Someone asked me today what my new project is all about. I told her that I am helping in creating and editing digital courses for a university. "But I thought you were a writer," she said. "I am. Been one for over 22 years, as journalist, author and editor. But I have also been an educator for over 13 years so I keep switching between my two careers." My first teaching 'job' was tiresome. I was 18 and was tasked by the Social Involvement Program coordinator at my college to teach domestic servants English at a church in Mumbai. For six months, we were stuck on page 39 because, each week, there were new faces in the group who hadn't read anything before that. I had sworn off teaching then, only to be chaperoning and guiding interns and young writers (some as young as 12) when I was a 22-year-old correspondent and copy editor at TOI. Marriage brought me to Vadodara where writing jobs were rare so I studied design at a studio. And then I got my first teaching job at MS University where I taught Master's students how to make a newspaper. 13 years and I have taught at institutions in India, Afghanistan, US, Australia and Pakistan online and offline and worked on projects with universities in US, UK, Australia, Afghanistan and India and been on board of studies of three universities in India. That too, without a PhD. It's not a hustle, it's a career. Some people have one. Some two. I, along with design, have had three for more than a decade. It's a fine balance, not a linear graph 😀
#education #journalism #design #multiplecareers #careergraphs
