Saturday, December 06, 2008

3 weeks left for the Big Move


I am still in wonder. What happened? Who applied for the working holidaymaker visa, one that has a 98% rejection rate in India? Who slogged through collecting all the documents, keeping it a secret, in fear of being jinxed? And who finally got it? Was it.... me?

Yes, it was! I am going to an year-long working holiday in UK!!!

It all happened so fast and so furious that I still can't believe I am leaving by this month end. It all happened because of my longtime friend, Archana. She left to UK to join her husband and while leaving, she threw a sentence at me: "Why don't you come too?"

And I thought: "Well, why not?"

For quite some time now, I have been feeling restless. In case you do not know me, I am afflicted with a deadly disease: travel lust. I can't stay at one place for a long time. I just have to move, at least for some time, before I return. But the restlessness was not only because of it, it was also because of my writing - or the absence of it.

I have a very good job. One of the best jobs in the country, for someone like me, I should add. I work as the online editor for a children's magazine. But editing and writing are two different things, and I have not written anything worthwhile in the past couple of years (ince I stopped freelancing and started full time jobs).


Now, it is killing me. I am not able to sleep at nights and I am constantly on edge. The only time I feel peaceful is when I write, uninterrupted. NOT possible when you work full time. I am feeling a call from some place, beckoning me to just drop everything and WRITE. So... I am answering that call, and applied for a work visa to UK and got it. I have already lived in the USA. UK is the next frontier :)

I am not going back to full-time freelancing. I am going to use this year-break to enroll into a writing course - my long time dream. I am going to study P/T in the University of London (Birkbeck) and I am just going to write. I am at a point where I need feedback on my fiction or just wither away. Thanks to my fulltime jobs in India, I have saved some money using which I can comfortably move to UK.

And after that? Well, when I began to actually starve (and become thin - yay!!!!!!!), I will get one, just to pay my rent and food. Just enough, so that I can devote the rest of the time to write.

So... if you are in London and happen to look deep into the supermarket tiller while checking out your purchase, say hi.... it might just be me!

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