Like stretching in the middle of a stressful day, there are those who bring some peace in the madness of living. They are not perfect and they are not there for me all the time but they are there.

Aditya Mukherjee, Praval Singh, Saurabh Kejriwal, Aviraj Saluja, Bharat Joshi, Akanksha Redhu, Aman Godara, Mom, Dad, Shefaly, Udaibir Singh, Sumit Singhal, Bharat Midha, Sachin Negi, Priyanka Sachdeva, Priyanka Pulla, Goti, Hasan, Russell Wagner, Guru, Sahdev, Jyotsna Swarup, Samriddh, Anshum, Sephi, Arjun Ravi, Nishant Bargoti, Kisalay, Vinod Wakkchare, Mariam Mamaji.

They’ve supported, helped, listened, bitched along, taken late night phone calls, sent over work, met for coffee dates for some more bitchin’. Coming over late at night with a bottle of Old Monk because I couldn’t stop sobbing. Seniors who’ve shared their secrets. Kicked my ass.

I’m glad that even though I’m no longer in school / college, I am still able to keep adding to this list. Grateful.

The internet is not a public domain where anyone can pick up my work and re-use it the way they want. The crap I hear everyday whenever I talk about a plagiarist ripping off my work!
“They said sorry didn’t they?”
“Why didn’t you put a large copyright symbol on the image?”
“You’re not even such a good designer / photographer.”
“You’re just looking for publicity.”
“I would have never heard about you if they had not stolen your work.”

With such imbeciles, I then have to use the rape-analogy – if someone raped them / their sister and then said the same things as above, wouldn’t THAT be precious.

And no, I am not responsible for your education. If you don’t know that plagiarism, content theft and rape are wrong, then no one can do anything about your education anyway – even sticking a bamboo up your asshole won’t change your views and I don’t give a damn which way your “education” takes you.

“Consider a long term engagement…”
“There’s lots more work where this is coming from…”
“We’re from the same school / B-School / Residential society…”
“I know your Dad / grandfather / mother / sister…”
“Price is not the same as 5 years ago…”
“How do I know you won’t run away with my money…”
“We never pay an advance…”
“We’ll never work with another designer…”
“No one charges per photograph…”
“Throw in the stationery for free…”
“We should go out for dinner…”
“Your designs aren’t THAT good…”
“I’ll draw something, you just tell me whether it’s good…”
“My Photoshop skills are rusty, otherwise…”
“But the other designer is only charging x…”
“You only have to Google it & you’ll get thousands of designs…”
“Design is not a matter of life & death…”

I say, design should be charged like photography is charged – royalty fees. That would put things in perspective. Each time they use their logo, I get paid.

I think the internet might be depressing me more than my hormonal shifts.

The more time I spend my friends or even strangers and engage in real conversation and exchanges, the happier I seem. The moment I realize I need to get back to the desk to check email and respond to various queries online, I feel sad. And the sadness deepens the closer I get to the laptop and the internet.

In the last five years, whatever business I ave gotten has been vis online contacts and things like my website, online portfolio, Facebook & their business pages, Twitter, blogging, LinkedIn etc. This seems to be on the decline though, which makes it less lucrative for me to be online looking for work.

Funky that I am writing about my internet depression on the internet itself. I think we will go back to the offline with a vengeance – and if we already are, then I am obviously missing those meetups.

You’re a well-respected professional in your area of expertise. You’re on a public forum – like Twitter / Facebook. There is another well-respected professional in the same area of expertise but this person is a whole lot bigger than you are. And you ask them publicly what they think of your work / blog post / article / comment. You’re an idiot.

Insider tip : if you’re genuinely expecting a response, send them an email. Most people who are big online have their email addresses listed for everyone to access. Of course, if you’re just sucking-up and you know you’re sucking-up, bravo!

“Let me start by asking you a question… why is Obama in India?”

Do I look like I care?

I don’t care who is the president of any country or which political party rules anything. It does not bother me that I do not vote and I do not intend to vote ever. I pay my taxes not because I need to be a good citizen to contribute to my country’s development but because I’m frightened of the consequences of not doing so.

The two things that rule the world are religion and money – more the latter than the former. The former is more a driver / means of providing more control to the latter. Every human being is only interfacing for making more money. To me it doesn’t matter who that person is.

It is all about the money.