Life is full of challenges

From an advertising agency to now, in a rocking communication entity, I had to face many ups and downs and there were moments when I felt like taking a flight, but in the end I am happy I have clung on to it. Challenges, I feel now in retrospect, makes us stronger. And if you have the unflinching faith of your parents, your resolve to succeed gets firmer. Working with Via has been so full of experiences. However, the beginning was not so rosy. Having migrated from an advertising environment, I was skeptical to begin with and wondered if I would be able to face the many challenges associated with public relations. I still have a vivid memory of my first day in office – Kohinoor was giving me a lowdown on the working culture of Via while my mind was constantly questioning whether I would be able to survive. My intuition prompted me to see the brighter side of the life and somewhere I felt God was there, if things went wrong. God did help me, I guess. Soon after I joined I was assigned a critical and complex task of managing a political PR campaign. I had to hunt through piles of newspaper to find out news about a politician of a political party. At times, at the end of a marathon 4-hour-50-newspaper session, I would be left with tiny single column, tucked deep inside an irrelevant newspaper. I felt like crying in those moments but then I was aware I was doing a job and had to carry on. Media scanning came in as a new terminology and I hated those glance to innumerable newspaper – especially since I had the bad habit of not reading the newspaper it was all the more traumatic. Days went by and my list of to dos went up as well – I was happy I was being given to do more because I was surely performing reasonably well. My confidence was shooting. For the same politician, I also started to do media relations – we really worked wonderfully well as a team. Rahul Sir would make the release based on on-the-move inputs by Nasim, who used to travel along with the West Delhi MP contender. I along with Neelofur was assigned the task of disseminating it – first through mail and then by fax – to over 50 journalists. This was not it – we had to do follow ups with all the major Hindi and English dailies besides some television channels. Work was piling up and somehow I felt I was getting into the groove. Slowly but surely I was beginning to comprehend the nuances of PR. That was then – the elections in Delhi were held on May 7 and I had joined on April 9. Two months have gone since I completed the first project and life seems so nice today. Thanks to the Via culture, I am thinking work even in my sleep, and without regrets. The best thing I like is that every day is a new day for me and I end up learning a thing or two. It’s been nice riding the Via wave. I am sure the days and years ahead will be full of challenges, yet full of fun.