I get in to work as usual and DJ pops in a 'Congrats' over the Communicator. and then it hit me - I completed 3 years as a Software Engineer last week. As a day it marks the anniversary to casually get back to ppl from your batch and pass on the 'congrats' note and be nostalgic about the 'great' time spent during the training. But there is a ballooning question growing every single day i think about it - 'Where am i Heading?' No answers yet. No knock knock on the doors.
In spurts of excitement every now 'n' then I tap in a few keys on the board to folks long forgotten over gChat and everytime I wake up from these long hibernation periods I am pleasantly surprised... to know everybody is doing so 'different' from what i am doing. Over the last few days I did a remote handshake with Polly, Thauseef, Jayshree and Akshay.
Polly has taken to Photography (she was always a brilliant artist making my maps in history classes); her elder brother is a Fashion Designer; the last I heard about him years ago - he was in Paris; her younger brother Somdev is growing as a Tennis champion, currently play8ing and studying here in the US.
I met Thauseef after an unknown period of time (running into several years) couple weeks back in Harrisson, NJ. The innocent looking funny guy with spectacles, otherwise teased as 'Underwear bhai' in his circle of friends', has indeed groomed himself into, as he puts it, 'Ultra-aware' Bhai. Dude has turned into a master writer and I've turned a patron of his poetry passing on the link to his blogs to as many ppl as i can.
Jayshree has finally reached the point of putting down her papers at Google and take a U-turn from doing dumb job-work to plunging into the Publishing industry. I just learnt that she loves animals from her new blog.
A chance hovering of my mouse over Akshay's profile in gchat revealed that dude is also into poems. His poems are different from most others I have read. I haven't read a lot of them to express a clear opinion but the immediate feel I got was - his poems are a revelation of his depth of thought.
And then there are others as well - Sanjay into Visual designing, Sarvesh, Nishanth taking their family business to newer heights, Jayanth finally doing his MBA in Singapore, Abhishek working @ Texas Instruments, the list can go on endlessly.
When I see them, hear about them I am happy for one simple reason - they are doing things they've always loved doing. The unemotional situation at my end being - 'I am still not sure what am I looking for.' Unemotional - because I always loved everything related to 'logic' from the time I learnt of its meaning from Jayanth, back in 11th standard, walking towards the school gates carrying in my hands my Computer Science paper in which I had failed for the third time. But it does not feel 'right', somehow...
In the past three years, I can only recall a handful of days where I felt 'real excitement'. I've been developing software for the past 3 years and even while I hate to admit I cannot resist confessing that 'I don't have my basics right.'. May be that's some reason for joy, cos I know what I don't know. And I am hoping that by the time I bridge this gap, and have what I have then, I will know if thats' what I wanted.
The corporate setup within which my art sells sometimes takes away all 'logical' excitement. It is replaced by a different excitement, if it excites - 'working' with ppl to 'create' the software. As I continue to notice around me - its one of the most challenging tasks I've come across in these past 3 years. You are no longer the sole owner of what you do. Its not the same as me drawing Pencil Sketches; creating hand-made frames or developing a slick 'C' code sipping at my coffee in my study. It appears to me that more than the skills to develop clean code; u need 'knack' to make a team 'work'. My own experience working in 'Teams' have been nightmarish for most part. Did I learn that if the word 'TEAM' were to be an Acronym then 'T' would stand for 'Tolerance' - Yes. Do I enjoy it - NO. Reason ? I hate the idea of compromise. Learning to know compromise as a vital tool is good, but livin with it does not seem to be my cup of tea yet.
Its a long road ahead and ironically the bright light of the achivements of such ppls becomes blinding for me sometimes. I am only being honest here. However, amidst these thick dark clouds, my instinct tells me there is light waiting to tear the darkness apart, only I can't see it just yet. The feeling is growing only stonger everyday that - I too will find 'my' way, just as everyone, just as anyone. That will be the rainbow after the storm. :o)
