Friday, November 28, 2014

In which they all said Good Bye!

A few months ago I had tweeted that a potentially difficult decision was waiting for DYPC's fate. What it would be, even I didn't know at that time.

Couple of curious friends asked me about it. I didn't answer. They didn't ask again.

The answer was given last week: DYPC would be shutting down by end of November. It was greeted with same question from everyone: Why? Wife was even more surprised because only couple of months ago I had spent several nights updating a lot of code to simplify the process and make it more automated. What could have gone wrong in such short span of time? It was not a straight forward answer. It had taken me weeks to select between opting for a simpler directory model and discontinuing completely.

DYPC was not my brain child. It was Ankur's but I gave it my everything: time, passion, money (it wasn't very needy but whatever little it needed for hosting). Every few months some or other friends or volunteer would pitch in with an offer to help and some would even help for a few days. But it remained a lonely journey more or less for almost ever.

Every completed donation was a morale boosting affair. The "Thank You" mails from requesters would make all the time spent in mailing donors and requesters and even multiple followups seem worth everything. But lately the number of followups had increased and many times the conversation was getting stretched for several weeks (even months at times!) resulting in donors losing patience and ultimately donating PC to someone else. After doing everything, to be quite honest, such thanklessness on part of requesters was extremely demotivating. To be honest, this problem had become a norm rather than exception. Even after I updated code and made sending reminders easy enough process with warning of stricter actions it didn't help.

I guess it was the monotony. And probably the fact that DYPC became a pretty much thankless service. It was just existing and without any motivation (and support, if I may use that word!) it was not growing in any manner. Fatigue has started seeping in from quite some time now. Greeting e-mailers on special occasions had already stopped. Our blog was never exactly buzzing with activity but the occasional post was now limited to only occasional mention in media. Mails to the DYPC Google group (which went unresponded most of the times) too were discontinued. And nobody ever asked me why! To me it seemed that it just didn't matter to anyone. Maybe it did, maybe I was wrong. Too bad, we will never know. (Yeah, I am behaving like a child who is sulking because nobody would play with him!)

I will be blamed for not diversifying DYPC operations, not distributing the tasks, not forming a team, not continuing with an idea that was so novel that it is still not replicated. May be I will never plead guilty or may be it WAS my fault. Did I try hard enough or was I just plain unlucky? Again I don't know.

For that matter I don't even know whether to celebrate 6 year run of DYPC or mourn the loss of a venture that was so close to my heart. Even writing these words is reminding me of all those initial days when DYPC was in a nascent stage.

I will be moving on to other things but DYPC will always be something I will always love and remember fondly. I just hope atleast someone else does too!

Good Bye DYPC.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

This blog just got a new post!

And now I am blank.

As I was trying to recall when was last time I blogged, I realize that I don't even remember how does my blog even look! And there was a time when I blogged quite often, had more than 1 active blogs, used to follow other blogs and commented on them (in more than 140 characters), even attended a blogger meet.

And now I don't even remember what my blog looks like! How did things come to this? I am desperately trying to find the reasons (to be able to put the blame on someone, anyone!)

My last post on this blog was on 27 November 2012. The post on my 'technical' blog was on 30th May 2013. My last tweet was 2 hours ago. The same was probably posted on my Facebook. May be somebody has already 'liked' or 'commented' on it.

Do I blame Twitter or Facebook for being dormant? Yes. Why write a 300 word article keeping language and grammar in mind, wait for comment notification mail, check for the number of hits to see how many people have read it, keep on waiting for comment notification, visit some other blogs and leave comments on them in hope that they return the favor, lose all hope in humanity when they don't, finally get a comment only to find that it reads "Latin ladyboys http://shemales.xblog.in/?page.breonna labyboy pics transvestite sex tgirl freeshemale.cum transexuals movies on Dhoni demands Motera pitch to be laid in every ground of India", kill yourself.

Instead write some witty shit in 140 characters, ignoring any semblance to what may seem like a normal english language sentence, if you can't think of anything yourself or if your wit is limited to 'Kejriwal izz Pakistani Agent. @bdutt #ChorMedia Modi izz Indian patriot. #GayForModi' (ok that last hashtag won't be there, but you get the idea) nick someone else's tweet or Whatsapp message and get instant gratification of getting RTd (Pro Tip: If you want to be RTd by Subramanyam Swami or any of the gazillions of Modi-tards use the tweet given above!)

However if your luck was forged in lead like me, you will not be able to do even that and then Facebook is 'just what the doctor ordered' (this phrase is a creation of Ravi Shastri, see I don't nick things off just like that!) Here the likes and comments are mutually exchanged, as explained to me by my wife!

But then the biggest hurdle is a word that starts with 'pro' and ends with 'ation'. No, I am not talking about procreation. Yeah, I did that once and the result is a little human who has just discovered that there is a power button on laptop which can shutdown everything but somehow it is lesser fun than trying to scratch out the keys on the keyboard. And that trying to wake me up by putting fingers is in my nose is more effective than an alarm clock.
The little human proving that none of my blog posts were eaten by her.

I actually meant Procrastination. They say practice makes a man perfect. You see I have been trying to procrastinate since forever and finally I think I am there!

So if you are reading this (really, you are reading this? yet?) I thank you very much. I hope you will leave a comment or like or RT or whatever it is that Google is forcing us to do these days through Google+. I will see you in another 15 months.