Can pharma drugs treat the ailment?
Experts on LinkedIn say we all go through the imposter syndrome at some point. But what about actually being an imposter?
A few days ago, preceding a Great Big Indian wedding in the UK, I got mistaken for a poet. By the elderly grandmother of the groom. It was a pre-wedding meeting between the families. My wife and me were on the bride’s side. I was placed next to the groom, while my wife was assigned to chat with the said grandmother of the groom.
She was a gentle, frail and gracious lady, full of life and loved by all.
Easy conversationalist
The groom was an easy conversationalist, the kind who took the pressure off you and knew what to talk about. I noticed my wife and 𝘋𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘫𝘪 across the room chatting pleasantly. All seemed well.
From the way the grandmother glanced at me often, I knew they were talking about me. As they were about to leave, she approached me and said, “I respect poets.”Turning to her grandson, the groom, she said, “He writes poetry. Do you know how much brains it takes?”
The groom looked at me surprised. “You are a poet? Wow, I didn’t know that.”
I was simultaneously wondering how to refute this while being curious about what exactly my wife had told her. I was about to say I’d written numerous advertising jingles for countless brands but those hardly counted as poetry. But in the hubbub of overlapping goodbyes of a lot of people, the moment just passed.
Being a copywriter
I later checked with my wife. Unsure if the grand old lady would understand what a copywriter was, my wife generalised me as a writer and the lady was promptly impressed. At what point the ‘writer’ got upgraded into a ‘poet’ we would never know.
“It must be your long hair,” my wife suggested. At the grand reception on wedding day, 𝘋𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘫𝘪 walked up to us with her ever-present smile.
She introduced us to someone who was the mayor of a London suburb (or district or whatever.) And she introduced me as a ‘director.’