'Cause Pigs can Fly

One of the perks of print media is that people tend to know each other and so interviews don't take on a very traditional form. They are casual conversations. And so, I've had to sit for only a handful of interviews in my life. That has changed now what with needing a job and all. But here's something that gets to me each time. "What are your goals? Where do you see yourself in five years?" I get that the answer to these questions will give you a sense of the kind of person you might be employing, but I find it to be such a pointless question. Do people really have goals anymore? How can they? In 2012, my 'goal' was to study law and become one of many with an LLB. But then, I ended up giving up on this goal and got drawn into the world of print media. A year into it, I was the editor of the youth tabloid, again, not something I ever saw myself doing. Three years later, I was unemployed, but following a bachelor's in social sciences. In 2016, I ended up...

Just now, I found myself googling: How to find a job. Because how does one find a job? Do you look through one of those recruitment websites? Do you spend way too much time on LinkedIn? Do you look up enough keywords so the algorithm works its magic? Or do you just hope for the best? In May, I handed in my letter of resignation knowing I would be taking a break before looking for a job. At the end of July, I ended my last day of work (for a while) looking forward to a nice holiday. In August, I was busy busy busy and now, before I even realized it, it’s the end of September and I’m realizing that I will definitely need a job by the end of October/beginning of November. This is obviously a bit overwhelming but this random little post isn’t about finding a job. It’s about how we need to market not just our goods and services now but ourselves. Most LinkedIn posts are people basically telling you why they are special or unique or what they bring to a table you didn’t know you had to b...

Sunday morning brought with it the unexpected news of a friend's death. I was so sure there was more time before I would have to attend a friend's funeral, but on Tuesday, that's where I found myself. My friends and I talked about all the visits we wanted to make to the city our friend lived in (which is just 3 or so hours away from us), visits we never ended up making. And yet, when she passed away, we somehow found the time to reserve our train tickets and make that trip. It took minimal planning. It cost us very little. It wasn't an inconvenience. And yet, it wasn't something we were able to do a month ago. A year ago. Why? Because we just couldn't find the time. I know that Covid's still around, but most pandemic restrictions have been lifted. Towards the tail end of lockdowns and social distancing, we spoke about making the most of our time: to travel, to go to all the places we wanted to visit, to dine at all the restaurants we had made a mental note o...

I was at an event recently where they spent a whole lot of time speaking about the evil LGBT+ brainwashing kids are apparently subjected to these days. The hate and misinformation they kept spewing made me leave the event midway. Since that event, I've had a couple of conversations on this topic. It's interesting, you know, because we point out that movies and books have a lot of LGBT+ content now. That we are surrounded by it. Choking on it. You can't go anywhere without having to 'deal with' something or the other that is queer. But here's what people forget or seem to not realise. We are also surrounded by a lot of straight content. And not just straight content but a very specific heterosexuality. Since I was in my teens, I've known that I don't want to get married or have kids. A lot of people think that these are things you come to accept as you get older and realise that you have no real prospects, but that's not always the case. Sometimes, yo...

One of the last dishes my grandmother made me before she died were panipol pancakes. I called her from office craving it and that evening, came home to a plate of delicious panipol pancakes. Love is about giving, right? But the asking that certain loves allow you to do? We rarely talk about it. I'm not someone who finds it easy to ask for help, for favours, for things. But Athamma wasn't someone I felt any hesitation with. I wanted panipol pancakes, so I asked for it, and I got it. Sometimes, it is that simple. Since her death, I've started making pol toffee for Avurudu. She always made them; light pink, melt-in-your-mouth pol toffee. A touch of rose essence, fresh coconut, over an hour of stirring. As kids, when she made toffee, we would gather in the kitchen, pestering her with 'is it ready yet?' questions. If we kept bothering her, she told us, the gonibilla would eat all the toffee. This was enough to keep us away from the kitchen. None of us wanted to take a ri...

Despite it being past my usual bedtime, I don't want to turn my laptop off and go to bed. I've been so tired lately that I could do with all the sleep I could get. And yet, here I am. Why? Because I feel this weird need to write something. But everything I've started writing about has felt so personal... too personal to put out there, even though I don't really share on social media a lot of my more personal writing anymore. But why not? When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I had this blog on a website called Kiwibox. It wasn't shared across social media as such, but the site itself had this community that would read each other's writing and share our thoughts with each other. Back then, I wrote about everything that crossed my mind. The good, the bad, the sad, the embarrassing, it was documented for the world to read. And I felt comfortable doing that, even when people I knew personally read it. But over the years, something changed. A friend recently con...