Who's Viji?

Saturday, August 22, 2009 , 13 Comments

This post is meant for Viji. A small auto biography which definitely would bore anyone other than me. Who wants to hear about the "I"s of others? After all "I" am not a great soul.

But felt it's time to reinvent who Viji is and if she is doing what she is supposed to do. Whether she adds value to the society she lives in. Whether she has set the right path for her son to tread. Whether she is a good partner to her husband?

The answer is, I am just like any other woman who works, cooks, tends home and lead a ?content life.

Where's that spirit gone? the fire, the zest, the carefree life of those college days.

Viji during the late 80s and 90s:

Most of the times a book is judged by its cover. People take me for a simple and compliant person, while there had always been a tiny dash of rebel inside me.

My family, my first cousins are brilliant lots. IITs are everyday occurence at home. Getting in to IIT is everyone's dream atleast until the day Viji was born :)

Viji is altogether another story. Her heart inclined towards Arts and not towards Science. History and Literature were her favourite subjects. When almost most of her friends used to hate English, Tamil, History and Civics. She had a passion for them. She never had the habit of studying for exams. She detested studying while loved to learn. Her favourite haunt used to be libraries and partial towards British council where she heard David I. Davies yelled, crooned and cried as Macbeth, Othello, Fairie Queen.

Switching to first person, during my college days, Mrs. Rajalakshmi Viswanathan is a lecturer whom I used to adore. The way she used to read out plays, amazing! Still, I could hear her voice resonating Mr. Bingggley or Mr. Darrcy, (E)Lizabeth. No wonder Jane Austen, Alexander Pope, Shaw's plays are my all time favourites. Those were the Authors RV mam taught us. We used to take turns reading out various characters in various plays.

During my second year we had Shaw's play "Candida". It revolved around three main characters, Morrel, candida, Eugene Marchbanks. As usual we started out to read the play and I chose the part of Eugene, a passionate poet. I was intrigued by his character and I lived as Eugene. It took three weeks for us to complete the play and I finally ended up crying and looked like a fool at the close of final chapter. RV mam instilled in me the desire to write poetry.

I later did my Masters in English and M.phil and did a crash course on Journalism and Mass communications.

My dreams was to become a lecturer. But fate had other plans, I joined Sankara Nethralaya, a renowned eye hospital. My life changed topsy-turvy. I matured over night, when I met a month old baby Moumita with a retinoblastoma (tumour in the eye) and her right eye was removed. When she was three and she came for her regular annual check up, was diagnosed retinoblastoma in her left eye too. I saw her walk inside the operation theatre, her vision 6/6 but was guided back to her bed. I cried and cried that day and knew that life held no guarantees. I somewhere lost being ambitious. I knew then that money cannot buy everything. What Bodhi tree was for Buddha, SN was for me.

Seven years were spent at SN. SN saw me falling in love, getting married and giving birth to Ani. Even now whenever I pass by College Road, I would request whoever goes with me to stop by for a moment at the gates of SN. My heart would always hold a special place for SN.

I quit SN a year after Ani was born, to become a full time home maker. I tried my hands in various activities then. Did medical transcription, ran my home, taught Ani his lessons, sang, dance and play with Ani. Next seven years flew this way.

Viji after Y2K:

Ani asked me one day, why I was not going to office. I knew he was growing up.

His question shook me and I decided to start looking for a Job. That's how I started to work on the current assignment. HR - human resources suited me. I love my job. When one assignment gets closed, another leaps up. Basically, I am in to Talent acquisition and I had to be on my toes all the time. A wonderful and friendly work environment. A home away from home. I earned a very good friend here. I complete four years this september.

Still a long way to go.

Dreams...

I too have them. Not everyone is fortunate enough to live their dreams. Though not immediately, I will chase my dreams.

My dreams:

I don't like to wear jewels, except for a simple silver bracelet or an ear ring. But jewels interest and fascinates me. It excites me when someone wear an extraordinary piece of jewelery.

I would want to own the most exquisite boutique, where i would sell hand crafted antique pieces, Embroidered hand woven curtains, Silver jewelery pieces. An expensive dream but, every month a little amount goes towards pursuing this dream. Hope this dream materialize within a decade as I know I am not getting any younger. When my dream comes true, it has to be in the right place with right pieces. I do not want to compromise here. When I want a raw cut Ruby, it has to be that nothing more nothing less. Let me save every spare penny on this dream. May be time to get ambitious again.

Holiday:

Europe is my dream place and I would love to have a full blown holiday in Scotland Mountains and moors, take a ride in a English countryside, visit the castles in Ireland. Want to visit Hungary, Spain, Italy too.
Spend few months in Tibet.
Once done, I want to be in India and nowhere else. Don't ever want to leave India, until ofcourse more or less forced to.

Friends:

Quite friendly. But it stops just there.

Fortunate to have two best friends. Want to be friends with them through my life. I demand a lot from my friends and yield to their demands too.

Family:

Very small but close knitted family:

Sure, Ani and me.

My parents

Sure's sisters and their family,

My brother and his family

But lots and lots of cousins, innumerable nephews and nieces. I love each and every one of them and its mutual.

What makes me happy?

When Sure uses an endearment.
A day out with my best friends.
Pick a tricky song and try to sing, when I am alone.
When Ani, writes a new poem in his blog.
When I finish writing a good piece of poetry
When a difficult assignment gets completed.
When I buy a pretty kurti or a beautiful cotton saree.
To have a little harmless chat ;) with men who looks good, dress well, speak well, carries well and possess a good sense of humour.


"You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it , however." - Richard Bach

Viji

Some say he’s half man half fish, others say he’s more of a seventy/thirty split. Either way he’s a fishy bastard. Google

13 Candles:

Viji said...

ha ha.. don't know what's gotten into me these days.. but I loved reliving the past.. post mortem does brings about brutal facts.. Now I know where I stand.

Opaque said...

It is nice to know more about you! Thanks for revealing!

Viji said...

I contemplated before publishing. Twice or thrice I published and put it back in edit mode.

Then thought Chal, what's the big deal? Nothing great there. few dreams and few realities. Countless of such dreams and realities are still hidden in a corner of my heart.

More than that I didn't believe anyone in their right mind ;) would give this a read. I am happy that you had the patience to read it and comment.

Hope this is one of those shortest DIARY....Super...

Viji said...

Yep; thanks sundar

if i don't comment on this...who else can(atleast till 1998 era)...

Have you heard Tirupati Balaji Story...why so much money is pouring there..coz, he has to payback the loan he has taken to Kuber. Sameway, for us...IIT is like Kuber. i don't who took loan..mostly all of us in our family repaid the IIT interms of JEE fees. No preparation or least preparation we all paid, just because someone told.. It was like a status symbol for that atleast 2-3 months time where we can roam away with the IIT tag...nothing else. Thats our IIT family story. But somehow, my sis escaped the IIT tag and ventured into Arts. I think its a good decision.

We both used to go to buy books from Vijaya Book Traders in Pycrofts Road(Bharathi Salai) in Triplicane. I used to get fascinated with 2 things, the variety of book. i remember the cover of few books also...i still remember the book "Winged Words" - correct me if i'm wrong(regarding the name of the book)... She used to read it with great fascination...
Secondly, she wants to buy Jane Austin book...which was slightly expensive...where we used to roam in the second hand book shop around triplicane whether we are getting at good rate..

We are all fascinated coz, she took literature where no one in our family dared to venture in that side and secondly, everyone has a wrong preconceived notion that arts means its waste. Trust me how stupid to think like that.

After her degree, she joined SN.. most of the days she used to get dairy milk, 5 star chocolates...saying this patient gave this and that..or i dunno whether she bought those....anyhow, i ate happily.

She struggled and worked hard those days...and i used to enjoy...asking her to gift this and that...she used to pamper...

One best part of her working days is that...whenever she takes leave..she asks my dad or me to inform leave in the office..we both used to crib for that service.

Then marriage saga happened and she went to her marital home..and still she continued to the office...

Ani was born and after sometime she left the job.

I left for Bombay in 1998. Most of my early days in Bombay or emotional ones as i used to receive letters from Viji in bunches and not in one or two page.

Still i live peacefully doing my work in bbay without much worry of my parents is because i know that she and suresh are there to take care of them.

i have worked with lots of people, exchanged notes with various kind of people, interacted with all types of living being...but honestly, she is selfless worker whether its personal or professional front.

and Thats my sis :)

Note to Viji: don't look for grammatical and spelling errors...i just typed what it came through my mind

Viji said...

Srik,
I cried today after reading your comment.
Damn wish those days happen again. I miss you and Love you a lot..
Yes it's "Winged words" collection of poems. I still have the book we bought.
Now we can buy whatever we want. How many books we would have bought after this. But winged words is still fresh in mind. Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" is the book I wanted to buy and was not able to because we ran short of money.

That's a golden era bro and it means so much to me that you shared about US. Love you Srik. Feel like hugging you now :) HUGS!

Viji said...

ha ha... I remember, we didn't even have a landline those days, you or dad had to go to the PCO to call my Manager Shyamala and inform leave...

Hey Vij, I too love Jane Austen. There's one character called Emma, whom I loved to imagine.
Also Pride & Prejudice.

Nice to read u. If u own a craft shop, i'd be the first person to come asking for discounts.

IIT or not. Our heart lies in classics.

was kind of held up with office work. Suddenly today I see a lot of posts in ur blog -:)

Viji said...

@ devasena ha ha Emma woodhouse and her match making skills.. i love every book of Austen's sense and sensibility, mansfield park, northanger abbey... every book of hers i would have read atleast 10-15 times. it never bore me. but my favourite is Pride and Prejudice...

Wings said...

Don't worry mom when I grow up I will make your Dream's come true

Viji said...

Thank you Ani :) I know you will...

wisdom comes with experience

At one, I learnt crawling was fun. At forty one, I still feel crawling is fun #blamemykneesnotme