A few years back, a friend had convinced me to start a blog. So I created this blog. But attempts to post anything proved futile. I tried writing about my trip to Shanghai which was recent back then, but I couldn’t frame it properly so abandoned it. Time elapsed. A year went by and my life took a new direction. In 2009, I was pursuing Bachelor’s in Chemistry thinking that I will ultimately pursue higher studies in Biotechnology. Biology always interested me. Whenever I thought of the future, I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere but in a lab wearing a white lab coat, tinkering with test tubes, chemicals and complicated machines. But destiny, as I chose to call it, had other plans. My second year exam was disastrous to say the least. I scored so low, it dashed any hope of getting an admission in a decent college for master’s. It put my life into perspective. I started soul searching and found the following:
1. I was dragging my feet through my bachelor’s. I had originally intended to study biotechnology or microbiology. Since these two subject are highly specialized, my father advised me to pursue undergrad in something which will give me a number of options to choose from in case I changed my mind.
I had only myself to blame for my the poor results. I thought I would somehow manage my undergrad and finally be united with my love Biology. Post poor result, I realized I did not want to do this anymore. I realized you have to love what you do. And most importantly, at higher levels, Biology was and is Chemistry. So I will be unnecessarily putting myself through the same thing again. I wanted to change track before it was too late.
2. Prior to the above incident, I had never given any other career option any thought. This needs some explanation. Where I grew up being a doctor or engineer is prestigious and usually the first choice among parents and children. The next option would be a scientist, professor. Basically, studying science related subjects is a matter of honor.
My views were shaped by what I saw and heard while growing up. Neighbors, relatives, friends would proudly announce that their children/siblings/someone-they-know had qualified for medical/tech schools. Arts was never presented to me as a career option. I was never directly told not to study arts but I gathered as much from the conversations within my earshot. The engineers were spoken of reverentially. The art students were not spoken of highly in academic discussions. As a result, I never gave arts a thought. I was rather snotty. I thought to myself that I too would be in the premier league. Arts is for the weak/dumb. Looking back I realize how close-minded I was. Learnt my lesson the hard way but am glad I did. “Never underestimate anyone or anything”.
That very year before my results were declared, I had a conversation with a girl who was pursuing bachelor’s in Mass Communication. What I learnt from her, the course structure, the activities, the internships piqued my interest. Later on when I was soul searching it all came back to me.
Whenever you start or think of starting something new, the influence of reluctance is more than the influence of willingness. My fingers would shake as I tried to type the words ‘mass communication colleges’ in google. I would keep procrastinating. But ultimately I moved ahead motivated by my recent failure. Long story short- I took admission for master’s in mass communication and journalism in a huge university in a new city. The two years there are by far my best two years. I shed a lot of tears, I laughed till I thought I was loony and met some really awesome people. More on that later.
So presently, I am working my dream job. I am a journalist with a respected magazine. Currently I am based near a village and working on developmental journalism. My career has shaped exactly as I had desired and I am extremely happy about it.
So sitting here, miles away from a city, I read blogs on a regular basis. And my friend who encouraged me to start a blog supplies me some really good blog links. I did have a brief blogging stint. That was started when I was still a student encouraged by my professor who said a blog would look good on a resume. So I tried some political analysis stuff. It did not entirely satisfy me.
I always wanted to talk about my experiences in a blog, the world as I see it. Reading the blog links I talked about made me feel really good. I want to write like that. Meanwhile my friend kept pushing me to start blogging. The more I read blogs, the more I figured I needed courage to be honest. Herein lies my problem. I want to blog honestly like the dozen or so blogs I read. But I wonder how do these people work up the courage to be so honest? I am yet to figure out to strike a balance about how to be honest yet maintain my privacy.
I told my friend the same. “Yeah it is difficult, but one has to start in some place” was his response. Then he gave me the link to this blog which I had created years ago and totally forgotten about it. I would liken that moment with a scene from the french film Amelie.
Amelie finds a box with an assortment of objects, hidden inside the wall of her apartment by a boy many many years ago. Upon finding that box she makes it her life’s mission to find the owner of the box and return it to him. The owner Dominique Bretodeau, was shocked, surprised and finally in tears. By returning the box, Amelie changed his life. It is a very inspiring and feel good movie. I was smiling to myself for two days after watching the movie.
So I can loosely liken myself and my friend to Dominique Bretodeau and Amelie. He did kept telling me until I finally decided to post. So this is the first step. I hope with time I will gather courage to be more and more honest and be like the bloggers I admire. Brave enough to share their experiences reading which is therapeutic. You know that you are not alone in your happiness/sadness/misery/disease.
One small step at a time…
Morrigan's... 