This day, that year....

I never believed in the cliché “life comes to a full circle”. That is, I didn’t believe it until now. How ironic is that I will go back to the city where my professional career began; not as a person with nearly a decade’s of knowledge and experience, but as an out-of-work copy editor/homemaker. That too on the anniversary of my first journalism job.
If you ask me what I remember from that first day, I would say, “nothing”. It’s been seven years since that day: It wasn’t a traumatic day, no matter how afraid I had been before I joined that work place; it wasn’t a memorable day, except perhaps I got to see photographs that I wouldn’t have seen if it wasn’t for this job; and most importantly, I had already been working there for two weeks, albeit as an intern.
Chennai; most of my angst-ridden (at least they seemed so to me then) blogs came from o city. In fact, I think myself to have become a better writer – and a better typist – because of all the practice that I got writing and then typing them on to this blog in this city. How much it is providence and how much coincidence that I am going to be in this city next month, same day I started as a lowly paid “web writer” seven years to the day? How much of a coincidence is it that I am writing this blog on the same day as I stepped into a proper newsroom seven years to the day?
Anyway, all that doubt over coincidence and providence aside, seven years and several more hundred greys later I have realised that this city gave me a lot. It taught me to look at my latent talent and shortcomings with an unbiased eye. It helped me begin to understand a new world – a news world. It helped me live a life – however briefly – that I had only dreamt of. It took me in when I was barely an adult and turned me into a full-fledged one.
And on this anniversary, without any qualms, the only thing I can say to this city is ... thank you.