The bits and bytes of being an IT engineer in India...

Yeah, I am an engineer...more so an IT engineer. One of those million faces in the bandwagon that started rolling somewhere in the early 90's and has now become a major face of |India's economic growth. There is no denying the fact that the Indian IT industry is a major contributor to the country's GDP as well as its reputation for skilled workforce in the international arena.

But once we go down deeper, brushing aside the statistics and numbers, there we find a much humble, if not sorry, picture of an individual spending his entire youth , writing away lines and lines of code and then re-writing most of it  . Yes, the IT engineer himself. He is no superhero but someone super-humanly over-working and multi-tasking (read : slogging for hours , juggling between code, spread-sheets, tools and of course yes, Google, to meet the deadly deadlines). Yet unlike the doctors or even his engineering brethren from other fields like civil or mechanical, the society does not have the slightest clue of what he actually does, leave alone having any regards for his efforts. Even his family members spend pensive hours at night wondering what sort of lawful work extend to such unearthly hours when most of their neighbors are either sleeping or weeping over the latest episode of the popular TV soap  !!

But this guy was once a dreamer.  Armed with a geeky attitude towards life and the picture of a Matrix-like world, he had set out to create something brilliant that would save humanity someday. Slowly and slowly he had equipped himself with the various languages understood by the computers. Be it C, Java , Python or Oracle, there was no stopping him. He felt himself to be just a step away from becoming the next Tony Stark alias The Iron Man !!

And then something happened. Something seemingly exciting at first but supposedly sure to disappoint later happened...he got a JOB !! And overnight , the dreamer posed to change the world with he strokes of his keyboard finds himself encapsulated in the abstract world of a cubicle.  There he learns the norms and rules of this new world and by the time he comes to his own, the passionate dreamer morphs into a deadline-chasing machine. His dreams squandered and ideas under-rated, the guy gets programmed to perform the same tasks, day after day and then getting assigned some other task, perform it day after day. 

And among all these, the fear of being labelled an under-performer looms all the time. There are also frequent rumors of downsizing going around in the office canteen. So he postpones his plans for the weekend to the next weekend , only to postpone them again to the next. He loses track of  important dates like birthdays and anniverseries and gives family functions a miss. He slogs and slogs harder to get those few extra bucks to sustain a decent livelihood. After all, the society still knows he is an ENGINEER !!

Press F5!!

Being a techie is not easy...take my word on that. You kind of get addicted to all those shortcut keys you press millions of times throughout the day. And if the case is like mine....sitting before the office computer for 12 hours or more everyday , then you are bound to think like if you could get some of those shortcut keys working in your real life. Did I just mention life ?? Yeah!! if you do have one (pun intended). 

Think how easy life would have been if all you needed to do to reach office every morning was to just Ctrl X + Ctrl V yourself , from your home to your desk ????? Tempting isn't it ? Many a fight could have been avoided if we could just Ctrl Z our actions and words.Having a tough time collecting your groceries from the neighborhood store ? Ctrl A to your rescue...pick up all those packets at one go man!! What if you could just keep pressing Ctrl S throughout the day and save all those money you see coming in and going out of your account !! And pressing Windows key + L could have just locked them behind safety vaults.

But there's one shortcut key that excites me more than anything else. It's the utterly functional function key F5 , the Refresh button. Many a soul out there would have loved to start their lives afresh. What if we could just just stop worrying about cleaning up the mess and tackling those problems and could just start it from scratch. A clean slate, a life full of fresh energy and the ultimate sense of newness would be awaiting after the page reloads successfully.

Well, all said and done, just as we are rapidly moving towards a world of cyborgs, use of such keys and buttons for our day to day activities don't seem too much of an unreal fantasy. Till then, may be being more humane and less of a machine is not a bad idea at all. Life would have lost much of its meaning without the hardships and hassles. That explains the sense of triumph on reaching office on time , having fought your way out of the traffic. Picking up the grocery with seemingly several hands would still give you the sense of superhero-like strength and the endless number crunching to save your hard-earned money at the end of the month would keep on giving you the feel of being a genius. May be we can still keep our heads above the water until somebody presses down Alt + F4 !!

I am a Guerrilla Warrior...er..Blogger!!

They operate secretly, hide behind bushes and in ruins and end up in sewage tanks and underground drains walking over the shit of others and even smearing some of it on their faces (read: art of deception) and most importantly take on mightier oppositions. Very good!! Full marks to you for guessing (claps). Yes, I am talking about guerrilla warriors. I know ages of cinema has clarified your definition of a guerrilla. But have you ever heard about a guerrilla blogger? No? Then here’s a very, very confidential document that I am going to leak out right here, right now. If you are reading this consider yourself lucky ‘cause not many would lay their hands (rather eyes) over this, trust me. Delighted? Excited already? Okay, now calm down a bit and concentrate. Here’s something that would require some wrestling with your grey cells. Great secrets don’t reveal themselves that easily.

GUERRILLA BLOGGER IDENTIFICATION MANUAL:

Mode of operation: SECRECY!! That’s all it’s all about. You know that you know a potential guerrilla blogger the moment you realise you never knew about him/her. There is a slim chance you have ever heard an explosion (read: a blog-post) that they carried out with tireless efforts and dedication. And if you ever did, maybe it was you needed to refill your ammo (ideas you know) or it was just a mere case of straying into unknown territory (the guerrilla blogs of course)

N.B: The ‘you’ in the above point doesn’t refer to the civilians (non-bloggers).

Methods of offence: Now this is the part that is really going to help you to catch sight the elusive Guerrilla Blogger. Come on, concentrate a little more. I know it’s too much technical but can’t help you see.

1) They will carry out bold offensives. Now no one gets bowled over by these bold missions. But they simply carry out such missions (write posts that is, dumbo) that civilians don’t dare to, in a planned, clinical manner.

2) They will jump in to counter-fire (reply to comments) almost immediately. They just can’t afford to wait for further enemy movements which is too minimal in their case. Civilians must be secured first and if they can make one or two civilians to reach safe-zones (click “follow” or “Like”) then its party-time for a guerrilla blogger.

3) Once in a while, they will creep into high-sensitivity zones (those popular blogs) and shoot an well-directed bullet (comment).They are in constant look-out for those zones and keep track of their activity ( for tracking they use the much-effective Follow gadget)

Who they are up against: The Big Daddies and Mommas of Blogistan.

What do they fight for: Mainly, they fight to protect the territories called Interest and Talent. But it’s often a much vulnerable territory called Self-pride that gets attacked.

Arms ‘n’ ammunition: Self-mutating ‘Idea’ rifles, ‘Hope’ Bombs and ‘Spirit’ amours.

Accessories: Internet connection, computer

Costume: Doesn’t matter. They keep changing their appearance (templates, layout, and widgets) in the name of improvisation.

Great!! You have done well to finish the entire manual without being subjected to any poison-gas attack or a long-distance sniper shot(claps again). So you might be thinking how I know these Top Secret details and why am I giving it out. Well, well, I am very much like SRK in Don2 when he hands over that CD to the cops. Oh yes! You are right again (Now seriously, you owe me a treat on that).

I am a Guerrilla Blogger!!! (Background music plays as I take off the mask….dhan taa naaan).

Have you come across one of them? Or are you one yourself?

Please don't delete my blog Kapil Ji

Now that Kapil Sabil Ji (yes, can’t miss that Ji lest he gets offended) wants to regulate all the traffic on the social media following some ‘objectionable’ updates about Manmohan Ji and Sonia Ji and other G’s (2G and CWG included). So , in case Sibal Ji really has his way with this and as he demands that content should be monitored manually and screened even before they are published, let’s have a look how the scenario might turn out to be.

Fabio has been assigned to review consent on Facebook and Tutu on Twitter of a particular number of users. There is also one Gugu for Google+ in the same room with them. As per requirements, all of these Content Monitors have great cyber crime records to their names and hence no one can recognize 'objectionable' content  better than these guys. Read along…

Fabio: Hi Tutu. Wassup man? You look lost!

Tutu: (just breaking a yawn half-way) Fabio yaar. I just hate waking up so early. If it were not a Govt job I wouldn’t have given a damn. But you know how my girlfriend’s parents are vying for one sarkari naukri wala.

Fabio: Ahh another of those stories…let's get to work dude. Morning shift starts at 5:30. Its already 5:45. We will be screwed if someone posts an OC!!

Tutu: OC meant Officers’ Choice to me a few days back.Now its Objectionable Content. Sigh….Okay!!

(both log in to their softwares specially designed to view posts coming in from the set of users they are assigned to, Fabio on Facebook and Tutu on Twitter. Meanwhile Gugu enters and sits at his desk)

Gugu: Hii guys, busy already? Huh.  I have a perfect Govt. job you see. Get paid for just sitting at a desk.

Tutu:Oh yeah,you keep forgetting that’s why you get paid less

Gugu: Who cares! (Logs in and after a few moments of clicking he plugs in his I-pod's earphones and dozes off)

Fabio: Ohh shit!! I told you. While you were lamenting this guy from Delhi posted a pic. Looks like its Doctor saab dancing with Madam Ji. You think it’s allowed?

Tutu: Hell No, look at their clothes. Doctor saab has a six pack and Madam Ji is dressed in a scorching red gown with a leg-slit. High risk content. Remove it now!!

Fabio: Done already. Phew!! Wonder if someday we might have a PM who really has a six pack.

Tutu:(chuckles) Guess Arnold Schwarzenegger had one when  he became the Governor of California. Hey look at this.This girl just shared a pic showing Baba Ramdev proposing Rakhi Sawant !!

Fabio: Don’t dare touch it. We have special instructions from Digvijay Sir to in fact to promote such content. It’s a Promotable Content

Tutu: One more PC after Personal Computers, Priyanka Chopra and P Chid…

Gugu breaks out into a thunderous laughter suddenly, prompting Fabio and Tutu to jump in their seats

Fabio: You scared us man!!

Gugu: Dude, dude….you can’t miss this joke that my girlfriend SMSed me just now. A one word joke! Can you believe it?!!

Tutu: What is it?

Gugu: Ha ha…she says ‘busy?” Ha ha Ha ha Ho Ho (He clutches his tummy and goes around the room stamping his feet as if it were the joke of the century)

Fabio: Frustrated guy!! Let’s get back to work Tutu

Tutu: Yeah Yeah

(Gugu gives a disgusted look at his two colleagues,scratches his beard and  settles back in his seat, putting in the earphones once again)

Fabio: Getting lots of posts in support of Anna’s movement. Too many of them!

Tutu: Run a search with the name Anna Hazare and delete them all. The bosses are already furious over his support for slaps and comments drawing claps.

Fabio: That one did rhyme well (grins)

Meanwhile, Gugu got busy for a while when he saw a post saying “The govt. can’t curb the freedom of social media”. He waited to see if it got any comments and then deleted it and went back to playing air-guitar

Tutu: Damn, now what about these celebrities? How can I delete the tweet of an Amitabh Bachchan ??

Fabio: Dude, Twitter guy can’t avoid celebrity shit !! Just check for their past record with the bosses. If they are in the latter’s good books then call up the bosses for guidance or else delete the post and in place of it display the message ‘Awaiting approval”. Neither the celebrities nor the bosses would get offended in that way

Tutu: Great! Seems like you have read the rule-book quite well (grins)

Fabio: Of course, finally I have a job other than checking out the profiles of girls.So, got to be this bit sincere man.

Just then Tutu receives an SMS from his friend Bogo who is reviewing a chunk of the blogs on Blogger. It read::

       “We are screwed here man. These bloggers are posting frantically and that too long ones. Till I start guessing if its an OC, 10 other such posts come up. The Wordpress guy has already gone to visit an eye specialist and mine are red as tomatoes”

Tutu forwards the SMS to Fabio and Gugu and they all share blank looks at each other... 

Image courtesy:Satish Acharya

I am scared....really scared as I type this post though I have tried to be as much respectful to the great leaders as possible. May be I won't be able to see my dear blog the very next day as it might be pulled up for Objectionable Content and deleted!!

Do we really need this? 

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