Here I stand in the middle of the city wondering what happened to me. When I look back, from the very first day of my job, a part of me was happy and I don’t know why, a part of me was out of control. This is the story of my survival. In this story I will tell you how I controlled myself without falling into the depths of sadness and loneliness with my dear friend Google.
After finishing the engineering, I always felt like something bad is crawling behind me. I thought it was due to sudden death of my father (may be the beginning of everything!). Then I felt I will recover if I get a job. But sadly, the company in which I got placement, didn’t send the call letter and I was desperately waiting for that. I still thank God for the day in which I took the decision to attend placement drive of another company and I got that job.
But, the things did not changed. Still no joining letter!!! Finally I got one and was completely ready to move to the Trivandrum city, they told me the joining date was postponed. It was a time during which me and my home maker mother had no other way to get money for our living. Again, I felt hopeless. The company told us to wait for a month and then they made it 2. It was like 2 centuries for me. Facing the neighborhood and answering the one same question "when will you go? " made me mad inside.
I couldn’t tell my mother about what is going inside my mind because she was already sad due to the untimely death of my father and worried about our future. I suppressed everything inside me and tried to support her.
Finally the day arrived, I left to Trivandrum, where my company is and I hope the new chapter of my life would be better than these days.
Nothing went better and the city life and job made me realize that I’m going through the dark phase of my life. I really needed a distraction. It was a time when I wanted to be alone but I need something that give me hope… That make me feel better… I felt I was alone but really don’t even want to chat with my friends. The world seems to be a dirty place for me. I couldn’t see anything good here. And even now I can’t explain this because it still hurts.
One day, one of my friend was talking about Google local guide and he was proud that he was in level 8. It was his 2nd year of being a local guide. That day evening, I checked my level and it was 1. 1 is a good number to start, isn’t it? I saw the list of places I went and it was so sad that I didn’t posted anything in the map.
I checked my phone, checked the Google Drive and found relevant pictures that I could share and started digging my happy past only for posting in Google Maps. After this, I started visiting places and clicking new photos just to make it part of the map. It was like a magic, my picture got viewers, it got likes, Google send me mails for my achievements… And finally I was happy again. I felt like someone is taking care for me in every steps and the like from the people made me feel like I’m not a useless human being. One more thing is, I was able to achieve level 5 in a time period less than 5months!
Oh my God… I never know it was this much easy to tackle the demon inside me. Thank you Google for giving me a new life. And I’m really really express my gratitude for those who viewed my reviews and photos. Each any every views mean a lot to me. I was able to add places in map, write reviews and it was really nice that, Google asks me about the place everytime I visited one. My phone was not that good to give you that amazing clicks and for you Google, I saved money and bought a new phone. I’m writing this with my new phone which is just 2days old. And look Google, you changed my life. You really changed my life.
Now I understood the fact that Google needs more details of the places that are not so famous. A lot of people share things about the important places in a country, but I found that the place that we put it in our adress as a landmark was not in maps and I added it. I’m from a small village and now I like to share details of this kind of unknown places. It may not be helpful for a lot of people, but map needs that information too. Other than this, I love sharing details of every places I visit with Google because you are my best friend. And a true life saver…
Athulya Valsaraj
Google local guide