The Blackberry Saga

We are suckers for technology! Ever since I can remember, the number of gadget freaks has been increasing. I think it all began when the landlines were launched. For a couple of years having a landline made you the “Cool One” (Yea, we’re going to refer to the gadget freaks as the “Cool Ones”). All the telephones had the same features so innovation happened on the look and feel of the product. From local calls to STD/ISD – a Delhi resident would call a relative in Jaipur and say “Bhaisaab Ram Ram...humney phone mein STD lagwa li hai to socha aapsey hi hello kar lein”....This lead to peer pressure to increase coolness factor so everyone went ahead and got the connections.

We gave in to the cordless phones in a few years. There were the classic designs, and of course, those who were cooler went a few steps further and bought themselves phones in different shapes...the banana, ham burger, car, etc are some that I can recall.

Technology is supposed to uncomplicated things, which is exactly what it’s doing, but somewhere along the road the human race has surrendered completely to it, to a point where even a minute without the gadgets brings out feelings of paranoia, depression, irritability....even “turn-psycho” in certain extreme cases.
Just like everyone does, even I had a favourite brand of cell phones. I started with the one which was as big as a shoe, and after a few years of upgrading, finally arrived at the E 61....Then began the Blackberry Saga.

The Blackberry was launched as a corporate handset when we first started hearing about it. As the number of users started to increased, more and more people talked about it and discovered the coolest part about the product – The Blackberry Messenger. The global BBM wave hit our sweet country in a big way. The “Cool Ones” obviously went ahead and bought the swankiest models possible...with fancy, colourful Blackberry covers and all.

I wasn’t the first in my friends circle to get me a Blackberry. A few of them got it before me and all I wanted to do was snatch the damn phones from them and throw them out the window. The situation was such that we would all go out to our usual hang out and four of my friends would be BBMing each other while sitting on the same table. My friends said “Taru man...you have to buy a fuckin Blackberry dude!!! It’s awesome! Look how many messages we can send each other all day...and voice notes and pics too!!” The boys were more into Facebooking on the Blackberry. Who sends instant pics and updates is the coolest......followed by the Facebook Wall wars with 50 comments on the same post, all in a span of 15 minutes.

I just had to buy a Blackberry!!....which I did..:-). A Curve with a bright pink silicon cover....i actually sold my brand new E 61 which I bought for Rs. 22,000, so I could go an pick up the Curve for half the price.....the things people do to stay connected..:-p

They are smart I tell you...these Blackberry marketing guys. They make the features so cool that even the users of the products can’t stop bragging about them. We’re hooked! Corporate or not, we are hooked! You know you’re hooked if you do any three of the following:

• Make sure you carry your charger everywhere you go
• Update your messenger status once in 2 days
• Check recent updates of those who’ve changed their profile pictures or status
• Check your phone for BBMs before you can open your eyes every morning
• You suddenly have a lot of jokes to tell....and every time you get a joke from a friend u respond saying “damn old dude....” or “stop killing me with such old ones” or just an angry emoticon does the trick
• You have client conferences on your BBM
• Your BBM contacts list is almost the same size as the contacts on your phone book
• You love sending smileys and make full use of the ones on BBM
• During meetings you keep your phone on vibrate mode so you don’t get late in responding to BBMs.....the moment you get a BBM you excuse yourself saying you need to respond to an urgent email
• You start getting paranoid when your battery starts running out....you would sell your soul to the devil for a charger
• You have a fancy cover for your Blackberry
• You regularly search for cool blackberry themes for your phone
• You send BBMs to friends who are sitting with you at the time
• You are a member of at least one Blackberry group
• You really hope that the Blackberry services never get banned in India
• You know everything about what Rajnikant can or cannot do
• You take your phone to the loo just in case someone sends you a BBM
• You start making frantic calls to the customer care guys the moment you experience a slight decrease in the speed your incoming and outgoing messages
• You’re never alone...you have your BBM
• You’re never bored for too long...plans are made at the speed of lightening through the BBM....someone’s got to be doing something for sure
• You almost never forget anything ever...coz at some point you have shared your thoughts with one or more of your BB contacts...so all you gotta do is go back to your BBM and check
• Weekend plans are made via BBM conferences


The Blackberry is such a rage that people have now started putting their BB Pin on their business cards. If you go for a meeting and see the clients/agency carrying Blackberrys, you don’t ask for the cell phone numbers, but the BB Pin instead. I’m sure that pretty soon there is going to be a list of Blackberry etiquette too.
Some of us still believe that the Blackberry is taking connectivity at an insane level. I guess in time they too will emerge as the “Cool Ones”....

I guess I’m done talking here....just going to leave you with the tip of the day...

“ALWAYS TAKE A BACKUP OF EVERYTHING ON YOUR BLACKBERRY”....”DO IT NOW”!!!!!!!!!!

Going Corporate on your Arse Pvt. Ltd. - Welcome Speech

Hi! I’m Mr. The Buttholewhopaysyoursalary. I would like to welcome you to the most exciting work place in the history of corporate cultures across the globe. As our company name suggests, which you may look up on our website because I just cannot seem to remember it at this point, we are in a business that we have no business being in. Mr. Whatshisface, The Director of this company has given me the responsibility of being the CEO and running the show here. You’ll see his picture hanging at the grand reception of our office building; the one in the pretty large silver frame imported from Sheffield, UK.

As the Buttholewhopaysyoursalary, I will ensure that from this day forward you are my slave and will do as you’re told, work overtime and not get paid for it, on weekends too, and you will have no personal life whatsoever. To make sure that you don’t run for your life, we made sure that we got all your contact details i.e., current and permanent residence addresses & phone numbers, emergency contact information and, personal and professional references and their contact details. We also have your bank account numbers and PAN numbers, just in case you decide to commit fraud.

As part of our mission statement, we aim to prepare each one of our employees for the rapid changes and advanced brutalities that are in store for you in the profession that you have chosen for yourself. It is our mission to produce creative thinkers who can put their strong leadership skills to good use as the global corporate culture reaches its next stage of evolution. With our top of the line training processes and employee anal program, we seek to enable our trainees and employees to attain life-long defilement.

WOW! I finally did remember the name of our company! At “Going Corporate on your Arse Pvt. Ltd., we have a unique hiring system. We hire experienced professionals from the corporate sector on fat pay packages to train and develop our work force, and to ensure that the training methods remain dynamic and keep up with the evolving corporate scenario, we fire these experienced professionals and get new talent on board. This is an ongoing process to keep fresh talent flowing in.

Our existing employee base will assist you with real life examples of one of the most important techniques you will ever learn to further your career – Backstabbing! Please ensure that when you are served with a knife in your back, you return it to the stabber, for he/she may need it to backstab another prospect in the near future. You may also try exchanging roles and be the stabber, instead of being the stabbee. After all, taking initiative is something that will always lead you to a higher designation.

While you are working your way to being a frustrated corporate slave, please remember that at Going Corporate on your Arse Pvt. Ltd., we provide special facilities such as the gym, cafeteria, and torture rooms. In case you’re really desperate, you may go visit the company shrink on the 5th floor. Also, if you’re lucky enough to not be working on the weekends, we offer a corporate discount at all the not so happening clubs and pubs in the city, where you may go avail the happy hours and drown your sorrows over a trail of really shitty songs.

I am going to ensure you that your professional career is only going to go downhill from here. But please try and look at the bright side of things as this period is also going to be one where you will learn a lot, do a lot of work, and then let my management team and I take the credit for it.
The company’s Founder’s Day is celebrated on 1st April each year. All employees will be given equal opportunities to participate in the events planned for the same. Those with absolutely no shame may also grab the once in a lifetime opportunity to completely humiliate themselves by being a part of the corporate film which will be screened at the beginning of the event. Your entire year’s hard work and humiliation will be greatly appreciated in the awards ceremony at the end of the day. Please note that this is the only day of the year when Mr. Whatshisface will make an appearance.

If there are any questions in your mind at this point, I would urge you to keep them to yourself and maybe find a corner which you can crawl into and cry.

Welcome to hell!! 

Little lamb, little lamb, where are you headed?

I’ve been around for almost 29 years now, and ever since I remember, the words “grow up” are shot at me like butter on toast for breakfast every morning. I wonder what it means to really grow up. From the cradle onwards we need to start growing up – learn how to walk, to eat without creating a mess, to run, empty our bowels and wipe our own arse; the list is endless. But where does this stop?

As school years approach, we’re told to grow up in a sense that we must learn to dress appropriately, respect elders, learn table manners, do our homework, learn to think intelligently and logically and be a generally good kid with decent social skills. There is also the added pressure of making a good set of friends who may be invited to our birthday parties, and whose birthday parties we may attend. If we don’t have friends, the folks would be worried that their child lacks confidence and is ill equipped for the social scene. The next step would be to see a shrink of course, but to avoid a situation like that the child needs to figure out what kind of friends he/she is looking for. One that fits into the social boundaries that parents have created; one who drives to school in the swankiest car, carries the snazziest gadgets, is the most popular amongst the class; or an individual who truly understands you and cares for your well being; one who appreciates your good qualities, overlooks your flaws, brings out the best in you, one that will be your partner in crime and be a really awesome person to hang out with.

As the years pass by, the definition of growing up keeps changing. We are expected to choose a career path in senior years in school; an age at which one doesn’t understand what a career is supposed to mean. I frankly wanted to be in fifty different professions before I passed out of school, and yet ended up choosing commerce as my main stream because that seemed the coolest thing in the world to me. Given the fact that I completely sucked at accounting and math, I still went ahead and studied the subjects because my career counsellor thought it would lead me to a beautiful and fulfilling professional life.

The list of what we must do to grow up and who we must take advice from is endless. Why is it that we need to do things in accordance with what generations have been doing for centuries, and follow the norms that society has created for us? Who decided the right path to take for every individual to make it big in life? Isn’t the whole point of being an individual having an individual thought process and a making individual decisions based on their likes and dislikes, talents, interests, personality, etc? Does it not make you feel like an innocent little lamb being dragged in the middle of this herd which also has no idea where it’s heading?

So here I am; slave to the corporate world for almost a decade; making lots of money; partying almost 5 days a week; a pro at making damn good, fool proof excuses to get out of work once in a while, only to hang with the buds for a little while longer and probably consume more intoxicants than the usual; active member of all the social networking sites that exist – Does all this make me a grown up? I think so, yes, but not according to the society that I’m living in.

Considering the fact that I’m going to be 30 years of age next year, my grandmother’s probably turning in her grave thinking about why the hell her son hasn’t done anything about getting me a suitable husband (we’ll talk about what’s suitable at a later stage)! Some who matter and most that don’t are losing sleep over the fact that I’m still single. In the age of free sex and live in relationships, my maternal grandmother still thinks of me as a virgin and worries over the fact that if I don’t put my sexual organs to use, they will rot. LOL!!!

Does growing up mean that we should let go of our desires and goals and lead our lives the way that is acceptable to society? As a girl child in India, I am to get a good education, work for a few years, get married to someone who my parents think is right for me (god knows if that turns out to be a nightmare), make babies, raise them, eat popsicles (naah jus kidding)...la la la la la...... Why can’t we do our own growing up? Work till we want to; chill when we feel like; get married when we find someone who we can love and live with; have babies when we feel its time; enjoy the money that we make after having our arses on the line 24x7; and why can we not just take life easy?

Seriousness does not bring responsibility or make us grow up. We can laugh and still be responsible and do the grown up things that we feel we need to do. Life only happens once and nowhere is it written that we must treat life seriously. Keep the child alive they say. Till the time the child in you is alive and having fun, life will be on a roll. The moment you get caught up in the vicious circle of life, you lose track of life and are just another sheep heading in the same direction as the rest of them. Create your own path is the real grown up thing to do. Make your own mistakes and learn from them. Realize your dreams and create new ones. Get to know your friends and family. Know what matters to them and how what you do or feel matters to them. Take time to stop and think. The moment you realize you’re going too fast, cool down the pace and enjoy life for what it’s worth. That’s real growing up!