Agarwal - To the moon: how I blogged my way to bollywood

To read is to voyage through time.

Carl Sagan

To write is always to rave a little.

Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart

Mom, this ones for you. Thank you for letting me chase my dreams and following me around with a handy-cam while I did!

To the CEO of my company and my heart, Nowshad, and my co-founder, Mike because you believed, even before I did

For love #goals

CONTENTS

I guess you could say my story begins like any good 90s Bollywood movie, with a pigeon and a damsel in distress. When I first moved to Mumbai nearly two decades ago, I had two suitcases, knew one friend and lived in an apartment with six girls and a pigeon. And every single night, this suicidal bird would fly around the living room where I slept (on a mattress on the floor), threatening to impale itself on the ceiling fan, as I cowered under a thin white bedsheet. My rent at the time was around Rs 1, 625 per month, so just imagine the state of that apartment. And Facebook hadnt been invented yet. Let me just say that again FACEBOOK DIDNT EXIST! Let alone Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat. All I had technology-wise was an alpha-numeric pager and a head full of dreams.

And yet, I wanted my life to be extraordinary and something told me that Mumbai city with all its leopard-print taxis and kitschy neon lights that stay on all night was where it was going to happen.

The next thing I know, seventeen years on, Im sitting here writing this book about things I never thought would feature as oddly charming (albeit sometimes mildly horrific) anecdotes from my life. Surreal? No, hashtag that! #Surreal.

So, what is this book about? Me, I guess, and Mumbai. Because no matter how you slice it, Bombay is the City of Dreams, where if you want something badly enough and are willing to work your ass off for it, the universe will conspire to make it happen. And just like Oprah said, The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.

Also, I hope to make this book somewhat useful, with virtual life hacks and all the wisdom I have picked up from the world and the web along the way in a speed-reading version, under 140 characters at a time. So, look out for the tweets at the end of each chapter (or in my world at the end of each blog) if youre the SNAPpy kind.

But the most important thing Ill ever tell you just in case you dont make it past the prologue and return to your InstaStory-ing is this:

People often ask me how to become a rich and famous blogger and I have a simple answer: Dont start by wanting to be a rich-and-famous anything. Step back, close your eyes and imagine the one thing youd want to do for the rest of your life even if nobody paid you to do it. Find a way to make this your career, and fame and fortune will surely follow. I believe the universe will have no choice but to help you succeed. And hey, youll enjoy the ride no matter what, right? The passionate pursuit of happiness, THATs what its all about.

If they ask you, tell them MissMalini told you so and off #tothemoon you go!

PS. So how does this movie Im looking at you, Karan Johar end? Who knows! Ive only just gotten to the intermission... picture abhi baaki hai doston!

Digital entrepreneurI like the sound of that. And a very successful one. Someone who is considered an influencer, someone who has built a great brand story around herself I like that even more. It goes with what I have always said and believed create your own legacy. Be true to yourself. This is where I find Malini Agarwals journey so inspiring. From a radio jockey and print journalist, she made her passion her work, added dollops of self-belief and walked the digital talk. What began in 2008 as a blog was nurtured and grown to MissMalini.com, to Twitter and, every conceivable social media platform.

Today, she has truly emerged as the Social Media Jedi. I connect with Malini because carving your own path is one of my strongest beliefs. As for the power of digital, well, when we both began within months of each other, no one knew how this would grow and we just went with our gut!

Malini, the Jedi, who has written in her book in her familiar blog style, gives her readers some funny, some philosophical and some serious MM tips on life, living and working.

She takes us through her journey of coming to this #MaximumCity Mumbai and achieving success on her terms, making us all believe that dreams can come true. You go girl, your story has only just begun.

PRIYANKA CHOPRA

Living cities dont hold still.
John Irving, The World According to Garp

Jeena yahan, marna yahan, iske siva, jaana kahan.
Mukesh, Mera Naam Joker

Blog #10: Hello Bombay!

If youre wondering why this book begins with blog #10, you should know that like any good Bollywood movie, you must leave room for a meaningful flashback. If, however, you like your stories told in perfect chronological order, feel free to jump back to the future, after blog #01.

I arrived in Bombay (or Mumbai, if you prefer) in January 2000, armed with two suitcases, an alphanumeric pager, Rs 40,000 in the bank and just one dream to live a life less ordinary.

I remember it was raining that night and cars and rickshaws whooshing by me on the highway from the airport. The pink and green neon lights from restaurants and shops were reflected in the puddles and potholes along the way. I rolled down the window of my signature black and yellow Mumbai Fiat taxi and, as I felt the rain and cool breeze on my face, I knew I was home. Also, by now I had seen countless movies where the heroine of the film rides alone in a taxi to her new life, often leaving behind all kinds of ache and sorrow. To boldly go where every happy ending has ever gone before. All I was missing was the soundtrack.

Now admittedly, I had no idea what I was going to do here, but so far, Id had the incredibly good fortune of falling easily into jobs that I truly enjoyed. The catch-22 of this situation was that I had never faced any major rejection. But as they say, without the bitter, the sweet isnt as sweet! So, enter MTV.

Up until now, my lifes ambition had always been to become an MTV or a Channel [v] VJ (video jockey). This was a job I had seen first-hand through my dancing days and, at that time, was what you could call the pre-millennial dream job. I was twenty-three and recall marching into the MTV India office with five of my favourite (albeit unprofessionally shot) Kodak prints and meeting a talent coordinator who spent a kind 5 minutes with me before sending me on my way. Back then the MTV office had a basketball court in the middle, and on my way out, I dodged a ball to the nose, while avoiding eye contact with the many faces that Im sure had seen countless hopeful VJ-wannabes make this exact same trek.

Youve probably heard my pigeon and the ceiling-fan story ad nauseam, so Ill spare you any more details. At any rate, the result of the pigeon episode was that I knew for sure I had to find something to do, and do it fast. Bombay is not a cheap city to live in and my reserves were dwindling rapidly.