narmyinparis doors to dream

Onsite is definitely a TO DO list for any I.T person, especially from India, the 80s kid as we call ourselves. In fact, it is also a lifestyle upgrade or a green stamp by relatives and social circle to confirm that you are well-settled in life. So, most of our friends , let us call them TYPE A, who aimed timely to complete their onsite life. This would be typically for 2 years, mostly in the U.S and most importantly, when they were single. After returning, they got married, own house, car and a life close to parents and in laws, the children born had the entire package of lifestyle ready.

And TYPE B would be the girls of my generation. They had one more route to this destination of onsite experience. Work in a good organisation for 2 years, quit the job and get married to a guy working onsite and travel abroad, get a longer honeymoon for maybe 2 years, get pregnant and return back to India. In most cases, they decide to settle overseas for the advancement in medical science and lifestyle for the child, so family lives there. Many of my friends who had great ambitions in life were forced into this option due to the cliche timelines of girls lifecycle but all that ends well is well they say.

Now, the other group is where I fall into. TYPE #whydidyouaskmetostudywellthen? Parents used to feed me to have higher dreams, greater goals in life along with daily dinner, so aspiration and energy is all that pushed me to get into on-campus job during university days. And exactly in a year when I was under TYPE A category, planning for onsite, there came the mandatory age for wedding, followed by mandatory age for child1, house1, car1, then #2 of all again. In a blink, 15 years of my life had passed with a pause button on the onsite ambition. Ofcourse the journey of motherhood, career achievements, being an author and the life we built together – good quality I must admit. It reached a phase where I was forced to hallucinate that for most of married Indian women, onsite can happen only when your husband gets the opportunity and you get to quit and join the new life – an extended version of Type B mentioned.

One fine day, I was at the verge of giving up on my onsite dreams, but felt very sorry for the little girl who was ambitious and dreamt of travelling, working, learning across the world. And suddenly I looked at my 5 year old daughter role playing pilot game, after watching Gunjan Saxena movie. My parents repeated the same ‘feed more dreams’ to her by saying, “you should study well, work well and travel all around the world be successful”. My mind voice looked at them sarcastically , I could imagine my daughter going through the same, do well at studies, job, get married instead of onsite, get kids and focus on making good food and getting good names from the in laws and relatives uff.. Suddenly something flashed in my mind, “what advice would I give my daughter if she feels stuck at this age?” “Go for it girl, don’t give up, its never too late”. I did that exactly, we had a deal between my husband and I. Within a given target, whoever gets the onsite opportunity first, the other one will support. With that last bit of lightening hope and work, I was able to get the doors open to our dreams. Are your eyes popping out saying ‘what ? the wife gets to travel and husband has to support?’ – because you might be the 8,315th person in the world to give me that expression. But hey, I am moving to PARIS, so I don’t care about these comments, finally the onsite life is happening after 15 years. I am going to land in the most romantic city in the world, where we have THE Eiffel Tower. Life is gonna be flowery, I can dress up as hot and chic I want and there won’t be any eyes bothering about the depth of neckline and length of dress line. Being an art lover, everyday is going to be new artistic experience in life. Also, I am gonna eat new cuisine everyday and live like a queen, because I am always one, now just ‘a queen in Paris’.

I have waited 15 years in my life to get this dream into happening, so na na na na, not letting any negativity tag along to self doubt or spoil ! #narmyinparis starts from next episode, for now, post in comment section how do you think my reality would have shaped up ?