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I have always wondered what people have against short answers.

In school, most of my classmates had problems squeezing ideas into a given limit of 200 words. When it was not about ideas and sheer data was what needed accommodation, they struggled with the squeeze again. There is only so much you can do to elucidate chapters of world history without giving in to the seductive bulk of it.

Even in college, I found word limits greeted with expressions of frustration and annoyance. For many people, being brief and simple actually requires more of an effort than being elaborate does.

Me? I had a slightly different problem.

My long answers were actually shorter than most people’s short answers. And my short answers escaped most examiners’ eyes unless they were looking for them with a microscope. It wasn’t because I was lazy or retarded. I am just slow. And that isn’t the best of talents when you are faced with a time-bound written test.

The sad bit is, the history teacher in my school used to weigh answer sheets and based his assessment of a student’s merit on that reading. I still remember parts of the answers that one of the highest scoring kids wrote when asked to describe the life and times of Akbar the Great.

It went, “Akbar had two brothers — Amar and Anthony…“. We used to gather at his desk after tests to read what audacious alterations he had made to our country’s glorious past this time. Once he even made Bhagat Singh escape the British and hide in a prostitute’s place. There were gunfights and filmy dialogues too!

The teacher never figured it out — didn’t even care. He liked his history his way. And far be it from noble souls like us to rat a fellow student out.

My handicap came in handy during my BA in English Literature. You would think hardcore literature oldies would be even stickier about being elaborate. But I found they were sick and tired of having to read eighteen-page-long answers. One professor even came to us one afternoon and begged everyone in general to please cut the crap out!

Can you imagine the size of the grin that brought me? I don’t think you can.

In time, my answers were made models for others to follow. What my natural lack of speed had forced me to master, became known as my skill. I became an expert at telling people what they can leave out.

I began to prize my brevity, something I had never done before. I started seeing the advantage my handicap naturally endowed me with. It became clearer when compared to the plight of people so used to the ancient ways that they could not, even after their best efforts, keep it to the point.

One man I know (a journalism aspirant) wrote an introductory passage of nearly 2000 words to a long answer question once. That is one of the memories I will take with me to my grave.

And then I started blogging. The minimum word limit is one (otherwise it’s not quite a post). The medium was a godsend. Freedom from formats at last! Goodbye twelve-inch answer sheets!

Turns out I write blog posts of above average length these days. My average on this blog is 500 words. I invest hours into posts longer than most bloggers bother with. This post, for example, took over two hours to write. I am a sucker for editing. Never satisfied.

Incidentally, I recently discovered that my brand of super short stories has a genre of its own. I am not such a misfit after all!

Posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 1:34 am and filed under learning, personal, essays, writing.

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