An Alternate Profession

On the weekdays,after spending 10 hours on optimizing the code to give a increased throughput, the chances of my mind boggling me with the need to optimize my life are happily diminished. But on weekends with nothing else to work on, this army of thoughts raises its arms against my vulnerable self, pestering me to think if I were not a radio communication engineer, what else I could be. 

Gullible enough, some six months back I fall into this all-too-luring trap. And thence began my greater search to find myself. So all I used to do on every weekend was pick up a profession, place myself in the shoes of the person in  the same field and imagine how my daily routine would be if I were that person. And this led to some exciting, some really crazy and some dreadful moments.

The first weekend I wanted to be travel writer, who would go to some god forsaken places in the Alps. Though now I seriously doubt the existence of such place after Yash Raj Films, being motivated by its philanthropic instincts have decided to film every nook and corner of that place, so that the Indians don't have to waste their lucre going to those place. Anyways, when I was contemplating on being a travel writer, the proposal seems too exciting and I was all ready with a backpack, when I suddenly realised I have one month's notice period, so I have some more time to do research on the what all places I can travel to - like go Java, Sumatra or Baku (this one is the Location field in orkut profile of some of my friends). Postponing these searches for the next weekend, I go to office on Monday and remember suddenly that sine followed by cosine instruction is where all the backlog is occurring. And In this endless bid to make it work faster, I forgot to resign.

Now comes the "next weekend". Since I kept on forgetting to resign for a week now, the patience to wait for one more month before I backpack again, left me. So what else? The thing which Adam Sandler does in 50 first dates seems exciting :) Yeah just play around in the sea with seals and dolphins in the nice balmy weather. Ahh what a bliss ! But what qualifications do I need to be a Wildlife Vet for,I realised that, if it didn't require a qualification everyone would have been doing that . May be it is not that idea. May be I would not be as fortunate as Sandler to go to Hawaii. So next weekend lets think of something less dicy.

Another nice sunny weekend in Bangalore, and my love for books bring me to Landmark. Oh Yes. Now I know what I could be. I could be someone like JK Rowling, writing some fiction for kids. See not many people write for kids anyways and with Harry Potter series coming to an end, I have a good chance of making big in this profession. And thanks to Microsoft Word Spell Check, I wouldn't be needing too many people to do proof reading. Done then. All I have to think is What all characters, what the plot should be like and other such sundry details. I can centre the first book around a girl (Another Harry Potter is not a good idea after all ). Lets call her.. hmm... having studied in an All Girls' Convent finding a name should not be difficult -- Aditi. But it sounds more elite name. Let it be Meera then - a more docile name. But what would she do? May be next weekend I can think about it, starting afresh Lets complete the outline of the plot by next weekend.

And so on and so forth. The height of this crazy search reached when I was dancing in the baraat of one of my cousin to the beats of the dhol and suddenly the perpetual enthusiam and smile on the face of that dhol wala made me think - How his daily routine has to be?

It was then I knew I have to stop, else next thing I would be wondering would be about the daily routine of the ward boys in a mental asylum :D I guess like other people,I should stick to browsing orkut and facebook from now on.