About Her and it’s journey of one year

It was exactly a year ago that I posted my first story on about her. The journey, of course, had begun much earlier.

A lot of people have asked me as to how I got the idea of writing a blog, and why did I choose a subject that is not really related to my line of work. Yes, technically speaking, writing about women and their relationships has nothing to do with Economics or Management. But then I didn’t want to do anything related to these fields. The desire to write stemmed from my desire to explore human relationships and their complexities, the human mind and it’s workings with the focus being on women. I feel (with no offence to the men) that every woman’s life encompasses a variety of experiences, influences which though not the same are quite similar in their impact, their repercussions. The journey from being a daughter, a sister to a wife, a mother to a daughter-in-law, sister-in-law and then a mother-in-law can be tumultuous, joyous and beautiful.

My intention was to look at different women, their journeys, their trials and tribulations and understand how women cope up with all that life throws at them. I wanted to explore the myriad feelings which a woman experiences in her lifetime from the joy of being in love to becoming a mother to being the giver to a family. And when there is an add on in the form of responsibility towards a job or a business, then how does she do it all. What does it take to manage, handle everything?

Other than that the idea was also to provide a means, a way for women going through a trying experience to know that they are not the only ones, an assurance that it is ok if life seems a tad unfair at a point in time.
Thus the idea stemmed from the desire to do something different, something creative and useful.

But though the desire was there for the longest time, I didn’t know what to do about it. The thoughts threatened to remain just thoughts till the day it struck me that I could put them out there in the form of short stories, stories which women could relate to, could understand, stories which would seem real to them.

And so that’s how the journey began.

However, to get the blog in place, several other things needed to be sorted out, like deciding on the name for the blog, to the way it was supposed to look, to the frequency of the posts and to a host of technical aspects that I was utterly clueless about. But thanks to my nephew, I managed to get that out of the way.

After a lot of thought, I decided that my blog would have four categories. Apart from the stories, I thought it would be a good idea to have sections related to some of my passions like cooking, travel and books.

Thus the blog has four categories – The bed she chose, for my stories, Read on, for the book reviews, Taste buds, for my cooking related experiences and Wanderlust, for my travel stories. A few months down the line, I added another section -Musings to share my thoughts on interesting events/happenings.

And then the first post was published on the 8th of July 2018, which was quite a day for me. Apart from the thrill of seeing my story in a form that was there for people to read, there was also this element of trepidation, anxiety because I didn’t know what kind of a reaction I would get. Would it be liked or just trashed? How many times I checked that first post to see if people had had something to say, to comment upon !!! It was like waiting for the result of an exam. And then slowly and gradually, my friends started commenting, reacting and all positively and encouragingly. It was so overwhelming to see how my first attempt at something so new, so different for me was received with so much love, so much encouragement. And what was heartening was the fact that some friends read and re-read my stories to suggest how I could make them better. And from then onwards the journey has been going on. For my stories, I draw inspiration from the world around me, situations, happenings around me.

As far as the book reviews are concerned, I have done only two. But these have been the books which while reading I just felt that I needed to say something about them, especially the one by Rajat Gupta.

I love to travel, and so in my travel section, the intent is to write about places that I have loved. Mine is not a travel blog; it is just my impression; my take away from a city. I have only covered one city so far, but there are more in the pipeline.

In the cooking section where so far I haven’t posted anything, the idea is to put together the recipes of some favourite dishes, dishes which are loved by my family. Here again, the intent is that anyone desirous of stepping into the kitchen can do so without any hesitation or fear. Click on the recipe, and you will know what to do.

Musings are my take on incidents, events happening around us, that pique my interest. And so far that has happened twice.

Thus it has been a continuous spell of a story every fortnight interspersed with a post in one of the other sections.

What I have discovered and experienced along the way is that thinking about an idea is the easiest thing to do. Making sure that the story is interesting enough, coherent enough is the tough part. But editing the story is by far the toughest. The number of times that that has to be done is just unbelievable!!

And then the feeling that I get when I know, just know that this is the best version of the story. It somehow seems to come from within and tells me that that’s it!

But this hugely satisfying feeling is immediately followed by a fear, the fear of not being able to get an idea for the next one. That believe me is quite scary! But so far, I have managed to get ideas and so have been carrying on.

Thus this has been an incredible year that has made me believe in and value this extension of my life, an addition that has done wonders to my self-esteem and confidence. It is a new kind of a high. I am actually at a loss for words ( believe it or not) to express this wonderful feeling.

And so from the first year, I move on to the second one and then God willing to many, many more.