My Fan Club is increasing. Part I

My fan club keeps on increasing. It has reached such a level that many folks close to me have stopped talking to me.

Yes I am talking about people who ‘fan’ me out because they don’t like me. They don’t like my face, my figure, my colour, my wardrobes, my shoes, what I do, what I write, what I talk and the list is endless. I can understand about my face, colour and figure because that is what I don’t really take pride in. My cholesterol level index is competing with Mumbai Sensex. An hour of evening walk has not done any wonder for me because I always skip this with one or the other reason. I started yoga but I have found out many excuses to excuse myself from such an important and easy life saving mechanism. I can also understand about my wardrobes because many of my trousers and shirts are pre-earthquake and pre-Gujarat riots era clothes. They are nostalgic for me because they saved me from many blushes with death, rioters and accidents. But it remains with me for reasons beyond that. These are the clothes which we left behind when we ran for life from the trembling buildings that we lived.
Bata, Lee Cooper, Ambassador, Nike, Adidas, Crockett and Jones, Oxfords, Monk style, Loafers, Hush Puppies, Edward Green. Nope. these are not the brands that I wear. I have a pair of shoes that I have bought for Rs 500 which is still loyal to me in terms of its stitch and sole. Now comes the profession that I am in, Journalism. I have never been able to get out of my journalism kindergarten since the last fifteen years because talent is something that I lack. I compensate that by talking too much. Many of my fans just hate me for this talk. My language is very poor and so neither can I write nor can I speak any language like ‘a knife on butter’. This is primarily because I have grown up with many languages surrounding me. Malayalam, Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Sindhi and English. Fortunately I don’t understand a word of any other south Indian languages than Malayalam. So which one to master on? I could not understand this and in trying to get a grip of which language I should master on, I grew up and it was time to choose a profession. Since I barely managed to get the passing marks in my tenth, twelfth and graduation, I could not follow my friends who managed to squeeze into MBA and MCA. I was left with gasping for something to do when I was in the third year of my college. So I tried following every Malayalee on the street. That was I how appeared for Staff Selection Commission examination and to my surprise, I managed to pass. I thought I was the cleverest person in the horizon because I could pass a general aptitude test, albeit of a lower intensity.
But once in a government job, I realized that every Tom Dick and Harry was getting through this examination and faster and swifter to better position that what I am. I was again grounded. But I managed to get many fans in the government building where I worked. They still remember and ‘adore’ me. But I decided to leave the organization and follow my passion of getting into a profession that I always dreamt of. But the problem was that I could not write, my English was not upto the mark and the editors to whom I mailed my stories still rue editing my stories. But I managed to get into this profession by hook or crook but never on an employee basis. The reason was that I could not pass a single test that these main stream newspapers put on me. So much so that one of the newspapers refused to part with me the answer sheet saying it is too much a crap to even look at it or waste time discussing it. They gave my to correct some two hundred spellings. Since I use MS Word Spellcheck, I failed miserably. So I was back to the freelance work. Being in freelance job, you report to so many people that you lose count of how many organizations you worked for. In each organization, my fans got multiplied. Many of my fans believe I act as if I know every thing. Many among these say please stop this ‘I-know-it-all-attitude’. While I was taking a walk this evening, I thought I should reflect on this alleged ‘I-know-it-all-attitude’ of mine. Whether I am seriously showing this or is it because of my habit to raise rebellion in all the places where I worked?(a sort of Indian leftist party attitude) Is it because I always tried to reach that extra mile – even at the cost of antagonizing some close people? Or is it because I really have this ‘I-know-it-all-attitude’? I took a brisk walk and contemplated on what could be the reason.
Will post that in the next posting.