A passion for reading and writing brought five friends together. They formed a WhatsApp group. Sometimes during the day or well past midnight when they were done with project work or exam preparations, one of these students would post four lines — poetry or prose — in the group. Soon, other members would contribute a few lines. It turned out to be a jam session. Eventually, someone suggested starting a website that invites aspiring writers to contribute.
Drishti Nagda laughed it off, because she looked at these jamming sessions as her hobby. A graduate in psychology, mass communication and English literature from Villa Marie, she looks back, “Three months later I gave it a serious thought. I felt some of the people who were writing at that point had some great stuff that needed to be put out for people to read.” She bought a domain in January 2016 and Inkscape Co began on May 9, 2016, with the help of her friend Pranshu studying in Manipal. Now celebrating a year of its existence, Inkscape Co has 40 or more writers/members proud of their journey.
Drishti took to creative writing in school egged on by an encouraging English teacher. “I would write a passages or a poem on Sundays, submit it to her on Monday and she would review it by Tuesday. This became a habit. She was also our librarian and since I loved reading, it created a bond,” she reflects. For one of her friend’s birthday, Drishti penned a poem as a gift. She continues to write and connect with like-minded writers.
Inkscape Co has member and guest writers from across the country, apart from a managerial team that handles technical aspects, designing and maintaining the website. Around 25 to 30 copies come in each week as short stories, passages and poems. It’s predominantly a young team and also has on board a few seniors, including a published author. The editing process, says Drishti, is an organic and democratic one where copies are posted in the group and members chip in with suggestions.
There are no hard and fast rules for the formats. “We don’t want to pressurise writers with guidelines. The idea is to help people write regularly. We have writers exploring varied genres of poetry, prose and sometimes motivational paragraphs,” she offers.
In March 2017, Inkscape Co began conducting offline events and workshops. Independent and collaborative events ranged from poetry workshops to learning newer forms of writing. Inkscape Co also collaborates with groups like Write Club, Camp Diaries and Soul Slam, apart from apps like Meraki where writers can post their work. “The best part is no one looks at another group as a competitor. We are all here for the love of words,” says Drishti.
Kamal Subudhi, a member of Inkscape, says they want to fill in the void in certain areas of writing, like poetry. “We want to bring poetry back to life and bring life back to poetry,” he quips.
Both Kamal and Drishti, like many other members of the group, are at the cusp of their post-graduation programmes. They are prepared to put in extra hours and keep up the momentum of Inkscape Co.
While Inkscape Co is all for encouraging aspiring writers, they don’t want to end up as a scrapbook for random thoughts. “When we started off, we didn’t know how we’d take it forward. Collaborations with similar groups and apps have strengthened our presence. It has been a natural progression and I am hopeful we will get better as a group and as writers. There’s a huge scope for writing platforms. Not enough people know of the possible creative outlets for their work,” avers Drishti.
For details, check Inkscape.co/
