Update.

So I finally got a job - if that's the right word - in Bangalore. It's really more of a training position. I'm going to be trained as a copywriter for two months with an advertising agency, and if I like it, and they like me, maybe I'll get to stay on. If I don't like it, or if I suck at it (a strong possibility), then I don't know what to do.

But either way, I AM MOVING TO A NEW CITY THAT ISN'T DELHI OR CALCUTTA. TRA LA LA LA LA.

I'm not ruling out that I'll end up hating it, because I usually end up hating a lot of things, on account of how nothing gives me more pleasure than to suck the joy out of life, but right now, infinite possibilities (and bars) stretch before me.

My brother has offered me lodgings for two months ("maximum three, after that you're out") so that should be ample time to find my feet, decide if I'm going to stay on in the city, and look for my own flat. I promised to babysit his dogs four nights a week in return. I am regretting this promise now, but my training will pay so little that I've realized I won't be able to go out anyway, so I may as well sit at home with the dogs.

I hope flat hunting in Bangalore won't be as disastrous as flat hunting in Delhi. I hope that no one demands ten thousand rupees for a single room, the size of a double bed, no windows, and photos of India's ten thousand gods looking on disapprovingly from the cracked walls.

I leave Aleph on Thursday. I'm feeling a little sad about leaving. I will miss smoking under the trees with Pradipta and admiring her shoes, I will miss the Thursday meetings where books are commissioned, ideas are exchanged and authors gossiped about. (I made my first contribution last Thursday, finally plucked up the courage, suggested a book on Indian theatre in English, was told that it would sell three copies, and shut my mouth again. Oh well.) I will miss David's booming voice (alright, perhaps not) and the way everyone in this bloody office smokes. I will miss reading puerile manuscripts and wondering how anyone could have dared send them in, and then feeling sort of happy at the thought that there are people out there who let nothing, nothing, not even terrible syntax, stop them from pursuing a dream. I will miss the feeling of being one of the first people in the world to read something that might one day turn into a famous book. I will miss my wine bottle where I keep my water and the black tea at eleven am and Say Cheese down the road with its Lebanese sandwiches.

So there is a lot to miss. But there is twice as much to look forward to and I can't wait for the next bend in the road. With a bit of luck, it won't send me plummeting down the bottom of a cliff, and leave me in a mangled heap of blood and bone.

...

I've got to work on trying to be more optimistic.

On a side note, I'm not going to do some big farewell thing when I leave Delhi. (I leave on Sunday for Calcutta where I will spend a couple of weeks before carrying on to Bangalore. So I managed getting a summer holiday despite not being a student. Ha.) I did that last year, and found myself back in this bloody city six months later. I have a terrible feeling I might be saying goodbye to Delhi for the third time next summer. I have a sinking suspicion I am bound to this damn city for life, and no matter what I do to escape, I will always find myself trudging back to it.

Also, may I just say here and now, that I am proud of myself for finding this thing in Bangalore. I have never chased anything, not even The One, with such single minded, dogged determination before. I didn't think I had it in me, but it probably means that I will sink back into my usual passivity for the next decade to make up for it.