Untangle | Mumbai Beginnings

I’m going to start this off on a very sheepish note that yes, I have not kept up my promises for this blog. All of my good intentions (and good habits) at the beginning of the year; the Untangle series of monthly updates, the stories following daily prompts, and just the general writing, all of them have been thrown to the road. To be fair, I did spend two months of home with relatively nothing to do, so I did manage to get a lot of writing. It has been over three months since I last published on this blog, and finally, I seem to be in a writing mood today! So here goes.

May 1st found me on the way to Mumbai (also popularly referenced as the City of Dreams) for my very first full-time job! Nervous and excited were my dominant emotions for the day, as I was ready to welcome adulthood with slight trepidation. But of course, in trademark fashion, anything I start off cannot go without any incident. After reaching the hotel, I opened my bag to change, and finally noticed that it is not actually my bag at all. Frantic calls to my father, the airport, the airline and the cab company ensued before God finally decided to end the prank. The people who actually picked up my bag called me, since they had the actual presence of mind to ask the airline for my number. Long story short, we met to exchange our bags, sobbed in relief together and departed in camaraderie.

Anyway, the first half of the month was taken up by induction and the second half, in the nuances of the new job and company. We travelled to an outbound camp and to few of the plants of the conglomerate, as well as had various sessions with senior leadership. I had done an internship with this company last year, so it felt like being back on familiar ground! Except with new faces, and who, I am happy to report, became good friends as time progressed. Basically, May was a month of discovery and travelling and laughter and good times. Just how the summer months ought to be!

Don’t you worry, I am not going to detail every single incident which took place in the rest of the months. Work started off in full steam in July and so far, I’m loving it! However, I am the most inexperienced person in the team and the sheer brains and experience of my seniors is very intimidating. I often find myself lacking in some or the other skill when it comes to work and I always get this feeling that I am sliding all over the place. Kind of like I’m holding on to sanity and not a full-scale anxiety attack by my fingernails! The good thing is that everyone is unbelievably helpful and sweet and are always patient with my mistakes. However, I do intend to stop making them before their patience runs out!

My new (adult) life in Mumbai is going good too. I managed to get an apartment really close to work, so I do not have to face the horrendous commute in this city. Currently, one of my flatmates is even my work friend, so that makes it infinitely better. The chores of groceries and bills and household help are quite tedious at time, and once again, I get into about a million incidents and scrapes. Also, the cost of living in this city coupled with a massive education loan sometimes brings the clouds into my sunny temperament (Hah!). But I think I have found my pace and comfort zone, so I feel settled. At home, I believe is the right word!

Through all of this, I managed to make some good friends with some of the new people who have joined with me! What started as a lunch group slowly became a hangout group and some of them have even made the switch to my gripe-friends. If you know me, it means that I now consider them to be good friends! There were some initial wrinkles regarding the fickle heart, but oh well. A philosophical bent of mind and some eye-openers have (mostly?) smoothed them out too! All in all, those who were meant to be, are meant to be.

I do have a congratulatory piece of news on the good old writing front! The previous post that I have written which I had titled “Love the World” was for a marketing campaign by Lufthansa. I ended up winning third place in it! Given how badly I fell off the writing bandwagon, I kind of needed the reminder of just how much I love writing and what’s more, how much I love being rewarded for it! Hopefully, the new found commitment will last out for the remainder of this year. Until then, have a happy August!