet pessimistic remark. She sat up straight and Googled Charles Bukowski. This is what she found out – he is Heinrich Karl Bukowski (Hank – August 16, 1920, to March 9, 1994); he was a German-born American poet, novelist, and short-story writer.
Sunaina did not understand what ‘Don’t try’ meant. She was glad it was 3 in the morning. Her phone had stopped vibrating. She resolved to dig more about that haunting epitaph when her mother knocked on the door. She babbled sleepily in Marathi, “Oh God, You still watching that idiotic suicide show? What am I going to do with you!” She then strutted away, muttering inaudible phrases meaning the same. Sunaina dove to switch the room’s light off so keep her mother distant and in hushed tones, continued her research on ‘Don’t try’.
A moment later, she was introduced to the late author’s wife, Linda Bukowski. Linda demystified that baffling legend. She quoted, “Don’t try, do. Because if you’re spending your time trying something, you’re not doing it… DON’T TRY.” Sunaina has just discovered his secret to writing a successful story.
Charles Bukowski revealed it better in a letter he wrote, “What do you do? How do you write, create? You don’t try. That’s very important: ‘not’ to try, either for Cadillacs, creation, or immortality. There’s been too much direction. It’s all free, we needn’t be told. Writing is as easy as beating your meat or drinking a bottle of beer.”
Sunaina was immensely indebted to ‘13 reasons why’ for letting her know about Charles Bukowski. She did not watch it that night. She didn’t want to TRY being a writer. She wanted to do it. She opened Microsoft Word and began to type.