A decade ago, something inspired me. A world which seemed like it was inhabited by people and not rats running a race. It appealed to me, this land where people wanted to sensitize themselves and others to problems bigger than a lover's spat or a teenager's rebellion against her parents and maybe even bigger than the split of a family or the loss of a loved one. Even as a naive teenager, overwrought by stuff like constantly changing schools and first crushes, a part of me wanted to jump out and live that life. It felt real. So I worked towards that world, the world of news. I loved imagining myself as the savior of the free but shackled world.
Today when I think about those days and read a couple of pages, I have remaining from my failed attempt at keeping a diary, I do not know whether I should be laughing at those childish dreams or feel sad for the adult I almost became.
Nine years after those dreams first took root in my mind, I was exactly where I wanted to be, right down to to the channel I wanted to work at. And I hated it. The work was great, right in the middle of all that buzz. But I just did not enjoy it. The shallowness got to me. The need for glamor and image before reality was sickening. As was the constant use of human emotion to grab eyeballs. Sure, it was refreshing to be in a place where being blunt did not translate into bitchiness. But when the city you live in starts burning and the city you keep traveling to explodes, you really do not want to be cutting gruesome footage to music. All you want to do is help...in a concrete way. At least that is what I wanted. And so I left.
I was branded (by myself and others who will never own upto it) a failure, a quitter and also someone who just could not take the stress. Sure, all that is true but today, I have finally learnt to live with that truth. It is cool that what I strived for, was not something I could stick to. At least now,I know what I do not want. I will figure out my place in this wheel, sooner or later. For today, I am happy. So what if I have to debate the reality of aliens on the internet, it is still more fact than the fiction I manufactured a couple of months ago.
