Virtual Satya
Satya’s own website! The idea seemed far-fetched and preposterous and Satya said so to his friend who insists that Satya must immediately grab the domain name www.satyabratadam.com Satya’s logic is simple, why a personal website and who would be interested? A (Satya’s ever faithful computer geek friend) further insists that many around the globe would be keen to follow him and his stupid insane exploits and would want to know what in general is happening with him once he is out of the Navy. But I am not a celebrity, people only follow celebrities and their bovine tantrums, Satya persists. Well my friend, you are, A chips in, and if you are not we would make you one and getting a website is the first step towards it. That jolts Satya’s self esteem a bit; and he retorts, but I am a kind of non-conformist (he didn’t want to mention the word ‘celebrity’) in my own field, after all people pay for my airfare, boarding and lodging and something on the sides from many countries just to hear me talk, something that my Indian friends ask me not to do. They argue and eventually when A realizes that Satya is slowly gaining on him he barks with the finality of Nostradamus: just do it and it costs less than 500 rupees annually. That nailed the coffin for Satya. For a miser like him, money is a big thing when it is mentioned in small quantities. So Satya logs into A’s preferred domain purchasing site Godaddy the next day and buys www.satyabratadam.com paying by a credit card that was a gift from someone. He is pleased and so is A that Satya managed a .com domain name and no less, which in reality only proved that there was only one gullible loser in the world called Satyabrata Dam. But when Satya receives the confirmatory email from Daddy saying that now he is the rightful owner of the domain name www.satyabratadam.com at least for the next 365 days he feels some amount of pride pushing his chest from inside making his shirt buttons pop silently. Less than a day later he promptly forgets all about it and that’s where the website remains immobile till one day someone literally sashayed into Satya’s life.
Weeks and months passed, sun went around or rather we went around the sun, and Satya’s domain name remained only that, a name, a figment of virtual reality, a domain that could have been his but would never be. A, the good and persistent friend that he is, once in a while did try to flog the dormant idea with Satya but Satya always avoided the main topic by asking about A’s ongoing sci-fi novel or his latest photography ventures. But as they say every idea has its time and every dreamer does wake up one day. To cut a very long novel into few lines, time and destiny brought Satya to the Gujarat capital of Ahmadabad in late 2009 and just days before he would depart from there, never to return again (early 2010) he stumbles upon a brilliant graphic designer M at a Holi (Hindu festival of color) gathering and become friends. He saw her work and liked the way she dealt with colors, ideas and pictures. As his impending departure from the Navy loomed nearer and nearer Satya toyed with the idea of how to do nothing and still keep the appearance of doing something. A resumed his www.satyabratadam.com campaign with Satya with renewed vigor as if God had appointed him to get the task done. Satya discussed the idea with M since she also designs websites and told her that whatever he did in life has to be unique, whacky and deceptive like him. She surprised him by taking up the challenge and got down to work. Ideas and pictures and texts as well as despairs and desperations followed. She put her best staff on the job. She got hold of the techie guy who would bundle the entire thing in codes and mysterious binary form.
Satya is a born escapist and never does a thing that cannot be done by short cut, which means with minimum efforts on his part. So right at the moment when everything seemed ready to go up in utter pandemonium he ran away for a long expedition while connecting M with his computer consultant A (who works for Satya free since it adds to his elitist status). Satya’s logic again was simple; since these were his friends who claimed that they knew him well (even Satya can’t make that claim) and actually knew what they were talking about (again Satya can’t claim this) and he had nothing further to contribute or distribute towards www.satyabratadam.com so to reduce at least one chef from the kitchen it was time for him to depart. And boy did he disappear! In all this chaos he had completely forgotten that his domain name was nearing expiry. The rest of the story he learnt when he returned to civilization. So I am giving only a gist of it as it happened through conversation between M (designer), A (computer consultant) and B (programmer).
M: Who the hell does he think he is? Disappearing like this, leaving me to do all the dirty work. I am not going to call up any of his friends for testimonials, neither am I going to look at his pictures. He is just a pompous ass, who thinks he can make anyone do anything he wants too. Totally irresponsible, good for nothing useless bum!
A: I agree with you, but he is nice chap too. Can always make you laugh with his jokes. Let’s do it this one time for him. But I really can’t help you much, I am busy with my sci-fi novel and the spaceship has just crashed on Alpha Centauri where you know the gravity is fifty times that on sun so I am trying to figure how to get the spaceship out… maybe I shouldn’t have allowed it to crash land there in the first place. After all I am the writer, but hang on I think it was Satya’s idea, he only told me to crash, but why did I listen to him. I am the author, I am in control… you are right. Let’s forget about www.satyabratadam.com serves him right for crashing me.
M bangs the phone down muttering to herself…. ‘all his friends are loony like him’. She combs her totally unruly hair and looks at the setting sun in despair and then her artistic and philanthropic instincts take the upper hand. She had really liked the challenge of designing a different kind of website for someone as distinct and non-definable as Satya and for the sake of her own creativity she couldn’t just let it go. And she ponders that now that Satya had no visible source of income he would be really poorly off if the website didn’t materialize. She opens her Mac book, goes to Godaddy, buys server space, renews domain name, arranges the pictures, proof reads all the text, sends mails to Satya’s friends for testimonials, in short looses sleep, etc. etc.
Eventually, while the hero of this entire episode is cooling his heels on some Himalayan peak far from the maddening crowds, the trio of M, B and A finally unfurl www.satyabratadam.com to the unsuspecting world. As suspected; absolutely nothing happened, the stock markets remained bullish, no flights got delayed, moon remained in its orbit, in short the world before and after www.satyabratadam.com appeared to be totally identical expect few satisfactory smiles and self-assured pats on the back of MBA.
Soon when Satya returned from his adventure burnt black like charcoal, M calls him up excitedly to tell him about www.satyabratadam.com Satya calls her back in five minutes, ‘It could have been better.’ M fumes and frets and utters with all her restraints, ‘for better or for worse www.satyabratadam.com is here to stay, so you better get used to the idea you stupid oaf.’
With this optimistic note I must now conclude my story. I really can’t claim that the above is true though in my blog I claim that whatever I post is always true, well who knows may be some part of this story is and some of it isn’t – I would let you my worldly-wise readers to be the judge and while judging do keep a large bucket of salt next to you. A had told me once that in the virtual world one percent is belief and ninety nine percent is make belief like his never ending sci-fi novel. But as I am a good friend of Satya, I am now going to sit down and check www.satyabratadam.com and then give you my verdict. Meanwhile you all must go through it and give me yours. In this hour of need we all must stand by with our full support for Satya, even though he may never need it but then he never actually knows what he needs and what he doesn’t. Here’s to MBA and to www.satyabratadam.com
Weeks and months passed, sun went around or rather we went around the sun, and Satya’s domain name remained only that, a name, a figment of virtual reality, a domain that could have been his but would never be. A, the good and persistent friend that he is, once in a while did try to flog the dormant idea with Satya but Satya always avoided the main topic by asking about A’s ongoing sci-fi novel or his latest photography ventures. But as they say every idea has its time and every dreamer does wake up one day. To cut a very long novel into few lines, time and destiny brought Satya to the Gujarat capital of Ahmadabad in late 2009 and just days before he would depart from there, never to return again (early 2010) he stumbles upon a brilliant graphic designer M at a Holi (Hindu festival of color) gathering and become friends. He saw her work and liked the way she dealt with colors, ideas and pictures. As his impending departure from the Navy loomed nearer and nearer Satya toyed with the idea of how to do nothing and still keep the appearance of doing something. A resumed his www.satyabratadam.com campaign with Satya with renewed vigor as if God had appointed him to get the task done. Satya discussed the idea with M since she also designs websites and told her that whatever he did in life has to be unique, whacky and deceptive like him. She surprised him by taking up the challenge and got down to work. Ideas and pictures and texts as well as despairs and desperations followed. She put her best staff on the job. She got hold of the techie guy who would bundle the entire thing in codes and mysterious binary form.
Satya is a born escapist and never does a thing that cannot be done by short cut, which means with minimum efforts on his part. So right at the moment when everything seemed ready to go up in utter pandemonium he ran away for a long expedition while connecting M with his computer consultant A (who works for Satya free since it adds to his elitist status). Satya’s logic again was simple; since these were his friends who claimed that they knew him well (even Satya can’t make that claim) and actually knew what they were talking about (again Satya can’t claim this) and he had nothing further to contribute or distribute towards www.satyabratadam.com so to reduce at least one chef from the kitchen it was time for him to depart. And boy did he disappear! In all this chaos he had completely forgotten that his domain name was nearing expiry. The rest of the story he learnt when he returned to civilization. So I am giving only a gist of it as it happened through conversation between M (designer), A (computer consultant) and B (programmer).
M: Who the hell does he think he is? Disappearing like this, leaving me to do all the dirty work. I am not going to call up any of his friends for testimonials, neither am I going to look at his pictures. He is just a pompous ass, who thinks he can make anyone do anything he wants too. Totally irresponsible, good for nothing useless bum!
A: I agree with you, but he is nice chap too. Can always make you laugh with his jokes. Let’s do it this one time for him. But I really can’t help you much, I am busy with my sci-fi novel and the spaceship has just crashed on Alpha Centauri where you know the gravity is fifty times that on sun so I am trying to figure how to get the spaceship out… maybe I shouldn’t have allowed it to crash land there in the first place. After all I am the writer, but hang on I think it was Satya’s idea, he only told me to crash, but why did I listen to him. I am the author, I am in control… you are right. Let’s forget about www.satyabratadam.com serves him right for crashing me.
M bangs the phone down muttering to herself…. ‘all his friends are loony like him’. She combs her totally unruly hair and looks at the setting sun in despair and then her artistic and philanthropic instincts take the upper hand. She had really liked the challenge of designing a different kind of website for someone as distinct and non-definable as Satya and for the sake of her own creativity she couldn’t just let it go. And she ponders that now that Satya had no visible source of income he would be really poorly off if the website didn’t materialize. She opens her Mac book, goes to Godaddy, buys server space, renews domain name, arranges the pictures, proof reads all the text, sends mails to Satya’s friends for testimonials, in short looses sleep, etc. etc.
Eventually, while the hero of this entire episode is cooling his heels on some Himalayan peak far from the maddening crowds, the trio of M, B and A finally unfurl www.satyabratadam.com to the unsuspecting world. As suspected; absolutely nothing happened, the stock markets remained bullish, no flights got delayed, moon remained in its orbit, in short the world before and after www.satyabratadam.com appeared to be totally identical expect few satisfactory smiles and self-assured pats on the back of MBA.
Soon when Satya returned from his adventure burnt black like charcoal, M calls him up excitedly to tell him about www.satyabratadam.com Satya calls her back in five minutes, ‘It could have been better.’ M fumes and frets and utters with all her restraints, ‘for better or for worse www.satyabratadam.com is here to stay, so you better get used to the idea you stupid oaf.’
With this optimistic note I must now conclude my story. I really can’t claim that the above is true though in my blog I claim that whatever I post is always true, well who knows may be some part of this story is and some of it isn’t – I would let you my worldly-wise readers to be the judge and while judging do keep a large bucket of salt next to you. A had told me once that in the virtual world one percent is belief and ninety nine percent is make belief like his never ending sci-fi novel. But as I am a good friend of Satya, I am now going to sit down and check www.satyabratadam.com and then give you my verdict. Meanwhile you all must go through it and give me yours. In this hour of need we all must stand by with our full support for Satya, even though he may never need it but then he never actually knows what he needs and what he doesn’t. Here’s to MBA and to www.satyabratadam.com
Well congratulations on the launch of your website and may the Gods of Technology take your website from strength to strength :)
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