From Campus to Corporate

I am now a part of those who are gainfully employed. I have joined the ranks of the 9 am to 6 p crowd. I am now one of those women wearing inappropriate footwear in Mumbai rains and expensive jackets that serve vanity more than utility. I am now one of those women who talk about the targets for the year and clip clop around the office in dangerous heels. I am one of those women who lug a laptop bag everywhere and give presentations in slick meeting rooms. I am all that and hope to be more.

This transition to corporate did not feel like a shock - four fieldworks have ensured that. Rather it feels like slipping into old shoes that I had stopped wearing (why these shoe metaphors today, I wonder). 

But that does not mean I do not miss TISS campus. I crave the green lattice on damp roads, the steel tables and the smell of hot tea in the DM canteen, the rain drenched amphitheater, and the smell of cold rain on hot soil. 

But in the past weeks, I have sat through numerous talks about my new company, and slowly I am coming to terms with it - the size and the shape of it, the sounds of it and the smell of it. I am coming to realize its geography and its nature, and somewhere within me I feel the slow unfurling of presentiment. I feel my wings flutter. 

Is this what growing up is?