Between Job Portals and African Dreams

January 15, 2008

In the afternoon, I got two more calls for the post of content writer, one from Noida, the other from Faridabad.

Again, I am clueless. Why do I spend about one hour daily on job portals on the computer while I am looking to build up our business prospects?

So possibly that shows that it is a very tough situation. Personally, professionally, things are not going well at all in the family.

My sister is facing the toughest of times in her married life. Elder sister Manju, whom we call Guddi, is also facing one crisis after another on a daily basis because her husband is a chronic drinker and he is able to provide just the littlest amount of support to run the house because he is in a very ordinary job in a factory.

So we have to support her financially, apart from running to her place now and then to sort out the issues. Because there would be times when he doesn't even go for this small-paying job and keeps on lying drunk throughout the day. And such drunken sprees, they stretch for two weeks at a stretch. During such times there is even a risk of losing even that ordinary job.

When I look at my sisters, both of them, such nice, educated girls, but happen to be in the perpetually bad-luck books of life.

Now, coming back to these interview calls for content writer, the lady online from the web firm in Noida was an expert speaker. She spoke rolling, fluent English.

Most of these HRD girls these days are very high on confidence, have an eagle's eye for spotting talent. They call you, get you interested in the job, convince you that theirs is the right place for the kind of talent you have.

She appeared a very bubbly lady, even subdued any kind of burgeoning enthusiasm from my side by saying that since I have no prior experience of content writing, I should get only 20,000 per month instead of my demand of 40.

But in the end, she was pretty accommodative in the sense that she left it to me to decide my date and time of interview with the company.

The other caller was from Faridabad. It is an online media company delving into many magazines and other publications.

It seems my sort of job because it provides more scope for oozing out of creative juices, unlike the starkly objective, professionalized, limited and reined-in world of B2B writing.

I have consented to an interview with them on Wednesday. Will I will go? I feel that I might not be devoting myself fully to the task of getting myself fully absorbed in these interviews because the issue of Africa is showing some new shoots and saplings to give us hope.

After all, the future of my friends and mine depends on earning some good bucks, and what will I earn in these petty content-writing jobs?

So I do not feel confident at all about joining a nine-to-five job, even if they pay 50,000 per month, because business, when I think about it, can fetch me good money if I devote my full energies to it for the next five years.

And then later on I can just devote my life to reading and writing, which is exactly what I feel like doing in the end, at the end of the journey.

So, facing a peculiar dilemma, a very puzzled situation, checkmated from many fronts, I just keep applying for jobs, just as if out of certain whims.

Can't exactly have the words to sum up the feeling when I apply for the jobs while knowing fully well that I will not be taking them.

And on top of that, not only do I apply, I take all the trouble of travelling to these suburbs, which takes the entire day, and returning late at night—to Noida, Faridabad, Gurgaon, where these multinationals are situated.

I take all that trouble of going there, giving my best, and still knowing fully well that I will not be taking up that job.

So this is quite strange.

And alongside, I am trying to consolidate this new lead that we have built up with Babu Bhai from Ludhiana and his willingness to travel with us to Africa to look at things firsthand.