By Chitra Ahanthem.
One question that almost leaves me stumped looking for an adequate answer is “What do you do?” Till 2008, the answer was easy for me since till then, there was an involvement in the NGO sector as a full time employee. The only difficulties I faced then was while trying to make people of my grandmother’s generation understand just what I did for my living. To keep things short and simple, I would say, ‘it is a private job’ and that would be met with a ‘at a private school or private bank?’ and the not so satisfactory common answer would be ‘something like that.’ Post 2008, a decision to do freelance work in terms of consultations has meant that I am mostly in between assignments or caught up in traveling or just waiting for an assignment to happen. Those who are familiar about my writing at IFP or other web sites often take me for a journalist but those on the regular media beat hardly get to see me since I don’t do event reporting.
Regardless of my inability to coin a particular occupational designation for myself, it will suffice to say that I do end up writing and traveling, with more of the former than the later. Yet, almost all my travel has been because of my writings with only a few exceptions here and there. Many years before I began writing for IFP, I remember writing a letter to myself on an inland envelope. I was in Class 2 then! When asked why I was doing that, I said that I wanted to read my own letter. Being away from home in college for the first time led me to write a few fledging poems that do not impress me much anymore. The first published IFP footprint was a ‘Letter to the Editor’ which I wrote in part rage, part sarcasm following a diktat from a banned underground group who ordered everybody to stay put from Hindi films and entertainment channels. Looking back, it’s almost like yesterday: I was mad that everyone just followed the ban order and remained silent. I felt I had to say something and did not know where to take my rage that kept me awake for two nights on a row (I dozed during the day though!). The third night, I just got up in the middle of the night and wrote the letter, which went on to the IFP pages. That brought on a series of articles and a few of my earlier poems to be published till the time IFP editor gave me my present column. Writing has also taken me to 90% of the places I have been to till date. I would either be part of a media team at various conferences and workshops or working as a Rapportuer. And though my travel schedule will never come near to the amount of traveling that certain people in the IT or what other salaried class take, I am seen as someone living out of a suitcase in my extended family circle. It gets rather interesting here: one class of people want me to use my trips outside the state to shop for them, giving me lists for shoes and bags and shawls. There is another group that wants to know about what sights I get to see. Unfortunately though, traveling out of the state on account of work means mostly that I end up reaching the hotel and trying to settle in and then going to the venue of the assignment I am on. Not many realize how disconcerting it is to check in to hotel rooms where nothing is familiar and ease the self into work, work and work. If it is a workshop or a seminar or some such thing, it means mostly that the day will end late followed by desk work (writing about the day). If the assignment is about field work, it means that one starts out early and come back early BUT totally drained out and dreading the next day and the next but keeping things on schedule.
Yes, one does try to get a bit more out of the travel for work grind and mostly, it is to try out local food and flavor. Sightseeing unfortunately, takes time and effort and can happen only after the workload gets sorted out and done with. Rarely do agencies that calls you in for work schedule in an entire day to explore the place you are in but that’s what happened one time when I was Utrecht in The Netherlands for about 10 days, attending a training on designing Program methodology for HIV/AIDS projects. The training organizers gave us one day to explore Amsterdam and till date, the day remains as one that left me most fulfilled and happy. It started with a tour of the old pubs to check on the Delph tiles, a run in the market square eating raw fish dipped in sauce, a two and a half hour solo time at the Van Gogh Museum, a walk in the red light area (I tend to check out red light areas in most places) and then a canal ride.
The other bit of the travel is of course the hours that one loses while preparing to travel by flight. Getting into an early flight from home means skipping on meals and soothing the stomach and the mind with cold airline snacks that often take the place of real food for the entire day. The result of travel and skipping meals followed by work can be pretty bad on health: ulcers and sheer exhaustion. So when people expect that all the travel that I do is leading me to shopping expeditions and sight seeing tours, it is far from the truth totally.
End-point:
In the light of terrorist attacks, one hears and read of security measures at airports. In the US it borders on the paranoid and while on transit to Mexico, I nearly missed out my flight there since their security check entails taking out belts, shoes, body scans and what not. Cut to India and I am yet to hear the metal detector go ‘beep’ even though I have been traveling with steel braces on my teeth since July this year. It probably means, the metal detectors are not even put in ‘on’ mode. I have been traveling with my dental papers but no security guard has asked for it. And yes, being travel weary also leads to missing out Footnotes!