Looking Young

This picture was taken in Kodaikanal in 2009 on my 32^nd birthday.

A response on Facebook was “you look young” Now readers, since the past two whole weeks I had been scratching my head vigorously, trying to come up with something to write on, & nothing, absolutely nothing, had struck me. (My last post was on Apr 10^th). The infamous writer’s block had bitten me again. And this time it was such an excruciating dry spell that, when I got that comment on FB, I thought why not write on this? So bear with me!

Is there a downside to looking younger? I’m not talking of “being young” but only “looking” young, younger than your calendar age. Trust me - there is!

The times I hate the “you look young” stare is during interviews. It gives me a completely unnecessary 2 minutes of initial hurdle to cross. The famous ‘First impression is the best impression’ goes for a toss when your prospective employer doesn’t take you seriously, at first glance, because he thinks, you look too young for the role/position applied for. And in my mind, I catch myself venting my anger, “I HAVE worked for 9 years Sir. I’ve slogged my ass off all these years & you won’t believe me?” The incredulous look on their faces rattles me. Before they open their mouths & ask, “Do you really have that much experience?” I go into an overdrive, explaining all the great things (supposedly) I’ve accomplished, in the past decade, starting with my auspicious birth in 1977 (no, actually, not that!!) to the post-graduation in 2000 & my momentous work life saga from then onwards. It is another story that they are convinced within the next couple of minutes & in my mind I’m back to heaving a sigh of relief & feeling good about not looking 40 when I’m still 35! I make it a point to wear saris for interviews with my hair rolled into a bun, to add a few “mature” years to my appearance. And I’m thankful, as I walk out, for the money spent on hording all those crisp, starched cotton saris.

During meetings, in office /college/seminars/conferences/wherever, no one initially takes me seriously. They don’t even look/glance in my direction. I am left to listen in while the whole room is busy shouting & drowning out each other’s highly knowledgeable opinions. And then l decide “Enough is enough”, drop a few quotable quotes & force them to sit up & take notice.

During my daily evening visits to the neighborhood park, none of the other mothers/aunties involve me in their all-important Child Behavior Analysis sessions, always assuming & looking at me, as if asking, “What can she possibly know?” And thinking, at best, I must be my daughter’s much younger maternal aunt, or at worst, her much older sibling. A couple of them actually asked me to my face, ‘Where is her mother?’ And I am like, ‘Excuse me? I AM her mother’ Till about 3 years back, a question like that would infuriate me no end. At the time I was still very high-strung with all the single parenting I was doing. It’s only now that I don’t take it to heart so much.

In buses, no one offers me a seat even though I’ve officially been an aunty for the past so many years. I’m getting older by the day & though people think I look young, I’m not getting any younger. Can you even begin to imagine my paranoia that I’m getting closer to the dreaded 40?

But hey, there is an up-side (obviously) to the story too. The best thing is even though I’m older than Sathya by a few years (ok, by exactly 3 years 9 months) NO ONE has, till date, been able to tell the age difference between us. Thanks to his build, I’m the petite, young wife to an older, taller, heftier giant of a man! Until & unless we expressly tell them & even when we do, they look at us with disbelief. According to them, it is just not possible that Sathya is younger than me. And no prizes for guessing who is having the last laugh!

A Milestone

10^th April 2010 was when my first post was published. ‘Conversations’ has turned 2 today & this is my 100^th post! Happy? You bet! I’m glad I gave blogging a shot. But I also couldn’t help worrying, “It took me 24 months to write just 100 posts!! Why couldn't I write more?”

This milestone is a big deal for me as I’m not a gifted or a ‘natural’ writer. I take so much time to write a single post, barely managing to write 4 posts in 30 days! I know many who can literally type their mind out on a weekly, daily, & hourly basis. I can’t. Even if I did, I don’t think there is a post yet that I’ve published just right off the head. I keep chewing on it, pondering over it endlessly. Then, once I’m done typing out all the thoughts, I sit & bring down the 2 pages of that initial draft to just a page. To chop off sentences from your article is not easy. We tend to cling to them. As K.R Narayanan said, ‘it takes a lot of heartlessness to “murder your darlings.” I’m beginning to think I’m a very good murderer - an average writer with above average editing skills.

Blogging has been the precious pair of attentive ears that I’ve always wanted. Other than what it has done to my mind, I think the great thing about it is the people I "met." I’m lucky (touchwood!) that most of my readers are really nice & decent. I’ve heard of the creepy-crawlies that plague the blogs of women & considering that I write a lot of personal stuff, it’s a relief not to be hounded by such seedy characters.

I owe my wonderful readership to Indiblogger which I joined in July’11 & until which time I only had 2 readers - Suzaan & Suraj!! Then Prashanth came to & through him came Sahana who was the one who got me to join Indi. Thank you Prashanth for discovering my blog. Thank you Sahana for being my blog angel, & for guiding me on many aspects of blogging. Thank you Hemant & Murali for your valuable critique of my blog on Indi. It was Hemant’s feedback that made me think hard on having a blog name & switch from ‘Sujatha Sathya’ (ya…eeks!!) to ‘Conversations’! It was a time when I didn’t even know that there was a thing called blog name! Yup, I was pretty dumb!

What I learnt in the 2 years of blogging:

One must appreciate a reader’s time & effort when he reads/responds to a post. I don’t understand those that say, “More people should read me. I’m good” & accuse readers of being on this give & take system of reading a blog. I ask: why not? You want me to read you & you won’t read me?!!? Why boss? You think you are Shakespeare?

If you want to show your appreciation of my writing, don’t tell me I’m a good writer. I won’t believe you anyways! Just read me. This applies to ANY blogger. You like him, read him. Simple! Those that I like or built a rapport with, I’ve even gone backwards & read their older, initial posts. There are blogs that I’ve read COMPLETELY! That’s my way of saying: ‘I like that you make the time to read me regularly. Thank you would be too small a word to express myself. I read you because you write well, I connect to it, keep writing’.

For a long time (3 full months!), I obsessed about the number of followers/comments/page-views/statistics/ranks etc And then one day, realized I was running in the opposite direction. The disappointment over my own obsession with the number thing was so much that I became detached from it. Pretty early I must say. And eventually it stopped mattering so much. I learnt to distinguish a real reader from a passer-by & that the reason to blog cannot be the numbers game.