Then and Now

Ten years ago, around now I was taking baby steps from being a college kid to graduating and entering the big exciting world. It was the first time I was going to stay without parents, grandparents or a sibling.

The first move was when I did my final year project at HAL, Bangalore. I stayed with a friend in a house 4 days a week and then went back to home base for the remaining 3 days. It was at that time I got a taste of the big city. It was nothing like Carrie Bradshaw in NYC…but well it was my own version. It was then that I tried the club-hopping, it was then that my girlfriends and I gave fake names at one of those clubs, it was then that spending hours at a coffee shop for a non-coffee drinker seemed possible, it was then that I turned 21.

I can safely say that Bangalore became home base for me in 2003; it still is. Mysore became associated with the formative years…when I really didn’t know or get a chance to explore who I am or want to be.

Bangalore let me do that. I got my first job, my first pay check, my kinda first boyfriend, my first pad, my first party with people I did not know, my first date with a guy I hardly knew, my first beach wedding in Goa…well, the list is long. And now that I am older I really need more time to remember all of it…so let me stop. I am sure you get the gist.

That was a start of a fantastic decade. I cannot believe it is that long ago…but well time does fly! In the last ten years that started in Bangalore with me experimenting with life a lot happened.

Pune was the next city I went to. This city did give me my MBA, but the best thing it gave me is my own love story. I met my husband there seven and half years ago. And well then the city also opened my eyes, widened my vision, merged the black and white to a larger grey area and suddenly I was not so much of a halli guggu. The transformation was not immediate, and was not easy…but Pune – or maybe it was Tarun - did make me a more accepting person.

And then I was back to home base now called Bengaluru for my first real job which I quit in 10 days and moved on to the next real job. I was finally working in an agency. No matter how much I crib about the pay and the hours both of which are rather shitty, I must say this – it is only in an agency that you can be yourself, speak your mind, be crazy (you must be if you do all that great work for the people you want to kill) and make great friends for life because all of them drink!

The last five years in Bengaluru have been nothing short of excitingly exhilarating – if that even makes sense! I told my parents I had met a boy, the boy.  And then Tarun got down on one knee at a restaurant and proposed and well we got married. We moved into a well-furnished house as his parents had set it up for us. That is the story in short.

Tarun and I bought our first car, travelled far and wide to Australia, Kerala, Thailand, Singapore, Kashmir, Bhutan and Sikkim to name a few, we made friends, we put on weight and then we hit the gym and lost most of it. We saw a sister’s wedding and a brother’s dream coming true.

We changed jobs.

Mine finally gave me the thrill of marketing and traveling in high heels and an award that took us both on a trip to California. His gave him a tough client, a great bunch of minds to work with, a few stars, respect and growth.

That growth today has put me back at an oddly similar spot. I am now taking baby steps from being at home to creating a home away from home. It is the first time that I am not a 3-hour drive or 3-hour flight away from my parents, grandparents or sibling. It is the first time I need to use Skype to stay in touch with them. It is the first time that the gap between my parents’ visits will give me a chance to miss them.

Tarun and I have moved to Hong Kong. And this time it is a big city but as I am married and have found my Mr. Big, it is not much of a Carrie Bradshaw story. But it is the first time that Tarun and I stayed in a hotel for a whole month, the first time we are working in a foreign country and the first time we are setting up home! We are moving today!!

A few weeks from now I will be 31 and all I am thinking is how exciting is this decade going to be?