Life and its intricacies

Life is unpredictable. Things happen out of the blue that could change your life and your expectations of it, and you can do nothing about it. You face it, you move on.

Nevertheless, it isn't entirely true.

Where you are in your life at present, what you are and how you are, everything was your decision. Every trivial decision made through the course of your life has had an impact in your life, one way or the other. You often forget such life-changing decision you had made, mostly because you paid little attention to what you did then because it seemed to be of no importance then. Afterwards, you probably thank or blame God for putting you in the situation you are in.

If you have seen the movie 'The Butterfly Effect', you probably know what I'm talking about. In this movie, the protagonist gets to go back in time by looking at a photograph, and change what he'd done then, and come back to present. But when he returns, he finds his life entirely different from when he went to the past. In one case he finds his hands missing, in another he becomes the manager of a company in which he was actually just an employee; all just because he changed a small bit of his past.

My point is, if you're happy with your life at present, you're probably going to happy for the rest of your life. And if you're unhappy, you might spend the rest of your life blaming God for your misfortunes, or yourself for all the wrong decisions you made. Well, I'm not denying the luck factor. Some life changing event might have occurred of which you had no control at all, but there's only a negligible chance for something of that sort to happen.

So if you don't wanna spend your life regretting your mistakes, decide how your future should be. Make your decisions based on the lessons learned in the past.

That's probably what I ought to do.

Before I fall apart

There's just too much negativity everywhere I look. I honestly cannot find anything positive in whatever has been and is happening. When does life get better? Or does it at least get better?

It's probably just my perspective. My state of mind. Of course, things aren't going well and I always have tend to find wrong in what I'd done and regret it later. Nevertheless, I used to be an optimist. At least I used to think so. I used to think everything happens for good, and things will get better. But as it turns out, I was probably wrong. Life doesn't get better. You gotta make it better.

I've always regretted of not making the most of my opportunities. But when I think of it, I couldn't probably have done better under the circumstances I'd been in. Well, there have been some opportunities that I'd missed out of some so-called morality or some 'misplaced sense of self-righteousness', but then that's probably the way I'm wired. I can't and actually don't complain about them.

I still try to stick to the 'everything happens for a reason' principle. I always try to think things will get straightened out. But sometimes the negativity is overwhelming. I feel like I'm on the verge of depression, from where there's probably no coming back to normal.

Some other time I find my responsibilities and limitations overwhelming. I'm probably in my last few years when I could have been with no responsibilities. But my family is already dependent on me, and I'm finding it real hard to make the ends meet. I have to get home early because my mother is alone in the house. I can't do whatever I want, and that's what I'd always wanted to do. I've always longed for freedom. Freedom to do what I want, with no one to care.

I can only think of one closing line: "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa". 

Speaking of money

"'Money', so they say, 'is the root of all that is evil'" ~ Money, Pink Floyd


I was born in a middle class family. My father worked for the CISF, and later went to 'gelf'. My dad's siblings use to complain that he doesn't earn. And he didn't too. But neither did he ever fail to support us in anyway. I always got what I wanted.
When I grew up, and while I was attending college, my mom would always advice me to concentrate more on my studies, saying that dad has loads of debts. Eventually, I finished my college, but without a degree. Nevertheless, I got a job right after I left college at Innoz, the startup by 3 of my classmates. There was no salary at the beginning though. After that I was given 3k a month as salary, and I was the only employee there. Salary increased gradually, and once I even joined a different company at 12k. But then Innoz called me back offering 10k. The other company being shitty, I went back to Innoz.
Salary would then become 12k after some 8 or 9 months, then was about to be 15 after some more months, when I said that won't be enough. So it was finalized on 17. I'm intentionally not commenting on any of this.
On telling that 15 won't be enough and to make it higher, I was told there will be better pay after the company gets proper revenue and then I would be saying the pay is too high.

Afterwards, the office was shifted from the 16 seater Technopark TBIC room in Trivandrum to the present 3 floor + basement office building in Koramangala, Bangalore. The salary was increased from 17 to 30k after the shift. By then the company has received the first real revenue from SMS Gyan, as a cheque from Airtel. I told the team again that the salary will have to be raised. I was expecting the 'too high' pay to happen then. But the raise was again another 10k, to make the current 40k.
By then everyone else in the team seemed happy. One of em even seemed ecstatic, but I can only think of his low expectations. Expectation, of course, reduces joy, but I'm not just expecting. I need to be paid more. I think I deserve more.

Present

So, this is what is happening now. I'm back at Innoz. I wasn't here for 2 months; march and april; I'd got a job at Calicut, in a company called 'Clime Computers' (and Pixel IT). I got that job via my mom's cousin in UAE. He asked me to send my resume, and I did; which a friend of his saw. So this guy, Mr. Ravindran, who is something in Clime (I'm still not sure what) contacted me and asked if I'd like to join. The salary offered was 7.5k. I thought I'll check it out.
I went to their Calicut office, which was nothing more than a small room with some 4 computers. Compared to Innoz, the office was -you know- pity. I did not want to join. So after getting back home, I mailed them telling I decline their offer. And I went back to Trivandrum. After a week, they called me again, told me they wanted me back. I guess they were impressed by the work I did there. This time the salary offered was 12k and since money is the root cause of all problems, I thought I'll join.

I never liked the work atmosphere there. There were 3 other guys, 2 web designers; Anooj and Anas, and a developer; Shainu. The 'boss', Mr. Basheer and the other guy Ravindran were at UAE. We'd to say 'Good morning sir' via GTalk to each of em every day when we reach the office. OK. After that they'd tell us what we were to do that day, or would tell us about the last day's work.
One thing about Mr. Ravindran was that he was never satisfied with our work. On my first day, I was given a site's work, to modify it, which was done by Shainu. I had no idea about the site. But I had to complete it before leaving the office that day. I told him it would take me some time to figure out the code before starting to modify it. Shainu was absent that day, so I had to figure it out by myself. Ravindran told me the client was real pain in his ass, so "please, finish it as fast as you can". Hm, ok. So I did what I could, and by evening he told me I was slow.
Later on, I found out that this was usual; all works given were to be finished really fast. Like, for example a whole site in max 2 days, which was practically impossible. As Shainu had been working there for over 2 yrs, he told me not to worry, do the work as I could, thats what he'd been doin' over these years. I've no idea why Anooj and Shainu is still working there. Shainu had been showing interest to resign, but Anooj -who's been in this company for 5 years, i.e, right from the start, doesn't seem to be wanting a change.
There was another guy, Abhi, I met when I first went to the office. He'd already resigned from Clime, but used to come to the office like once or twice a week to ask about his unpaid salary. One day he came with his friend and took away a monitor. Can't blame him, he had been asking it for more than a month or so. We informed it to our 'boss'. Next day he got his salary, and he returned the monitor.

After that, on the first of May, Abhinav called me and asked if I would go back to Innoz for 10k a month. I was more than happy to accept. He wanted me to get here as soon as possible, but I was worried about my last month's salary. We used to get the salary on 10th. So I told him I'll go after that. But they wanted me sooner. I told Mr. Basheer some 2-3 days later about this offer, and all he said was "Talk to Ravi". I did so the next day, and he didn't sound like he wanted me to stay. He told me he was in a meeting with a client and will talk to me after discussing with Basheer. Next day he wasn't online but Mr. Basheer started asking me not to go. He told me "nee pokandeda" and stuff. I told him that I'd made up my mind, and slowly he started telling me stuff like its not good for me to do this, etc. He told me I'd promised him that I'd stay for a year, which I don't remember doing.
At last he asked me to stay for that month. I told him that even if I stay for another month I would need at least a 2 weeks' leave. So agreed that I can leave after finishing the work I've been doing and complete that week, which I did.
I'd talked to Shainu about my salary, and to transfer it to my back account when its sent.

Next week I got back here at Innoz. Things hadn't changed much here. Life was still the same. I felt like I got my life and freedom back.
Next problem was my unpaid salary at Clime. I haven't got it till now. Today is June 1st. So it's late by 21 days. I'd mailed him some number of times, and once he replied that he wasn't deliberately delaying it, but had some problem of his own. May be I should go to their office and take a monitor to solve his problems. I don't know.

But apart from that (and of course some other things, which I choose to ignore) I'm happy with what I have. And I think that's kinda all that matters. I have a good life here. I love my work, which is programming, which has been one of my passions since I was a kid, and my office, and my so-called 'co-workers', who are my friends from college.
At Innoz, it's not mandatory that I go to office everyday. Our CEO (guys who know him might find this line funny) never comes to the office, unless our Chief Operating Officer (yeah, Abhinav) or Chief Software Architect (Ashwin) asks him to in case he's needed. Don't get the wrong idea, this does not compromise our productivity or efficiency. The works are finished in time. There was a new guy in the office, Bibin, when I came back, who has now left the company, as he could not do the work given to him. There have been 3 or 4 other developers who were fired as they weren't fit enough. If it ain't clear, what I mean is that the stuff we do ain't no piece of cake. They are challenging, and requires some skill. We're still looking for developers who meet our requirements.