Mumbai Diaries - I

I still remember that day- 24^th November 2010, my flight from Delhi to Mumbai landed at around 7 am in the morning. While it was bone-chilling cold in Delhi at that time, Mumbai welcomed me with showers as soon as I came out of the airport.

And that's how my journey in Mumbai began…. A journey of a confused, timid yet so confident girl who decided to leave her own house and head towards this unknown city….the girl who wanted to stay alone and become independent. In search of herself…her true soul.

Frankly speaking this was a true adventure of my life…. I left my job in Delhi and came to Mumbai even without a job in hand. My parent relatives, friends (most of them) were in grim despair and awestruck wonder, with my decision. But still I decided to take a chance with my career, with my life.

Beautiful yet so undiscovered - Orchha

“You have visited this place when you were young” said my Mom

“Have I??” I replied in confusion

“Yes, don’t you remember when we went to Jhansi, we went ahead to see Betwa river. We even have your photograph sitting near the bank of river” said my mom

So is that all about Orchha??....Betwa river…that’s it? I was not convinced. So I typed Orchha on Google to see the results. And found photographs of Majestic Places and temples, great Mughal architecture (something that I have not seen in real). Raja Mahal, Jahangir Mahal, Ram Raja Temple and Chaturbhuj Temple are the heritage sites of the place.

“But Mom we didn’t visit any of these palaces and temples” I said

“That’s because we didn’t have much time. But you have definitely been to Orchha” she replied

Yeah ofcourse I would have, just like how we visited all other places during my childhood. I still remember visiting Mussoorie without even going to the kempty falls (the one and only tourist spot in that location). But as I knew it’s pointless to debate with elders… so I decided to blame it on the city as Orchha literally means “the hidden place” or “hidden treasure”.

Even worst dancers have to dance sometimes

I was famous for ruining all the dances in my family, one of the reasons I never ever tried dancing all my life was due to the fact that my sis was a great dancer…. obvious we would be compared… so when I was young, I decided to show her a white flag (LOL) !! And thus I never danced in front of my folks.

But all this while I never thought that one day my sister will get married and ofcourse I will have to entertain the crowd…LOL. Yup this happens only in India!! Hahaha … Plus not to forget I belong to a true Kayastha family so I’m bound to show my talent even if I don’t have any!! ;-)

Crazy Night

I didn’t even know him till yesterday, neither did I like him so much that I would want to know him more! But still I went alone with him at 2’O clock in the night for a bike ride….sounds strange and crazy...Isn’t it??? But this is true…

So before you get your mind into some wild and weird thoughts let me explain this by narrating a small story…

The day was really getting very boring for me, while everyone else was dancing, celebrating my roommate’s birthday with full cheer; I was lost in my own world. Not talking to anyone, laughing with artificial smile, and giving weird look to some people around!

Haste is not always a waste!!!

I generally think before I spend good amount of money (well that makes me question do I really think??...:P) but one thing I’m sure of is that my decision to go to Coorg on the New Year eve was not my decision alone. (I mean I was persuaded enough, or rather say compelled enough to take this decision). But believe me, whatever it was, either mine or someone else’s decision one thing is true…. Haste is not always a waste!!!

So I’m taking my memory calendar a little backward and setting the date as 30th December 2011. I still remember how I was really getting bored in office and all my activities & thoughts were converging to just one single point. How to make my New Year interesting this time?

I had thought of all the possible solutions but nothing was working, things that were possible were not interesting enough to convince me. And as the clock was ticking after every second my heart was skipping a beat, because soon it will be evening and all the flights tickets to the key locations in India would be sold out and I will be alone in this place called “Mumbai”.

The first little adventures of my professional life…

Generally there is nothing much to tell in one's career journey, but last evening when I was telling my story to one of my colleague at Vaishnavi, he was really fascinated and amused by it. Fascinated because there are so many twists and turns in it and amused because I was narrating it in such a fashion!

So now after the down fall of my company when I have nothing else to do apart from finding a job for myself, and attending those boring meetings with the management I thought why not write my own story. The story of my journey in PR.

Writing has always been my passion, though I hardly got time in all these years to nurture my this passion. All I could write was press releases, briefing and debriefing documents and some articles that were eventually attributed to my clients!

I have been reading this novel “I’m not 24...” and it’s really interesting. So even today when I woke up I immediately put my book in the bag so that I could read it in the train. But when I got inside the train I had to choose between reading the book and writing my story. I decided to choose the latter.

And the story begins….

So it all started from that one message I got on orkut from a company called 'Facts n Fiction'. Obviously I was surprised as I never thought that I'll get my first job call on 'Orkut'. But then I convinced myself that it’s the digital world and anything can happen on internet today!