Colleague - A blog on every pro to fun

It’s 11 PM. The house is quiet, and the only light comes from the phone in my hand, casting a blue glow on my face. My thumb hovers over his profile picture, a familiar ritual that has become both a comfort and a curse. We broke up six months ago, but in the digital world, we’ve never been further apart—or more painfully connected. When we were together, our social media was a shared canvas. A tag in a photo from our weekend trip, a silly comment on a post, the simple, public marker of ‘In a relationship with…’. Our digital lives were intertwined, creating a beautiful, public tapestry of our love story. Then, the story ended. But the tapestry remained. Chapter 1: The Digital Museum In the first few weeks after the breakup, I couldn’t stop myself. His profile was a museum of what we used to be, and I was its most dedicated visitor. I’d scroll back months, even years, staring at a photo of us smiling at a concert, my comment underneath reading, “Best night ever ❤️”. Each post was a relic...

The silence at our dinner table had become heavier than the air before a monsoon. We’d be sitting across from each other, the aroma of a simple home-cooked meal between us, but the distance felt like miles. The elephant in the room wasn't just big; it was stamping its feet, and its name was my salary. When Priya and I moved in together, we were high on love and dreams. We planned weekend trips, talked about saving for a bigger place, maybe even a dog. We were a team. But somewhere along the way, the financial reality started to creep in. I work in a field I'm passionate about—graphic design for a small non-profit. It's fulfilling, but it doesn't come with a hefty paycheck. Priya, on the other hand, is excelling in her corporate marketing job. Her salary grew, and with it, a subtle shift in our dynamic. It started with small things. "My friends are all going to Thailand for a week, shouldn't we plan a trip?" she'd ask, her eyes sparkling with excitement...

When I first met Rohan, he introduced himself with a firm handshake, a confident smile, and a title. "Rohan," he said, "Business Development Executive." The title hung in the air, crisp and professional, like the starched collar of his shirt. In my mind, a "Business Development Executive" was a species of human I'd only seen in corporate dramas. Someone who lived in a world of targets, leads, and conversions. Someone who probably saw every conversation as a potential networking opportunity. And for the first few weeks of knowing him, Rohan did little to change that impression. Our early interactions were always in group settings. He’d be on the phone, pacing and talking about "Q4 projections" and "strategic alliances." He had a way of making "let's circle back on that" sound like a profound statement. He was charismatic and driven, but there was a professional gloss to him that felt impenetrable. I was a friend of a fr...

It started, as many modern friendships do, as a casual add-on. "I'm meeting my friend Sameer for drinks, he's bringing his girlfriend," the text read. In my mind, a vague, stock image formed. I didn't mean for it to, but the label "Software Engineer's Girlfriend" came with its own set of preconceived notions, like a default CSS style sheet for a person. I pictured someone who was either also in tech, ready to talk shop about APIs and agile methodologies, or someone completely outside of it, patiently nodding along, her eyes glazing over as the conversation inevitably drifted towards debugging and deployment cycles. When I met Anika, she was neither. Our first few hangouts were exactly as predicted. The conversation was a triangle. Sameer and my other tech friends would be at two points, deep in a discussion about a new JavaScript framework, and Anika and I would be the third, making small talk about the weather, the terrible traffic in Kanpur, or how...

  The 7:30 AM alarm chimes, and through my window, I can see the hazy morning sky over Kanpur. It's Tuesday, October 14th, 2025. A heavy engineering textbook lies open on my desk, filled with complex diagrams and equations. My mind, however, isn't on thermodynamics just yet. It’s on something I learned last Saturday, not in a lecture hall at my college, but on the brightly lit floor of an electronics store in Z-Square Mall. When I first started looking for a part-time job, my goal was simple and immediate: earn enough to stop worrying about my expenses. I wanted the freedom to grab a coffee with friends at a cafe in Swaroop Nagar, buy a new book without checking my account balance five times, and maybe even save up for a new phone. I landed a weekend gig as a "Tech Advisor" at a popular electronics chain. My main task? Help customers, sell gadgets, and keep the displays tidy. I thought of it as a transaction: I give my time, they give me money. But over the last six m...

The faint sound of a pressure cooker whistles from the kitchen. Outside my window, the cool October air carries the distant morning sounds of Kanpur waking up. It’s 7:45 AM, and instead of frantically searching for my keys and mentally preparing for the chaotic commute from my home in Pandu Nagar, I’m sitting on my balcony with a hot cup of adrak chai, checking my first few emails of the day. This is my new office. And let me tell you, it’s a serious upgrade. For years, I believed that a "real job" meant leaving the house. It meant navigating the unpredictable traffic on VIP Road, spending a significant chunk of my salary on Ubers or petrol, and eating lunch packed in a steel tiffin. When I decided I needed to start working part-time, my initial search was disheartening. The options in Kanpur that fit my schedule were either too far, paid too little for the travel involved, or simply weren’t in my field. I felt stuck. The turning point came one evening last August. I was stuc...

The mute button on Zoom has become my most-used professional tool. On the screen, I’m nodding seriously, discussing social media engagement metrics. Off-screen, I’m frantically using one hand to stop my two-year-old, Aarav, from turning our Wi-Fi router into a toy car garage. It’s 11 AM on a Tuesday here in Kanpur, and I’m in the middle of a silent negotiation that millions of parents know all too well: the impossible juggle. When I landed my part-time, remote role as a marketing assistant, it felt like I had found the holy grail. It was a chance to reclaim a part of my professional identity, use my brain for something other than calculating the optimal nap schedule, and bring in some extra income. The plan seemed simple: I’d work during Aarav’s naps and after my husband got home. The reality, as I quickly learned, was a chaotic comedy of errors. Aarav decided that naps were merely a suggestion. My "work window" became a frantic 20-minute scramble of answering emails while si...