[overheard from the next cubicle]
A : dude, what is this? Is this really an 8GB thumb drive? It’s so small..
B : Yup ..
A : How much did you pay?
B : 350…
A : ohh .. where?
B : FlipKart ..
A : Ohh, a flash drive?
B : FlipKart.com
A : ahhh …
Wondering what would have gone through B’s mind … sigh!
Recession has forced companies to take serious steps towards cost cutting. People are left jobless and the ones with the jobs have their income so tightly squeezed that their is bare enough left even to buy a condom.
Under such situations, people will just do anything to hold on to their job. Even is that means losing the place where they rest their ass on ..take a look ..
kursi jaaye ya na jaaye, par hum tho kaam kareega…
I was there. It didn’t feel great.
I was scared, i was lost, i was wandering in the dark.
I hit the Writer’s Block.
Trust me its a damn scary place. Felt good when i reached there, mainly due to the fact that i was busy at work and i was in no way even getting time to pee. Forced into the dark the force grew weaker in me. Two days back i faced the bitter reality that i had hit the block, i shouldn’t have taken the left turn at the T-junction at the dead-end, for what joy?, i have no idea.
Goddess Wikipedia (a.k.a. Goddess Saraswathi in Hindu Mythology), describes Writer’s Block as :
Writer’s block is a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to begin or continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity.
Naah!!! Nothing of these caused my condition. I had inspiration(lots of it) and i had lots to write but i didn’t. Why? I needed a reason and today i have a reason to write. Breaking the door, like Rajani, i’m out with the reason i needed (I wish it was more like a girl that i walked out with).
20th Sept, 15th Oct and this one on the 30th of Oct, that was the frequency of my posts in the last 2 months.
Looking back i ponder what made me stop, was it the work or was it something more noir. Yes, work was one of the reasons, undeniably. 20+ hrs of working on a single day, my friends began referring me as IBM‘s bitch. Getting adjusted to the new life was one definite factor. But when i search deep it was something more than that. One that pains me still, tried shrugging it off, but couldn’t, it still lingers in the darkest thoughts. It can be described as one that is scariest for a writer. I was never credited for something that i wrote. Even my closest friends didnt acknowledge the fact that it was me. Bang! i got a “500 Internal Server Error” when i was expecting a “200 OK” with “Connection: Keep-Alive”.
Any way its all behind me, and i at least think that i’m back.
BTW my lingo has now been reduced into the results of an aftermath of heavy AS2/AS3 testing, with heavy dosage of XML and Development team that doesnt consent to bugs.
Taken this opportunity, if u would like anyone who is coming across this post to share, what made them hit writer’s block and how they did eventually overcome it….
A month away from blogging and all active online activity. There has to be some valid reasons, right!!!
Of lately i was going through some strategic, that’s right ‘strategic’, changes in life. Both in my career and my personal life. No you dumb ass, i didn’t get married nor did i get engaged. Definitely i’m not having a break-up / patch-up nor did i find someone. Why does people have to think that “its that” when i tell them that i had some major personal life changes and i’m being responsible these days.
Career vise, i quit my previous employer and joined a BIG BIG BIG company. Currently working in a very cool environment, where they practically let you do anything. My kind of work. The confidentiality nature of the project that i’m working right now is such that, i have no idea what i’m doing… . AND the best part, they gave me a T61p ThinkPad to work. Now that’s whats called super cool!!!!
Ok now on the personal life side – i bought a flat in Bangalore. Ok, close your mouth, its not something to eat. Why cant a guy with ’0′ savings buy a flat. So soon, within a 2 month time, i’ll be moving into my new adobe. All are welcome to party anytime. Already the booking list is out-of-bounds.
In other news… i’ll be flying to delhi on the 26th of this month. I’ll be talking about blogging and its business side at Birla Institute of Management and Technology, Noida, as part of Mutiny’s evangelism initiative. If any of you BIMTECH-ers are listening, i just started preparing the slides. 
27th i’ll be in Delhi, roaming around with my friend Anina. So anyone from Delhi, other than Anina, who knows me (sorry i’m too bad at names and remembering where ppl are from) drop in a word we can meet for sure.
And i hope i can remain active online for quite some time now…
What we do these days involves competition. No matter what. A a kid we race to the gate and back. As teens we race our bikes. As adults we race against time and colleagues. The time that we live in Competition is viewed as the source of creativity and self improvement. As a kid we are expected to be the top scorer in the class, not the smartest, as teens we are expected to be responsible but not creative and as the workforce we are expected to bring in profit and not innovation.
Why does competition has to be so bad? Slowly but steadily everyone starts to keeps expectations out of you and keeps reminding you about that. You fall victim to it losing your creativity. Its because we want to beat that record and get our names in there. We benchmark every thing everyday, we fall into The Curse of Great Expectation.
But what about creativity? If i have ever done anything that is creative or innovated an idea, its because i didn’t take part in a race. On the same grounds i hate taking exams too. Exams for me is again about breaking records and false derivatives. With time being most valued, exams seems to be the only way people want to find talents.
There is a trend with the organizations now. They are still competing and very much in the race. They do it in more ‘innovative’ ways. They ask you to just innovate and come up with some thing very brilliant. Even if you didn’t mean that to be part of any race or drive the race. Its used by the organization to outrun their competitor.
The human cost to win the organization’s race or the cost of health on onself is often disregarded. But what happens to those who stay out of the competition and decide to be .. uhh .. say free. They have immense potential to be creative and inventive. But why don’t they?.
The Society is stereotyped in believing that competing is the best way to progress. So much of the things that these so called ‘free birds’ innovate are considered inferior. They eventually gets into the race to survive or fall.
I knew of a person during my college days. He was this extra brilliant guy. There wasn’t much that he couldn’t answer about technology. Few professors realized his potential. But but the rest of the folks were unforgiving. Had the mentoring right he wouldn’t had to settle for a rather uhhh normal techie kind of job with an average company.
Its time we wake up to say no to the unwanted competitions around us.