What more can a writer wish for, than meeting his favourite author?
It wasn’t a usual day like it always is. SCMHRD has left no opportunity to surprise me since the first day of my joining. But out of all the surprises I have received, the ‘Nikita Singh’ surprise was the best and beautiful too (Wink Wink!).
So here she was, India’s leading romance writer and the bestselling author of eleven books - Nikita Singh right in front of my eyes!
Nikita was on the campus for an interactive session on the topic “If the Cap Fits – Alternative career options”.
To begin with – she took us through the journey of her life – from her birthplace – Patna to her current residence – Manhattan. Below is a precise version of her words.
“I was born in Patna and mostly raised in Indore. I did my graduation in Pharmacy from Acropolis Institute, Indore. During the second year of my graduation, I felt that I was not really enjoying what I was doing and the solutions and test tube were actually not my kinds of pieces of stuff. Paper and Pen were where, I believe, my heart had its affair. So, I started writing. In bits and pieces. But daily. I didn’t skip a single day. Classes used to be a daily affair and so was the writing.
After writing a few chapters, I decided to take a step ahead and started looking for publishers. The herculean task in front of me was to look for publishers. So, I picked up the novels from the same genre which I was writing in and prepared a master list of publishers. I sent the manuscript to all the publishers from the master list and waited for the reply. No sooner than I expected, I got a reply from one of the publishers and he showed interest in publishing my book. I completed the remaining 90% part in just two weeks and in a couple of months, my first book -
Love@Facebook was on the shelves.
My constant efforts helped me to publish my first book and thereafter, I never looked back.
After getting done with the ‘pharmaceutical’ thing, I backpacked and left for a ‘wordful’ journey. This journey took me first to Ranchi and then Delhi where I completed a decent stint at Grapevine India as Editor and Wisdom Tree as Publishing Manager before I flew to New York for my Masters. Therein NY, I enrolled in the MFA (Creative Writing) at The New School.
During the two years of my course, I worked with a couple of organizations with each place different from other. To name a few, I worked as IT Support Supervisor, Fashion Stylist, and my personal favourite – Editorial Associate for a magazine. All my roles helped me in gaining a vast experience and industry know-how. Although a few roles were not directly related to my course then I’m a kind of person who likes to taste every dish in the café.
All the short-stint jobs helped me realize where do I fit. I strongly believe that if you don’t fit the place, then it is futile to stay there. There’s no harm in parting ways from the stuff you’re not happy with or you don’t fit into. It’s better to do what you enjoy doing than doing what you don’t enjoy doing.
After graduating from The New School, I joined an organisation as a Digital Marketing Manager where I’m mostly engaged in devising the digital content strategy and marketing strategy which includes playing with words – my favourite game.
Amidst all this, writing remained an affair per diem.”
Nikita’s rich assorted experience abnegate the fact that you can have only one kind of flower in your bouquet. There’s nothing right or wrong in a career. It’s all about the decisions you make and the priorities you treat imperative.
From her talk, what I drew is that one needs to find their interests and pursue them, no matter what you’re currently engaged in. If you don’t like it, change it. MBA folks, who want to begin their entrepreneurial journey but are dubious about it, should take a step ahead with some amount of calculated risk. And folks who want to explore other avenues other than managerial jobs should go about them.
I’ll wrap up this
beautiful note with Nikita’s words only –
If the cap fits, wear it. If not, look for alternatives.”