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!

Policy Makers

The policy makers at office, please install an attendance recorder at home of each employee and check the number of hours they spend at home. I think it would be way less than number of hours they spend in their work location/offices.

Policy makers are senseless people who think, by putting in more number of hours, they will get more work done from employees. In manufacturing sector- yes I agree, but then they should be policy makers of manufacturing and not an IT company! It makes us work less, as we are unhappy with your increasing hour policies and strict attendance recording systems.

Policy makers should be the people who are actually suffering. Ask a lady who is going to bear a child, or the one who leaves her infant with some caretaker at home to make a policy, she will never make one where employees are asked to spend 9.5 hours at work.

And the best part, those whose job doesn’t require them to be social, those people try to become social. During a peak hour, I am waiting at a signal for more than 20 minutes , close to Rajbhavan of Bangalore and two traffic police are talking forgetting to change the signal from red to green. The road behind has jammed for few kilometers, and people from the end are honking to tell those F******* to change the signal. Finally one biker got down went and yelled at the cop and that’s when the signal changes! Mind it policy makers, they were socializing. Please note socializing is not required for all roles, those who need, let them. Those who don’t can sit at home working and give some relief to the traffic of Bangalore!

Are we really socializing in those 9.5, that they remove the work from home policies also? We made friends in college who help us switch jobs, but we don’t meet them often or on a daily basis. What are we going to get by meeting colleagues on daily basis? Please make one day a week compulsory for all, we might make the best use of that, instead asking us to come every day to socialize.

Policy makers sounds so over confident while changing their policies saying “If you are not happy, please leave the organization. We have thousands waiting out there to join us”. Well if employees are not happy, they are sure to leave. You took time to apply such stringent rules. They will take time to look out for job, and there are thousands of liberal organizations out there waiting for capable employees to join as well.

I recently came across some article which said “Employees leave because of their managers and not an organization”. Well I disagree as poor supervisors also struck in a situation where they have to follow the policies laid by organization; unfortunately they have to enforce them upon their juniors without a choice becoming a ravan like figure in front of the subordinates. At the same time, they have to keep them happy to ensure they do their work. Managers are in a soup! But not all employees understand and they happily leave blaming their seniors!

Policy makers should never be exposed the numbers, as in the profits of an organization. They are not there to save money, but to save people from leaving an organization and help employees grow, so that the organization grows. And finally policy makers should undergo some very difficult EQ(Emotional Quotient) exams than IQ, where they should to examined understand each and every employee emotionally. But then who will make the policy for these exams? It has to be some policy maker! ;)

Note: This blog has no relevance to any person in reality and only the expressions of some random thoughts.

Stay Blessed!

I have no idea what triggers me to write, but it is always a trigger.

Off late, I have been listening to the RJs while my travel to office and back from office to home, I feel ‘blessed are the people who can work or do what they love to do the most’. On that note I love to talk, but I can’t talk to laptop all through the day. lol.

I had been to a party this Friday and I see a gang of DJs (I was a part of this gang fortunately) dancing with one DJ playing the music standing on the top on a podium built for the console. I was never fond of or rather in the habit of listening to English music and looking at the passion, power and fun that these guys were having, I came out singing aloud , tonight’s gonna be a good night!!!! And again this feeling had hit me hard that ‘blessed are the people who can work or do what they love to do the most.’

I am going to list down some of the professions where I feel blessed are these people to work or do what they like to and are still minting money. Well it’s not always the money, but more important is the satisfaction, peace and happiness they get! I may be right, I may be wrong also as we say grass is always greener on the other side.

Gym instructors: Man!! All they do is to train people and be fit themselves and doing that they get money. As I everyday wait at Sankey signal for more than 3 minutes (waiting time),I see people gyming at the gym which could be seen from there. I seriously feel jealous. I am sitting inside the car honking at other vehicles and they are blissfully interacting with people, keeping themselves fit and enjoying their work.

Movie review writers: They get entertainment and their organizations pay them to go and watch movies! Bet you can’t be at a better place if you are a movie lover! You are blessed is all I can say. Well I can also put book review writers in this category but time taken to write a review is longer, which doesn’t matter as long as a person loves to read and write.

Dance teachers: I used to learn dance when I was a kid and I believe most of us have learnt as kids, but only few of them get the opportunity to take that up as a career. I can put artists and musicians also in this category. No doubt the monetary back up is needed until a person establishes themselves but more important is how passionate are you to really take that up as a career.

Play cricket and earn: Well not just cricket but all the sports like badminton or tennis. However this isn’t an easy one as my hubby (part of under 14 Indian cricket team) tells his stories about the training and sessions before and after the match. Well nothing is easy in that case, but the sportsmen still get paid to play. It is also true that you have to be in the right country in the right sports which I believe is a bit of luck as well. How many of us would wait for sports (PET) class during the school, but only few may have the guts to take up coaching or training for a sport as a career. For the rest it is a 45 min class which gets over as we finish schooling.

Cartoonist: Well I am not sure how much this professional is valid in today’s digital era, but still all they have to do is to create something creative. The Amul adds always makes me wonder that “how creative the team should be to come up with idea then and there when something (good or bad) happens”.

Photo journalist: When my sister was in the profession of journalism, one of her photo journalist friend would come home, eat and talk about it. All he has to do is to click. He loved photography there he was looking at pics clicked by him in the newspaper the following day. Well we can also include wedding photographers as that’s a booming business but blessed are the photographers who love to click and get paid well for that.

Well these are few which came to mind and there could be many more. As it is said that “Do what you love to do and love what you do”. Most of us don’t have a choice but to love what we do as we fall into the second category.

Hence I would call them blessed who get to do what they love to do!! No, they are not confined to 4 walls of their cubicles; most of them don’t bother about the pay cheques at the end of the month as they live each day and every day is a new challenge .Something more creative, some more fun is always in store for them. They do not look at the watch for the day to get over as they are doing what they love to do. Stay Blessed!

Overconfidence Vs Overconfidence Vs Overconfidence

The start is going to be too abrupt for the blog. But I really had no idea where to begin as I had only random thoughts to write about.
Whenever I tell my husband, this work is to be done and he replies too promptly “yes it will be done”, all I say is “you sounded too overconfident”. To which without a miss he would reply “not overconfident BUT CONFIDENT”. Most of the times, my sentence wouldn’t have been complete also that he says it will be done.

My blog is not about being confident and overconfident. Throughout in our student and professional days we come across these terms and people say don’t sound to overconfident whether it may be an interview, a presentation or daily life.

I am going to write and draw a comparison between overconfident vs overconfident vs the 3rd kind of overconfident people. I have been coming across too many people these days and I am surprised by different kinds of confident attitude of people.

The first set of overconfident people are those who are very sure what they want in life and have clearly defined paths as to how they are going to achieve it. They have all the equipment’s or say support system in terms of their families, finances and their education in place. They know by hook or crook, they will get the work done. And these people are so confident that everything is going to work in their favor always , which often does , they become over confident.

The 2nd set of people who know they have nothing to lose even if they try something new and different. For them, no support system is required as the support system is a liability for them. They break away and are completely free. These are the people who are driven by passion and they will do what they like to do. They also do what they don’t like to get the resources through these means to do what they like. These set of people have been the most empathetic set of people, and live life free. They live life as if there is no tomorrow. When we see such people in the crowd, they are different. They are noticeable by the charm and happy go lucky nature. They are overconfident but for good.

Finally the 3rd set of overconfident people. They don’t have any support system in place. No proper education or family support in place. They have no idea what they want to do in life, no passion. They will get up and say “ oh no , just another day” and believe me you take the opportunity in a platter and keep it right in front of them, they will want to wait and see what better they can get and say “I can’t do this, I am used to doing some particular thing or this not how I have been doing things”. They will have all reasons to procrastinate and believe me they are completely overconfident about their lives too. Their frustration gets converted to overconfidence and they learn to give a S*** to good as well as the bad things in life. Well they crib too and the moment someone want to help them, they start sounding overconfident. They want to sit, relax and get everything what they don’t deserve as well!!!!

So Mr. /Ms. Reader- what type of confident person are you? Ahem i asked confident , not overconfident!

And now I am scared that next time when I tell my husband ‘ you sound overconfident’, he shouldn’t come back asking ‘ which type of overconfident people are you referring me to?’ rather than his usual reply! But yes I am too overconfident that he may not have the time to read what’s written :-)

Note: There is no relevance to any person in reality.

Namma Bengaluru Traffic

It has been quite a long time that I blogged. But from the time of my last blog, till this one I met with a ‘good’ accident in my life. Question that strikes “how can an accident be ‘Good’ ”?On a lighter note I got married which according to me, till my last blog was a human made disaster which we all commit naturally and make it a natural disaster.lol. Well ‘FOR NOW’ it feels this ‘Change is for Good’.


The topic of this blog is how to fight the Bangalore’s traffic. The point is after being in Bangalore for close to three years, I realize this issue now as I started to experience the traffic only now. Till February this year, I had no commitments and I always chose to stay close to office, making use of all gym and cafeteria facility. Now the hard reality of traffic has struck because of my CHANGE FOR GOOD.I spend almost 3 to 3.5 hours of my day in traffic driving around 60 KMs to my work location. Most of the Bangaloreans do. As I spoke to people around, I heard most of them travelling for minimum 2 hours a day in traffic.In these two or three hours,a person can do whatever he wants to wishes to do.


One thing which makes me wonder is why do every individual need to go to the work location every day? Is the presence of each and every employee in an organization mandatory? I do understand there are some roles, which are highly critical and require the presence, but definitely not all as the number of people on the roads.
We have got connected to the remote locations of the world by technology, so why not within Bangalore. All that one needs is connectivity though a datacard or wifi and a continuous supply of power for laptops. All the newly constructed houses have that facility. And I am sure namma wifi strategy for Bangalore would help each one of us connected even more as compared to any other times. For now we can still manage with 3G Datacards.


Some of my thoughts which would help in fighting the traffic problem of Bangalore is provided below. Some are at the individual level, some at the Company level and few at the government level.

•Company & Government should define the roles where the mandatory presence is required and other should be asked to do a work from home(WFH)

•Company should make sure an individual whose presence is required is provided the housing within 2-5 kms of office location. I don’t think all members of a family would be working in ‘mandatorily presence’ role. One gets the accommodation, rest of them do a WFH.

•IT companies should make use of cabs as mandatory; the attendance to be recorded in cabs along with office premise, to ensure that 1 person does not occupy 1 car space on the road. For those who can’t use the cabs, they should give valid medical certificates and reasons for the same

•Government should give better training to traffic police in Bangalore, half of the issues are where there are traffic police and manual signals

•Government should provide HRA tax exemption only when the house is within 5 kms range of their office location. See number of people changing their house within few months.

•Government should construct foot over bridges. There are so many places where traffic issues arise only because the traffic is stopped for people to cross the road. We are not America yet that the traffic is stopped for public to walk and cross. It is required but not at the cost of commuters sitting and honking in the vehicles. To take some examples, crossing opposite esteem mall, Manyata tech park ring road crossing.

•Companies should have some incentive linked to number of KMs run by your car registered in the company on a monthly or quarterly basis. All the cars have system to measure the KMs. Lesser the KMs, more would be incentive as a CSR initiative. We are definitely going to save on energy by that.

•At an individual level, we can try and use metro and do carpooling. Not sure at the feasibility of that at this point of time in Bangalore, but it would help at the basic levels though.

•Government should build underground tunnel roads or long and high bridges for long distance travelers, but that’s not an immediate solution as well.



Let’s think and bring out of box solutions. Expanding the roads or Making traffic signals automated is not the right thing that would help to solve this as it’s not because of roads or signals but the core problem is number of vehicles on the roads are too high. That has to be brought down.



So what would be the cons?
Side effect of work from home may be argued upon that people may not be able to socialize. But we can bring solution to that by having one day of the week working where all employees have to come mandatory. Saves the gossip time and the would use the same for professional interactions.


The radio channels may suffer as number of people listening may go down. I keep listening to radio and they say ‘call me or WhatsApp me if you are stuck in traffic’. At times it helps as we realize that it not just us, buy many like us who are in the same boat suffering from the traffic problem, but I am sure Radio channels are innovative enough to get more listeners.


Let’s do something to bring a ‘Change for Good’ for Namma Bengaluru, as every CHANGE is for GOOD!

A trek to remember!

As I was flipping the pages of my book at night, I got a call from Bhaiya asking “we are all going for a trek to mudumalai forest, one seat left in the car, you want to join?
The 14th August long weekend had just begun and I was all alone in peace reading at my home. I asked when you are all leaving. He said tomorrow early morning at 4.00 am and I agreed to join him and his friends. As ever Bangalore is a place of friends of friends.

I went and parked my car at Bhaiya’s friend home, where all others were waiting. I greeted them all and there it began- the life of roller coaster fun, peace and excitement.

As we entered the forest, we switched off the AC and put the window down and I felt as if I was not in India!
We reached our greenwoods nature camp and were welcomed with a hot tea and bright sky with the forest stretching in front of us. We sat for few hours out there, enjoying the scene, for all we get to see in our daily lives and in our offices are the wall papers of such beautiful places in the laptop.


No hurry, no one running around and it was like life had come to halt. I was watching a still life painting right in front of my eyes. I closed my eyes absorbing the moment as the wind hits my face.

After few hours of silence and serenity, we decided on the trek to forest the next morning and got to sleep soon hearing the insects and birds mild chirping outside our tents at night. Well we also heard a roar! Not sure if it was a tiger or a friend’s snore in the adjacent tent.

We all got up early and were ready. As we were wearing our shoes, our guide who was an old man entered the gate of our tent resort and asked “Are you all ready?” We all nodded and it was around 6.15am that we all set out for the trek.


It was all till this moment the life was different. And post the trek had begun, I realized life was no different from our daily corporate life.

We all followed the guide talking amongst ourselves. One of the friends in the trek asked the old man “have you ever seen a tiger?” and he was cool with it and said “yes couple of times” as if he was talking about having seen a dog in the forest. For next 15-20 min we continued to walk climbing a hill which had the path and there comes in the first challenge, a river to cross.

I shouted aloud “Don’t tell me, we are supposed to cross the river”. Every one turned back to me and said “ Shsshhhh…” no more talking or shouting as we are entering the forest. The old man asked us to put the phone on silent. I smiled thinking we do put our phones on silent before every meeting in the office as well. I have mentioned about success and failure transfers in my blogs earlier in which we convert our past failures and success into the future success and failures. In my last trip to mekadatu, I had to cross the river and as I was trying to hold my friend from slipping, I had impressively slipped and fell in the river with ice cold water. Well that was a moment of laugh for my friends and hot topic of discussion in FB for few months post that. But I was thinking of that failure transfer (slipping and falling in the river), wondering that might happen again.Lesson learnt: We do success and failure transfer in real life too and not just in corporate life.


We reached near the river and I let few of my friends go ahead, wondering I might try and do their success transfer to mine thinking ‘if they can cross the river, so can I’. I watched them all cross and finally bhaiya was right behind me “Go, start walking on the rocks, you can do it”. I said “ohk, I will”. I started. I looked down and flow of the water was way faster than I had thought it to be. Some where there were rocks and somewhere rods connecting the rocks. We had to walk on them. As I stepped on the rods, Bhaiya said “don’t look down, see they all reached, walk faster and try reaching them”.

I looked up and walked faster. I again shouted at my friends who had almost reached the other side “mujhe swimming nahi aati, do any of you know? If I happen to fall in river, do save me”. One of them who was walking behind me shouted back “ mujhe bhi nahi aati”. I felt like kicking him for those words at the wrong time. The noise of the river water was so much that we had to shout to talk. Another friend from other side shouted who called me ‘ghost eyes’ shouted “I know to swim ghost eyes, relax and cross it”. Ohk that was somewhat assuring and I walked a bit faster doing some circus type balancing acts. Lesson learnt: Knowing the targets to reach in life is as important as the corporate world and having a backup makes us achieve things easily.


Post this challenge we entered the real forest. Some of the guys ran and joined our guide, the old man. Rest of us were following them in bunches walking together. Well that did reflect our attitudes. Those who were eager to know things moved ahead to the guide. I, who prefer to be safe, walked in between where there were few of them before and few after me. There were few walking at the end were the ones who were not scared of what might happen at the back, but ensured people in front of them were safe. If I get deeper into the analysis, I believe the roles or the places where we work actually made us do that or may be vice versa.

In some of the places we were covered with thick trees that there wasnt place for two people to walk side by side also. In between the guide would stop. He would try to hear and was trying to analyze if there is a probability of seeing some wild animal. He was the visionary and we were all clueless about what he was trying to see or hear. Lesson learnt: In real life also, most of us are clueless about the path we are taking, though we might know the purpose. We may need a guide or a mentor to take us through the journey of life with the help of his experience and knowledge.


Then there was a roar that we really heard. We all stopped for a minute in silence. The Guide turned whispered “keep walking”. I wanted to shout ‘enough of the roller coaster trek, I want to go back’ and that lead me to think, if someone asked me to walk back, I doubt if I would be able to trace my path. Lesson learnt: In real life also, we can’t use the same path to go back in which we had started and there would be chances, when all we can do is to control the emotions and just follow the leader. Something that we do every day in our corporate life as well.

And finally we reached the middle of the forest, where it was open. Ohk , I can see in few meters around me and there wasn’t any wild animal.The guide announced, you all can take a break for 10 minutes and then we would walk back. It was worth the effort to walk to see this scene. For few minutes it felt like heaven does exist on earth.

Post clicking some pics, we started to walk. We asked the guide, “if we are going to follow the same path?” he said “no”. Oh some relief, as I didn’t want to face the tiger roars again. Lesson learnt for real life which applies in corporate life as well, path unknown is easier to go than to go in path where we know challenges exists.


The rest of the trek was smooth and the guide would show us the marks of animals on the ground and tell which animals had crossed this path and when that would have happened.

He told us about the trees and talk about different people who would come for trekking. In corporate world people brag about their degrees and universities. But how many of us do what we really like. He was far more knowledgeable than any of us, when we talked about animals and forests. The old man could have to gone to some city to work in some corporate company and would have earned more than what he was doing now. Lesson learnt: In real life also education and literacy are two different things. What we don’t do is to follow or do what we like.


I observed that no single leaf or the tree was same. All were in different shapes and patterns. Isn’t it same in the corporate world as well. No single individual is same and everyone has different capabilities which are so unique. We still expect the same results from everyone while working.


Finally i had the river to be crossed again.I managed the same way I did while going.I ensured that the friend who knew swimming helped me cross it.:p. All exhausted,we reached back to our tents where we were served with hot breakfast.As we ate,a friend announced – we trekked 14Kms, 166650 steps and burnt 750 calories. I looked at the food and said "I think we have compensated that by eating some 1000 calories in last 5 minutes" and everyone laughed. Lesson learnt: Who says goals of real life are not measurable.


While returing,I looked back at the forest looking forward for a trek again.

Cloud for Human Emotions and Brain Data

For last 15 days, all that I have been hearing is Cloud! Cloud! Cloud! Well not literally the 15 days, but for a long time which reminds me that, to get into the infrastructure team, my assignment was to create a flyer on cloud computing services 2 years back.

But for last 15 days I was eventually dreaming cloud in my dreams because of the deal I was working on or could be because of the cloudy weather of Bangalore, I don’t know. God, it rains every day without a miss. No let me not divert to rain, it’s about the cloud today.

There was a point when I was really tired while working. At the last minute of my submission timeline while flipping through multiple excel sheet, I started working on the wrong file thinking that was the final sheet. AH AH AH! Thanks to the version control practice of saving the document that I went back to the last one and once again had to make all the changes at the Nth hour.

Along with some personal thoughts running at the back of my mind, I realized the chai wallah bhaiya in my office was luckier than me as he was enjoying his holiday. Well that means, I don’t get a tea. Ahem! Ahem! With my never give up attitude, I went around office checking the coffee vending machines and found them to be switched off too. Coffee vending machines needs a break and gets their holiday too!:p! With desperate need of “tea” thoughts in my mind, I go back to work thinking I will handle the tea issue later.

That’s when the thought struck me "Can’t I have a cloud to store my emotions and data? Why can’t I transfer all my brain data and the emotions to cloud ,Can't I use only what is needed?"


Listing down the features and benefits of having a cloud for human emotions and brain data (now that sounds like a line from RFP document)

Productivity gain: - Imagine the level of productivity that brain would have? The speed with which brain would now process the data would be far better as we can bring down the related data on which we are working when we begin the work. Pay as we use our own data? Brain need not scan all the data but only the relevant ones. Sounds cool!

No storage limit: - Even now there is no constraint in human brain storage capacity, but then thinking of the human brain capacity gives me shiver. We talk about big data and organizations struggle to store the minimal data. Though transferring the human brain data to cloud would be a great memory booster, but on what ground are the kids going to write the exams in a country like India where all we learn is “Ratta maar” during the school and college days. We wouldn’t struggle to remember the mathematics formula or biology terminologies. Download, write the exams and put it back on cloud!

Paas, Saas, Iaas and now Eaas: - That’s Emotion As A Service. I use only the emotions that I would need. I know I am going to a party; I download all emotions related to party control. Super security and situation control of emotions that would be. I guess husbands and guys would then find a way to hack the cloud and delete the cry or nag emotion from their wife or GFs cloud. Lol. I want to be excited I can, I want to be sad, I am only sad. No chance of mixed emotions.


Public cloud/ private cloud or hybrid cloud: - well to transfer the human emotions and data, we would definitely need private cloud, but yes something that we want to share, we can leverage public cloud for that. That would save cost and no more would we need google to search data. It would all be available in the public cloud, search whatever you want.

Pricing benefits: - we may wonder why do I need to pay to save my own data? Better to pay now to transfer the data and emotions to cloud rather than facing medical issues in future and spending on the medical bills.

Who is going to manage these cloud:- Like the IT based companies, we would then have more cloud selling companies which would business to customer (B2C)selling rather than business to business(B2B). We will sell cloud accounts like how we sell savings accounts in banks now. And these organizations in turn would manage the cloud; handle the back up and security issues.


Everything comes with a challenge, so would be this solution

Challenge number 1: Handling the downtime would be an issue
Imagine a situation when a friend is in a severe need of you and is crying badly, and your sad and counselling related emotions are on a cloud and your vendor is doing some change management activities. You are unable to use your cloud. Your friend cries and you keep laughing at that!!! So that’s why you should choose the best organization and read all policies before buying your cloud.

Challenge number 2: Need a Service Desk to handle the calls
Imagine a second situation. You read all mathematical formulas related things before the CAT exam and was on cloud. The day before your exam, the network crashes. Not just for your but many. All try to download at the same time. You call the helpdesk to scream and they say we are fixing the network and CAT gets over by that time…..you would say brain was better.

Challenge number 3: Cloud burst
A physical device to store data can crash. Imagine the cloud burst in the technology terms. I wonder if that’s possible, but not impossible either .But do my brain have the choice to crash? Whatever it is , it has to work whether it is to express the emotions or to think of some real time work.



Now that you have read the blog, please use your brain to understand that this would never happen. Please smile (express your emotions which you do not have in cloud) and get back to your work!

Do you have the real “Sense of Humor”?

Came across an article in LinkedIn and really liked the following lines:-

Then there is a person who never gives you a straight answer – everything is a joke. The jokes are really a shield from getting to know the person. It can be funny once or twice, but not all the time.

A few winters ago, I was talking to an executive who was off to a vacation in the Caribbean. I asked, “Where are you staying?” I thought I would hear about some really nice, cool place that I could learn about – even if I could not afford it.

Instead, her answer was tongue-in-cheek, “Oh we are staying at a cheap Holiday Inn.” While I have often stayed at Holiday Inns (some cheap, some not), I was supposed to find the answer cute or funny. I did not.
The reason I did not find it funny is that I really never could get a straight answer from that person. Talking to her became a stupid, exhausting game. Conclusion: "Spending less time with her was a gift to myself."


I had come across people who had or rather who thought they had good sense of humor. Others appreciated that and loved to be around such people, but I was never comfortable to be around people with high sense of humor or the ones who thought they had one. After reading the above article I realized I wasn’t the only one not to find others stupid answers to a direct question as cute or funny.


Next time, if you wish to highlight your “sense of humor” as a great attribute of yours, please give a second thought.
Some of the things I believe people who think they with high sense of humor suffer with are listed below. No human being is right, so I have the right to be wrong, and if the blog offends those with the high sense of humor, then they don’t have good sense of humor and that they only think they have one. Else this could have been a topic of humor as well!

•Need an audience to laugh - let there not be right set of people to laugh, all their sense of humor would be lost
•Need a targeted topic or a person to project themselves as a person with sense of humor– Making fun of a person because they are bald, dark or short are definitely not good sense of humor. There are some things which an individual cannot change about themselves.
•They are not patient listeners and attention seekers- Be around a person who thinks to have a good sense of humor, you can never complete what you wanted to say. They tend to crack some joke in between on what you said and would have grabbed all the attention towards themselves. You would keep wishing you got the space to complete what you wanted to say.
•Extremely bad sense of timings – You would have had a bad fight with your boss, mother or your spouse. Never dare to discuss the problem with such people as that would have already become a topic of laugh and floating in the air amongst people. These people, who think they have good sense of humor, do not understand the situation and time and always on lookout for topic to crack some silly joke to entertain the audience around. What may be important to you is only a topic of humor to them.
•Like to watch some crappy shows - I tried watching some of these laughter shows (wouldn’t name them here) couple of times and I never found them to be funny. The host claims and flaunts to be a person of Good sense of humor at the cost of insulting the live audience sitting there. Whoaa!! People get paid to insult people and we happily watch in the name of “Good sense of humor?”


Please call yourself a person with good sense of humor if you don’t have your own audience to laugh, it is not targeted at a person who is helpless about something and you have allowed the person to complete what he or she wanted to say before cracking the silly line, which you think would be a joke!

We do say laughter is the best medicine, but I do wonder do we always need good sense of humor to laugh. Today these “assumed to be happy creatures” are making fun of others in the name of sense of humor, is there a guarantee that you wouldn’t the topic of their humor tomorrow? If you are ready to face, be the audience. Else please treat only the people with real sense of humor as entertainers and don’t be all ears for rubbish jokers.

Note: The blog does not intent to offend feelings and sentiments of anyone other than the people who assume they have good sense of humor!:p

Unlearn what you learnt!

I am back to my liberator (writing) from some frustrations, well not exactly frustration but some dilemmas that I have been facing off late! Back to my B-school days, ohk I am not from tier1 B-school, but I still learnt the same business which an IIM guy would learn. Well an IIM might feel this to be an insult, but I don’t care because that’s not my business and that’s not what I learnt in my tier-3 or probably tier-4 B-school.

Got diverted as ever! On that note, one more diversion, my sister hates me using “!!!!” which is there in most of my messages and blogs these days as she says it’s a symbol of frustration and I shouted back that it’s just a disconnect between two sentence instead of a full stop. That’s all! Well I started to write about something, I don’t know what that something was supposed to be, but this is where landed to!

Some of the learning’s which I learnt in my life, are now turning into some big disasters, no not as big as I think because small and big is situational! At this point of time, they are big, well may not be tomorrow or the moment you are reading this!

•I learnt : Change is preceded by chaos
Wrong-It is also followed by one. Change is not only preceded by chaos, but followed by a change is also a chaos. I join a new job; I have no clue what I am supposed to do. And worst of it all, every few months I have a change of boss (Luckily I have had all good bosses, and that the change was for good always) but then yes I have to change the work style and understand their ideology and work such that I make them happy! By the time I do, boss changes!!!! Yes one thing I learnt the most of my experience in the corporate world is “the key to success is to make your boss happy!” I just hope, none of my blogs are read by my bosses as I assume they wouldn’t have time: p!

•I learnt -Every day of our lives is learning processes!
No waz! We are supposed to behave we already know everything. A Tier 1 B-school guy already knows everything and I learn things every day. Well that’s what differentiates me and him or her for that matter.

•I learnt –Sun doesn’t shine the same all days!
Wrong! It has to shine with the same intensity everyday! And it has to be EVERYDAY. A single day miss and you lost the game. Slightly you lose of the level of your performance; some other smart guy takes over.

•I learnt -What we learn is never applicable!
Theory and practical are two different things! Who says? Presentation skill is all what we require which we DO learn while doing an MBA. That’s what my Marketing prof made me do! And all my statistics prof taught me was the excel sheets which definitely is coming in handy to make some good looking graphs to impress the customers. Well I wonder wouldn’t they have some MBAs like us to do the same analysis? I guess they would hire people with the same skills at a higher cost! There, now I talk like a business analyst. May be they would hire a Tier-1 B school guy at a higher rate to do the same!lol!

•I got trained to work 10 hours a day during my Post Grad!
Wasn’t absolutely needed! My college made me work 10 hours in college saying get used to corporate world. They also taught us that there would be no work life balance and all crappy things which possibly could happen in corporate world. I first proved them wrong when I was in my first organization striking an awesome balance between work and life. Now I can prove them even more wrong! If they really had to teach us the real corporate world, they should have made us work 24/7! Another learning to be negated-No 10 hours concept, we need 28 hours!

•EQ-Emotional Quotient an important factor along with IQ to succeed.
I wonder why do I need an EQ? We do a work from home! Sitting in front of system, I don’t even have time to understand the emotions of the family. Either I have too much work or in bad mood because of consequences of work! And if at all I go to office, I don’t have any of my team member as they all are doing a “WFH” and I don’t even know the name of the lady and guy sitting next to me on my either side! Well I can write one whole blog on how work from home concept would be a flop in country like India with day long power cuts which are common and I often land up rushing to office in rain, but let’s not focus on that in this blog!

•I learnt –Learn to unlearn
Unlearning is more difficult than learning! Man who cares! I have seen some exact replica of presentations and ideas which were there in my old organization, now in new ones! A guy who is replicating all possible ideas and thoughts of old place is a champ! And those trying to come up with new ones are definitely the fools?

•I learnt –eating Etiquettes
We learnt eating etiquettes in the B-school! This topic has some mention in one of my blogs earlier too! But all that we eat now is S***! Let me be more decent with it, I mean unhealthy food and what is more important to think is how many of us have time to eat? Gone are the days when we would sit in front TV and mom would keep giving rotis or dosas! We would keep eating until she comes and shouts of how many more you would eat; you already have had 10 of them. Not that I would have literally had 10, but you never know, I was concentrating on TV! lol!

By the time I finish writing the blog, all I learn is I wasted my time writing and we learn as kids: TIME wasted is LIFE wasted! You have wasted few minutes of your life reading this! Unlearn what you learnt and get back to your work!!!!!

Things really do change overnight?

I saw people sitting on the roads with big boards and screaming at the mid of the night “ Bijli do , bijli do, dilli sarkar bijli do”….and I suddenly got up realizing it was a nightmare.

Well it wasn’t a nightmare but a flash back of reality which had happened some 20 years back in Delhi. During a peak summer season an area of Delhi didn’t have current continuously for few days including our house which was on Delhi-Meerut highway. And finally one night people sat on the roads blocking that highway and not letting the any vehicle pass by. I stood by at my balcony holding my parents and asked them “kal tak bijli aa jaegi na?” At times when things are not heard, we have to make things to be heard!

I google “KIA bus issue”, “BIA bus issue”, “Bangalore airport bus services issue” and nothing relevant was found.
Background: 2 weeks back, I board the airport bus KIA-8 on a Thursday to reach from my office in Manyata to Yelahanka and reached home safely. On Friday, I tried getting into the same bus at the same time and the conductor tells me it will not go to Yelahanka. I was confused, got down and waited for the next bus. And the incident repeated as the conductor said, it will go on the flyover and hence wouldn’t go Yelahanka or Kogilu cross, where I was supposed to get down. I still got into the bus and the driver explained that the routes have been changed from today and going forward all the Bangalore airport bus would go on newly constructed flyovers. I had to get down in midway somewhere and I took an auto to reach back home, which was late at night wondering things really change overnight in Bangalore.

Well two new flyovers have been constructed, one is almost an 8 km stretch and other one is about 12km, though I am really not sure about the second one. The availability of airport busses was the only reason why shifted to Yelahanka as I thought I would avoid the traffic and travel easily to reach office, although the airport bus fares are not too less.

Young population of Bangalore is sleeping: The day I reached Bangalore there was some “Bandh going on”. I still was on road because I had a necessity to search a house or a hostel. And that day I saw a guy with his SLR camera capturing the photos of vehicles running and shop which were open and I admired that the young population worked and held the responsibility in this place. And almost a year and half after this incident, I faced the airport bus issue and when I reached back home, all the neighbors told the same .There were so many young people taking that bus, when I asked what they are doing now? They said “they are switching 2 busses now”. Agreed that it was the most practical decision, but couldn’t they have worked towards achieving a better “win –win” for all. But no one did anything. Well you may ask “AAP ne(as in me) kya kiya?” .That would get answered in the later part of my blog.

Media is sleeping: I wasn’t able to digest the fact how the system can make such big changes overnight and tried googling again and again. I went through newspapers to see if there is any update on the changed bus routes, but all I got was no news found, no result found. I never thought media would sleep to this level.Has media lost the courage or was this was a very small issue to have been noticed by the media? Well I don’t think so it was small, because at least 100(Random numbers, no background check I have done, it’s a random guess) commuters have been affected on daily basis by the change of this route of the airport bus services whose regular travel route would fall below those newly constructed flyovers!

Environmental control teams are sleeping: So what was the result of the change? People had to arrange for an alternative transport, either public or private. The result was we added some 50 more bikes and 30 more cars to the Bangalore traffic? (Random numbers again, no background check I have done, it’s a random guess). We have added to some few decibels of noise pollution, to some level the environmental pollution and common man is not to be blamed, because at the end of the day, we have to reach office on time however we reach. No one accepts the delay in the time due to changing of the busses that I have to do or I get struck in the traffic!

Legal system is sleeping: As a result I took out my scooty for my daily travel to office. The distance is not less, but I do not have an option. It was only one day that I was hit by a truck when I was standing at the signal. Luckily nothing happened and I turned back to see what was the vehicle that actually hit and I saw it was a truck and in mean time 5 people come defending the truck driver saying it’s your fault. Not breaking the signal was my fault, as I saw the lights going red and I had stopped. Apparently the truck driver would have expected me to break it and go hence he forgot to apply the brakes! Whatever!!!! The traffic police (not one, there 3 were watching it happen), and they continued to watch without doing anything. Luckily I removed the helmet and seeing that I was girl, most of the people who came to fight, left. I didn’t prolong it long either, as I had the constraint of not knowing the language and I wouldn’t have got anything by proving that the truck driver was wrong. Actually one more interesting thing to note is, Police or the traffic control team also works only in general shift (mostly between 9am to 6pm) in Bangalore. At night we can hardly find them at signals, except few places where they do the alcohol test, with their selfishness to get money from the drunken people.

Finally what I did? The maximum thing which I could do was, to pick up the mail and feedback ID’s from the website of BMTC and airport authority to bring it to their notice about the change and told them that people who live below those flyovers are facing the issues, and requested them if they could find a solution for the same. Well I was glad for a minute that I got a revert back from the concerned teams which lasted only for few seconds as I realized that I just got a justification and not resolution. Justification that few busses are still running, which I can make use of! My Mail had clearly stated that both those two busses go straight from the Hebbal junction which is not right for people working in Manyata /Marthahalli and areas beyond them! But I was asked to make use of the service which do not fall on my route and that THESE BUSSES ARE MENT ONLY FOR AIRPORT TRAVELLERS! We work and do all analysis for foreign customer; can’t we do a bit of analysis before coming to such decisions? Please use the ticket dump (the electronic tickets generated in these bussed should have some records) not just for the revenue calculation, but also to see the routes and places where they are being used. And if the justifications are valid, I am sure people would accept it!

Aam aadmi is the sufferer wherever he goes. I wish I could sit on one of those flyovers, blocking them for few hours to make this issue heard by the right people. But if I am the only one going to do that, some truck would hit on and no police would be there to notice also. My life is too precious to let it go for such a petty thing which remained unnoticed even by media. I wondered if this issue could be reverted back overnight as it got changed?


Note: No offence to anyone or anything. I like Bangalore for its own reasons which every bangalorean is proud of! But traffic issue has been a thing for which we all want resolution. And this bus route change hasn’t brought anything good or rather added to the traffic problem. Feels bad that such thing also happens in my city of angels!

Fast Please!

I am going to write about the buzz word which I had been hearing for last 1 week. Loads of friend’s status updates changed on whatsapp! And as soon as I would switch on the TV, this was the only masala news they had to broadcast.

I was about to enter an important meeting on 22nd October at 2.00pm when I get a message “are you fasting?” from a friend. My reaction having been lost in my work was “WHOOATTTT FOR?????” The extra OO’s and TTTT’s were ment to threaten him meaning ‘don’t dare to send some crappy reply’, but still I got one “Karwa Chauth?” My reaction would have been worse, if my meeting had not started.

I forgot about the message as I was totally engrossed in work and thus my friend was saved until I switched on the TV in evening, waiting for my other friends to join me for dinner. As I was flipping through the channels I saw the news scrolling in the bottom of the news channels‘Patna me dikha Chand! Jammu me dikha chand! Dilli me dikha chand!’ and in few others channels were message from husband to wife and wife to husband. What was I supposed to do with Mr. and Mrs. Dholakia messages to each other on TV. Well there were others too but I found this name to be funny, which got registered in my mind and thus they get a special mention in my blog! lol! Well people don’t need TV to send messages to their husband or wife in this era of technology!

Should I call this an advantage or disadvantage of having a family member from media background, I don’t know. My sister used to walk with the next day’s newspaper at night and once she said “we didn’t get an update from the astrologer for tomorrow’s horoscope so we used last to last month’s newspaper, picked out the horoscope of some other sun sign, pasted it and work got over”. Not to mention the name, but I am talking about one of the largest daily newspapers of India. On the similar lines I was wondering if Mr. and Mrs. Dholakia were some imaginary characters of any news journalist and so could have been the messages.

I picked up my phone and replied back to my friend, “dikha chand janab? Mil fir, din me tare bhi dikhaungi tujhe!” and we laughed at that. And yes I did try to irritate some people asking the same question “did you fast” but ensured the timings weren’t wrong! :p

Before I go to sleep, I really wanted to understand the significance of this festival. I browsed through few sites and everything had a mention of how it is celebrated but none gave a reason of why karwa chauth is celebrated. Or rather none gave the actual significance of the festival. During my search I came across one article of Shobha de in times website, which said “it is absurd to do such a thing”. Well I have found loads of other rituals which I feel were absurd and often would get into arguments/trouble with people who said “things are important without any practical explanation behind the rituals!”

So here are some of the practical reasons I thought why Karwa chauth is being celebrated (Warning: Some reasons may be too sarcastic to handle! Do not read further if you can’t take a joke as a joke).
•Women get to remember their husband all through the day as compared to any other normal day. Well if they talk about them on a happy note or angry note that depends…..!

•In today’s era most of us (married working women) don’t cook all three meals at home. Both husband and wife are working, so they manage to eat at office. Well weren’t guys doing it before they got married as bachelors? So they continue to do so after wedding also, which is OK! But yes this day of karwa chauth would help such ladies realized that if they cook, atleast once in the day, their husbands might remember them and be glad to have them as their wife! So they may get to know the importance of cooking lunch! But I believe most the married working women would react to this by saying “10 ghanta they didn’t remember so just for a minute of their remembrance, I don’t think it would be worth cooking wasting my morning sleep!

•This is not a sarcastic one. For those who aren’t working, this may be a good opportunity to socialize with women who are sailing in the same boat. And it may be a good opportunity to gossip about their mother in law or daughter in laws! ohh I think that again got sarcastic!

•I was taught during my MBA about the concept of success transfer which I have already mentioned in few of my blogs. Women tend to put on weight after marriage and it’s a process of success transfer to reduce weight. If women can go without food for a day, the success can be transferred to other days as well. Logically this looks like the most practical reason for celebrating this festival.

•And last but not the least, time to test your husband and their level of dedication. Thanks to Shahrukh khan of DDLJ, women do expect their husbands to fast too! Ask them to and test their loyalty. YES guys would have their own reasons and complaints that they are tested day in and day out post their wedding and they don’t need a day to prove themselves! BEWARE if that is the case, the same is applicable for women also.

For once in my life, I am proud to be an IYER. All that we do in all festivals is to EAT! EAT! EAT! Or is it just my family problem of eating, I don’t know!