Whale of a game!

An innocuous beginning. Just a simple search leads you to it. You start playing with lot of enthusiasm and having a point to prove to the world.

Mundane challenges, 'does not make sense' type of challenges, daring do's, impossible challenges, more impossible challenges...

You are so deep into the game and having already made some solid commitments, can't quit even if you wish to as the consequences of stopping in the middle of the game is too known and too frightening. 

So, what do you do?

Unlike the kids, tweeners and teenagers playing Blue Whale, you are a grown up person. So you load your body with so much stress that it gives up on you suddenly, so suddenly that you can't even react; you are already too dead.

What makes it even more horrendous is that a friend of you dropping dead suddenly won't shake you up to the extent of quitting the game; you have your mortgages to pay, family to take care of and more...

Welcome to the new game Neo!

This is how I would like to summarize my interactions with few friends who are working in senior roles in different spheres of Indian IT Eco system.

Sample these:

Most of the IT companies in big cities have an Ambulance on stand by. It is pressed into service almost every week, taking away the sting effect on the lucky ones who are not the victims. 

Heart attack is the most common ailment, age no bar.

A friend of my friend just shared his coffee break with him, waved him good bye and the next moment he dropped to the floor and fell unconscious. Four blocks in his heart. Four stents keep him alive today. He is hardly into his late thirties.

A senior executive suddenly starts sweating in a chill cabin and collapses on the floor. 90 pct blocked arteries. Miraculously living today.

Board meeting is on. Boss rips under-performers one after other(target not met, mostly men as the industry is still gender biased higher up at the position pyramid). One person gets a pink slip on the spot ('Oh my, I am middle aged, have a mortgage of 10 Million to pay, kids education, life style, oh my god, my pulse is racing...I am already 40, am not gonna survive this...', he faints. Colleagues rush to his help but Boss continues his machine gunning, asking them to pay no attention to the fallen guy, telling them that this guy must be faking it!!!

No, he is not faking. Ambulance is called in, this guy is lifted to nearest hospital and goes home alive, later, thanks to few stents here and there...

If gender bias has helped women to escape from this misfortune, they seem to be hell bent on destroying themselves in other ways...

No cabbie is free over any weekend in this big city, right from Friday evening till Sunday afternoon. They have regular clients, predominantly women, who book them for most weekends, pay them full in advance, for drop-and-drag-me-back-home service and go partying.

They go to fancy pubs, smoke, drink up their tension, sorrow, whatever and end up very very drunk, mostly collapsing in a drunken stupor, on the floors / steps / roads only for their respective cabbies to lumber them into the back seat of the car paid for to drop back in their flats / homes.

What could happen to them when they lay unconscious is any body's guess. 

Though I root for Equality, there are some zones which we better exclude from the equation as the economic gap in our country is w i d e and women are easy prey.

Once they sober up and saunter into their offices, they may act different but exceptions are on the rise. Sample this; a lady, heavily married (multiple kids I mean), looks up at a new colleague and says this to him while waiting for a meeting to start, 'Hey, You look handsome. Can I kiss You?'...ahem...

This big bad whale keeps biting and sufferers don't seem to feel any pain maybe because they have become numb due to frequent exposure to its teeth....

The popular quote in IT world a decade back was that shelf life of an IT person (job) was 15 years. Post sub prime crisis, I believe the shelf itself is shrinking rapidly but that doesn't seem to bother those cramming themselves into those very shelves...

The other popular phrase 'Big Pharma loves IT' still holds true but the context has changed dramatically with such high incidents of illness and deaths.

While Blue Whale game is getting its 15 minutes of fame in our collective conscience, this big bad Whale is swimming freely under the radar for quite a while. There is absolutely no statistics available that would help us to realize the magnitude of this. How I wish people re prioritize their life before it is too late...