Why my life will never become a bestseller

Life has been unusually eventful these past few months. I switched jobs, cities and issues. Lost touch with childhood friends, started avoiding social gatherings, witnessed my kittens being murdered by a mean alley cat, lost interest in movies and my own dreams somewhere along the way. Met a couple of men who wanted to marry me and considered the option in all seriousness. My mind tried to convince me that I’m finally growing up.

It’s been several months since I’ve updated my blog. There are multiple reasons for that. The first is the sheer paucity of time. The second reason is the fact that I now write for a living.

Yes, my dream finally did come true. It all came together somehow. I work as the Associate Editor of an online tech magazine now. The work is good. I get paid for finding fault with people’s grammar and sentence construct now. I get to think. I get to write and learn. It’s wonderful but it does have its moments of doubt.

I met a man who I can imagine spending the rest of my life with. But that has its moments of doubt too. And it’s way too early to say.

The most important thing that happened, though, was that I stopped believing in fairy tales. And I made peace with the fact that there is no such thing as perfect happiness. It’s a flawed concept. Damn I sound grown up!

I think the most important question in life right now is whether I want to get married at all or not. I’m still in two minds about it all. Marriage scares me. Talks of commitment make me want to break out in a cold sweat.

I spend 5 days of my week alone in Delhi and 2 days in Chandigarh with the family. I sometimes feel so torn between the two that feelings of homelessness grip me in their cold embrace.

Detachment from people, in general, has become a way of life. They think I’m too “casual”. They are not wrong. I just don’t see why I should get worked up over every little thing that people say or do. And if I do, I don’t see why I should show it. People should deal with the fact that I’m not an overly-expressive, easily perturbed 20 year old girl anymore.

I just happen to have different priorities. And my first priority is to be happy with myself.

I will not get married if I don't fall hopelessly in love. I just doubt my ability to give or receive love now.

Singledom is not a choice I'm making. It's a calculated decision. I will not ruin my life and somebody else's by getting into something that's irrevocable. 

My fairy tale needs to be rewritten. Since I'm writing my own story here, I will take the liberty to never ever let it become a bestseller. Because bestsellers are what the masses relate to. And I can't even relate to my own life here.

Here is why the story of my life will never become a bestselling work of non-fiction:

1. As the main protagonist, I suck!
2. The world is full of princes who turn into frogs the moment you kiss them. It's not a rare occurrence anymore. (I read the fairy tale backwards, the way it was supposed to be.)
3. I'm way too average to be special.
4. I have a terrible memory so I'm quite sure that I'm going to miss out on key events.
5. Bestsellers have a lot of drama, sex and bitchy women in them. My life's drama is restricted to arguments with the landlord, I do not talk about sex because I am not Osho and have no intentions to be and the bitchiest woman in my life is, well, me.
6. Every story has to have an ending and by the time my book gets published, the ending will have changed twice over.
7. I'm not delusional about my life being "different" or "worth writing about."
8. Twitter and Facebook know my life too well. The cat's already out of the bag...and sprawled over the internet.
9. I'm just 29 years old. I haven't lived enough or seen enough to write about it. And I don't want to be just another Chetan Bhagat. He gets his ass kicked way too much and I don't aspire to be that.
10. I just don't have the time, man!

Growing Young-The Digital Way!

You know how they say life always comes a full circle? I’m beginning to think they knew what they were talking about when they coined that phrase.

And since ‘they’ are usually talking through their respective hats, it brings me to believe that I’m growing old (of course that’s completely untrue, given my incredibly gorgeous reflection in the mirror and the fact that I’m barely 29 years old).

But let’s not wander too far from the topic at hand. Life always comes a full circle. Mostly around the waist.

And now might be a good time to update my blog about my life.

It’s been a month since I started working (again). This time in a digital advertising agency. Initially, I was nervous, skeptical and tried to curb my enthusiasm about it all. I still remember how utterly disappointed my enthusiasm was the last time around. But that’s one thing that refuses to stay in chains for too long. And so here I am hyperventilating about everything that’s remotely related to the digital arm of the advertising business.

This new place I’m working at is very different from the old one. The old one was cold, impersonal, overdosing on protocol and oh-so-corporately-correct. The new one is more now. Sure they follow protocol too. But it ends soon as you punch in your presence at 10 a.m. (a rule all companies all over the world should collectively abolish). The hierarchical structure is flatter, more transparent and every person is accountable for the tasks they handle (of course, that’s the worst thing that can happen to you if you are a slacker). I actually have meetings with the CEO of the company! Me! Can you beat that? I mean I don’t know a thing and there I am sitting across a man who is the founder of the company and answering a question like, “So what do you think about it?” The first time he asked me that I actually felt he was mocking me in a sadistic sort of way. But when the realization that he was serious hit me right between my eyes, I was so taken aback I just sat there like a zombie with my mouth hanging open and nothing coming out. So I just mumbled something in an incoherent manner and weaseled out of the situation. Of course, he knew what was happening because he let an amused smirk slip. But when has any smirk/smile/sneer ever escaped my eyes? Okay, lots of times but this one didn’t.

Anyhow, what I was trying to tell you is that this new place has a great working environment. I know I said that about the last company as well. But this one is better. Seriously.

Okay now an update about my non-professional life.

I’m turning 29 in less than a month, remember? I need to give myself some frantic blog posts in my last month as a 28 year old. You know how they keep saying that age is just a number? They are wrong. If age was just a number, why would it keep incrementing year after year without anyone bothering to do the math? Now don’t give me crap about the math involved when you take the present year and subtract your birth year from it to arrive at the number that’s your age. You know I’m only making a point here so don’t go all Aryabhatta on me.

So anyway, yours truly is turning 29 soon (6^th January, if you please). You know who I can’t stand? Stupid 22 year olds who keep whining about how old they are now that they are going be 23 soon. Of course, my whining would probably extract the same emotions from a 50 year old, but 50 is really old, okay?

You know, there are reasons why I’ve not been writing as often as I used to. Firstly, I sort of lost faith in my ability to write even remotely well when I started working in the Marketing Division of a Digital Agency. Especially when I was so gung-ho about making it big as a copywriter. But then when I thought about it, I realized that none of the great writers started off as copywriters. And maybe that’s a rule. You let all the creativity vent up and then pour it all in a great book in one go. I sure don’t want to write tag lines and body copy and win an award for it (Oh who am I kidding?). But I do want to write a book that’ll make people sit up and take notice. And they will. Someday.

The other reason for my prolonged absence from the blog has been my perpetual presence on Twitter. I made my Twitter account sometime early last year but started actively using it just a couple of months ago. It’s so addictive now that it’s scary. But of course, this addiction will soon be replaced by the next big thing. Just like Orkut was replaced by Facebook and Facebook by Twitter (no, not according to statistics, just my personal usage).

I have met (virtually, of course) a whole lot of interesting people on Twitter. It’s a great way for people to interact, network, showcase their wit and generally rant. Though I strongly feel that most of the active Twitter users are single quirky-alones like me, who want company but only at a distance and on our own terms. Unless, of course, you’re a marketer or a bot (and there’s an extremely thin diminishing line separating the two).

I have met people on Twitter who think like me, talk like me but just are not as fabulous as me (this is what we call unashamed self-pimping in Twitter terms).

Retweet is the new copy paste. Follow is the new “You’re awesome” and Unfollow is the new “Shut up, already.” Of course, block is still block and is self-explanatory.

See that little widget on the right hand side of this page just above the “About me” section? Click on that, follow me, and see what the hype is all about.

Yes, that digital agency is not paying me enough to hire people to do my PR for me.