On a day of Mow-gleeing around in the Delhi-hot month of April, Mowgli was lured by Daisey and Balloo with the promise of a cup of tea, a bushel of bananas and a mirror (Admittedly, Mowgli’s best friend lives in the mirror and has fabulous biceps. Mowgli could spend hours just looking at his best friend)!!
But Mowgli was in for a surprise! He was given all that he hoped to get, but was then confronted … With what was an Idea!
Balloo and Daisey had been planning it out for days. There was also a hidden hand in their plot. That of Dexter, the narcissistic genius.
They interrupted him in his leering at the bananas, and he had to comply in the presence of the more civil toons. “Look at this”, said Daisey, pointing at an idiot box, which real people call “a computer”, her big eyes gleaming with anticipation. Balloo stood behind Mowgli with a toothy grin, a tummy-apart, and peering over Mowgli’s head at the screen.
Mowgli was transfixed now, thoughts of a past life started rolling in his mind’s eyes like a celluloid reel. Days spent in a land far far away, at a time back back in the space-time continuum. Those were days when he wore formals, wrote long e-mails, developed codes and did lots of things. Things which he then thought of as harbingers of a crappy life were now coming back to him as romantic thoughts.
The intoxicating smell of bananas was not alluring anymore. The friend in the mirror turned out to be a mere reflection. On the screen was a demo webpage, one of a planned website called PCS India Portal. A code-let in Mowli’s head executed, it said:
window.open(“<http://www.back2humanways.com>”).
In the hours that passed, a flourish of imaginations and possibilities kept the three friends occupied. 27th May, the day they were to be done with their own UPSC prelims was decided as the day of action. 9th June, the day of the Chhattisgarh PSC prelims was to be the D-day. PCS India portal was to be up and running by 5thJune.
After a rush of imaginations, Mowgli was back to civil ways, and Balloo ever so jolly, were standing outside, in the balcony, sipping tea and discussing cricket and MS Dhoni for a change, when a Honda Civic went past on the road below. Mowgli looked at the Civic blankly and thought out aloud, “I’ll buy a black BMW M3 convertible”. As he turned around, he found a tummy shaking wildly as Balloo, the toon that belonged to the tummy laughed uncontrollably.
27th May, The day of Action: Daisey had left for Duck-a-bad, her home town, for a couple of days but Dexter the narcissistic genius was now here. The mission was in the “Go” mode. Pages after pages were designed and readied. Online news-papers from as far back as Jan 2012 were scanned and articles collected to be uploaded on to the website.
Everyday Balloo and Mowgli would spend a couple of hours imagining what was to come, while Dexter would be hooked on his first love, the computer and never let go. Dexter would occasionally interrupt Balloo’s and Mowgli’s flight of imagination with, “Tumlog dunno ekdum bekaar admi log hai! Khaali sapna dekhte rehta hai, kuchh kaam nai karta hai.”
Daisey was back after a week even though she had left for a “couple of days”, as is the rule of Duck-a-baad. “Trips are never planned, they just happen.” She got back all excited and chubbied up, having fed on mumma’s love served through delicacies (Indian moms…!!)
Then the fun began!!
Dexter would be stuck to the computer screen, adoring her, downloading softwares, learning how to use the softwares, working with softwares, getting frustrated when the software did not do what he wanted them to do, so searching for new softwares, downloadin softwares…. And the process continued till the miracle of technology, the computer, known for speed, would challenge snails for sucking at speed, which is when he would say, “Ab hum gussa gaye hain!” and un-install the softwares. And then… the cycle was started afresh.
Every couple of hours Dexter would turn around and say, “Is site ko hum itna gajab bana denge ki tumlog paglaa jaayega!”. Balloo and Mowgli, nearing the end of a string of imaginations would then be re-injected with thoughts and re-entered a cycle of imaginations.
Balloo had earlier applied for a registration of the company and Daisey had suggested the name “Snotra Technologies”. Snotra was the name of the Goddess of Wisdom in the Norse mythology. Everybody immediately liked the name and Balloo applied for a registration. Daisey would hereafter spend hours talking to friends on FB, sending e-mails to people near and far informing them about the new venture, and chuckling happily whenever someone congratulated her.
Mowgli would suddenly shout at her, “Tum khaali FB karti hai na, koi kaam nai karti.” A startled and hurt Daisey would turn around and say, “Ye important kaam hai, isse publicity hoti hai… Aur tum ek number ka chor hai!!” A heated fight ensued. This happened every other day. Still happens… regularly. So much so, that the Daisey-Mowgli fights are almost a ritual now.
Balloo and Daisey would download raw dumps of reports, studies etc to be uploaded as study materials on the website. Mowgli would do some backend coding, while Balloo handled the logistics. Occasionally Balloo would find a ball of paper, wind a rubber-band around it, find a hanger, a stick or anything that resembled a bat and have a game of cricket with Mowgli. Dexter and Daisey shouted at them at the top of their voices, as the paper-ball flew past their bodies or computer screens. The games are still on, but Balloo and Mowgli have graduated from paper balls to a yellow stress-ball with a smiley and from broken hangers to a broken mop-handle!!
Office-Office: One day Balloo came and announced that he had booked a place for an office. Everybody was excited. Dexter was so excited that he “looked up”!!! He stopped doing what he was doing and looked up to ask, “Kitna bada hai?” Balloo replied with a “Bahut bada hai!!”
Daisey and Mowgli planned that they would pull their formals out of the closet and wear formals to the office every day. Balloo said he’d only wear suits!!
The next morning, Mowgli along with Balloo were mopping the floors of the office space, smeared with distemper after a fresh whitewash. Mowgli was wearing a white t-shirt and track pants, now turned black and brown and yellow with all the sweat and dust. It made a dirty pattern, appearing to complain to all on-lookers, “This man has violated me.” Balloo was wearing a ¾ with a torn pocket and a t-shirt with some holes. Colours indistinguishable!
Trapped in the NET:The web-pages were ready, the office was decked with new glossy furniture, new computers, everything nice and shiny!
Balloo, Dexter and Mowgli went to get a corporate internet connection. The service provider had offered a 16 Mbps connection at Rs 3500/- per month with a guaranteed zero downtime. The internet roared! Dexter downloaded 3 full movies in less than 15 minutes. Dexter had found Elysium!
The service providers called Balloo to their office to make the payments after the internet was activated. While Balloo was away, Mowgli, Daisey and Dexter were enjoying the fruits of a fast internet, downloading movies, watching movies live on Youtube, playing online games and doing everything deemed outrageous over the internet. But suddenly, the online movies started to buffer, the downloads showed “2 years 163 days” as the estimated time for completion. They were just about to shrug it off as a temporary glitch when Balloo entered and informed, “Abey yaar, 3500/- per Mbps per month thha. 50,000/- ka advance-payment maang raha thha. 2Mbps ka connection le liye. 7000/- de ke aa rahe hain.”
The D-Day:It was 9th June. The D-day was here! The site was up. It was the most beautiful thing the quad had ever seen… so it seemed. They could’ve looked at it for hours at a stretch and yet not felt a hint of burn in their eyes. They were all mesmerized!
The Chhattisgarh PSC question papers had arrived. The answers were being worked out. The quad was raring to upload the answers and see the response. A lot of publicity had been done in and around Delhi and in Chhattisgarh. Students were informed that answer keys will be uploaded on the day of the exam. A counter was set on the PCS India Portal website to assess the traffic.
As promised to the aspirants, the answers were uploaded on the website by 7:00 pm, and then time stopped!
After what seemed to be a year, it was 7:30 pm and the counter read only 0000145. Mowgli wisely said, “Huh… So around a hundred visits. Not bad for starters.”The four sat and wrung their heads over how to increase traffic, where we were probably left wanting, how to publicize better etc. At around 8:00 pm, Daisey refreshed the home page and WOOW!!... The counter showed 0001337. She could not help a wide grin from breaking her corporate-composure. The grin turned to a chuckle when she refreshed it again after a minute. 0001478 it showed. 0001983… 0002213… 0004867…. The four were stuck to the screens for the next couple of hours,F5 seemed to be the only key of which they had any knowledge. The counter read more than 6000 by that night. Over the next three days, it crossed 16K hits!!
Snotra Now:A month has passed by. Days together have been spent upgrading PCS India Portal. Dexter has made the office his home. He even sleeps there! Balloo and Mowgli have done many night-outs in office while Daisey logs in from home.
The website is now four times as big in terms of the number of pages and features enabled, from when it came alive. And yet some of the most powerful features are being worked on and will be live in a few days.
The chubby-looking Daisey with big eyes is now “only eyes”. Balloo’s tummy is out of here and is replaced by a rather strange looking flat gift-of-fortune, which gives him an unfamiliar dude-ical look. Mowgli gets cramps if he tries to jump around, he’s lost some bulk and gained civility. Dexter’s hairs always seem to be standing on ends as if waving to others and saying, “Here I am!”
But for all of them, life was never more fun, labour never so satisfying and pain, never so sweet, as now, being in the company of friends, working with and for each other, creating something new!!
The joy of being together and the conviction of the quad in their ideas is intact and getting stronger. Snotra Technologies is here to stay, to grow, to prosper and to invite and accommodate many more into the friendship!!
( Mowgli, Daisey, Baloo and Dexter are real-life human entities and Snotra is a real company. PCS India Portal is a real portal and this is a real story)
But Mowgli was in for a surprise! He was given all that he hoped to get, but was then confronted … With what was an Idea!
Balloo and Daisey had been planning it out for days. There was also a hidden hand in their plot. That of Dexter, the narcissistic genius.
They interrupted him in his leering at the bananas, and he had to comply in the presence of the more civil toons. “Look at this”, said Daisey, pointing at an idiot box, which real people call “a computer”, her big eyes gleaming with anticipation. Balloo stood behind Mowgli with a toothy grin, a tummy-apart, and peering over Mowgli’s head at the screen.
Mowgli was transfixed now, thoughts of a past life started rolling in his mind’s eyes like a celluloid reel. Days spent in a land far far away, at a time back back in the space-time continuum. Those were days when he wore formals, wrote long e-mails, developed codes and did lots of things. Things which he then thought of as harbingers of a crappy life were now coming back to him as romantic thoughts.
The intoxicating smell of bananas was not alluring anymore. The friend in the mirror turned out to be a mere reflection. On the screen was a demo webpage, one of a planned website called PCS India Portal. A code-let in Mowli’s head executed, it said:
window.open(“<http://www.back2humanways.com>”).
In the hours that passed, a flourish of imaginations and possibilities kept the three friends occupied. 27th May, the day they were to be done with their own UPSC prelims was decided as the day of action. 9th June, the day of the Chhattisgarh PSC prelims was to be the D-day. PCS India portal was to be up and running by 5thJune.
After a rush of imaginations, Mowgli was back to civil ways, and Balloo ever so jolly, were standing outside, in the balcony, sipping tea and discussing cricket and MS Dhoni for a change, when a Honda Civic went past on the road below. Mowgli looked at the Civic blankly and thought out aloud, “I’ll buy a black BMW M3 convertible”. As he turned around, he found a tummy shaking wildly as Balloo, the toon that belonged to the tummy laughed uncontrollably.
27th May, The day of Action: Daisey had left for Duck-a-bad, her home town, for a couple of days but Dexter the narcissistic genius was now here. The mission was in the “Go” mode. Pages after pages were designed and readied. Online news-papers from as far back as Jan 2012 were scanned and articles collected to be uploaded on to the website.
Everyday Balloo and Mowgli would spend a couple of hours imagining what was to come, while Dexter would be hooked on his first love, the computer and never let go. Dexter would occasionally interrupt Balloo’s and Mowgli’s flight of imagination with, “Tumlog dunno ekdum bekaar admi log hai! Khaali sapna dekhte rehta hai, kuchh kaam nai karta hai.”
Daisey was back after a week even though she had left for a “couple of days”, as is the rule of Duck-a-baad. “Trips are never planned, they just happen.” She got back all excited and chubbied up, having fed on mumma’s love served through delicacies (Indian moms…!!)
Then the fun began!!
Dexter would be stuck to the computer screen, adoring her, downloading softwares, learning how to use the softwares, working with softwares, getting frustrated when the software did not do what he wanted them to do, so searching for new softwares, downloadin softwares…. And the process continued till the miracle of technology, the computer, known for speed, would challenge snails for sucking at speed, which is when he would say, “Ab hum gussa gaye hain!” and un-install the softwares. And then… the cycle was started afresh.
Every couple of hours Dexter would turn around and say, “Is site ko hum itna gajab bana denge ki tumlog paglaa jaayega!”. Balloo and Mowgli, nearing the end of a string of imaginations would then be re-injected with thoughts and re-entered a cycle of imaginations.
Balloo had earlier applied for a registration of the company and Daisey had suggested the name “Snotra Technologies”. Snotra was the name of the Goddess of Wisdom in the Norse mythology. Everybody immediately liked the name and Balloo applied for a registration. Daisey would hereafter spend hours talking to friends on FB, sending e-mails to people near and far informing them about the new venture, and chuckling happily whenever someone congratulated her.
Mowgli would suddenly shout at her, “Tum khaali FB karti hai na, koi kaam nai karti.” A startled and hurt Daisey would turn around and say, “Ye important kaam hai, isse publicity hoti hai… Aur tum ek number ka chor hai!!” A heated fight ensued. This happened every other day. Still happens… regularly. So much so, that the Daisey-Mowgli fights are almost a ritual now.
Balloo and Daisey would download raw dumps of reports, studies etc to be uploaded as study materials on the website. Mowgli would do some backend coding, while Balloo handled the logistics. Occasionally Balloo would find a ball of paper, wind a rubber-band around it, find a hanger, a stick or anything that resembled a bat and have a game of cricket with Mowgli. Dexter and Daisey shouted at them at the top of their voices, as the paper-ball flew past their bodies or computer screens. The games are still on, but Balloo and Mowgli have graduated from paper balls to a yellow stress-ball with a smiley and from broken hangers to a broken mop-handle!!
Office-Office: One day Balloo came and announced that he had booked a place for an office. Everybody was excited. Dexter was so excited that he “looked up”!!! He stopped doing what he was doing and looked up to ask, “Kitna bada hai?” Balloo replied with a “Bahut bada hai!!”
Daisey and Mowgli planned that they would pull their formals out of the closet and wear formals to the office every day. Balloo said he’d only wear suits!!
The next morning, Mowgli along with Balloo were mopping the floors of the office space, smeared with distemper after a fresh whitewash. Mowgli was wearing a white t-shirt and track pants, now turned black and brown and yellow with all the sweat and dust. It made a dirty pattern, appearing to complain to all on-lookers, “This man has violated me.” Balloo was wearing a ¾ with a torn pocket and a t-shirt with some holes. Colours indistinguishable!
Trapped in the NET:The web-pages were ready, the office was decked with new glossy furniture, new computers, everything nice and shiny!
Balloo, Dexter and Mowgli went to get a corporate internet connection. The service provider had offered a 16 Mbps connection at Rs 3500/- per month with a guaranteed zero downtime. The internet roared! Dexter downloaded 3 full movies in less than 15 minutes. Dexter had found Elysium!
The service providers called Balloo to their office to make the payments after the internet was activated. While Balloo was away, Mowgli, Daisey and Dexter were enjoying the fruits of a fast internet, downloading movies, watching movies live on Youtube, playing online games and doing everything deemed outrageous over the internet. But suddenly, the online movies started to buffer, the downloads showed “2 years 163 days” as the estimated time for completion. They were just about to shrug it off as a temporary glitch when Balloo entered and informed, “Abey yaar, 3500/- per Mbps per month thha. 50,000/- ka advance-payment maang raha thha. 2Mbps ka connection le liye. 7000/- de ke aa rahe hain.”
The D-Day:It was 9th June. The D-day was here! The site was up. It was the most beautiful thing the quad had ever seen… so it seemed. They could’ve looked at it for hours at a stretch and yet not felt a hint of burn in their eyes. They were all mesmerized!
The Chhattisgarh PSC question papers had arrived. The answers were being worked out. The quad was raring to upload the answers and see the response. A lot of publicity had been done in and around Delhi and in Chhattisgarh. Students were informed that answer keys will be uploaded on the day of the exam. A counter was set on the PCS India Portal website to assess the traffic.
As promised to the aspirants, the answers were uploaded on the website by 7:00 pm, and then time stopped!
After what seemed to be a year, it was 7:30 pm and the counter read only 0000145. Mowgli wisely said, “Huh… So around a hundred visits. Not bad for starters.”The four sat and wrung their heads over how to increase traffic, where we were probably left wanting, how to publicize better etc. At around 8:00 pm, Daisey refreshed the home page and WOOW!!... The counter showed 0001337. She could not help a wide grin from breaking her corporate-composure. The grin turned to a chuckle when she refreshed it again after a minute. 0001478 it showed. 0001983… 0002213… 0004867…. The four were stuck to the screens for the next couple of hours,F5 seemed to be the only key of which they had any knowledge. The counter read more than 6000 by that night. Over the next three days, it crossed 16K hits!!
Snotra Now:A month has passed by. Days together have been spent upgrading PCS India Portal. Dexter has made the office his home. He even sleeps there! Balloo and Mowgli have done many night-outs in office while Daisey logs in from home.
The website is now four times as big in terms of the number of pages and features enabled, from when it came alive. And yet some of the most powerful features are being worked on and will be live in a few days.
The chubby-looking Daisey with big eyes is now “only eyes”. Balloo’s tummy is out of here and is replaced by a rather strange looking flat gift-of-fortune, which gives him an unfamiliar dude-ical look. Mowgli gets cramps if he tries to jump around, he’s lost some bulk and gained civility. Dexter’s hairs always seem to be standing on ends as if waving to others and saying, “Here I am!”
But for all of them, life was never more fun, labour never so satisfying and pain, never so sweet, as now, being in the company of friends, working with and for each other, creating something new!!
The joy of being together and the conviction of the quad in their ideas is intact and getting stronger. Snotra Technologies is here to stay, to grow, to prosper and to invite and accommodate many more into the friendship!!
( Mowgli, Daisey, Baloo and Dexter are real-life human entities and Snotra is a real company. PCS India Portal is a real portal and this is a real story)
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