We are back with the second part of Shravani’s story – The Overburden Indian Kid. So do read this Ghar ghar ki kahani. If you haven’t read the first part, I suggest you go back and read it first; otherwise, you won’t understand a thing. So do it, and let’s continue listening to Shravani’s story.
Law college was a gamble in terms of both education and life. Both the curriculum and living alone in a new city were new territories for the fearful me. However, there was an excitement, too, the excitement of being able to explore something new. It is how my five years in law school went by.
I recall me tackling multiple instances of bullying through the first year. A soft target for my batch mates and seniors alike, I’d be bullied and made fun of. Barely a week into the first semester, my girl gang abandoned me for the pettiest of reasons (or rather, a non-issue, as I later got to know from one of the girls towards the final year). Months later, I became an easy target again as a few rogue students dragged my name into a salty affair connected with one of our course teachers.
They had issues with the way she taught and wanted her to be replaced. A couple of girls from the batch went ahead and filled her ears, saying I had bad-mouthed her, particularly her teaching style. Yet again, I was being made a scapegoat to further class politics. My tutor confronted me, allegations I squarely denied because I had such no such thing about her, least of all publicly, as was being broadcasted everywhere.
This time though, students wanted to sign a petition asking for the teacher to be replaced and forced me to sign my name on it, asking me to “confess” to having criticized her teaching on the assurance that they would stand by me. But I refused to cooperate, stating I had nothing to “confess” and that I would not sign the petition, furthering a cause I was not interested in.
A couple of boys then threatened me, saying the batch would boycott me, but I didn’t budge. They went ahead and sort of outcast me. That meant no friends in the first year, no cheery classmates to get assignment help from, or even share a meal with.
I felt acutely lonely, having to eat alone, work by myself in the library, and occasionally, classes too. I was doing everything on my own. It was probably the first time I experienced depression, the shock of being thrown away from home hit me hard. Eventually, I learned to adjust to the circumstances. With time, I started enjoying my company, going to theatres and lunches and dinners alone.
I learned to be independent, relying only on myself for my emotional sustenance. By the time I entered my second year, I was so accustomed to my own company and independence that a few of my former friends came around to hang out with me again. My grades also improved around this time. Come the third year, and I loved the legal profession, theory and internships included. I was now part of a couple of committees in the university.
Education-wise, law college was excellent, but it was particularly significant in that I realized I wanted to write and direct stories for a living. In fancy terms, I wanted to be scriptwriter-cum-filmmaker. But it was too late, considering I was in the fourth year of law school already by the time this epiphany struck me. So I could stick around in the legal profession for five years, save up, and then quit for my preferred pastures.
I also realized I hadn’t picked up the pen and written a single thing in the five years I was at law school; perhaps, because law and poetry/fiction don’t mix well. And that not finding the right words to crystallize my anguish, dilemma, and general apathy with life was probably acting like slow poison for me.
Come the fifth year, I managed to secure a well-paying government job at a Mini-Ratna PSU, thus, striking off one of my parents’ biggest dreams of their goals list: their vision of secure life for me, in line with the family’s tradition. But that is precisely where the dream came crashing.
When I joined the company in Delhi, I thought it would be an easy-breezy walk to expansion and greater heights. However, it turned out to be an absolute nightmare. First of all, I got the worst portfolio and division. I still remember how I’d dashed off to a church nearby to bawl my eyes out, fearing my career was over before it could even take off. Secondly, my reporting manager happened to be an absolute terror – loud, rude, leaving not a single chance to belittle me.
At my workplace, I was at least looking to learn a lot and develop professionally in the five years I’d given myself. But that was not to be, as I found myself stuck with soul-sucking work, hostile co-workers, reckless gossip, and people who hated their jobs at the company and couldn’t stop talking about how much they hated it and lots of free time. It was blackness and chilled mayhem all around.
Depression slid in again, but it knocked on my door wearing a more heinous mask this time and bordering on insanity. I quickly realized I had to divert my energies somewhere else if I were to survive this. And so, I started my ritual of working on my very first novel (during the extra hours in the office) and attending a city-based theatre workshop as well as jazz classes twice a week.
Typing away on the keyboard despite lifeless days at the office and no silver lining ahead and writing, acting, and dancing on the side helped me find some semblance of sanity in my life. It made me feel joy after a dry spell on half-baked things. The fact that I also fell in love during this time helped lift some of the misery off my being. But I really hated my job and knew I wouldn’t be able to do it all my life that I was just not cut out for the usual 9 to 5.
That sooner or later because no matter what my rational mind said, my body was out of whack in this environment and would not be able to hold up much longer.
The turning point for P.T. Shravani : An Overburdened Indian
And so, the tower fell on 26th September 2014, barely two months after my marriage, when I handed in my resignation letter. I felt relieved, thinking I’d be finally getting my life back.
But leaving a government job isn’t so easy because our predominantly middle-class society thinks nothing is safer than holding a government job.
I had to face unimaginable wrath when I disclosed the news to my parents. To state that they were hurt, angry and disappointed would be an understatement. Here they were, wanting me to aim for bigger things and prepare for the civil services, and I was, turning my back on the cushy Sarkari job, and for what? Writing? A dangerous profession that’d fetch me peanuts?
Since I had chosen my path without consulting them, I did not expect any support or encouragement from them. My parents could not digest my blatant disregard of their authority, and I could not fathom how they, as parents, could be so dismissive of my pain (so visibly etched in my face and my exhausted body). It was a classic case of the parental ideology of what’s best for the child versus the child’s perspective of what it thinks is best for it.
During this transition period, many of my relatives would call me up to convince me not to quit this job. I was adamant that I was not going to destroy my life being in this environment any longer. But I was fearful, too, and wanted to see if I did have the slightest chance of making it in law. So by the time my notice period came to a close, I had sent out no less than 500 applications to various law firms, companies, research institutes, and the like, with no luck.
So, I arrived in 2015 when I finally settled into my original plan of becoming a freelance writer. I started my content writing career from scratch on a pay scale that was barely enough to cover my monthly personal needs. There were no blogs and articles available at the time when I was starting. So I just went out on a limb and registered myself on four freelance websites that I stumbled upon in my Google search. Without a website/freelance portfolio, without previous writing experience, no clue how to price my services, or even knowing how to write a half-decent pitch, I just started bidding on projects.
After sending out ten-odd applications, I managed to get on board my first two freelance clients (one Indian and the other from the UK). The pay, as I said, was abysmal, but it was enough to get me started on my writing journey and build some solid experience.
While I was doing decently in this new space, I still taught myself copywriting (it’s not the same as content writing as most people believe it to be). I also trained myself in the other knick-knacks of the trade. These included crafting a killer pitch, cold emailing, negotiating, handling multiple clients on multiple timelines, ancillary requirements such as SEO, designing basic flyers and brochures, etc.
I was fortunate enough to land a mix of clients from varied industries (most of those being foreign clients). Still, I was also faced with a few overly critical, demanding, would terminate work contracts months before the intended date or be inconsistent with their project requirements. Some were blatant scope creeps. Stress and frustration built up.
Meanwhile, I tried convincing my parents to listen to me, but they were in no mood to give me (and new my life) a chance; what’s more, my marriage hit a rough patch. It was the scenario: parents were either not talking to me or talking once in a blue moon (in taunts and pauses suggestive of how gravely disappointed they were in me). And the few friends I had, had also faded away from my life, exponentially adding to my inner chaos.
Stripped of any real, meaningful interaction with loved ones and a social circle (be it long-distance friends or local friends) and confined to the house (since I was always working from home), I was flung to the depths of melancholy. That no one could even barely grasp what I was doing for a living (because I’d be faced with, “Freelance means you’re writing for free, right?) piled on to my anger and loneliness.
From a chatty, buoyant girl who just had to go out for at least a stroll every day, I descended into a shroud of a woman scared of talking to or meeting people, looking for excuses to never step out of the house. I avoided friends and family and would deliberately pass up chances to meet for coffee or a movie date. I stopped shopping, eating out, dressing up, and doing anything that had even the remotest possibility of giving me some measure of joy. Sadly, I was so withdrawn that I would stutter at times if I were to talk for more than 5 minutes suddenly.
I kept hoping for a ray of sunshine to creep in, but the pain was to continue. Health issues started cropping up sometime around late 2015. Significant hormonal imbalances, drop-in vitamin levels, severe backaches, and inexplicable chest pains and palpitations ensued. I kept thinking I was a brink away from death, yet I couldn’t just die. I panicked when I did not have my period for six long months. It was then that I knew I had to stop moping around and fight back.
I did not want to rely on medicines for long, so I opted for alternative remedies such as yoga while ramping up my writing on a personal level. Posting reviews on an entertainment site called ‘India Forums,’ posting quotes and poetry on my Instagram page (@the_monarchy_of_words), and the like got me noticed in the community for my writing chops.
In April 2019, one of my poems got featured by Eve Poetry Group. In July 2019, I was approached by TapChief for a post on time management. By October 2019, I was a curator with Savant Poetry, a community page for talented poets. Through March-October 2020, I participated in seven workshops organized by the international poetry house Poetix University, thus, cementing my love of poetry. Fortunately, my parents, too, have come around and wholeheartedly supported me in my career and life choices.
Fast forward to the present day. I’ve established myself as a freelance writer-editor, a digital marketer, working on my first poetry book, and looking forward to launching my Tarot business too (which I learned during my depression phase). So that’s it for now. Life has many other battles, but I will fight them all with faith and grace.
I end my story with these parting words by enduring sports journalist and best-selling author, Matt Fitzgerald.
“There is no experience quite like that of driving yourself to the point of wanting to give up and then not giving up. In that moment of “raw reality,” as Mark Allen has called it, when something inside you asks, How bad do you want it? An inner curtain is drawn open, revealing a part of you that is not seen except in moments of crisis. And when your answer is to keep pushing, you come away from the trial with the kind of self-knowledge and self-respect that no one can buy.”
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Shravani on time management: https://www.tapchief.com/blog/time-management-successful-freelancers/
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