Memories with my Grandparents

To all the grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren out there- please note that life is too short, so make the best use of it to make many memories which would last forever!

As me and Amma stay awake at night taking care of my baby girl, there are moments when laughter riots takes over lack of sleep and tiredness, we both talk of all the moments of my childhood and how pati and tata reacted to such moments.

The classic and standard dialogue of pati “Give her (me as a kid) to pattu mami (to adopt) as she cries so much” has been discussed and laughed for more than 100 times in last 3 months.
Our grandparents are not alive, today is tata’s 6th death anniversary and it’s been a year that pati also left all, but I shouldn’t put the word “LATE” as they are still alive in our memories and talks on daily basis.

I was reminded of all those funny and beautiful memories that they gave us in all these years.

• To start with will be, the peeping out from the running train to see where tata is as he has always come to pick us and drop us at the railway stations during the beginning and end of summer vacations. How can we forget the yummy tomato chutney, curd rice and chapptti’s pati would pack for the return journey, which would get over in few hours of time as against her planning of food for 3 days journey. We always used to say that you don’t need to come to pick or drop, but now I realise that he wanted that few extra hours with the daughters and granddaughters.

• He would always want us to reach few days before the actual start of our summer vacation on 1st May as it was their anniversary in the last week of April and pati will make special payasam for us all on that day. Their anniversary was a celebration only if the kids ( 8 grand children) would be around.

• Every year we would visit the fair in Coimbatore and that masala applams and tora tora rides were the memories. I don’t remember tata and pati on tora tora , but they sure will stand below waving to all of us as we would be screaming from top of the ride.

• Every morning we were woken up by the sound of radio of tata, followed by which would be the breakfast from Annapurna sewai and poori masala

• Those afternoon card games of all elders which we would keep watching as we knew at the end of the game, irrespective of whoever win or lose, we get ice cream treats.

• Tata would walk us all to ARUN ice cream place on the main road of sai baba colony and bharathi park once before the end of vacations for sure

• A palkaran (milkman) used to come every afternoon and there will be fight who will get up and give the chit as most of us would be sleeping or relaxing. After that pati will go out and start her gossip time with aunties in the apartment. When we would ask tata where is pati, he will smile and say “she has gone for the meeting” lol.

• Every evening, he would abscond for some time and return back with bun or bread and it used to be samosa if he would visit us in Delhi.

• We all got addicted to Chitti serial while watching them with tata and pati. Then we started watching them even after vacations were over or after they are back to their home after the Delhi visits.

• Tata had his briefcase on top of the almirah, which he would open almost every alternative day and check for the dates of his FDs ,RDs and what more probably even I don’t know. I see glimpse of that attitude now in my mom that she open all her online accounts in tab and keep a track of things.

• We still remember that early morning or evening cycling and walk with Tata to Koundam palyam to Chitti’s house, some of us would come in the TVS bike.

• Video game fights were the most memorable ones. Each one had to give the remote to next person when their game gets over. While playing tetris, some of our games would never end and other would go fighting and shouting. Still those laugh and fights echoes in our ears. What tata would do is, slowly go and switch off the mains and all of us would run to the main door where the main box was to fight with him forgetting internal fights.

• Another funny instance would be train ticket bookings. Those days there were no online concepts and one had to go and book manually. He would have already booked his return journeys while coming to Delhi . One fight between him and pati, or mom and pati or mom and dad or anyone in the family for that matter, next morning he will come back pre-booking his tickets. Later when it would time to go, pati will fight who asked you to change them. And they will start packing suitcases 5 days prior to their actual journey.

• The hogenakal visit which we all had gone when we were really young, probably under the age of 5 is still remembered by all of us. I also have memories of Haridwar and malabuya dam visits with tata and pati. Probably they have travelled to different places with different set of cousins and all of us remember and cherish those visits.

• Every evening he will wear shirt and weshti and he had a unique style of walking with his weshti. However for any flight journey or weddings he would always be in formals wearing shirt and pant. Flight journeys reminds that they both had travelled alone at the age of 85 and 75 to different locations and pati flew from Coimbatore to Bangalore a day before she died. They had so much love for all of us that, these journeys were not something which would make them feel tired but they were excited with the fact that they are going to meet another set of grandchildren while travelling from one place to another.

• We have no count of numbers of days pati would have made sambar and rasam for all us in her entire life, but she still enjoyed doing it and never got bored.

• Finally a year and half back when I met pati for the last time when she was alive, she said “now it’s time you have babies, me and your mom will take care of her”. Now when we get exhausted at times, I ask my mom how did she have the energy to handle 8 grandchildren and was ready to manage great-grandchildren also. Unfortunately she passed away few months before she could see them, but it is her blessing that there are two great grand children in the family now- Saishu and Vedu. At times I feel if there is something called as re-incarnation, there is no doubt that tata and pati has come back to all of us in the form of Vedanth (pati) and Saisha (Tata).

I do not remember any materialistic gifts that they gave to any of us, which they probably would have. But these are the moments which we still remember and I want to ensure that my daughter have such moments with my parents (now her grandparents) to be cherished forever. And it is a wonderful journey to see our parents getting transformed to grandparents and all cousins going to the next stage of life becoming periammas and chittis!

Flight mode on!

Recently when I was flying, I picked up a quick read book for my journey. That’s when I realized it was almost a year that I read a book. Various articles that I have read on LinkedIn says, “successful people read some ‘X’ number of books in a year”. I feel its theoretical and subjective to determine that as It depends on lot of factors. I also happen to talk to the girl sitting next to me and I added a person in my social network.

And for my return journey, my husband also accompanied me. As soon as the mobiles went on flight mode, he turned to me and asked, “so what’s up” which was luckily not on WhatsApp and question in person. I felt we spoke properly to each other after few months or probably a year.
As I got back home, we again got busy with the mobile phones, TV and laptop. That’s when I felt why should we not have the flight mode on little more frequently than just the time we fly in an airplane. I recently came across terms like digital detox on Radio which almost means the same, but that focused on being away from social media rather than all the electronic gadgets.
At home and in offices, we probably could have 1 hour flight mode on a weekly basis. I don’t know if that’s too much to ask for. People even sleep with their phone right beside them and respond to mails and messages at odd hours of the night.

What happens when we keep away our gadgets for a day or week?
•We may not respond to a mail or message?
•We miss some deadline; however, no deadline is imp than life and valuable time that one could spend with family and friends
•We earn at the cost of our time, but do we have time to enjoy what we earned? I don’t know- just a food for thought. I wonder at the parents, who run to work without spending time with kids. Money could be earned later but kids childhood once gone will never come back. Similar is the time spent with ageing parents! No offence to anyone as I belong to the same category of people who run to work on a daily basis and struggle to create a work life balance.


So, listing down some thought which we could do in a flight mode on without being in flight though!
•We could pursue some hobby or a sport – say painting, dancing and swimming.
•We socialize with friends and family in person? We could probably live the moment (I have seen friends who would plan and meet and would be busy messaging others, maybe planning next meet sessions! Hello!! excuse me! And all I do is to threaten them to throw their ‘so showoff costly’ mobiles)
•We could pick up a book, rather than reading things online.
•Just sit back and relax!!give our brains and hearts some rest.
•Do casual observations!


As I write this with my casual observation during my flight mode on, my husband interferes and says, “Dad was suggesting a holiday to take a break”. All I could say was “if you guys are ready to leave your mobiles, laptop and TV back home, I am game for a holiday which would be a holiday in true sense”.

So, what’s your thoughts and suggestions on Flight mode on? What could be done during these non-flying flight modes?

Life after Death (Ooopss Marriage)!

I want to give a disclaimer even before I start writing something.
This blog has no relevance to any individual or situation and most of the experiences are imaginative!!

These are going to be combination of funny and angry moments.
So the blog is going to be on the guy and girl who gets married. It’s like life after death kind of situation. Uh, wedding is like “life after death” is not my version, but it’s the version given for a guy’s life by his family and friends, after bachelors party and after marriage also.

What friends think about the guy after wedding
He never comes out for late night parties and drinks, it seems that the girl is a control freak. Or may-be she is not social, so he is embarrassed to get her out to meet all of us. Seems she doesn’t drink, so he can’t get her out and can’t leave her alone either. They do leave once in a while message saying “What macha, you have forgotten about us after wedding”. Thanks to movies like pyar ka punchnama, that friends and for that matter families imagine the guy is going around shopping with the girl, holding the shopping bags for her on weekends. Some also ask him “When are we going to have next boys trip?”

What relatives think (extended families, this includes girls side families as well)
Oh, the girl is so lucky to have got this boy. He has bought a BIG car, he has bought a BIG house. He is doing so well at work (by the official travel check-ins to US, UK, London or Australia on Facebook). He is so social and gets along with the girls family also so well. True, but that’s not the end of the story or this is what exactly is projected to be seen by all.

What families think (immediate families)
Our son has become so responsible and works so hard in office. He has learnt to cook after wedding and cooking for the girl (for making tea in the morning and to cook rice once or twice in a month as the girl may be busy working). He is doing all household work also (for ordering vegetables online after 5 to 10 reminders by the girl, which he does forget after 10 reminders also at times). He has become family oriented. May be because he wasn’t used to doing even the basics at his house, so this seems a big deal.


Here is what a guy truly does

Monday to Friday-
• Makes tea
• Reads newspaper for 30 minutes
• Get ready and leave for office at 8.45.
• Calls wife during lunch for 2 min to ask if she reached her office(your lunch is her start time at work ) that too only if guy has time, otherwise she should understand that he was busy
• Come back at 7.00. Watch TV, eat if wife has cooked, or order from outside and sleep.

Saturday – Almost the same, leaves for office by 9.30. You see he gives an extra 30 minutes to wife- BIG DEAL. And return early say 5.30 to take a short nap and all set for going out to eat or party with guy’s families or friends. Besides all this, there is always an uncertainty factor to his office timings and travels. There would be times when he may come back really late or leave as early as 6.00 am also when he has to travel somewhere.

Sunday –Is all reserved for sleep and rest for the guy and match (football or cricket or some sports final does come on TV). He should relax so that he can work well during the week for next 6 days. What better can he do other than watching TV!



Here is list of few things that a girl has to do after wedding

List is besides working at office for 9 hours and that doesn't include the travel time of 3.5 hours on a daily basis.

•Cooking is an inevitable role that the girl has to take up after wedding. No it’s not cooking that is difficult, but to plan what has to be cooked and ensuring the vegetables for that is available and cutting part that takes time.
•Cleaning the house- Yes I have a maid to do all the work but I need to keep a track that she comes on time, because if she doesn’t come on time, I get late to work. It’s never a guy has to wait and go late, he has to LEAVE for OFFICE by 8.45 which is 10 min away by drive.
•Clearing the house- OK, how is this different from cleaning? Maid does only the basics. She doesn’t not put socks from the guy’s shoes in the socks box for wash. She doesn’t take the shirt and shorts sitting right on the top of dining table to the washing machine. She doesn’t look around the house for the car keys and put it at the right place so that guy doesn’t have to waste time searching early in the morning. She doesn’t fold the bed on a daily basis so that the guys doesn’t forget his spectacles or wallet or phone.
•The weekends are usually reserved for bigger cleaning like bathroom and shelves. Paying off the bills like phone bills, Wi-Fi, electricity which in my house is definitely a women’s responsibility. Evenings are to socialize with family and friends.
•Sundays starts late because of the late night parties by 5.00 am and then are meant for elaborated lunch and dinner as the guy happily watch his matches .My husband is gracious enough to occasionally ask me “do you want any help” and waits for me to say a “NO”. Yes often goes unheard.
•Washing clothes- According to guys, all you have to do is switch the machine on. No that’s not all. You have to check when washing gets over, put it to dry, get it back and often keeping a check on weather to ensure it doesn’t get wet when it rains, fold and keep it back in the place so that next day when you get up, it is in the same place where you always pick it from.
•Cut vegetables and stock it up, so that I can save some time during the week as I make time in between my calls to cook dinner.
•Some-time of the month also goes off in doing bit of financial planning for the house. Attending friends and cousins weddings and travel for the same. From travel what I can remember is the long weekends of the year where the guy thinks of planning outing with his boys’ friends, I wonder if I can visit my parents. But finally I will get to know there would be some festival (holidays are always given for festivals in our country) for which I have to be mandatorily present at his house or his office.
•After all this if I have any time left, I need to run to parlor to look presentable always


So next time as a friend or a relative when we comment on life being doomed after wedding, we need to re-think whose life is ruined after wedding?

I am not sayings it’s always a girl who suffers, it may be the guy taking up more responsibility as well. But it’s definitely good, not to make a generic comment or judgment and empathize with both the guy and the girl who are getting married or already married.

And last but not the least, when I go to my husband crying about feeling bad about any of the things above, all he says is “You are imagining, No one thinks or says anything like that”. Hence in the beginning was the imaginative disclaimer.

Qualities to look for while selecting an individual!

Once my boss called me and said “can you take interview to hire one person in our team?” I happily agreed as this would be one of my first experience to take an interview rather than just attending the interviews.

I asked my boss “what parameters are we supposed to consider while hiring”. My boss said just hire a person you think will fit in the team. I wondered how many of us realize the importance of this process of hiring while selecting the life partner. In most of my blogs earlier, I have connected life’s learning to corporate world, but today it’s going to be reverse.


Listing down the points which I thought would be important while selecting a person in my team (for job and the life partner)

Good communication skills
I always believed that communication is the key to any relationship. It may be a relationship between a mother and a daughter, father and son, husband and wife or for that matter the teammates in an organization. Why do we need to communicate?

Just an example from the corporate world. I as an employee may be performing bad in my work all of a sudden. There could be many reasons to it. For example- my boss is not good (touchwood that I have never been in that situation ever in my life and can write a book on ideal bosses if I had to), or I am looking out for a new job and I am disinterested or may be someone in family is unwell or there could be thousand other reasons. It is better to communicate the actual reason before any assumptions are made.

Right Attitude
It is an individual’s perspective! And an attitude has to be consistent. If you like something, you always like it. You love a dog, you love all dogs. And attitude can be positive or negative. A positive person can have negative attitude and vice versa. What we have to see is the right attitude!

Taking an example from the personal life, I was extremely unwell one day and my husband has a habit of watching late night football matches. I “requested” him not to watch it one day as I was unable to sleep. He didn’t like it. He said “I have to watch” and continued watching. Watching match is his passion (positive attitude). He did show consistency! I explained to myself that insensitivity and rigidity is also an attitude (Negative attitude). I wondered would he have bothered if instead of me if it was his own parents or siblings. Will he show consistency there? (Taking advantage of giving such example by being sure that my husband never read my blogs or if he has to, he has an attitude of only glancing at few lines)

Team player
This is a very critical factor. My boss asked me to hire a person to understand if she can fit in our team. So do the families get involved while selecting the life partner to tell if the person can fit in the team or what we can call as families.

As in case of professional life, we forget few points in personal life while selecting a life partner.
•Not all teams do not have same ideologies and approaches. We cannot expect the individual while hiring to fit in all teams and so is the case while selecting life partner. The life partner may not be liked by all in the families.
•Every team has a different role to play in professional world. You may not hire a person for sales role and ask him or her to do the job of a finance guy or vice versa. Same is the case in personal life with life partner. A person may be a good life partner as a husband and wife but not be a good son-in-law or daughter-in-law. But can we abandon the person? We use the best skill of the person and allow them do what they like rather than throwing them out saying you can’t play a role of a leader and are just an individual contributor. If this is the case, then the hiring or selection process went wrong somewhere. But one cannot play along with the lives and career for someone else’s mistake.
•The teams work independently but there is an interdependence of every team on other. Isn’t it the case with personal life also. But it has to be INTERDEPENDENCE with INDEPENDENCE. Just because one team has dependence on other, the first team cannot take all decisions. Sales and finance may be interdependent, but one can’t ask other for decision making and can’t blame other for ones failure as well.
•Flow of communication is very critical in a team. So is the case with life partners. They majority of things go wrong when right thing is not communicated at the right time to all team members. So is the case in personal lives.

While selecting life partner, people change teams. A girl leaves the team of her parents to join a team call husband and wife and so is the case with the guy. Parents join the new team called in laws and grandparents and they need to change their roles. There has to be clear understanding of the new roles in personal lives as well. Else people do go back to work under same bosses and team again if they don’t fit in well in new ones.

Long term potential
In the corporate scenarios it is often said that cost of hiring new person is way higher than retaining the old one. Hence the person being hired should have long term potential. Yes! We need to check for long term potential while selecting a life partner too as not only the cost to hire (dating or wedding) but also the cost to ask the person to leave is way too high when it comes to marriages. So BEWARE! :)

And as we say every individual is different, so would be their expectation while hiring a person in a team or even while selecting a life partner.
Note: These were my criteria’s for selecting an individual for my team and may be highly subjective!

Am I a feminist?

Ok, this blog again comes after a long time.
I have been doing too much of a travel and getting too less time to spend alone as well. I am either with family, or with colleges and if not anything, I drive. I can’t read or write when I am driving. So in one my recent flight back from my home, I picked up this book of Chetan Bhagat – One India Girl.
Many people do not like Indian authors and I feel it’s like a style statement for people to say “I hate Indian Authors” or “I hate Indian Actors”. I love them both. I love Chetan Bhagat’s books and also Indian actor’s movies including Shahrukh Khan. At the end of the day, it’s their profession and they worked hard to reach wherever they are. I respect that fact.

For those who have read the book, they know where this blog is coming from. And for those “Who don’t read Indian authors”, I am not going to write the summary here. The authors write to sell their books and I will respect that fact also.


So the blog is about random thoughts which came to my mind me while reading the book.

•Does Indian society still cannot accept women who are opinionated and feminist?

If a girl doesn’t follow the norms, does that mean she is “mad”, “crazy” or “needs a psychiatric treatment? ’ Just because you or your family have been doing something or it’s been happening that way in society, is not just the right way to do certain things.

Times change, things change, opinions change. If you haven’t changed, that is not my problem or girl’s problem. But that doesn’t mean I need to follow each and everything the way it has been. I can create my own ways. I CAN have opinions about things which may not be the same as what you have been thinking. If 24 was the right age according to you have girls married, for me it could be 30 or even 32. If multiple degrees is a wastage according to you, earning money to do nothing is a wastage according to me. The

Indian society needs to stop judging girls and women with their differences in thoughts and opinions, for now we have reached a state where we have stop bothering about what the society thinks or says as well.
If society thinks, women will eventually give up on their differentiated thoughts and opinions, it could be other way round as well.



•Do Indian parents still brag about the weddings of their daughters than their education or career?

Recently I had been to a wedding and while returning my Mom-in-law said “if I would have had a daughter, this is how I would have done the wedding”. No offense to her or anything or their thoughts. I respect her for the level of sacrifices she has made and at the end of the day, I can empathize with her for being a women as well.

Fortunately or unfortunately – my parents believed in bragging about our education qualification and degrees we earned. They believed in showcasing our talent. Given a choice they would have preferred displaying the trophies and degrees during the wedding rather than jewelry or sarees. It was extremely disappointing for me that in my wedding, all extended relatives asked about jewelry and saree and not what I have studied and where I am working or what I am earning.

I wondered, I can never have my mother in law saying, if I would had a daughter, I would have ensured she would got this degree or become a doctor, engineer or a scientist. They still believe in teaching their daughter household work than making them financially independent by educating them.


•Does women still have to choose between their career and home?

Why do we always need to make a decision? Can a guy make the same decision or can I even dare to ask him that? Please sit at home and look after kids and I will play your role. When we don’t, why do women still have to come across this questions? We both go out and work, we both can share the household chores easily. My last blog has too many details on this so I am not elaborating further.


•Can Indian society accept the girl earning more than their son?

Million dollar question. I do not have an answer. Probably there should be a survey done on matrimony.coms to understand this point.

For me, I do not see anything wrong, but then yes, guys need to plan how they manage to keep up with expenses, if their wives decides to take a break or rather a maternity break.
Will society have a problem? As long as we lie to them and show the guys salary as more, they wouldn’t I suppose. Before the wedding, you disclose, chances of getting married is less. After the wedding, if it is disclosed, chances of marriage to break is more, for they can hurt the ego of men by saying “she is showing off with her income” without anyone doing anything!

Guys need to take a call- do they want to disclose their salaries as high or low, or they do not want a girl to be earning more at any point of time in their life! Or even better would be that they let society take the decision for them!


•Are there things which a son can do but daughter in law cannot?

This point is bit confusing again. There are things which a son can do, but not a daughter or daughter-in-law. The movie Pink has shown this thought excellent for women who drink are bad, but ok when son do it. Girls in relationships before or after the wedding are wrong, but guys doing that is perfectly ok. There is another aspect to this. There are things which they don’t want their son to do, but daughter or daughter-in-law is expected to do. Follow certain rituals. Learning to cook. Looking after kids!!!and many more. Please do refer to my earlier blog for this again! Either let us do everything which your son does, or let us not do anything which they are not doing. This line in between is too confusing to understand. Let things be just “black and white” and not “grey”!



To conclude : Just because I am girl, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a daughter-in-law, a mother and a mother-in-law, I don’t have to be shock absorbent, taunt absorbent, sadness and humiliation absorbent. I have my opinions and my thoughts. I have the right to know certain and do certain things. My way is the right way! Yes, I am saying the same your way is YOUR RIGHT WAY- keep it to yourself and let ME do things my way! And does doing things my way makes me a feminist? If yes, then I am happy being called a FEMINIST!

Modern Indian Women! A different fight has begun!

Gone are the days when we were fighting for right to education. Today more number of women are post graduates and Ph.D.’s as compared to last decade based on an article that I had recently come across. But the article also said the number of women working are way less as compared to men. Which means the fight to education is won, but fight to work and independence has just begun! Listing down some of the questions that women are facing in today’s world.
Note: Most of these are assumed and based on generic discussions with people. It is not specific to any individual or circumstances! Note inspired by some of the recent Bollywood movies! Lol.

•Why do you need to go out and work?
Recently I have come across question from many people “why do you or rather women need to go out and work?” I had a ready cooked answer “I have studied all through my life to work, want to earn and be independent.” I left the city where my parents lived and came to Bangalore just to make a career. Women work because they get to interact with people of the same wavelength rather than watching imaginary serials or so called soaps on television. Some do want to be financially independent and some work because they just love to work.

•Why do you work so long hours, why can’t you quit and relax
So from working, it becomes long hours of work. I don’t think I work too long. There are guidelines laid by every company to work “x” number of hours. Men and women both work same number of hours. So why only women have to answer to the questions like long hours of work? And yes most of the companies have flexi working hours, work from home option. Everyone adopts to what suits them the best based on their roles at home and at work.

•Can you do work from home to finish this house work?
Ok, so somehow to strike a work life balance, if a woman choses to do work from home, it is often misunderstood for work FOR home. I “work” from home means I put in equal “x” numbers of hours and additional “y” number which I waste in travelling. I work from home and at the same time, I finish the work for which my presence at home is required. For the nuclear based families, getting a delivery of a gas cylinder, getting an important courier and document needs someone’s presence. Or if vehicle is not available for commute, choosing to do a work from home is a better option. But often work from home is confused with doing nothing at home or just sleeping and relaxing. Women in work from home, do double the work- office and the house work!

•If you are travelling too far, it is because you choose to work!
Let’s now talk about the “y” number of hours. I have come across multiple cases recently where the house and offices are too far for women in the house as compared to men. I can include myself in one of those cases and you can see my Facebook wall full of photos struck in traffic. Often Facebook says you have a memory to share and I laugh at myself looking at traffic struck photos or posts, as most of the times, I would be stuck in traffic reading those memories. So women HAVE to travel because they choose to work? Wondering!! If that is an acceptable reason for travelling long distances to work.

•Whatever I earn is to fulfil my fantasies
Ohk, agreed to some extent. But the earning also leads to expenses. If I am working, a part of it goes for my car fuel, car servicing, car cleaners and probably EMI also. So I shouldn’t take car and choose office transport is the justification. Doesn’t matter if I am the first pick and last drop, wherein I get picked at 7.00am in the morning for 9.00 o’clock office and get dropped at 8.00 pm when my office gets over at 6.00 as that I should be using that travel time to plan what I have to cook after I get back home and may be to order fruits and veggies from big basket also. Without diverting, what I earn is not just to fulfil my fantasies of Cinderella shoes but I do have to buy more set of formal clothes, more visits to palor and also contribute for the household expenses equally or rather more than men do!

•The house and kids are ignored if a woman is working
I don’t understand why only women are told that the house and kids are ignored because they go to work. When I contribute to the earnings of the house equally, I spend equal or more amount of time to work and travel, isn’t running house and taking care of kids, an equal responsibility of all the members of the family. Do men get more tired and women are superwomen to take care of work, kids, travel and home, all at the same time?

•If you can’t work, hire a maid, a cook and helpers for everything
Ohk, cool. Who will search for them? Who will have to track when they don’t come or when they will come? And I add additional expense in my earning. An additional stress gets added and the direction part of doing what work still lies with the women. Why?



It is bad that women’s work and income is still considered secondary and Men are considered the breadwinner of the family. Doesn’t make a difference even if women works equally hard and earns equally or rather more in some cases, and she still is solely responsible for running the house.

Working outside is not a burden as long as all the household work is shared equally between man and woman. Working is not a waste of time because women just not hold the responsibility to take care of the house and kids, they have dreams too. Working is not always for money, it’s about knowing the world and gaining new experiences. Girls are brought up in the same way as guys, but why should only a women compromise with their career and life to run the house?

Don’t teach only your daughters to run the house, wash utensils, wash clothes and to do the cooking and cleaning. Teach your son also to do all household work. It’s just not his responsibility to work outside and earn, he also has the responsibility to make a house a HOME!

At the cost of these questions, some women give up on their careers, dreams and aspirations, later to hear from people “Who had asked you to quit? You took your own decision”. And some continue to fight for it.

Digital Marketing

For the first time in my blogs, I am hitting straight on the title –Digital Marketing!! Honestly, I have been too fascinated with this word and I have no idea why! We are all using some or the other digital stuff but then Digital Marketing is something interesting.

During my MBA, we were given a project called “Sell Yourself”. Well sounds weird, but that exactly what each of us today are doing. No offence or wrong meaning please. Each of us are selling our capabilities, knowledge, humanity or anything which is unique in us. How we do we do that? And the obvious answer is through Digital Marketing! We are marketing our capabilities, our thoughts and last but not the least we are creating an image or what we call as a brand in the corporate term! We are creating our own brand to sell ourselves. Most of us are on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, lots of people blog (Like me- there!! I am marketing my capability to write, lol)

From a layman perspective, or atleast that was my perspective till I didn’t do a bit of reading, that social media marketing is digital marketing. Well, that’s not right. Social media marketing is just one part of the digital marketing and this social media marketing includes all forms of networking sites like FB, Twitter, you tube etc.

What we don’t know, which may be a digital marketer knows , for which he or she gets a decent pay package is that Digital marketing also involves other things like
•Search Engine Optimization
•Search Engine Marketing or Online Advertising,
•Email Marketing
•Analytics
•Social Media Marketing

And why are these a part of Digital Marketing? Answer is very simple. We need some digital gadget to do marketing or the follow ups as in the analysis of these. Most of this wouldn’t exist without a gadget. Or rather any of these wouldn’t work without a digital gadget.

So let me give a definition to Digital Marketing. Any form of marketing or marketing related activity which involve a digital tools or gadget is called as digital marketing. Does that mean that we were not doing digital marketing in olden days when we didn’t have these modern day gadgets like tab or mobile? No, we did do that but the target audience was not limited or to put better it was more of a mass marketing as compared to a targeted marketing.

Every coin has two sides and so does digital marketing. If from a seller’s perspective, it’s a boon, from a customer’s perspective I don’t know if I should call it a bane or what, but it is definitely not safe. Last weekend we had been to an exhibition for some house hunt and at every stall that we stopped by; we had to give in our mobile numbers and email Ids. And when my husband passed the form to me, I ensured that I give his mobile number and e-mail than mine. Finally when we came out, I was giggling telling him that I had given his number everywhere. Well that was a joke until he came back home to see his mail ID already flooding with mails related to the property. Some database would have been created and the details had got circulated. We don’t need any Swami on radio to trouble people by sharing their numbers. If you really want to trouble someone or get some work done, just send out their mobile numbers and Email Ids and your work would be done!

Limited to what I knew and what I found interesting, I felt I should write something .Now I will post the link of my blog on FB, LinkedIn ,use WhatsApp and emails send the link to my friends or reviewers! Hence using digital marketing to sell my capabilities! Please do share your review and comments on the blog.(Another form of digital marketing!)

Beware!!Caution Note- I have an analytics engine to measure the reach and know how many people read this blog. And the tool helps me to understand the geographies from where people have read it and the source that has been used. I have been using this analysis for last few years. Hence the concept is not new, it always existed and it is we the customers who have made digital marketing a buzz today!