A little, big thing

Why am I writing this, writing here? That’s the question I’ve asked the umpteen times I’ve tried blogging and haven’t. Each time I haven’t been certain of the answer and so haven’t bothered to write. I’ve sat and played game after game of online monopoly (pogo.com), tried the same campaign on Age of Empires at various difficulty levels, surfed through various websites…Done everything but blog.

Either I’ve not known why I want to write – not what, never what – or someone else has said it better than I would, could. There’s no dearth of opinions, I’ve always had them by the truckloads, there’s just a sense of… Can’t-be-bothered.

There’s so much that’s happened. It made the last year go by so fast, it seems I went straight from 2008 to 2010. Perhaps my not wanting to write was a way of dealing with so many new things, adjustments, changes. Perhaps.

So many remember-it-lifelong events, moments. So many that at times you (and I) forgot them in an instant unless it had a Facebook album dedicated to it.

The desperation of unemployment. While living an all-paid-for life. The consequent, complete loss of identity, or feeling thereof. It’s not money if it’s not my money, joint account be damned.

The jealousy (and anger) I felt…towards my own Partner because he was doing so well while I languished in self pity. You are someone and I am that someone’s girlfriend. The intense guilt because some times I really wished it was the other way round. And because I was never denied anything.

The acute realisation that I have different coloured skin. And that it’s supposed to be inferior. Not because anyone has been racist towards me. But because the media said they could be. Or that I am supposed to have a “new found sense of superiority”. A polite way of saying “Indians are getting cocky”. Apparently I belong to the “rising Indian middle class” with more “spending power”. I swear I didn’t notice.

A year – well couple of months at least – of travelling, where “travelling” did not mean an 18-hour train journey to see the parents or a road trip to Manali. International travel dudes, spending power and all that. (But it’s not your money said that thought at the back of my head, sometimes at the front of my head too).

The realisation people more qualified than me are walking around jobless. Like the Masters in Accounts waitress at the local restaurant… and feeling guilty that I got a job at one of the community newspapers. It’s a casual position – I have a job if someone resigns or goes on leave – it could go any day. Community reporting, it’s something I did when I started out as a journalist. BUT, it beats making sandwiches and cleaning tables any day. So I lied when she recently asked if I had a job.

It was a year of scoring really well in my Masters final semester. Being “awarded” (it was a book) by this high flying, resident-author-at-uni…and wondering if I deserved it or if it was international student appeasement. Of getting really good feedback from two well-respected industry sources on my novel draft… and wondering if it was because I was selling a West-accepted image of India.

Umm, what is the India-accepted image of India?

Then of course was the grand finale: Finding out that I am pregnant. And realising that I really didn’t ¬– and don’t – have an answer to, “Are you ready for it?” I don’t know, but I know I am having a baby. I know am excited. I know I am bloody petrified.

And I know that no matter how much I am paid, I don't think I can pose nude when pregnant. Nope.

PS: Will this blog now become a "mommy" blog. I don't know. Is it allowed?