For as long as I have known myself as a kid, I wanted to become this jetsetting, corporate suit type person who would have a swanky office, a fancy car and a beach house! I din’t really know what my profession would be and how I would go about things, but everytime someone asked me what I wanted to become when I grew up, the answers varied, but the image in my mind remained!

All this came to a grinding halt and my life took a completely new turn and path when I joined engineering college. While to many, the college I studied in was stifling and non-encouraging (it was in a way!), for me it was a whole new world that had opened up! And as the icing on the cake, I joined a band! a good one at that

From here on, I wanted to be a musician and a person on the field and not at a desk, I din’t want that office anymore, I would love the car and the beach house, but I could not wear a suit to save my life! and I din’t want there to be a day when I would be forced to (I know *EXACTLY* what you are thinking!). Infact, I completely subscribed to the “Success is never having to wear a suit!” philosophy.

But when you graduate with a degree that reads, Bachelor of Engineering, Computer Science, the most logical thing to do is to get a job that uses what they teach you and hope you will figure out life from there on somehow. And I did get that job, but I could never really figure life out!

I continued to do my music, started getting active online, and slowly, things outside my work life started to get a LOT more interesting! Even at work, I was probably the only person who joined as a software developer and then transitioned out of it! Everyone else was trying to do the reverse!

When I started playing with Raghu, a whole new world opened up to me and for the first time, I saw the possiblity to make a living with music and the music biz! It was through Raghu, that I met Vijay Nair, to whom I owe a large part of what is happening with my career today.

On a whim one day, I called Vijay and told him that I had enough with the IT industry, and that I would quit in a month and see what I can do, and if I did not do this now, there would be chance for me to try and I must give it my best shot atleast once! It was then that Vijay introduced me to Derek Sivers who was looking at that time for someone to head a company that he was looking to start called ‘Muckwork‘.

Well, Derek was travelling at that time and we just started a prelimnary set of email discussions about what each of us was looking to do and I got busy with a tour of South Asia with the band and perhaps as a sign of how international this company was supposed to get, my first real phone call with Derek happened at 2 AM in a hotel in Vladivostok, Russia when he was calling me from the US of A! And it was partly on my hotel phone and partly on Skype .. Perfect

Well, that call went on for 2 hours and was followed by over a month and a half of emails and ideas bouncing around and finally led to both of us feeling like it was a perfect fit that I work for Muckwork.

The rest of it was just procedure with the paperwork getting done and me finally getting out of IT and on December 1st, 2008, started work as the Vice President of Muckwork.

This is the basic gist, in a very random and rambly way, the story of how this twist in my career came to be.

The job itself is a learning curve like no other, but I have never loved the concept of ‘working’ as much as now! so it looks like a fun exciting time ahead from here. Wish me luck

Charu was infinitely cool and really level headed in all situations and in the last year or so, finally managed to stoop down to my level of humor

The photographer they had originally hired to do this din’t work out and so I stepped up to take some shots! This is one of our conference rooms / code rooms where general meetings and code evaluations etc are done .. This is completely staged but then, I started clicking much before they expected me to and so it turned out quite alright!

On other fronts, the British Council finally announced the award last week. Check it out! I am supposed to meet with them next week for some discussions and some interesting projects both of us have in mind

RadioVeRVe looks dormant to the world but there has never been so much action happening in the background as it is now … and the fruits of it will be seen very very soon! Don’t lose the faith yet

On the music front, the band is taking a well deserved break before we launch into tour mode again by the end of this month and from then on its going to be madness!!

So this phase of my life can be called ‘the calm before the storm’!

Our million long chats about absolutely everything in the world were so entertaining … we would just break into different tangents and bitch about everyone and everything in the world!!

She is so full of life and is one of the only ones who is more optimistic than me and at the same time the most pessimistic person in the whole world and you will never notice the switch!

She is destined for much greater things and is well on her way to getting them

Looking forward to someday working together again in a corporate environment!