Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Every day for us something new

Long post ahead.

Now that pretty much everybody who needed to be informed about this, is in the know, it is time that the  big news is published here. R and I are moving to Malaysia. He with a hot shot new job and me with none. And I am swinging between extreme paranoia and extreme euphoria and this is a crazy place to be in.

I never saw myself be the kind of woman whose husband needs to pay for her salon expenses. I have been married for two and a half years now and I have never needed to take money from the husband for my personal stuff. I have been very clear about this - no add on cards, no "I have run out of cash because I splurged my salary on clothes I don't need, so bail me out for the next 20 days". It is just the way I have been brought up. Financial independence has always been very, very, very important to me. And now not only am I giving that up with absolute uncertainty of finding a good job in Malaysia, I am actually giving up a job I LOVE in capitals. One that I am not enjoying just because of the people or the perks, this job's one I am having a lot of fun doing. For the last 4 years that I have been working, there have been few places I did not like going to or I wasn't good at (even if I say so myself). But this job means more to me than any of those because it is only after I joined this place that I realized that I wanted to stick with this industry, stick to this agency, and be around for long enough to get the returns.

At the same time, this move is something I wanted in my life. I wanted to go abroad for a few years and then decide whether living in India for the rest of my life was a choice I was willing to make and not something I had to make do with because I hadn't explored the other side. I wanted to live and work in a multi cultural environment. And I am going to get to do that, hopefully both live and work.

At the beginning of 2011, I had it all figured out. The fast track career, the bills, the house, the maid, the cook, the cheap tickets to Bombay to meet my parents, the dirt cheap Airtel rates and my 3 long conversations with Ma everyday, the narrow lanes of Commercial Street where after 2 and a half years of being in Bangalore, I could actually find the kind of fabric, chappals, and haircut that I wanted. Hell, I even had most of my weekend getaways and vacations planned for 2012. And suddenly I am in the middle of a cloud of uncertainty and I am dreaming of unimportant things like going to Singapore and Thailand by train, of being able to travel to Australia and Europe without needing to plan too much because have you seen the ticket prices to all of these places from KL? Dirt cheap is an understatement. I am planning in my head the anniversary trip to Langkawi because I was busy being cool and driving to the world's highest motorable passes in Ladakh during my honeymoon. I am thinking about the sexy condos, clean roads, and the view of the Petronas and the city's skyline that every apartment in KL seems to have. And at the same time I am spending every waking minute praying to all the Gods I know to conspire and find me a job there that I would love, one that would pay me enough, and one that I will be good at.

In the middle of this absolutely zonked state of affairs, I am planning to hand over the responsibilities of accounts I loved and owned at work. At home I am accepting money from random (and strikingly nice) strangers for advance booking of things that we bought to make a home.

The desktop computer that R bought for me when I gave up my office laptop and walked out of a hopeless job. We downloaded like crazy and no document ever  hung, and browsers always responded. The cane chairs and the coffee table - one of our first purchases together. It was love at first sight for me. And also the reason for one of my first arguments with R. I felt he was being too rational about the furniture that should fill the spaces in a whimsical house with orange walls. He thought it was impractical, and probably I was too. And yet we went back, and picked it up. Friends came over and we had our long conversations across that coffee table. Almost all our disagreements got sorted across that table. It saw some brilliant food, a lot of love, some fights, and in the last 2 and a half years, it survived the test of time more than any other piece of furniture I have known.

The bed. Where we finally crashed after long days at work, where we just lay and thought about all the wonderful things we had found together. The bed we wanted to come back to after every road trip, no matter how much fun it was. The little cane modhas. The balcony. The chai.

That TV, that saw more of me than R did in this city. Where I, the girl from Bombay with no friends in the city and a husband who was beginning to work crazy hours, found company. The TV in front of which I realized that there is something very warm about me falling in love with a show as weird as 24, and R sitting through the 3 seasons of Bigg Boss that I "just had to see". The bike and our Sunday rides. The car, R's first car, the first car that took me over 600 kms by road in one shot. The long drives out of town, the music, the euphoria. The short drives to work and seeing R swear at every driver on the road and knowing that my Buddha like husband does lose his temper (and letting go of a lot of guilt with that one realization).

The first house I ever set up. R and my first home together. I remember coming here on a hot April afternoon back in 2009, after seeing a million houses in Bangalore, and knowing in an instant that this was all I ever wanted my house to look like.

It's like slowly and steadily I am losing the ground under my feet and I can't decide what would have been worse. The adventure that lies ahead at the cost of giving up life as I know it. Or staying here and wondering what could have been. On other days I would have said it's hardly a choice. But I will probably sympathize more with anyone who tells me they are confused about a big decision, even if the cons hardly match up to the pros in my perspective.

Now to find another place I can call home...

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters..

Or so we hope.

13 comments:

Madhu Gopalan said...

How exciting!!! Nothing more fun than experiencing and discovering a new place! I wish you all the very best! I hope you find a job that you love, and more importantly, have tons of fun! *hugs*

Scarlett said...

I'm quite like you in that I too wanted to see what working outside India was like and not sit and wonder about what could have been. And now that I've done that, I've pretty much decided that India is where I want to live, in the long term at least.

You may come to the same realization, especially since things are so much better in India now than they were 10 years ago that the prospect of settling abroad has kind of lost its charm. Having said that, enjoy this journey of discovering what you really want from life.

I hope you find a job in KL that you like but even if you don't, enjoy the break!!

Unknown said...

all i can say is wow! all the best for ur stint in malaysia and hoping that u'll find a niche there and be adventurous as always! and please some snaps too. do enjoy the petronas! me never got to go on the sky bridge thanks to our laziness! :|

wall the beshht!

cheers!

austere said...

all the very best!
ALL moves are scary as hell but solidly fantastic in the long run.

And you'll find work, I can bet on it.

badhiya khabar hai!

S said...

I was smiling through the entire post.. It's a great news!! And am really happy for you. Am sure you'll get great opportunities in Malaysia too :) Keep faith. Revel in the excitement!!

Anonymous said...

Hey you are the very few I know who enjoy their jobs. I truly hope/wish that you get a great job in KL and have a perfect stay there.

jo.

Moonshine said...

Hey! All the best .. am sure you will have a lot of fun. A new country to explore.. it will be awesome. And am sure you will get a job you like. Dont worry too much. Just take time out to chill while you can!!

Tamanna said...

Girls, you are all such lifesavers.. I even had a phase where I thought I was being very stupid getting extremely excited about discovering a new place and I should just hold on to my job instead. But yay I am going.. Yipppeee!

Searcher said...

Don't worry about it, Malaysia will be great. Anyone who writes (and lives) like you will always find a way to be at home, even if it's a blog address. Have fun and keep writing.

Nefertiti said...

lovely post...

and wish you all the very best in your new life. look forward to regular updates on the blog.

Tamanna said...

Searcher, Nefertiti, thank you girls. You are very kind :)

Richa said...

All the best.. ! :) :)

have fun..

Anonymous said...

That sounds exciting in all the uncertainty it poses.

Your life and the turn it is about to take sounds incredulously similar to the way my life went in early 2010. Having lived in Blr all my life, I gave up a job I LOVED (and the first one of manyyyy) to move to Goa where my husband had a spanking new job and I had none.

Yet, I willingly made the move because living in a little beach town was something Iv always wanted. And life they say, you win some, you lose some.

But the time away and the uncertainty and the ups and downs and the building life from scratch has been more satisfying than any job could ever be. I hope you find the same joy in the new place youre about to make your home. Needless to say, I did eventually find a job.. everything happens in its time. Just hang in there, Malaysia will be awesome.

PS: im now following your blog :)