Yesterday I was wondering, while recapping my life, that whatever changes happened or whatever steps I took for these changes to arrive in my life are so worth those risks :)
Today I see myself as a totally different person to who i was in 2003. These 07 years have taken me thru all the odds and evens (or maybe I feel so) and have left me contented and satisfied to realise that whatever i did have helped me develop and understand things and people better. Since few days I see a new flush of excitement in me as if another change is here!!! But this time i am quite confident about it unlike all the earlier decisions. May be I’ve grownup, you can say.. :D !!!
Around 02 years back somebody said to me- who ever we meet in our journey, therezz always something we learn from them and that’s what helps us grow...... I guess i took this thought really seriously, and every time when i meet anyone and see myself talking to them, i start gathering things i can implement. WOW am sounding philosophical nooohhh!!!!
There was a time, i hadn't even recovered from some bad instances of life when i just got up and told my dad, 'PAPA am goin to Delhi and will work and be independent, Dont worry'. Two days later I landed in Delhi with new hopes in a new city convincing myself that i'll be living better than i was. New friends, new office and a new home :) A simple small city girl entered the PG with a suitcase and a bag and saw unknown faces staring her. A small intro and everyone was friend! Infact few days later I became the most entertaining amongst my group of gal friends. We used to take fun out of every nonsense be it boyfriends or boys potential to be boyfriends or shopping or eating or partying.
2007, I decided to start living alone (living alone isn’t actually a freakish thing to do infact its quite a lot of fun) with 'my house my way' .... I was told there was an easy way of figuring out how much money one should dole out by way of rent: “It’s approx 30 per cent of your salary.” That was a hell of a lot. And it was bloody unfair to boot: it meant those who got to “stay at home”, got to save that amount.
“No, they usually buy stuff like, you know, shoes,” one of my newly acquired colleagues told me, picking up half-a-dozen pairs from a shop in GK-I. I realised miserably that I would never be able to buy that many shoes. She, on the other hand, could — because she “stayed at home”.
But still I was determined and excited to the fact that I be living all by myself and that would mean… friends on weekends, cooking anything I want, curtains and rugs in colors I like etc etcc… Also I was — and am — in company. In urban, middle class India, we are getting to be the masters (and mistresses) of our own destinies. Not too many people who are relocating to live alone look at family coffers (back home) to bail them out: most would rather foot their own bills and I was proud to be one of those.
We are growing up, I guess.
One of my friends, for instance, would work a couple of hours extra every night (we were working in mostly night shifts), because he needed the extra money (the term is moonlighting :D ). He wanted to live in “a particular area”, and he was clear he would rather burn the midnight oil (while others in his circle partied) in order to pay his princely rent.
For my part, I was determined to buy many pairs of shoes, clothes and bags (the first job and salary craze you see !!!) so, in my first year I mostly cook myself, ate at home and did my own housework. And, I was paying rent every month. And, I always coughed it up on time (a fact my landlord noted with considerable satisfaction.
In The Devil Wears Prada, Anne Hathaway sticks to her job in New York City, even though her boss ‘The She Devil’ Meryl Streep, gives her loads of grief. One reason, an almost egoistical one, why she stuck it out was, of course, because she wanted to prove a point — and be taken seriously at the workplace. There was another reason, an entirely practical one: she had a house rent to pay… I could completely empathise ….:)
Looking at this important point I guess we, in the city of New Delhi, should raise a toast for the jobs that pay our rents !!!! (Though I want a job from which I can do more than just rent :D)
This one is my favourite !!
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