Decoded: Secret fantasies of an IT professional

We get it. It’s damn tough to live your life on a 15” laptop screen. Especially if Facebook and Instagram keeps thrusting exciting images of people going out there, taking sabbaticals, backpacker vacations, quitting jobs and rediscovering life (though some would call it a mid-life crisis). As if this wasn’t enough, some people have even taken to blogging elaborately about it. If you feel bad about your life, all it takes is a few scrolls of your newsfeed to feel worse.

So it’s no surprise that IT professionals are causing stampedes that would put the wildebeest migration to shame as they rush to quit the 9 to 5 and discover greener career pastures. After speaking to several IT friends and discerning their fantasies, here’s what we have to say about them.

Screenwriter

If you’re trading screens, why not go all the way and get the really big screen. Well of course you’ve scripted several stories involving a parade of item songs in your head. Now all you have to do is put them down on paper and get Karan Johar to produce it.

Sports person

Had enough of flicking sixes on the screen of your smart phone? It’s time for the real deal. A decade ago, if you’d approached your parents and told them you’d wanted a career in sports, you stood a chance of being written out of your father’s will. We’re hoping the blatant flaunting of wealth and wives by our sportsmen would have changed their perception. Go for it, and think of us when you’re raking in the moolah.

Mountaineer / Trekker

If you think you’re better off climbing Everest instead of the corporate ladder, this one’s for you. Sometimes, we feel it’s a lot easier getting to the top like this. Just be prepared to eat a lot of Maggi and biscuits. Oh, and you’ll probably have fewer hot showers.

Bartender

Going through college, one tends to pick up bartending skills by default, which makes it an excellent fall-back career. We hope that you’ve graduated to more than just rum and coke though. The salary isn’t the best in the business, but one must say that being the most wanted man in a bar on a Saturday night does have its advantages.

Writer / Author

The road to being a bestselling author is often paved with the blood, sweat, tears and malnourished bodies of the zillion other writers who have tried and starved their way through getting their book published. If you’re like most Indian men, you’re also good at handling rejection, which will come in handy when you take your finished manuscript to the publishers.

Chef

Here’s where all those back-to-back episodes of Masterchef Australia will pay off (Masterchef India has the effect of putting one off food though). Adrian Zumbo, Nigella and Jamie Oliver have made cooking sexy as hell and India is starving for the Indian likes of them. If your special chicken recipe has caused a stir at the office lunch table, chances are, it will at your own restaurant table.

Playback singer

If your karaoke singing has gotten you more than a few encores at the bar and you’ve been acing your company’s talent show year after year, playback singing could be the thing for you. If you feel you’d like a wider audience for your bathroom singing efforts, it could be a great idea to trade the shower curtain for a real curtain call and the shower head for a mic. Don’t hold yourself even if you’re bad. There’s always auto tune.

Anchor

Admit it. You’ve not just been listening to the news. You’ve been practicing delivering it, in secretly. Perhaps you think you’d be better at it though. With so many high profile exits in the news space recently, it couldn’t be a better time. Could you be the next Arnab? India wants to know!