Jaipur journals- Own your Story

 It’s my 12^th day in the campus where I live with these people with whom I dine every night. And we gather talking about everything under the sun.

I began to share the insider stories of IT and there was  doubt on how I ended up at IT. For every question on my journey, there’s always a 10 mark answer. As my friend tease me that I say 10 mark answer for every 1 mark question. That’s the art of practicing storytelling, I believe.

I began the story of how I got graduated and got through the interview process and got into a new job. The whole journey of getting into the first job and interacting with the mentor and the mafia games I played with my colleagues. From one episode to another episode, I shared a full long journey of how I met Aravind Unnikrishnan, Parveen, Sandeep HR. How I got offer to work in various projects and how I declined. The journey of Adibatla and the way I began hitchhiking and my tiff with Pavan and the leadership lessons I learnt from Aravind. The stories flowed and I stopped till the point where I reached Sirohi, a small town in Rajasthan. Ruchi, Prashasti, Sai Kripa were patiently listening. Juhi was more into what I wrote instead of what my journey was. Ruchi was the one who asked a 2mark question and I think, this time I answered her with 10 stories, a lot of journeys and also a little bit of insights from Hitchhiking.

At the end, they had a few questions on writing. We discussed on how writers make life through writing and also other jobs.  I realized that I don’t have fancy things in my story according to my friends. But, to these lovely audience, Ruchi, Prateesh, Sai Kripa, it was fascinating. I realized that it’s time I own my story because, no one can tell my story the way I tell my stories. And if I don’t tell my stories, who’s going to tell?

This has rekindled me to work on my memoir, Travelers’ University. Grateful for their time. Time to get on to the draft.