It was a very good year...ergo, i remember :)
Sometimes we remember, sometimes we forget....but sometimes it always stays for reasons special. Maybe that's why memories of my first job remain deeply etched.
I entered 'The Hindu' office for the first time....Anusha led me through passages and stairs and tall glass doors.The first thought that struck me was, " this is so intimidating." From then on till my last day there, the place has never failed to overwhelm me!
Making things clear- i was working for an IT tabloid published by the hindu - ergo - hence :)
The blue floor and a healthy boss welcomed me. Karthik was the name, editor was the post...he kept it short, he kept it simple...he asked me to join the coming week. Five minutes it lasted and i left....good times ahead i felt.
I was not too good at my job, nor was i confident. The first few months went well job-wise...but i hardly spoke to anyone except the 'student reporters' gang. All of them were my classmates from college. The creative (anusha), the quirky (vipasha), the go-getter(lokpria), the wise one (monisha) and the lost (me :))- pretty much sums us all. Even as i write this i realise how easy it is to judge others while you can't judge your own self...yes i'm still kinda lost in my quest to find myself.
It was a quest that began when i was in ergo. A few bumps, a few interviews and events, it was all too good to be true. Business cards all of my own, by this time i was pretty comfortable smiling and making minimal conversations with my boss. Now it makes me smile, of course like i said it's all deeply etched. I was happy, i was cheerful but i never let loose. A year went by. It was a conflict, i struggled, i had pretty much made up my mind it's not working. I've said it before, i say it now, "I don't think am cut out for it." Maybe i was wrong or maybe i was right, i don't think i ever will find out. But my heart was elsewhere...i had lost.
Reliving the memories now, i don't think i've lost, i've only gained confidence, friendship, glimpses into journalistic minds, lessons in writing, and of course a little weight thanks to the hindu canteen :).
Having said all this, it's a frontier i couldn't conquer but nevertheless respect and love for all it gave me!
P.S: This one's for Karthik - the ex boss, now a good friend :)
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Posted by nan at 12:54 AM 2 comments
oh yea it's diwali again
Friday, October 16, 2009
Ages and ages later am back to typing a blog :)
It's diwali time, just a day more to go. today someone was asking me if I bought crackers, and it made me walk down the past with nostalgia for a few minutes and I started ranting out to the someone how great diwalis used to be when i was a kid.
Even back then I was an insomniac so I would stay up the whole night instead of waking up early for the oil bath. And crackers, whoa, total fun. Used to love the thrill of starting the day with the 1000 wala. I still remember how we had the say no to crackers campaign at school (I was in fifth grade then) and i didn’t sign up coz I knew I wouldn't put it to practice. the standard contest among us flat friends- who wakes up first on diwali, lighting lakshmi vedi in hand and throwing it, running up and down for oodhuvathis, the evening get together at uncles house, new clothes, sweets, lights and sound, treat to all the senses.
Gradually things changed as I grew up, we shifted to another locality, no more flat friends, late mornings, crashing up in front of tv to catch the star interviews and tv premieres, no crackers, less sweets ( somewhere down the line I stopped liking sweets as much), but the new clothes still remained an important entity. But today even that has vanished. My definition of the festival has become - a once upon a time fun fest, now just another day. Yes totally and truthfully. The tv premieres are crap, star interviews- plz stay away, crackers- good from far with the sparks giving a rare warm peace, the get together-the only festive thing I do the whole day.
It’s just a few days back my cousin was voicing the same thoughts to me. he made a valid point, in those days diwali was the time for new clothes and festivity, these days we all shop at the drop of the hat, no company to burst crackers with, no big deal about waking up early- waking up as late as possible defying the parents has become the in thing :P to sum it up, oh diwali, good we get an off and that's all there is to it.
Me a self confessed kill joy i say!! Anyways happy diwali to one and all :)
Posted by nan at 3:06 AM 2 comments
An MRTS ride finally
Monday, October 27, 2008
I have lived in Chennai for 19 years and have not even been to most parts of the city! ignorance is not bliss especially when you are like me( read: love the city and want to explore but bad with directions to the extent that my bro says I cant find my way out of a phone booth!!)
However today was a different day! My aunt and I had plans to go to fabindia, midway we changed our mind and headed to the beach station! like I said I’m ignorant, so I thought the beach station will be near the beach....only after 20 mins on the bike, passing the port, the war memorial and the reserve bank office( I never knew this existed in Chennai until today!) , I realized the beach station is near Burma bazaar. Now this is a bazaar where people get export duty stuff and cds (ahem!). But all the shops were closed today, don't ask me why (is it because it is a sunday?) Anyways coming back to the amused and excited me, we parked the vehicle outside the station and walked in. Damn it was crowded, I hate crowds, but even this did not dampen my spirits.
The next phase of our adventure was to wait in the long queue to purchase tickets. The catch was that we didn’t know which queue to stand in. We chose the shortest and stood there blinking with question marks in our faces (yahoo smiley kinds!) a lady with two kids dressed identically, though not twins, was standing in front of us. My aunt asked her, “mrts velachery station ku ticket vaanga indha queue la nikalaama?" The lady answered, " ela edathukum same queue dhan". So the system is such that thirunelveli or triplicane you are bound to stand with hundred others in the 'general queue'. It didn’t make even an iota of sense to me. This is when we found out a short cut; apparently they were vending machines available. As I stood back saving our places in the long queue, my aunt went and checked out the machine. Few minutes later she returned with a dejected look. The expression was for two reasons 1) only the Hindi machine was working and neither of us know to read Hindi. 2) No money, only swiping cards. Confident of having brought my debit card, I asked her to wait and walked towards the machine. Two minutes later, I too walked back dejected. Reason? The machine has ego issues with debit cards and accepts only smart cards which are being issued by the railways. So our wait in the queue continued.
As we egged on to the counter slowly, I was getting bored and needed some entertainment. This came in the form of a lady who wanted to join the 'Q'(i hence forth shall use only Q and not queue as I’m lazy to type and that’s the way the railways spell it anyways!) in between and get a ticket. This sparked off a quarrel, and even we tried to join in ( after all we are Indians by birth)
Sometime later a man with a kid in hand tried forming a separate Q, this sparked off a bigger quarrel, which we kept out of( after all we are Indians!!). Finally we bought the ticket and walked off with a 'perumoochu' (translated as sighing victoriously).
The ticket cost us 28 rs and that's for the entire journey too and fro. Buying a cone ice cream at a nearby softie stall, we walked onto the platform. The train stood there empty and welcoming :)
We got in and found comfortable seats by the window. The train chugged on and we sat there enjoying the breeze and the view. Our primary job was done, as we called our other relatives (read: my mom, another aunt and cousin) to inform about our escapade and the unanimous result was that we were nuts! The first few stations are lined parallel to the beach and hence we got to see a different view of the beach, the people and the slums. The Ayodhi Kuppam stretch along the beach road and the like looked crowded and dirty but nevertheless beautiful in a quaint sort of a way. After this, we passed the Mylai station of the busy Mylapore area. And Luz (a shopping stretch) reminded me of all of those times I used to go shopping and get amused when a train passed in the track above. A couple of stops later, we were in the Kotturpuram area where we could spot a water body(tick the correct answer as I’m not sure: Coovam, or a lake, or the Adyar river). As we got to the IT hub of the city, the stations started seeming corporate (or was it my imagination?!) we finally reached Perungudi and then on the train got slow and we finally bumped off at Velacheri.
We then shifted compartments in the same train (we actually got off thinking we had to board a different train only to find we were wrong) and waited for it to start the return journey. Few minutes later the TTR came and checked our ticket. The guy had a good memory and was so amused to see the same faces. Muttering something to himself, he left making us wonder if he thought we were crazy!
The return journey was faster, and we were back in the beach station right in time for hot tiffin at the station’s Saravana Bhavan hotel. Like true Chennaiites, we licked off the hot and lip smacking sambar and the yum idlis and washed our hands to get some cold juice. Content of having fulfilled our long wished for agenda, we got back to the bike hitting the roads back to our original shopping plan, grumbling about the traffic jams and how great the mrts ride was.
P.S: 966 words, a real long post, dedicated to my aunt. And damn I dint take my digicam to click shots which I could have uploaded :(
Posted by nan at 12:36 AM 11 comments