TVs come, TVs go

So then we proudly bring home the new member of our family. But after shelling out so much money, we are not even remotely close to happiness.

Background: It was in the summer of '95 that our Sony came in. The first thing we did was saying Sayonara to our 10 year old Dynora. Anyways, he took the pride of place, and with the advent of cable channels and serials, regaled to a prime position in the house. Days, months, years and decade passed, but our Sony was still "the new TV". The 'It's a Sony' sticker was never peeled off. I still wonder, how and why none of us did that. Usually, these are the first things to go. Sony was good. Dynora, just had 12 channels, and Sony had 99. It had a remote, and that became a bone of contention. We were very happy with him, but slowly he developed a sore throat. Later he started coughing. After a few days, it got so worse, that he had no sound. We were wondering whether to take him to hospital, when we found that a sound slap at his back, brought his sound back. After a couple of months, he started losing his picture. We realised he was dying, and talked of selling him off. And then Sony started improving. He was a combination of perfect picture and sound. So we shelved all our plans of getting another TV, and went along happily with him. But poor guy; age caught up with him, so much so that, he finally had to go...

The craft of writing

The two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar and familiar things new - Samuel Johnson; and that essentially sums up the craft of writing.
The most important aspect of writing is the purpose. Why would you write something? What do you want to convey to your reader. It is desirable that you state clearly the purpose of your writing on the topic. This tells the reader clearly, what he should expect out of reading the prose. Thus defining the purpose should be your first step.
In technical writing too, we have various objectives to achieve, when we write various documents. For instance a maintenance guide/user manual for technicians, will have a different purpose when compared with a sales proposal, or material for advertisement. The style of these documents will vary widely. A maintenance guide will have an objective and informative style, whereas a sales document will have a highly subjective and persuasive style of writing. The type of audience and the purpose of the message should be kept in mind, while deciding on the style of writing.
To keep with the purpose, and to convey correctly, what you intend to convey, you need a very good language, grammar and vocabulary. You should be familiar with the various styles of writing and tones of language. Technology keeps changing and so you should be a person who is willing to learn new technologies quickly. Self learning and a penchant to update new information in your chosen field of work will take you very far.
Even accomplished writers admit that their first draft had lots of redundancies and gaps. It is improved by reviews and tight editing. To be a good writer you should have the patience to make innumerable revisions to your draft. You should be willing to take critisms and learn from them. Writing is a craft that is polished through practice.
Another quality that is necessary to be a good writer is to be a good reader. In Stephen King’s words “If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write”. Even if it is documenting technology, the amazing vocabulary, and syntactic variations that you gain through wide reading will improve your writing. You would be able to discern why you like reading certain authors, and magazines, even though the hard facts maybe the same in all magazines/material on a topic. You can adopt that style for communicating with your audience. Thus writing is a craft that has to be practiced, to bring out its finesse.

Yeah this happened!

It was late into the evening, when we got out of office. I didnt have my car with me, and and my friend offered me a ride in her car. She even lured me with the offer of dropping me at my doorstep. We walk towards the dim-lit carpark, and i find the back door of the car, is not closed properly. Fearing that some thief might have broke into her car, i alert her to it, when she says, "An incident happened in the morning, Get into the car, and I will tell u the story". Meanwhile we unlock doors. As usual she puts her bags, and umbrellas into the back seat and gets in. I too make myself comfortable in the back seat, and start fumbling with the seat belt. Suddenly she puts the inside light of the car, and casually looks around, and underneath. I ask her, if she has lost something. She replies in negative, fastens the seat belt and puts off the light. Then she turns the ignition on , and pulls the car in reverse from the parking slot. As we finally drive out of the car park, I ask her, "So? U were telling me about the morning incident. What happened". The ball is in her court now. She takes a deep breath, and says, "I was waiting in the junction, to turn to the bypass road, and checking for the traffic from both sides, when i see a really huge spider. " I am like "Spider?", not sure if i had heard right. "Yes a big, ugly spider, as big as my palm, sitting on the dashboard, right in front of the steering wheel. It must be somewhere inside the car. That was what i was checking. but i cant find it." No response from my side. I had almost frozen to death. here i am in a small car, riding with a spider. Yeeks, the very thought gave me a shudder. "It is of the same colour as the upholstery, some wheatish brown", as if i found some pleasure in knowing the colour was very Asian. Come on, as long as it was a spider, a hairy eight legged species, i despised so much, i didnt care if it was american, or african or british. I didnt care if it was a black widow, or still married. I wasn't interested in the details, which she was going on furnishing. It was a SPIDER, and it was travelling with me! My sole aim, was to reach home as fast as possible, and get out of the car, and my fellow 8 legged car-mate. I unfastened, my seat belt, and told my driver cum 2 legged fellow passenger of my fears and worries, when she reassured me saying,"We havent yet seen the protagonist, na? It might have gone out, in the daytime for all u know?". That laid my fears to rest, atleast superficially. I started enjoy the night ride, indulging in a bit of side seat driving, when we reached and intersection. We had to take a right turn, from the intersection, and we stopped to wait for the signal. As soon as the signal turns green, I see somebody, runnning towards us from the front end of the car. I get a very creepy feeling (somewhat similar to what was shown in "The mummy returns" movie, where the bugs, move under the human flesh). I alert my friend to the spider, and asks her to roll up her window, so that it wouldnot come inside. It runs over the bonnet, crosses the wiper, and climbs over the front windshield, and passes right over our face (yeah, big relief, the glass shield was there, but didnt decrease the creepy feeling) to the roof of the car. We proceed onwards, and reach my home. Now comes, the most difficult part. I have to get out of the car. For that, i have to open the door. Now, I know, my nemesis in on the roof of the car. My mind goes hyper. I imagine, what if it jumps on to my head, as i get out, and bite me. Shudder! But then there isn't any option. So summoning all my courage, yeah i needed a minute or two to gather myself, i open the door, and stepped out; rather jumped out of the car. I moved a little bit away, and closed the door, all the while, wary, if my predetor slipped in. But NO! he didnt. Neither was he in the roof, where i expected to see to see him. I closed the door, and the car pulled away from from. I turn around, to walk towards my home, but then , turn around, to look at the car, one last time, wondering where the protagonist is. And lo!, i find him in the roof of the car, towards the back end, crouching low, as if ready to jump, any moment...My eyes are glued to his eyes, as the car pulls away, with the eight-legged trouble on its roof...;-)