16 Years in Communications Taught Me One Very Important Thing: Let Go

The world of corporate communications and public relations — how difficult is this industry to crack? Extremely.

Sixteen years later, I still don't know how good my interpersonal skills are, how well I read people, or whether I'm able to navigate a tricky situation with ease. There are just so many stakeholders involved — clients and media houses when you're working with an agency, and your own bosses and multiple external agency partners when you're an in-house communications person.

However, one thing I can assure you of with 100% certainty is the grit and determination that all comms folks bring to the table.

Want a gigantic logo of an award we recently won to be placed inside the palm of a senior spokesperson as he addresses an in-house employee town hall? Done.

Want coverage for a monthly cooking programme put together by the in-house chef? Done.

Want an entire property in Shimla to be written about by leading travel journalists across mainstream and regional publications? Done, done, done.

The "we can do it all" attitude, despite the 10,000 roadblocks in our way, is what makes a communications professional really stand out from the rest of the tribe. We don't have shame, fear or negativity in our blood. We make the impossible possible and bring a smile to the faces of even the most introverted leaders.

We walk the talk and make it look good.

I may be biased because I've been in this field for 16 years and this is pretty much all I know. It's been my bread and butter and an extension of my personality, whether I like it or not.

What my profession has done for my personal life is help me see people more clearly. You simply cannot bullshit a comms person in her free time. Your intentions become loud and clear to us the moment you utter the very first words.

Yes, it takes us some time to back away because we've been trained to "follow up", but eventually, we get the point and learn to let go.

There is maturity and strength in learning to let go earlier rather than later. The longer you stick around, the more "muck" there is, for lack of a better word.

So let go, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, comms folks and all the lovely non-comms folks in the world.

Let go — for your sanity more than anyone else's.

Sisters in Crime, Sisters for Life

The importance of sisterhood, family and friendship — how important is it to have sisters supporting sisters within a family? Super duper important!

I'd like to pull out a file from my mind diary right now. This was an incident that happened immediately after my husband passed away.

My lovely sister-in-law has been able to study my all-over-the-place personality, along with my sense of dressing, to a T.

She understands what dresses I like, the colours, the fabrics and everything in between. So, during one of those Dubai Mall outings with her, she stumbled upon a dress in a shop that she knew I would love.

Unfortunately, I tried one size smaller and found it difficult to pull it off. A teeny-tiny hole — so tiny that perhaps an ant could squeeze itself through it — formed on the dress. I quickly took one size bigger and ran away from the shop.

I confessed to her what had happened, and we burst into laughter.

Now, here's the plot twist: I had accidentally left my mobile phone inside the changing room of the shop, along with the one-size-smaller dress that I had ripped.

I was so mortified that I had to go back to the shop where I had just indulged in some serious criminal dress-tearing activity.

She encouraged me to run in and out of the shop to grab my mobile, with her in tow, of course. And lo and behold, I found the torn dress lying right under my phone.

I quickly grabbed it with a sheepish look on my face that was a cross between a bright red tomato and a guilty toddler caught red-handed seconds before they were about to insert all their fingers into an electric socket.

I grabbed my phone, held my newly purchased dress even more tightly with my other hand, and we ran out of that shop so fast that, five years later, we still haven't gone back there.

I haven't mentioned this story to anyone till date, so if you're reading this — now you know how to indulge in retail crime and get away with it.

However, I highly recommend not involving yourself in such activities. Perhaps just lose some weight meticulously every quarter, so that every inch of your body can smoothly fit in and out of dresses without ripping them.

Sisterhood: saving you from embarrassment, one ripped dress at a time. 

When Your Throat Decides to Shut You Up

How important is it to have pleasant physicians? Very, very, very.

I just met a super-round, very happy soul who pulled my leg for eating ice cream at 8 pm at night and then going to sleep. He also reprimanded my love for all things sugary and sweet. He did it with so much panache that I had to chuckle through my aching tonsils.

News flash! Apparently, oranges, watermelon and mosambi can aggravate throat inflammation. I obsessively eat oranges hoping they’ll keep me from catching a cold or cough. Guess who is laughing raspily now?

To not be able to speak **and** eat sugar? I might as well have been swallowed up by the Earth, much like Sita accepted her fate when Ram suspected her character after she was abducted by Raavan.

Two things make me, me: excessive sugar and talking. One gives me the energy to talk and the other gives me peace of mind. Thoughts always have to be freely expressed. Perhaps most of my thoughts, of late, in certain aspects of my life haven't been expressed freely enough. Hence, clearly, I've caught a severe case of laryngitis.

The body simply reacts in ways the mind cannot. Perhaps I'm not speaking enough. Or, if I have to be factually correct, it's probably all the varieties of sugar I've been consuming with the kind of glee that comes from the utter confidence that I will somehow not end up looking like a baby walrus.

Sigh.

I'm off to catch some shut-eye, keep my mouth shut and stay away from sugar for the next couple of days.

Cue infinite sighs now.

From Classroom Villain to Puss in Boots

I've been rotting in bed since 2 pm yesterday, burning up with fever, a severely aching throat, a lost voice this morning and, in general, feeling pretty useless. Just as the world's most depressing thoughts began filling my brain, my 7-year-old got carted back home this morning by his grandmother. I had packed him off last night so that he wouldn't catch my infection.

He began hugging me and patting me on the head like I was his long-lost pet dog. "Poor little maamaa, please don't die on me," he pleaded, running around all over the house and balcony, following me everywhere. His waist-down hugs were extra tight today, and his beady eyes were more moist than usual (picture Puss in Boots from the *Shrek* franchise).

And just yesterday, I had been called to school by one of his sweet teachers from L.K.G., who complained that he was distracting the kids in his classroom by taking his pencil box to the back of the class and using it like a gun to shoot objects.

I held back a huge chuckle, shook his teacher's hand and told her, "Ma'am, I'm on your side."

Upon questioning mini-me about why he had created a fictitious story about being the victim instead of the villain of the piece, he muttered, "Because you would have scolded me, maamaa."

Now, after that gun-shooting-with-a-pencil-box classroom villain act, he had transformed himself into Puss in Boots in less than 24 hours.

As I continue to feel useless, groggy, sleepy and voiceless thanks to my achy throat, I pray my Puss in Boots has learnt his lesson and decided to remain a gentle cat today who doesn't want to go to war.

I'm off to sleep now, Dolo-induced and fever-induced.

Thursday Morning Blues

I feel like I'm working multiple shifts today — school pick-up and drop-off because little sir's pencil box was confiscated by a teacher at school, and my regular work in between all of that, in full swing, with zero pauses.

A mild sore throat has decided to add to the confusion, and I'm ready to give up already. Where is the weekend? That distant beauty waiting to be explored with flu shots and food.

I'm experiencing Thursday morning blues from last night, anticipating a proper scolding from his teacher alongside the usual work grind.

I woke up at 7 AM today and realised just how mentally exhausted I am. Yes, I'm officially ready to log out of this gruelling week.

Can you hear me, beautiful Saturday morning?

The Potato Chronicles: Surviving a Trainer-Less Week

One week since my personal trainer quit on me and some other lovely women in my colony, and I am already feeling like a little potato. After a week of mild strength training and zero floor exercises, my paunch is out, and I am sure I look like a pufferfish in general.

Oh my god, the sadness of transforming back into a potato cannot be described in words. The agony of drinking a simple glass of water, only for it to feel like it is converting directly into fat on your body—sigh!

I feel helpless, useless, pointless, and every other negative word that ends in "-less"—except for my weight, which is far from less now.What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? A thirty-minute walk every day, along with fifteen minutes of weight training, is simply not cutting it.

After the vigorous floor training and weights that I endured for two hours every week, a morning walk alongside all the senior citizens of the colony is just not enough. Cue the waterworks now.

I can no longer eat a gigantic slice of blueberry cheesecake in peace. Forget moong dal halwa and gajar halwa altogether. I have stacked up on every variety of sugar-free dessert in the house, but every time I attack them, I can feel my paunch getting paunchier.

Where are all the female personal trainers in Chennai? Fitness gods, please drop someone right into my lap!

Two Women Who Keep Me Going

Here goes my umpteenth piece on two of my favourite girls from the past five years – Shina and Devyani. At this point, they will either take out their slippers and beat me once again or say, “We have no more cookies left to give.”

Shina and I are up to our usual crazy, haphazard Mission Impossible plans, with nine out of ten getting cancelled. But this is a big one, and if we manage to make it happen successfully, it will be quite something. So, I spewed all my anxiety at her at 5.30 pm, to which she promptly replied at 9.30 pm in the affirmative, with words that went something like, “I won’t ditch you. We will figure it out.”

I replied at 4 am the next morning with a kiss and invisible tears in my eyes.

Such green flags for friends I have.

Moving on to Devyani now. There isn’t a single playdate, irrespective of whether I’m physically around or not, that she hasn’t involved Riaan in. An entire day out of play across parks, play zones and restaurants is taken care of by his makeshift mommy of the day – Devyani aunty, aka Agu’s mother.

Honestly, what would I do without these two women in my life? One takes care of my child, and together they try to fulfil all my crazy desires to the best of their abilities.

They say well-behaved women don’t make history. By that logic, I hate to break it to you, but we’re all very well-raised and well-behaved women. And I think we’re all creating history in our own ways – at home, at work and everywhere in between that we set our minds to.

I wonder what these two women will talk about when they finally meet. One will probably talk about the pre-married me, and together they can talk about widowed me and mommy me.

Sigh.

I love the fact that they both love me, because there are moments when I don’t love me, and they remind me why I should.

Forever grateful and blessed, and never taking these two for granted – today or ever.

Cry First, Halwa Later

I'm going to openly admit this now: I've been a cry baby all my life.

One good cry session later, I'm ready to take on the world again. It's also quite easy to piss me off. Comment on my clothes, how I look, what I did — finished. The waterworks begin, with full force and instantly. My tears could put Madras Corporation water-tanker lorries to shame.

In the past five years, it goes without saying, I've cried worse than a newborn baby. But there's no one around to pat me on the back and put me back to sleep, so I self-soothe. A cookie or two, maybe a 250-gram box of moong dal halwa or gajar halwa, and I'm absolutely healed from whatever trauma was playing in my head.

No tears mean a lot of suppressed rage, and I don't do rage well. So I'd rather bawl like a baby and then transform back into my super-chatty, all-is-well-with-the-world self.

There's so much pain and suffering in the world, and I think we humans are experts at clinging to every single misery we experience in our lives. Perhaps we even blow some of it out of proportion, making it much bigger and heavier than it actually is.

Crying gives me peace, and so I'll always choose the cry-baby path.

For everything else, there's sugar.

However, if weight loss is your goal, I highly recommend only crying and then eventually falling asleep.

The Great Blister Battle: Ekalavya Without Dronacharya

My right thumb has a big, ugly yellow blister today, and I've had to type, eat, feed a tiny human, pack the aforementioned human's tiffin box, and tackle a whole list of activities for the day.

I feel like a Dronacharya-less Ekalavya today. Apparently, every single finger on our hands is important — even typing this piece out is painful.

I either scraped it yesterday while picking up dumbbells from my dumbbell rack or while latching cupboard doors. The blister is ugly and yellow. On a scale of 10, I'd rate the pain a solid 7.5 (the remaining 2.5 is me pretending to be Xena the Warrior Princess for the day).

I've been told to apply Vicks or Tiger Balm by the mothership. I'm hoping that works. Otherwise, I'll continue to be a useless Ekalavya who didn't even master archery for the week.

Not being able to scoop up food while eating has been my greatest sorrow today. My bite sizes are so tiny, I could cry.

Go away, blister! Shoo! Scram!

Life Before Kids: Did That Life Even Exist?

As my oldest mom friend in the city, or better known as Agu's mom, and I discussed just yesterday morning — what exactly was our life before our kids came along? We don't even remember it anymore.

For me, it was a whirl of late-night/early-morning parties with my ex-colleagues, occasional getaways from the city with other married friends, and a whole lot of waiting around for my husband to return from whichever dreamy city he had travelled to for the week or month.

I was alone before my Riaan came along. And once he did, I forgot all about my travelling husband — the human who helped me create my most important human.

Suddenly, my days were filled with spilt coffee, baby vomit, zero sleep and weight gain — so much weight gain that I could put a baby walrus to shame. *Grunt grunt.*

Close to eight years later, I don't even remember a life without my son. My days are so jam-packed with school and office that I don't run on caffeine anymore. I survive by counting down the hours to 9 p.m., when I'll finally go to sleep and hopefully wake up only at 5 a.m.

A life before children feels like a distant honeymoon. Were we even alive? And I'm sure Agu's mom, and every other mom on the planet, will agree with me.

This is the life — a blur of activity upon activity until our brain feels like a blur itself.

I'm finally off to bed now. I've survived yet another day!

Onto the next one.

A Small Film With a Big Heart

A small film with a big heart. Sounds super clichéd even as I write that sentence down, but honestly, that's exactly what *Modha Rathri* is all about.

A groom from Dubai named Maruthu and a bride named Muthu from a small village are forced into an arranged marriage. Here's the plot twist, though: the groom doesn't want to get married because of the trauma of losing his late girlfriend, who died by suicide after her family opposed their relationship. The bride, on the other hand, is madly in love with her boyfriend of a few years and is constantly trying to flee from her own wedding.

On their first night, Maruthu catches Muthu red-handed inside their attached bathroom, trying to escape through a hole in the bathroom wall. What ensues is a madcap, subtle romantic comedy involving Muthu's current boyfriend dumping her, Maruthu's family getting hold of Muthu's farewell note to her family, and a priest who intervenes and tries to convince both families to simply accept the newlywed couple.

The movie ends with Muthu complaining about her entire life to an obviously mildly lovestruck Maruthu, while the cot meant for their first night is promptly carted in front of them by the carpenter.

As the movie ends, with the newly married couple laughing at each other, you, as the viewer of this harum-scarum movie, will also end up laughing.

Like I mentioned already, a sweet little small movie with a big heart is what you'll find upon watching *Modha Rathri*.

Image sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modha_Rathri 

How to Avoid Becoming Cranky Sebastian

Slow weekends are extremely important for a “brain reset”, “energy recharge”, “shake it all off and look forward to a brand-new week” vibe.

I don’t know about you, but if my weekends are jam-packed with activities and I don’t catch blissful 40-minute-long siestas on both days, I stroll into the new week like a crabby crab.

Picture a very cranky Sebastian snapping at Ariel everywhere, instead of having perky conversations with her. I would be cranky Sebastian.

Why not Ariel, you ask? Well, I love my sugars far too much to ever look like Ariel — in this lifetime or the next. I wonder what she eats all day long for that banging figure. Seaweed?

I digress, as always.

Coming back to the topic at hand — slow weekends, with or without sugar, but definitely with two solid afternoon siestas — are very important for me. They ensure I can fart out jasmine-scented farts and poop rainbows for the rest of the week. You get the picture.

I did a beachy breakfast this weekend with a dear old friend on Sunday and went crazy inside a playzone on Saturday. All in all, a slow weekend indeed.

What do you do to reset your mind and body after a strenuous work week? Drop a comment below and let me know.

The Polar Bear Life Is Looking Increasingly Attractive

As I walked to my parents' house this morning, I walked past a group of very fit middle-aged uncles (cough, cough — sudden realisation that I'm middle-aged too as I write this sentence) and immediately felt a sense of guilt for piling on a solid 4 kilos this week at work.

The food consumed — infinite cups of sugary filter coffee, tea, and tea-time snacks ranging from sundal, bread and chilli pakoda to cookies of every variety, along with one healthy bowl thrown somewhere in the middle of all that — it's quite natural that the weighing scale would slap me nicely across the face.

My once tucked-away double chin is now prominently hanging down, and I look pregnant with food babies — two months minimum.

It's not a good look on me overall. This whole going-to-office-and-working vibe, along with the eating-out-of-boredom vibe, doesn't suit me at all.

I couldn't weight train today, and even 3-kilo dumbbells felt like agony. The insides of my mouth feel so parched, I could put the Sahara Desert to shame.

Post 11 a.m., the office air conditioning gets so hideously freezing cold that even polar bears from Antarctica would run away from sitting at that desk and working.

On that note, I'd choose the polar bear life over the 9-to-6 in-office grind. I definitely resemble one now.

I wonder how expensive it is to build igloos.

The Bad-Boy Biker I Was Searching For Was Me All Along

Losing my husband five years ago was equivalent to losing parts of myself. Thirteen years with one human being is short when compared to marriages that last for fifty years and beyond. Our bittersweet love story hit an abrupt halt with his passing, and I have felt a vacuum ever since.

The past five years have been deeply lonely yet liberating, chaotically busy yet empowering. All this alone time with a chattering little baby has given me a brand-new perspective on life.

I realised the bad-boy, tattooed guitarist and biker I was searching for in a partner was actually me all along. I am that bad boy (in a woman's body)—free of spirit and mind, always ready to explore the unknown, and forever twenty-one in my head.

As a good friend mentioned to me a mere month after my husband's passing, "You are Poopie now, Gayatri. He will remain inside you forever." ("Poopie" was the pet name my late husband and I called each other.)

Five years later, I couldn't agree more. Here I am, getting one tattoo after another, chugging espresso, and chomping down Portuguese custard tarts—my late husband would have cried laughing. I realise my taste in food was always his, in fact. Except for my love for butter chicken, of course—no one can take that away from me, not even him!

There is always a silver lining to human misery, and mine was finding myself. My inner voice tells me to survive, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and to take it one day at a time.

I don't overthink things deeply anymore. I simply flow with life and trust my gut feeling about people and situations.