Dragons

When I was little, I used to watch a dubbed Chinese series whose name I’m unable to recall on some channel called Home TV. That was probably the first instance when I encountered the word Dragon. Since dragons have important significance in Chinese culture, they were shown in good light in the series. But the series itself was tragic. That was also the first time I encountered tragedy in any form. The reason why I remember the dragon reference so clearly is perhaps due to the fact that when a kid starts understanding tragedy, he is no longer a kid.

This love affair with the most vicious and mysterious of all the mythical creatures reached a high point when How To Train Your Dragon 2 was about to release in the month gone by. McDonalds was promoting this movie (and itself of course!) through its Happy Meal. My little brother (who is not so little by the way :P) posted this picture of Toothless with a teasing status that read, “It’s about loving your dragon . . . if you have one!” Well, it was just too luring to the kid inside me to ignore.

So I rushed to the nearest McD in Koparkhairane to get my own Toothless! But as it turns out, the primary character of the movie had ran out of stock and I got some other dragon instead. So this was me — a 24 year old man running around like a 14 year old boy for a toy dragon and believing that it was real! I told myself and a couple of other colleagues in my team at the office how that act made me the biggest dragon fan ever and forever! A senior guy Pratik told me that I should bring that dragon to the office and keep it on my desk as a proud price of my fanaticism.

The next day was weird. There was one dragon each on my desk, Pratik’s desk and Maddy’s (the other colleague :P) desk. People who’ve talked with me for hours would know how my opinions get really aggressive when it comes to opposing Indian IT industry. This aggressiveness is not something that I’m proud of but I can’t help it. So when a person with that mindset says how this team is the best thing that he has witnessed in IT industry, it sure must be one hell of a team! So the team now had three dragons but to my surprise, all three of them were different. That’s when Maddy told me that each McD offers its own choice of toy in the series that it is promoting. That’s a smart marketing move by McD to get people running around to collect the whole series of toys. But I’m smarter you see! I decided that I would call each outlet of McDonalds in areas nearby to inquire about which dragon they were offering and then place an online order for Happy Meals at once. My own army of dragons at my disposal through an online order. Eureka! With that thought I slept.

The next day was weirder. Maddy had three dragons of her own and so did Pratik. They didn’t order it online, they visited multiple outlets themselves and got their priced possessions! My outsmarting idea of online order turned out to be a rather over smart one! A real fan would never do that. He would walk every last mile for the dragons and unearth every last McDondals until he found his Toothless. In my case, a real fan would come out of his comfort zone and do what he’s not accustomed to i.e. Travel. I’m a reserved person and exploring newer places alone is something that I wouldn’t call a hobby. I eat at the same place, I drink the exact amount of water everyday, I sleep on the same side of the bed every night! The bar was raised by Pratik and Maddy. The only choice for me was to wander into the unknown. The motivating thing was that the Toothless was still out there somewhere. None of us had it yet.

So I roamed and called and inquired and suffered. My search started from Airoli and ended in a McDonalds way away in Mumbai Central. The search wasn’t that challenging physically but it was so exhaustive mentally that at one point, I could sympathize with Google. So did I get my Toothless? Well the answer is a clear No! Not a happy ending, is it? Well, it seldom is! But I wasn’t disappointed because the story says how rare and almost extinct the species of Nightfury (Toothless) is! It kind of resonates with your belief about the story being real. And anyways, this whole thing wasn’t about Nightfury. It was perhaps a little about me getting out of my comfort zone. But the search was mostly about the team!

The thing is, I had just joined the team back then and this little dragon chapter made my transition into the team pretty easy and gave me that feeling of geekiness which had been missing from my life after college, after the offclassroom days! Both Maddy and Pratik along with the whole team have a lot in common with Dragons. Dragons are resilient, so is this team. Dragons are friendly, so is this team. Dragons are lively, so is this team. Dragons are fiery, so is this team.

But you know the strange thing is that both of them are no longer a part of the team. And that is why like a dragon; I get furious when it comes to how IT service industry operates and treats people (or rather resources!). The fact that neither of them are a part of this team is of course based on their own choices and decisions but just like the story teaches, “Dragons can not be owned, they can only be befriended.” And if companies are not smart enough to understand this then they should be ready to accept the fact that apart from the above mentioned characteristics, Dragons can also fly and they will!