‘Write something, write something!’ ‘Why aren’t you, with all your experience and wit, writing something?’ ‘You MUST start a blog.’
For the last few years, I have been inundated with these well-meaning pieces of advice from friends and close acquaintances. Somehow, I never felt like acting upon them because…
- I couldn’t think of ‘something’.
- I was/am very lazy.
- I thought of myself as a journalist and have snootily always considered bloggers a poorer (and rather unemployed) version of a journalist.
- I had no clue what to write. Whatever I wanted to say, had already been expressed by others, perhaps in a far better way than I could perhaps ever have.
- So why am I joining the blog bandwagon suddenly at 9.30pm Dubai time on a warm April night? What do I hope to achieve? What do I want to tell the world that will change the course of the future?
Well, nothing earth-shattering or eye-opening really.
I am single. Pushing 40 and single. Living alone and single. Leading the so-called dream life and single.
More about myself. I am the editor of a lifestyle magazine in Dubai. Whoa, sounds glamorous? It is. I lead the ideal Facebook life. I meet stupid and not-so-stupid film stars all the time and faithfully post pictures with them. I wine and dine at some of the most happening places in the city (and oh boy, don’t I love wining and dining!), I have travelled alone to some exotic destinations around the world and I rub shoulders with the glitterati of this glittering city. In other words, work requires me to bask in the unending ‘sho-sha’ that defines the core of this city of gold. And oh yes, I have also mastered the talent of dealing with an unending flow of supremely silly, mind-numbingly dumb and mind-bogglingly delusional people day in and day out. It’s been my life for six years now.
Wait, there is more to me. I am also the local train girl. I have lived in Bombay (sorry, it’s never going to be Mumbai in my dictionary), done the struggle bit, contributed my fair share towards good journalism, met some amazing people, have had some mini-relationships and checked pretty much all the boxes of the single-in-the-city questionnaire. Yes, the story is eerily similar to that of several single working women across India.
But in my case, as a media professional, exposed to all shades of life, there is a dual existence, quite like Madhur Bhandarkar’s Page 3 movie. Earlier, I would attend high-profile parties and return home in the local to an empty home. Currently, I attend high-profile parties and return home in a sparkling metro to an empty home. One night I am being treated to gasp-inducing dishes from around the world, the other I am craving for my curd rice. Being an impartial observer of all that happens around me is fun and the more life passes me by, the more it teaches me. Dubai, like any other immigrant city, is full of stories – some funny, others bizarre and some poignant. It’s been a supremely interesting exercise trying to unravel these layers and understand the ethos of the place.
I have decided to write also because I need to laugh. At the world around me, at myself, at men, at the weirdos I have dealt with and at the bizarre trip they call the ‘single life’. So cheers to a new blogger in the woods… oops, desert!
Single Take 