Not Being Sarkari

Insightful post on Lateral Thinking blog

  

Your Inner Whining Artist (IWA) is the part of you that tells you you’re a genius waiting to be discovered. If only the big bad world would sit up and recognise your talent, the IWA tells you, all your problems would be over. Audiences and critics would bow at your feet, agents would queue up to represent you, and all the people who’d ever rejected your work would be gorging themselves on humble pie. You just need to get your break, to be discovered. It can only be a matter of time …

 This is so true about so many bloggers from India (may be worldwide) as well. Check out any blogging forum and you will notice all bloggers have a feeling that they have one of the best blog in their genre (yours truly is no different). Their content is far superior than every other blog present. Their blog content has everything which can translate into best-seller. Next blockbuster will be because of their blog.  Most bloggers are waiting for that right moment. Right time when a stroke of luck will change their blog into a money spinner instrument. Everybody is waiting to be discovered. Nobody wants to be left out.  With more than 9,00,000 blogs are getting added every 24 hours, this seems to be a wishful thinking. What say? Does anyone have a chance of making big? Yes.  Bloggers writing for themselves. Bloggers not writing to please audience who regularly or occasionally comments on their blog. Bloggers writing original and interesting stuff. Bloggers challenging status quo.  But then this is true for individuals as well. After all blogs derive personality from the individuals behind them.

I have registered Aloo Kachalu under Creative Commons License.

Means? In case you want to use Aloo Kachalu on your blog, feel free to do so. Please give credits by linking back. Do not alter image. Okay, you can re-size it according to your needs.

Feel free to pass it on to your friends. Let us see, if it inspires anyone to do good for customers. Or bring a smile on someone's face. Or someone uses it in entirely creative way. Like framing it and putting up on desk, putting it on a computer desktop. Just thinking aloud...

Let me know...

It was the month of April in 2009. Economic downturn was at its peak (downturn and peak...what an irony). Increments were not in sight. Incentives were not given because of bad overall economic situation. In fact, holding onto a job was luxury for some.

I was sitting in a restaurant watching an IPL match and waiting for friends. With few pegs of alcohol inside me, I scribbled something on a piece of napkin. Soon, friends arrived, more alcohol went in and napkin got lost somewhere in the mayhem. But the idea remained with me.

I started to visualize certain characters. As I am not good at drawing/painting, I tried to do something simpler. Learnt little bit about cartoon drawing softwares, took sometime to learn about their basics etc. I cannot ignore the guidance given by Sid, a blogger friend. Sid a cartoonist himself, helped me in giving some raw knowledge on drawing cartoons. I also stumbled upon wonderful sites of two cartoonists - here and here.

The name 'Aloo Kachalu' stuck to me for a couple of reasons. I personally feel, Aloo which means potato is a highly non-bureaucratic vegetable. It can be cooked in any form - baked, boiled, roasted etc. It can be eaten in numerous forms - stuffed paranthas, in any curry, in rice, in snacks etc. Aloo can be put into anything and it makes a difference in every dish it goes into.

The other character, Kachalu (arbi/Colocasia Root), is also a vegetable and I feel this is highly bureaucratic. It usually leave a sticky layer or lace like thing, if not cooked carefully. Very difficult to cook. Means, highly bureaucratic. Cannot be easily modified according to customer's need. Both of them gelled very well with the overall philosophy of this blog.

And, yes they rhymed well.

Once everything was in place, I made a couple of Aloo Kachalus and showed to my friends. They found them cute.

I decided to go one step further. I started sending a weekly Aloo Kachalu to my team members. Couple of them came back to me saying 'they liked it and are looking forward to it'.

Then I started publishing it on my blog. Some of my blogger friends also said some wonderful things about it.

And I decided to stay with it and hone this new found passion more. As they say in Punjabi, panga le leya.

Just thought of sharing with you guys. As usual, keep giving me your feedback.