THE CORNERSTONE

For one,Ponai had his work cut out earlier in life, thanks to a distant nephew Munya's ties with his school library,deep in the country side where the two shared a home with a maternal uncle,who was a nurse at the local clinic.

Uncle Joe,was what cynics would term the typical eligible bachelor in his early forties, with an addiction to the liquor for good measure.

But not before he had to overcome statements,of his nature recklessly thrown at him:"Too much of reading leads to impaired eyesight at the best and mental health issues at worst, according to psychiatrists ".

And little wonder,most if not all so-called professors wear spectacles"Okay,go on with your endless reading at your own peril!".

That was well, before he would stumble upon:The Way The Future Was:A Memoir by American science fiction writer Frederick Pohl.However, Munya's borrowed novel Tell Freedom by celebrated South African writer Peter Abraham had paved the way.

Although,he held reservations for the small print a hallmark of novels, that first casual straying through the first few pages had gotten him hooked, and left wandering lost in the world of a mixed race community, struggling for survival under an oppressive apartheid regime elsewhere in the dingy Cape Flats.

And before he knew it,he was spell bound, finding it difficult to put the paper back down until the last word.

It became a revelation,proving to him that novels were not a bore after all, despite them not containing illustrations or images as were his beloved magazines and newspapers he enjoyed as a thirteen year old boy.

That initial encounter had whetted his appetite for some more novels, begging at Munya like Oliver twist.

The next encounter for Ponai would be James Hardley Chase's Shock Treatment and the rest as they would say was history.

Years down the line,the catchy statement:Glyn Camp without Sheriff Jefferson was as unthinkable,as New York without the Statue of Liberty,still captured his imagination.

And that marked the emergence,of a fledgling bookworm who would pick any written literature off the streets,he traversed, nonetheless including pieces of newspapers pasted with human excrement,all in order to quench the overriding thirst for knowledge if not adventure.

However,he had to have to contend with the positive negatives along the way.

An invisible barrier. was thus planted between him and his peers,and some form of contempt had subsequently developed around them.

He could acknowledge that there was a fair amount of knowledge, they did not share with his friends,who in turn could not help keep it lying down.

They had to throw brick bats at his reading habits in response.Nonetheless,he would not be discouraged.Actuallythe detractors' sentiments had emboldened his resolve and conviction to one day become a recognized writer.

The tell-tale signs followed him, throughout his high school career,as he would receive excellent grades for is compositions and poetry.

He had this treasure trove of general knowledge hewn out of his odd quest for information.Eventually,his voracious appetite had found him knocking at the local municipal library for registration.

He had to hone his writing skills,inorder to come up with an own unique style,he reckoned.

However, whenever he got to the library,he had naturally avoided the science fiction shelf as he deemed the genre stranger than fiction.

However, little did he know then that like the biblical cornerstone rejected,out of the loathed section, would come a paperback book that would help shape his destiny.

Going through Mr Pohl's memoirs,he could not help but remark"Eureka,l have found it!"-like the Greek Archimedes at discovering the theory of displacement.

The story had traced the author's life through the Great Depression era of the 1930s up until the 1970s.

That arguably became the trigger that fired his professional writing bullets.

However,it had not hidden the unknown facts and realities likely to confront any would be writer,though.

It also helped to disabuse him of the notion, that writing was all glamour in as much as it was addictive despite it being the finest job in the world.

According to Mr Pohl,there was no particular school for writers.

It was about the passion,the talent and the drive,period.

And Ponai could identify with this other crucial observation:A writer is in the business of interpreting life to an audience;and the more he knows about living the better he will write.

Nothing could beat this advice to would be writers:How does one become a writer? Answer:There is no other way,one has to constantly put words on paper.And if the work is any better,some publisher may conceivably buy it.

Otherwise talking or thinking about writing won't do the job anyway.So therefore, reading and writing are inextricably intertwined.

The term unputdownable applied to that one book for Ponai.

And that flash of inspiration then spawned, and helped unravel numerous articles for newspapers and magazines including this one also.

And Ponai could identify with this other crucial observation:A writer is in the business of interpreting life to an audience;and the more he knows about living the better he will write.

Nothing could beat this advice to would be writers:How does one become a writer? Answer:There is no other way,one has to constantly put words on paper.And if the work is any better,some publisher may conceivably buy it.

And Ponai could identify with this other crucial observation:A writer is in the business of interpreting life to an audience;and the more he knows about living the better he will write.

Nothing could beat this advice to would be writers:How does one become a writer? Answer:There is no other way,one has to constantly put words on paper.And if the work is any better,some publisher may conceivably buy it.

Otherwise talking or thinking about writing won't do the job anyway.So therefore, reading and writing are inextricably intertwined.

The term unputdownable applied to that one book for Ponai.

And that flash of inspiration then spawned, and helped unravel numerous articles for newspapers and magazines including this one also.

And Ponai could identify with this other crucial observation:A writer is in the business of interpreting life to an audience;and the more he knows about living the better he will write.

Nothing could beat this advice to would be writers:How does one become a writer? Answer:There is no other way,one has to constantly put words on paper.And if the work is any better,some publisher may conceivably buy it.