In Vacant or in Pensive Mood

One weekend, I was trying out a feature I didn’t quite understand in my computer, and so I clicked the ‘Help’ link. A popup help window opened, and as I was reading through it, I found myself constantly thinking about the technical writer who must have published it. The faceless, nameless author of the Help content would have put in several hours of research, relentlessly pursued the developers and SMEs (subject-matter experts) for information, made over a hundred calls, and sent an equally overwhelming number of mails to clarify details. At the same time, this technical writer would have also had to deal with a pushy project manager from the developing team who believes that technical writing is the simplest job in the world, pressing deadlines to the writer’s face without giving a second’s thought to the fact that he himself couldn’t, if he tried, write to save his life! While the usual claim is that the Help document looks simple and understandable, and so must be easy to write...

Once again, I managed to drag myself out of bed, bathe in heated water, dress up in a hurry, partially comb my wet hair, and finally rush to the bus stop at 6:45 am. My earrings and safety pins were still clenched in my fist, and the things inside the bag slung over my shoulder lay cluttered as I pulled out my ID card and wore it around my neck. The bus would be there any minute. The bus arrived at 6:50 am, and I boarded it with a smile, and waded through the aisle as I looked for a place to sit. Coming to two empty seats adjacent to each other, I dropped my bag into the first one, and slid my own self into the other one by the window. I opened out the closed window and immediately felt content as the pleasant morning breeze made its way in. Quickly, I organized the things in my bag, put on my earrings, pinned up my clothes wherever necessary, opened out my hair and combed it lightly. Then I adjusted my seat to just the right position; pushed back so that I could lean comfortably,...

Walking towards my office building one morning, I looked skyward and noticed a few eagles soaring overhead. As I watched them, I was reminded of the white-chested sea eagles I had seen at the Vandaloor Zoo a few days ago. I tried to see if the eagles soaring above me were also white-chested. But they were way too far up for me to see the colour of their chests. I stood there for some time, looking up and thinking how much fun it must be to fly that high up and not even bother to flap your wings. Even as I thought this, my mind switched back to a picture of the eagles in the zoo, and the contrast stung me. I felt a little sad for the eagles in the zoo, for obvious reasons; they don’t get to do those fly-highs they must be so good at. All they get to do is to perch on low branches all day and stare at people who stare back at them or click their pictures. But then again, I argued with myself positively, the eagles in the zoo are being taken good care of. They are all well-fed and ha...