A NEW DAWN RISES……..

I am writing this blog on the first day of 2008……..Although the start of this year has been nothing worth reporting, I mean nothing has happened till now that can be ideally classified as a “celebration”, except the fact that I am back from the office within two hours from my stepping into it and now I am watching “Hadh Kar Di Aapne” for the 124563rd time……….but then this year has definitely started for me with a lot of enthusiasm and determination definitely………..I feel there always comes a phase in a man’s life when he needs to step up to the many challenges life plans to throw up at him and face it like a man…………when he realizes that he is sick of the mundane life dragging around him and he decides that it his high time that he should buckle up and do at least something to set things right…………set things the way he wants things to be……….step up on the gas, push himself to the extreme, do whatever it may take to not only fulfill his aspirations but also earn the respect of the people around him………….I believe that I am passing through a similar phase just as I am setting my foot into the new year……………It is arguably the first time that I am so geared up to do something with my life that I am really revving myself up to the challenge…….…….During the last few days, I have shown my parents and my honey a lot of dreams, a lot of hopes and now stepping back for me can just be classified as cowardice…………and being tagged a “coward” for the rest of my life is the last thing I want to live with………People around me have a lot of trust in me and I simply can not afford to break that trust………….and u know what, they definitely just want the best for me…………and if I have to work just a bit harder for this win-win situation for both myself and the people around me, I am really ready to slog my ass off………There were a very few people at the office today………….but something I saw at the office today just set me thinking………..Hardly 5-10% of the total junta had turned up………but still there was one guy, Jawahar by name, slogging out on his machine……….Here was a guy who always reaches office before time, gets out of his cubicle only to have his food, always works a lot, stays late nights, comes to the office in the early mornings and here he was on the new year’s day earlier than almost all the others and while the rest of the public were chilling out, he was fervently checking the ROL application………..I seriously believe that these kind of people have no lives……….I guarantee that his wife must have run off with some other charming guy who knows how to live life…….may not be king size but at least LIVE………I guarantee that this nerd does not have a life…………..I mean, seriously are such type of people from this planet itself??????? But in fact, his life style is not my problem…………I don’t know why but I had a disturbing thought that some day I may also end up like that if I really stick to whatever it is that I am doing now………nothing but mindless coding………….Last Thursday, almost half of the VISA team was at the training room as usual surfing crap on the internet and we were also there………….By we I mean, me, Deba bhai, Dandu bhai and all………..We were getting ready to leave work early since the BIG exam was the next day……….Arvind and Anil were sitting nearby when we informed Anil about our intentions and I as usual got tensed about the exam and said that all I wanted that I should still be with IBM in 2008…………It was then that both of them remarked that what a big complaining jerk I was………..a big pessimist and stuff like that………..Anil said that at least the others were more open to challenges than me and I was pessimist eternally afraid of life……….. I just wanted to tell them my side of the story but then I kept quiet………..I thought may be my actions will speak for themselves………..Since how many days do those bastards know me as such…………3 months…………That’s not long enough a time to pass judgments on someone…………May be now I realize why Anil had given me a rating of 3 for my “flexibility”…………..I will show them what I am made of…………what I am capable of………..Arvind said that a person can’t be so afraid of things and challenges if he wants to survive in the I.T. world…………My first thoughts were “Who the f*** in fact wants to survive in the I.T. world anyways……….I don’t give a rat’s ass to this place……..And I am man enough to face the challenges and work extra hard without complaining for the dreams I want to follow………….I don’t want to end up as a bunch of losers as you guys………….” Almost all the people I see at work daily are so complacent with their lives, so smug, so self-satisfied and in fact so proud of an IBM tag that I really feel sorry for their lack of outlook………….Padmanabhan and me got talking the other day and I was just telling him about my dreams of a satisfactory job, a hefty paycheck and stuff like that……….I said him that nothing in this world is ever possible with a mere 20K per month paycheck………..He said “Common man u guys are getting way much more than I was getting back at your age……almost 5 years ago………”…Again my first thought was………”Dude, that’s none of my problem…….Its not my fault that you think that you were underpaid back then…….”…..I said him….” Do you know my friends are at Microsoft earning around thrice that I am managing these days………The people who were with me in my tuition are getting paid in dollars, they are in a lot better positions than I am in now…..” His eyes were simply round with shock and disbelief………Almost all of them here are just plain frogs in a well so happy, so satisfied with their pathetic positions in their life that I simply pity them……They think that they are very well-off when in reality, I don’t think they don’t even know what being well-off actually means……Honey once mentioned to me that I am a very intelligent guy………..I had explained to her then that she had actually not seen real intelligent guys………….Guys who just read for a night and topped in their branches, guys who played so much computer games that they had mouse marks on their finger tips after they finished gaming but still got into an IIT and are now at De Shaw earning 9.5 lakhs per annum, guys who just sat quietly in the corner at K. K. Swain’s and could still manage a AIR of 75 in the IIT-JEE exams……Those were geniuses……..There is a very popular saying……..”I may not be the best but I am definitely better than the rest……..that’s what I am………………