Feline Musings

A confusing scenario; a messy state of affairs – women are supposed to be well-bred, educated and enlightened but at the same time their individual choices and career preferences have to be compromised in the face of pushy social norms. While men have always required women to work side-by-side with them – be it in farmlands, or orchards, or managing entire households and the finances while the men were at war or away on voyage – it is the modern trend of equal financial contributors that has added to the role of the women. In most families today, the burden of loans, lifestyle and spiraling expenses is forcing reliance on double-income and when this trend started more than a decade back, there emerged the concept of DINK – Double Income No Kids. But as women developed work-family life balance, social and familial demands on compliance to traditional child bearing and rearing roles were reasserted.

Many people believe that having a technical bent of mind, or college degree, is the key to success in this field. This is only partially true, because the master key of this field is held in the word “writing.” To become a successful technical writer, it is imperative to be a writer, i.e. to have the required dexterity to write and express effectively. With a generous sprinkling of common sense, the power of observation, the desire to experiment and learn, innovate and initiate and ample research and analysis, one can embark upon this career and continue to gain knowledge of the technical bits.

For an Indian woman, the pressure is emotional as well as social. While she wants to give the best to her husband, by maintaining an orderly house, a daily schedule and hot breakfast and meals served with love, any desire to go lax and easy is ruthlessly subdued by family expectations that you take the best care of your husband. So, if a hot, savory breakfast was the mother’s responsibility (and love) towards her son, the duty immediately falls on the shoulder of the “bahu” to ensure that the son is sent to work with a fully appeased stomach!

 I have often mulled upon the career progression for technical communicators. A technical communicator can always choose to write, review and publish through his/her professional life but there is significant risk of stagnation, because of three reasons:   • In the same project/organization or domain the documentation will soon become robust and the documentation repository will [...]

It was July and the night was stormy. I had been immensely delayed in office and by the time I could wind up my work, it was nearly 10:30 PM. I did not want to wait for the office cab, which would take another half an hour to pick me up. I saw a lone [...]

 They asked me how much I earn. I shrugged the question aside without mentioning a numeric figure. Their curiosity not satiated, they turned towards my husband and inquired about our salaries. My husband also refused to quote an exact amount. They started guessing and threw in some figures as our combined salaries. No response from [...]