Who Am I ?????

Nice title, isn't it? As I typed it, I wondered at its symmetry, 3 letters, then 2 & then 1 :) It looks good this way. I deviate from my topic so easily, I thought I would write something about myself and instead I got lost into this wonderful pattern.

So, coming back to my topic let me start from the intentions behind this post. Actually, when I finally decided that I would join this brigade of online writers, Blogger asked me to create my profile and one prominent question it asked me during the process was ‘About me……….(in not more than 1200 characters)’. Now reading this set me into deep thought and I kept wondering that how do I express my thoughts about my ownself in just 1200 characters (which includes space and full stops as well, just imagine :) That was when I thought about writing a post on myself. Of course this was followed by the thought about writing a post on him, but the truth remained that I didn’t start either of the posts.

Now the above paragraph is logically followed by a question that what impelled me to write today and that to why I started with the one about me. Actually, today has been a very happy-go-lucky day for me since morning. Some days everything seems to fall our way and such days fill our heart with a lot of happiness and joy. Today has been such a day for me and since morning I had been thinking about writing something about the simple things of life which fill us with so much happiness. But as the case is, writing a dil-se piece while in office is not so easy all the time, there are so many interruptions and breaks in between. As a result, even though I did start my piece on ‘the wonders of simple joy’, I could not proceed more than the initial few lines. However my mind was totally distracted from ‘Work’ and hence I started doing some random searches on Google.

On an impulse I searched about Jamalpur and then Jamalpur Gymkhana. (Why am I so obsessed with anything and everything connected to him, I really don’t know? But this is an OCD which I guess is incurable.) I found many articles but only two of them caught my fancy. There was one articles by someone born and brought up there and had been written with the same sense of belongingness which I feel for Lucknow. It was beautifully written and presented a picture I had never seen before. I did my best to suppress my urge to comment and congratulate the author on her wonderful composition. The second article was from a Gymkhana resident and talked about the things I have heard ‘him’ talk about so often. When I explored this second article, I realised that it was penned by a batchmate of his (who happens to be an excellent writer). Again I had an intense desire to read further, to comment, but once again I successfully suppressed this urge. And this time as I told myself that I should not do anything stupid (Read -- anything which might make ‘him’ feel uncomfortable), I thought of ways to convince my heart and during this tussle I was confronted with the ultimate question “Who am I?” (At that moment this question was meant to probe the ‘officialness’ of my relation with him, and was aimed at making my ‘mann’ understand that it is still not time when I should take such liberties.) And although this thought had presented itself in a different context, but it made me take the decision of writing this post.

So after this long introduction cum justification, let me come to the main point. The question still remains, “Who am I?” Answering this question is like looking through a Kaleidoscope, the pattern changes at every shift of angle and the answer changes at every change of context. Some 5 years back when I had to answer this question on a social networking site, I had made a précis like statement and had called myself ‘a serious not so ambitious girl, who wants to keep everyone around her happy’. This still explains a lot about me, I am still a serious person, and not at all ambitious, and I really want to keep people around me happy, but this statement presents only the good points about me. It looks like a statement where only the merits are being highlighted as if in a marketing campaign. Therefore, I think I need to delve a little deeper into this topic.

If I look at this question from the academic cum professional angle, I would say that I am a qualified engineer (as per my degree, please don’t question my knowledge, I would fail, I am sure) and am presently working in a reputed downstream OMC PSU of the country. I am independent in terms of my financial needs (though not in terms of my investment decisions :) I am living alone, in a flatlet provided by my company, in a city which is better known for its historic battleground than anything else. I look after myself as far as my material (read daily living) needs and I am one of the most prized customers of more than one mobile service providers (because I use 3 different connections for remaining connected to my family, friends and him). I spend around 10% of my monthly average salary in paying up these mobile bills.

I am living the life of an average upper-middle middle class Indian and many people will be happy to be in my place. It doesn’t mean that I am not happy with my life. I hail from a good family where my independence is valued. I have a set of few but good close friends with whom I share a lot. And to top it all, dear ‘Bhagwaanji’ has blessed me with him as a partner. (And I hope to be a part of his family soon.) The best part about my relation with him is that before we became a couple, we became best friends. That is how I had always imagined it to be. We became friends, then best friends and then we decided to carry our understanding further. And since last 6 years we have been waiting to cross the line and get the official tag of ‘us’. As is obvious from so many of my posts, he is at the centre of my world, therefore it is but natural that he gets a proper mention in the post intended at exploring the fundamental question of ‘Who am I?’ In fact, to a certain set of people my answer to this question would be simple one-liner; “I am ‘his’ girl” and this sentence will say it all :) Before we got into this relationship, I had never imagined that stating a fact of this sort would ever fill me with such immense happiness and pride, but this is what the reality is :)

I have answered the prime question in some of the worldly contexts but I am yet to state much about myself as a person. Actually, according to me, I am a simple person who gets awed by anything hi-fi. It is difficult for me to make friends easily, but once I befriend anyone, it shall take me very less time to open up my life’s book. Earlier, I was very non adjusting and non compromising types, but then life teaches its lessons and I have learnt a few of mine. Still, I tend to be short tempered esp. in matters pertaining to my office. Rather, I should say that I tend to get irritated easily and have some amount of OCD regarding keeping my things systematic and tidy (now this is a very ‘perspective issue’, hence opinion differences do occur) Many a times I tend to have a very rigid thinking and I often don’t accept changes easily, but it also depends upon the person initiating the change (Read – if he proposes ‘anything’ I take it as an oracle.) Though I like to present myself as very tough and strong and brave, but I get nervous easily and tend to crumple (internally) under stressful situations. I give way to my tears easily in front of him and never in front of others. I depend just so much on him, from the simplest decisions to advice on tackling office related problems.

I try to be honest in everything I do and to uphold the values I have been taught as a child. Sometimes I try to shun from the realities of life and question why real life is not as good as it seems in books. This reminds me that I am an avid reader, books have been my oldest friends (and b’day gifts too). I have evolved from reading fairy tales and children books to reading classics and sci-fi and presently I have developed a liking for the more realistic type of writings. Also, I like to write articles and stories and love to compel people into reading these. He is very supportive and appreciative about my prose and praise from him fuels my desire to write further. Also, I like to make creative gifts/cards/wall hangings and other such display items. (Sometimes I wonder if I do all these acts just to get some praise from my loved ones.) And though I feel very shy in displaying my written talent, I love to show off my craft work. I lovingly call my craft work ‘Junk-art’ but he teases me a lot on this, because I am usually buying some bits of this n that and with these ‘new’ items, I create ‘junk’ art :)

About my personality, I find myself to be an average looking Indian girl. As mentioned earlier, I am not a very outgoing person and am not very confident about my appearance, but he loves me the way I am and so I love myself the way I am. Last but not the least (what a useful phrase), I think a lot, I worry a lot and I love to plan a lot. I have filled just too many pages about the title issue but I am still unsure about if I have answered it sufficiently. I skipped some really important issues in between, like whether I am happy with my job, when I say I am not ambitious then what exactly is it that I am aspiring for, what do I really want from my life, what are my future plans and what more do I plan to write further. These issues are not directly related to the answer of ‘Who am I?’, but the answers to these define me as a person. But then, I guess we can never claim to have seen ALL patterns of a Kaleidoscope, life is more about living rather than answering mundane questions as WHO AM I?