Because the Universe has an odd sense of humour, I find myself back in Delhi this year. I returned without any fanfare on January 3, nursing a hangover (my birthday was the day before) and a sore knee (a legacy from that disastrous and humiliating Christmas Eve).
The story of how I got to Delhi is long and convoluted, but to put it in a nutshell...
I lost my IELTS marksheet so I couldn't go to Australia this February and I wasn't sure if the course I'd chosen was the right one for me anyway, so my mother said, "Trisha, you need to introspect" and then I had a meltdown because I introspected and found absolutely nothing except a desire to sit around eating cake and then, to top it all off, I kept visualizing myself as a forty-year-old journalist living with my mother and writing for the T2 and then eventually marrying a pot-bellied, bespectacled film-studies professor from JU. And then after all these things, I locked myself into my room and refused to come out and my uncle, Pud, was sent in to "get through" to me, and he told me to man up and go and get a job. I said, "What job? I don't know what I want to do." So then we made a list of things I was vaguely interested in, and when Pud saw publishing was on the list, he said, "Get Dilsher to write to David and see if there's an internship opening at Aleph Book Company." And then I was like, okayyy. I'll do it soon. And he said, "Do it now." So I wrote to Dilsher (who is Pud's brother and therefore my uncle) while Pud hovered around, and he wrote to David, and David said, yeah, we can take her on for a month. Tell her to send me a 500 word book review and if it's good, she's got the job.
I could write an entire blog post, nay, a book, on the torture I went through attempting to craft an intelligent and well-written book review. Having my mother constantly sticking her face over my shoulder, saying things like, "This should be changed," and "I don't like this" and "I used to be a copy-writer therefore you should listen to me" didn't help either.
But in spite of her, and many break-downs over the course of a night, I sent David the 500 word book review (Michael Cunningham's By Nightfall) and I was told to report to work on January 4.
This is how I landed up in Delhi on January 3, and started working for David Davidar the following morning.
And then I really wanted to get my internship extended, but I didn't think it was possible, so I started looking around for other internships, but then they asked me to stay on till the end of March, so I was like, whee. But then Ambition struck me again, and I went a bit cuckoo and started googling things like, "How to get ahead at work" and "How to get a promotion" and "How to be indispensable at the work-place" and I even kept a little notebook with the title, "Trisha's Plan for Becoming Indispensable to Aleph Book Company So They Keep Her on Beyond March".
Anyway, they've kept me on so haha. I must have done something right.
And mind you, this is in spite of the fact that I have a tendency to fall over the chairs in David's office when I go in there. The other day, I was passing by, and I distinctly heard him tell our chief designer, "Watch out for that chair. Young Trisha keeps falling over it." I was humiliated, but I think it's important to note that I have been kept on despite single-handedly wreaking havoc in my boss's office every time I step into it. My efficiency at work, therefore, exceeds my poor motor and balance skills. This is cause for celebration.
I love my job. I'm the youngest at my workplace by miles, and I think some of the others are a little taken aback by my starry-eyed cheerfulness. My most recent project, which has involved re-writing the blurbs of some one thousand books, has sucked a little bit of soul from me, I'll admit, but then I switch to another project, which involves writing an entire part (yes, an entire PART) of a book that's going to be published later this year, and life-blood is once again pumped back into my soul. I have also had lunch meetings with authors (well, alright, one lunch meeting with one author, but it's a start), and seen Vikram Seth wandering around my office with a backpack on. I thought he would be tall and moody, but he is actually a rosy-faced, gnome-like fellow, shorter than myself. I try not to be disillusioned.
Today is the 19th of March, and I am twenty-two years old, and in a land very far away from that December afternoon when I was sobbing into my pillow at home in Calcutta, uncertain of where to go and what to do. I have chosen my career path, and I also have a shiny debit card which I use to pay for alcoholic beverages at TLR in Hauz Khas. Oh yes, and I can read proofing symbols too.
This has been a very large nutshell, but if I had to sum things up in one line (I am getting quite good at summing things up in a single line, although it's not as much fun as rambling): It's been a very good start to the year.
The story of how I got to Delhi is long and convoluted, but to put it in a nutshell...
I lost my IELTS marksheet so I couldn't go to Australia this February and I wasn't sure if the course I'd chosen was the right one for me anyway, so my mother said, "Trisha, you need to introspect" and then I had a meltdown because I introspected and found absolutely nothing except a desire to sit around eating cake and then, to top it all off, I kept visualizing myself as a forty-year-old journalist living with my mother and writing for the T2 and then eventually marrying a pot-bellied, bespectacled film-studies professor from JU. And then after all these things, I locked myself into my room and refused to come out and my uncle, Pud, was sent in to "get through" to me, and he told me to man up and go and get a job. I said, "What job? I don't know what I want to do." So then we made a list of things I was vaguely interested in, and when Pud saw publishing was on the list, he said, "Get Dilsher to write to David and see if there's an internship opening at Aleph Book Company." And then I was like, okayyy. I'll do it soon. And he said, "Do it now." So I wrote to Dilsher (who is Pud's brother and therefore my uncle) while Pud hovered around, and he wrote to David, and David said, yeah, we can take her on for a month. Tell her to send me a 500 word book review and if it's good, she's got the job.
I could write an entire blog post, nay, a book, on the torture I went through attempting to craft an intelligent and well-written book review. Having my mother constantly sticking her face over my shoulder, saying things like, "This should be changed," and "I don't like this" and "I used to be a copy-writer therefore you should listen to me" didn't help either.
But in spite of her, and many break-downs over the course of a night, I sent David the 500 word book review (Michael Cunningham's By Nightfall) and I was told to report to work on January 4.
This is how I landed up in Delhi on January 3, and started working for David Davidar the following morning.
And then I really wanted to get my internship extended, but I didn't think it was possible, so I started looking around for other internships, but then they asked me to stay on till the end of March, so I was like, whee. But then Ambition struck me again, and I went a bit cuckoo and started googling things like, "How to get ahead at work" and "How to get a promotion" and "How to be indispensable at the work-place" and I even kept a little notebook with the title, "Trisha's Plan for Becoming Indispensable to Aleph Book Company So They Keep Her on Beyond March".
Anyway, they've kept me on so haha. I must have done something right.
And mind you, this is in spite of the fact that I have a tendency to fall over the chairs in David's office when I go in there. The other day, I was passing by, and I distinctly heard him tell our chief designer, "Watch out for that chair. Young Trisha keeps falling over it." I was humiliated, but I think it's important to note that I have been kept on despite single-handedly wreaking havoc in my boss's office every time I step into it. My efficiency at work, therefore, exceeds my poor motor and balance skills. This is cause for celebration.
I love my job. I'm the youngest at my workplace by miles, and I think some of the others are a little taken aback by my starry-eyed cheerfulness. My most recent project, which has involved re-writing the blurbs of some one thousand books, has sucked a little bit of soul from me, I'll admit, but then I switch to another project, which involves writing an entire part (yes, an entire PART) of a book that's going to be published later this year, and life-blood is once again pumped back into my soul. I have also had lunch meetings with authors (well, alright, one lunch meeting with one author, but it's a start), and seen Vikram Seth wandering around my office with a backpack on. I thought he would be tall and moody, but he is actually a rosy-faced, gnome-like fellow, shorter than myself. I try not to be disillusioned.
Today is the 19th of March, and I am twenty-two years old, and in a land very far away from that December afternoon when I was sobbing into my pillow at home in Calcutta, uncertain of where to go and what to do. I have chosen my career path, and I also have a shiny debit card which I use to pay for alcoholic beverages at TLR in Hauz Khas. Oh yes, and I can read proofing symbols too.
This has been a very large nutshell, but if I had to sum things up in one line (I am getting quite good at summing things up in a single line, although it's not as much fun as rambling): It's been a very good start to the year.
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