The writer has been keeping a daily record of her days for the past thirty years. It’s a date she never misses….and she tells you why her diaries have been a focal point of her life for so long―her close companion and conscience keeper

Writing with an old-style pen in a spiral-bound notebook is a fairly uncommon sight these days, especially among the younger generation. Writing diaries is even more archaic and might appear totally outdated to younger people.

I feel proud in saying that I am one of those rare people who writes with a pen. As a matter of fact, I also write a diary and have been doing so for the past three decades. My precious diary contains my feelings, interactions with my relatives, friends, spouse and children and also something boring, but important: an itemised list of my daily expenses.

But take my word; the last comes in handy many a time. Writing a daily diary is personal and exceedingly precious to me. It helps to keep myself under check, reflect and be my conscience keeper, as I go over the day’s happenings and assess what I did, right or wrong.

Arti Mathur

I maintain one diary per year and have them all tucked away in a safe and secure place for who knows, skeletons of exceedingly personal feelings, heart-wrenching tales or even a grudge against someone might tumble out of their deep, dark pages before impersonal, impressionable eyes! These diaries are valuable to me and I often wonder how I will dispose them off before I pop off, myself!

There is a tacit understanding within my family that no one will ever attempt to sneak down and foray into the pages of my old diaries. I sincerely hope everyone keeps their word.

Nowadays, a diary is often called a journal. I was advised to follow suit, but I disagreed politely, yet firmly. Then, off I went on a wild goose chase to find out the exact meaning of the two words! Let me explain the difference between the two to the uninitiated.

A diary contains personal experiences and feelings on daily activities. It is a medium to keep a daily log of events as they happen. A journal, on the other hand, is used to explore ideas that take shape gradually. At yet another level, it means a magazine or newspaper that’s about some specific topic.

However, journals are used for resourceful purposes, and are ideal for jotting down notes on travel, innovative ideas, goals, and so on. They can be on different subjects like medicine, and history or whatever catches your fancy.

So, here is the essential difference: a diary contains personal experiences and a journal is a notebook or even a sheaf of papers of research material. Another difference is that a journal is unstructured when new, and you can shape it as you like.

But coming back to our topic of diaries―they are available in different formats and layouts: one day per page, one week per page; choose whatever suits your needs the best. One can buy an expensive, fancy one or a simple, functional one.

I prefer a day-per-page layout because each page will eventually get filled up. And you bet, the level of my exuberance escalates as we enter the month of December. That’s when I start looking forward eagerly to buying a new diary for myself. The excitement is naïve, almost childlike; in fact, my husband hasn’t stopped ridiculing me for it over the years! I search from shop to shop till I find one to my satisfaction. Not every time what I find is fancy and pretty, still, it lends a certain cheerful enthusiasm to my countenance each time I sit down with it. I usually write at the end of the day or early the next morning. But write it, I must.

All my diaries have the holy letter Aum or Shree on the first page. This is a prayer to the Almighty that the upcoming year be happy for my family and me. Shree is another name for Goddess Durga.

It is not necessary that something exceptionally exciting happen each day of our life. So, most pages have mundane entries of what I did that day. Maybe I made something special like gajar ka halwa, baked a cake or tried out a new recipe or even wrote an article on music! In go those activities under the assigned date! But whether the entry is mundane or exciting, you are sure to find reams of properly indented paras recording the day’s events.

Then, there are those days which have records of dinners, parties, or sudden, unexpected guests. So, in goes the details: the reason of their visit, the chit chat that took place, what I thought of them; were they visiting too often and testing my patience, maybe? But, that’s cloaked in secrecy, thy name is wisdom, and the secrets are locked in my diary forever! Am I being a wee bit wicked?

One aspect of my diary is that any special occasion or festival is duly indented on the top of the page. This has proved to be incredibly handy in case I have to recollect the date later. You never know when you might require these details. Having married off two children, I found dearth of space during those days of interminable shopping; there was so much to capture, apart from noting down the expenses.

I find the usual essay-style entries conducive to my thoughts. So, some of the jottings begin with an epic, “It was a bright sunny morning… but then I remembered that I had twenty people coming for dinner, so I jumped out of bed to get started right away”. You will never find me recording my day in the typical bullet points that youngsters today have so readily adopted. Bullet points are strictly for times when I want to complete the page in haste.

There have been countless times when I have needed to recount certain events in my life and haven’t been able to recollect the exact year, so I dig up diaries and am generally lucky in finding what I was looking for. I cannot, then, refrain from reading several other pages and at times the entire diary! This is nostalgic and transports me back to those days, reviving feelings, possibly of hurt, grief, resentment or elation. And it goes unsaid that it wastes precious time, but most times, it’s totally worth it! Rejuvenating, somehow….

Let me relate a small incident: In Class 8, we had gone on a school trip to Chandigarh and Bhakra Nangal Dam and true to my word, I had carried a small pocket book with me. Security was not a major issue in those days, so we were taken right to the top of the towering structure from where cars on the road in the distance looked like tiny matchboxes. Viewing the massive turbines which generated electricity and the nine feet thick wall which separated the Govind Sagar reservoir from the dam is imprinted in my memory to this day. How do I retain such detailed information? All thanks to my pocket book which transformed into a proper diary as the years flew past!

I am taking the liberty of insisting that you get into the habit of writing a diary right away. Trust me, it’s a great habit, and can be both fun and reflective at times! One has to be regular with it though. An easy trick is to keep it somewhere accessible and within sight so you get a daily reminder to jot down the events of your day. Keep it on your bedside table. You will find that it gives you immense pleasure especially when you go back to it after ten or twenty years!

Besides being an enthusiastic diary writer, Arti Mathur is a passionate lover of classical and light music. She learnt music from the age of five and pursued it as a subject till graduation when she passed with distinction in vocal music.