My Petrichor Pages

 I am in India now for my fieldwork. In Kerala, to be precise. It is the epicentre of Hepatitis A, Mumps, Nipah. You name it! Amidst all this, while doing my fieldwork, I broke my ankle. My fieldwork involves me going to hilly inaccessible regions. There I visit households, talk to them about their water issues, about how they tackle waterborne diseases and what support they might need from the authorities. I also spread awareness about how they can protect themselves from waterborne diseases. The monsoons in Kerala can be a bit ruthless. It rains for days. A broken ankle is actually the least worst thing that could have happened to me but damn it is so painful! I have been to 50 households by now. Each house has its own story to tell. I was really fascinated by it all.  But that is not the reason why I have finally decided to write. I have been on bed rest for around 3 weeks now and have been bingeing on Insta.  Today I got closure for the 2017 version of me. I am a happ...

 Today as I was scrolling through my Instagram feed, I came across a post from a friend of mine from 2020. We were colleagues first, working in a Big 4. We would confide in each other about the various challenges we faced at work, especially due to the pandemic. We had the same reporting manager. Somehow, I always felt that this job meant so much more to her than it did to me. I came from a different school of thought. I wanted to make a difference in the field by actually visiting the places of our study area and working with people on the ground unlike most corporate slaves who are hooked on to their excel sheets and their powerpoints. Back in 2020 September, I mustered the courage to quit the job since it did not align with my skills and aspirations. When I had left, my then reporting manager had a nasty exchange of words with me. He called me an NGO type person who needs to change the way she thinks to become a Corporate Consultant, all because I kept suggesting community based...

Today was the first day I went to work after the holidays. No matter how strenuous, I always love the walk from my home to office. There are so many spots which remind me of when I was a young girl, all of 22, walking with my friends to the class. And now at 32, I am working here. That feeling in the morning is the most wholesome feeling ever. I quietly whisper to myself, "We made it Aaliyah, we did good!".  Today was probably one of the best days I've had in ages and I will state the reasons for the same.  1. For the past two months, the waste disposal for our entire apartment was being overlooked by the sanitary workers for some reason. I would wake up in the middle of the night the second I would hear someone drag the wheelie bin. I would rush to my window to pray that they collect all the bins today please. I know it sounds so silly, but this is a part of growing up. Making complaints, writing mails, holding the call at customer care. Come to think of it, almost all o...