Catalysts for catalyst of change

My expertise in design is as limited as Steve Jobs' pancreas was to his longevity. I'm a copywriter. I wordplay for a living but every once in a while, i encounter situations where i get to peek into the epicness that is design. Well, design is nothing without words to describe it, isn't it? But that's for another blog post. As for now, let's concentrate on the non-verbal part. Think about it. Every little thing that you see or use or experience has something or the other to do with design. Basically, everybody is a blind slave to someone's design. You don't decide how your water-bottle is going to be shaped like. It could very well resemble Monica Bellucci's curves or flatter Kate Moss' waferness. Somebody else designed that bottle for you. The same principle applies to so many other things that we put to use in our day-to-day life. From the plates we eat from to the cars we drive in to the desk we spend our entire day on to the social networking sites we swear by—all of them owe their existence to designers. People we never get to know. They work quietly behind the scene with minimum fuss. But they shape our world. Just like an architect dreams of capturing a piece of sky with his buildings, these designers hope to influence the way we look at things (or better still, change the way we look at things!). What sets a designer apart from the rest is they can binge on originality without having to worry about repeating themselves. Let's call it the designer's touch. He'll go back to his designing board again and again and again, hoping to churn out something that reminds you of something else but not exactly. There's no such a thing as original idea and nobody knows that more succinctly than designers. They can't afford to live on the false premise of absolute creation. You can only push the wheel forward because the wheel is already invented. You can't claim to reinvent wheel either. I know this because of my association with some wonderful/promising designers like Akshar, Vivek, Nitish, Vishal, Jas, Bilal and Arpit. These guys are young and full of ideas. Out in the market, there are many more like them who appear careless but are fiddling with the very make-up on the face of our world. 

Farewell sucks

I knew this day was coming. Just that i pretended otherwise. You don't want a good event to be interrupted because you are SO used to it. Which is also why you never take a break and wonder how things are going to be after the closing of an episode.

As this evening is drawing towards the night, it also marks my last working day with Akshar as a colleague. He's quitting the company on Friday and i'm going on a study leave from tomorrow onwards so this is it. Speaking of which, i should have ideally completed my PhD by the age of 26, especially when Shashi Tharoor earned his at 22! I'm 29 and am about to appear for the fourth (and final) semester of MA. I don't think PhD is ever going to happen.

Coming back to Akshar, it's been a delight working with him. He's a fabulous guy. A rare breed, actually. For the past six months or so, i've spent on an average 10+ hours with him per working day. Although there's hardly anything common between us (other than our love for movies and drum beats in songs), it was more than easy to be with him. Or should i say, it was much easier for him to crack jokes on me which i heartily laughed at? He is a restless soul who finds calm in music. Regardless, the thing about him is he lets you be. He neither forces anything on others nor lets other force anything on him. For a 25-year-old, he's achieved quite a lot in a relatively short period of time but somehow manages to not let popularity get into his system. And i firmly believe that's how a creative person should roll in today's world of overexposure.

I don't know about others but i'm going to miss him a lot. In fact, nobody else in this building shall miss him as much as i will. It'd be odd to turn to my right on Monday, dragging my chair sideways, only to not find him there with his blaring headphones on. But i guess i'll get used to that as well.  

भ se bhookh, फ se food

Zomato is all about food. It's not just India's only global app but closer home, it has perhaps one of the coolest offices in India. I'm in the middle of my fourth month with this awesome company and i must say i've never been more impressed. People are amazing to me and i don't blame them because without my beard, i must be the prettiest person in the building. Furthermore, since i'm part of the marketing team with a keenness on social media, i'm observing a world i didn't know existed during my earlier stints as English teacher, business transcriber and film journo. No, no, i haven't changed as such but it's a pleasant surprise to see yourself amid unprecedented growth in the food sector. Remember, the Shettys own 3 out of 4 restaurants in Mumbai? I guess it was destiny. (Related trivia: The tech side of F&B industry in India is STILL at its nascent stage though which makes it doubly exciting!) In the coming days, you'll see more and more people using food apps not only for browsing restaurants but also ordering online. That's inevitable. Foodie or no foodie, everybody's going to make the most of the available platforms. And why wouldn't we? When the cellphone made an entry at the turn of the century, who could have assumed that it'd become an essential part of our existence? Thanks to the impetus provided by the Internet, things have only escalated on the tech front, thus providing newer avenues for upcoming players. No wonder Instagramming food has become more important than tasting it first to check whether it's worth taking a picture. Who doesn't like to call themselves a foodie nowadays? Although it'd be misleading to call myself a foodie, i enjoy the awesome free food that my job entails. The best part being i don't even have to step out of the office. Gurgaon is the perfect mix of unsettling dust, filthy pigs, sweltering summer, rude autowallahs, bored cows, corporate residents and farce. But if i were to juxtapose all these elements with my job, it's quite a fair deal. 

If you've got the hunger—metaphorically as well as literally—to do something memorable with your time in the world of startups, i'd strongly suggest you to check out our careers page. Who knows you too might write a blog post someday that would get you fired?