Being What I Always Wanted To Be.....

I believe we all have some demons from our past and sometimes in the present too. More than often I see people trying to run away from them rather than facing them and dealing with them once and for all. It is always easy to not talk about it. It is easier to pretend that it never existed. But it did. It lived, it breathed and you fed it. But now if you know that you could have chosen better, you must have the courage to look it in the eye and say I am not afraid of you. I might be ashamed of you but you cannot scare me anymore.  When I talk about such things to close friends, the feedback I hear is that it liberated them. Talking it out, confessing it made them feel free. Sometimes when we talk it out, we realise those were not our demons. Some demons are brought to our lives and we assume that we birthed and fed them whereas it was given to us to deal with. Hence, talking and sharing is important. Saying it out, writing it out is therapy. Now that people are more open to mental h...

This one is going to sting because many people are not going to like what I have to say. While we talk about equality, empowerment, progress, and what not I want to know how are you doing at your roots/basics/fundamentals? You might be a leader at your workplace, doing well with financial independence but do you still face these root challenges? Not having the surname you were born with and even if you managed to keep one, there is no one to carry it forward for you. Basically your lineage ends here. (Not that it matters... duh!). You have no home. Yes maybe you have paid for it and even have the legal papers for it but as per the society you were earlier living in your father's home and now living in your husband's home. Your future maybe your son's home or an old age home.  You brag your ability to have a career as independence. Isn't it supposed to be a basic right as for the other gender? You are "supported" to work and you are so grateful for it. Your ...

I honestly believe that 1 good thing/person overpowers atleast 5 times of negativity.  Whole my life, I have seen narcissist men all around. That's precisely 22 years of my life. And then I meet one guy and he immediately superseded and changed my expectations from men. What I felt was obvious and natural behavior for 22 years became unacceptable behavior without any leniency. That's what goodness does to you. You forget the capacity and the quantity in which you have it. It is just right and nothing in the world can make you feel otherwise. Similarly, there might be 100 people who don't really like you or wish ill to you but the 10 people who are your true well wishers will always supersede them all. It is a simple logic. Hate/dislike is never committed enough to be consistent. Someone does not like someone, they will talk ill or wish bad for the person and then move on to the next one to curse. But love prevails always. It is there in the conscious and the subconscious. P...

 If you are a mother and if you keep cribbing about societal issues and the way kids have been brought up in our generation, keep reading. Well, every generation have their own issues and we all progress in a way or another. But even after generations of changes there is one common issue which is discussed in all forums (professional and personal/ formal and informal/ planned and unplanned) is patriarchy.  I am not one of those feminist who advocate for the world to turn into a matriarch to take revenge on the oppression generations of women have been facing. I honestly vote for equality. And I think most of us do. However, what do we actually do to bring that change?  Apart from discussing and being profound at the takeaways, I don’t think there is any progressive step that we actually take. I do feel that to take the step it does not have to be groundbreaking. Everything starts at home and so this solution starts at home too.  Most of the time, we start discussing ...

 I am elated today because my childhood friend achieved my childhood dream! They say that people live their dreams through their children but I feel there are few such close-st ones who when they achieve something you always wanted to, a major part of you wins! So we are friends since 20 years and before being friends, I had always been a fan of this girl. Excelled in academics, love to read books, talks intellectual with a great sense of humor and can just lighten you up by being around. Over the years, we became the closest of friends, even roommates, our spouses being friends, we 4 becoming fantastic 4, we separating our cities, becoming parents at just a gap of 3 months, and still till date meeting once a year like a religion! Over the years, she has never ceased to amaze me with the way she handles life, changing drastically and yet remaining the same. And yesterday, I (umm...I mean the fantastic 4) got on a video call (because we have to share all the big things in life to ea...

If you are a working woman reading this post and if you are a mother too, tell me if you ever had a holiday which was truly holiday for you? Finishing off pending tasks, doing that extra cleaning or taking up extra responsibilities because you are not working today, is that really a holiday?  While men in my workplace are making one-day trip plans and beer outings, I am planning to buy that new pan that has been pending for long. Does that ring a bell? Well, find your happiness in small things they say. And buying a new pan is also happiness but then how is it different?  Trying to pursue a hobby? Well it takes a lot of work too. Sometimes you have to find people to pursue a hobby which often you don’t especially if those people are also women. Secondly, if it’s a solo hobby, you can truly get to it peacefully only if your child is sleeping or occupied in a class/school or somewhere else and by the time you get to it, often the passion is fizzed out. On top of all of it, the b...

Writing has always been healing to me. It has always happened that I would have words articulated exactly the same way I am thinking them when I am writing but when I speak I always miss somethings and then I redo it in my head. Has it happened to you? I went back many times to retrospect why so? It took me to as back as I could remember where I was hardly 8 years old and used to maintain a diary where I talked everything "to" it. "Dear diary..." and it went on everyday. I had so much to tell my diary and if someone asked me how was school today, I would say fine. There were no big secrets spilled there. What secrets would a 8 year old have? I still remember journaling stuff like, "Oh it was such hot weather today! We did not even get enough water breaks! How unfair?!" But if someone would ask me later "You seem dehydrated." I would say "Oh, is it?" So having never acknowledged for all these years that I am the most expressive and ...

There are a lot of times in life when you look like this confident successful person on the exterior while you are fighting a battle inside every second. You have this timid little person inside this brave shell.  Recently I faced such situation where I was a confident achiever a day before but there were upcoming challenges right around the corner that clouded my self-confidence every other second. I didn’t know if I was good enough. Every pointed finger made me question myself. Unfortunately there came an awful night before a big morning where I broke out. I didn’t see anyway out and I wanted to run and hide in my shell.  You know, it so happens often that when you are in such a phase, you are best for you! There is no one who can understand you better than yourself and it’s your own battle to fight and win over. But being humans, we look upto our family and friends to rescue us.  Being a woman, lately I have learnt there is nothing better than female friendship(s) to g...

 Have you ever experienced the pain of being unheard?  You are talking to your elders pouring your heart out and they are just mindlessly nodding their heads and sometimes even not that. You are in a room full of people where you are at the table as part of a decision maker but people talk over you or repeat the same things you said and getting acknowledged while it seems your voice didn't reach them? You are talking to your children and they shut the door on your face or after 5 mins ask you to repeat what you said because they were not listening? Your texts being read but are not replied to? Your spouse engaging you in a guessing game where you guess whether he/she heard you or not because you don't get any response? How do you deal with such situations? How to be heard? How to be respected when you speak? Some people might say talking is an art. You need to learn how to say what you want to say so as it makes an impact. Okay. I can agree with this for a public speaking situ...

 When I wrote the post on retrospection, many people discussed a lot of things with me which made me feel good for two reasons: 1) They read my writing  💓 2) The post stirred something inside each of them and I learnt so much from the discussions. In one of those discussions when we kind of side tracked to the topic of doing things for ourselves, one of my friends said that she has been doing it lately consciously and she feels it is very important for the reminder of our existence. She gave me a specific example that earlier when she used to order anything to eat, she would always think or ask her kids what they want. Even if she doesn't want to eat, she would order the same. But now, she rotates this choice of food. At times, the kids eat what she would want to order and this makes an incredible difference.  This thought kept ringing in my mind and today I decided to implement it. So, today its me and my son at home alone and I was super hungry at lunch. He was hungry ...

 We often find ourselves lost in the jungle of chaos in the middle of life. What is chaos? The one that is inside or the one that we “think” is outside?  Too many thoughts can be chaos. Absolute silence can be chaos too. Not crying at all can be chaotic and so is crying unstoppable. Not writing it out can be chaotic and so does writing on and on.  Where does it end? Please don’t say nowhere. That’s a dangerous word. If it ends nowhere that means it is endless. And who would want to live in an endless loop of unwanted things? Once again, for everything the answer is within. The answer for you is you and for me is me. We seek darkness hence we find it. If we seek light, it is easier to find as a matter of fact because it is within. I know it doesn’t work when it comes to it. I know it is not easy. But what is easy? From the day you were born, from lifting your neck to dealing with this today’s chaos, everything has been difficult. But we still lifted our necks. We rolled, w...

There always comes a time in life when you retrospect past few months/years and decide what needs changing. Sometimes the changes are in your routine, sometimes the people surrounding you and other times starting new things for your own good. My retrospection gave me all three recently! It is overwhelming to realize at times that you were roaming in the wrong lanes and had you not done this exercise, you might have done a lot of damage to your own.  I got this habit or rather this alarm of awareness ever since I was in 9th standard or somewhere around same age where I kind of auto-fix myself with this exercise. It is usually a hit and trial but the self awareness makes me more independent every time I do it. This exercise is also very helpful in thinking about myself (just me and no one else) which no one else would do so selflessly. It is such a basic thing but I see so many people forgetting to just think about themselves. They would think about their ageing parents, their spouse...

  This year women’s day was special. Not just for me, but globally. I saw so many changes around the globe for women. Changes we all have been waiting for since a long time. Let us take sports. Our Indian girls won the U19 cricket world cup championship and what a moment it was! Shafali Varma’s (Captain) emotional turmoil was so touching and relatable to all the Indian girls. Imagine the girls who had to disguise themselves as boys all their young age to be able to develop the skill set for the sport and attempt an entry on professional level if they could surpass the conventional norms of their families. No matter how blessed we are, we all go through similar challenges somewhere in our lives. I recently learned and realized how important men are as our allies to change the world. You want the world to be progressive, you can’t do it just by women even if your progression is for women. And second most important thing is resourcing. Having the right resources at the right time....

When today everyone talks about love and pampering, I want to talk about loss. Loss of a life, loss of a relationship, loss of memories, loss of friendship. How naive it is for someone to assign a day of love. Can you love someone for a day? Can love be for just a day?  Like losses, love is a constant. When you lose someone, you lose them forever. People might argue that a lost relationship/friendship sometimes comes back. Does it? Does it ever come back in the same form it went? I don't think so. There is always this wound that you taped which if ripped, will again make you go through it all over again. Today, 11 years ago, I lost my grandfather. There were flowers and kisses exchanged all around but we were grieving. But still, on his death anniversary when I go back and remember him, I only find love. Sometimes, it might feel like I am forgetting his face and then the next time, I can recall each wrinkle on his fingers. He taught me to write. I would have never known how to writ...

Now that the world is progressing and we do see women leaders all around the world doing great things and inspiring people, my organization also have some powerful women personalities leading the business while inspiring and paving way for inclusiveness and diversity. A prime inspiring day of my life was a recent conference that I attended last week at my workplace which was a talk session of the women technologists/leaders of the group. The session gave away so many life changing lessons to me that I am so glad I did not miss it. There are moments in your life that literally grows you in your character and personality and this was one of those moments of my life. We, the women tribe, are so smart and yet so naive. It was so overwhelming to realise that all or most of us feel the same things, go through the same struggles in day-to-day life but we all feel that the situations are unique to us. Or at best we assume, there are very few people who have to face the same things. There were ...

Recently, I read this book "Postscript" by Cecelia Ahern which is the sequel of the famous romance fiction P.S. I Love you. Its a strong recommendation by the way. However, the book talks about a concept called "Roots and Wings" which fascinated me so much that I kept thinking about it and wanted to write something on it.  Without giving any spoiler of the book, there is a point where one of the characters asks Holly (the protagonist) : what is that one thing in her life that gives her both roots and wings? Such a powerful question, isn't it? We all want to soar high in our life in all aspects: we want to succeed in career, in relationships, in parenting, in business and what not. Those are the wings we need to fly and reach the heights. At the same time, many of us want or rather need to be grounded and never forget our roots. What made us what we are. What's that reminds us of our beginning, of our base. What's the thing that keeps us tethered to home?...

Like everyone else, my new year began with some positive assertions in my mind. A basic idea of what I have to focus on and what I have to discard from life. My husband gifted me a planner book which is almost a project book rather and needs another planner to plan on how to fill that book. It asks me to plan out my year first on the year level, then on the month level and then on each day level and I sometimes wonder that if I were so sorted, I wouldn't need the planner after all. However, to those of you who have read "Atomic Habits" and "The power of your subconscious mind", this planner is a hybrid of both and needs a lot of skill which I am trying to acquire and make time for. My problem is that anytime I get, I find something "better" to do which is mostly reading and thus I miss out on a lot on trying some new things.  Anyway, one of my assertions was trying to write more. There was a time when I used to write 1 blogpost everyday. However, I was...

While the year 2022 is coming to an end, I felt that I should oblige to another one of my forgotten hobby..blogging. I think this is one of those years where I wrote the least, read the most and did a lot of things that I never imagined I would. I read around 30 books this year and 31st still in the read and I got to understand something about myself. While I try to explore the spirituality in me by reading, trying to understand and then finally accepting few concepts of beyond life and death and the true awakening, I am also equally interested in the self-help books which tell me how to live a happier and healthier life, how to have better habits, how to fit in the circle of life of which I am trying to get rid of. It is ironical and tells me straight in the eye how far away I am from any kind of awakening and spiritual growth.  I have participated in more sports in this year than I have participated in total in my young life (which was the right time of participation) and that to...

They often say that the more you read, it makes you a little more learned. But I believe it makes you a little more crazy too. You are philosophical in all your approaches of looking at life. I recently had read this book “The Shiva sutras” which has blown my mind. I wouldn’t make this blog a book review but this book is something which I would revisit till I am breathing and I would like to absorb atleast few of the teachings if not all.  If the knowledge says that we are all the same, you are me and I am you and this world and it’s baggages are all but a myth then there are so many things which are non-existent and still we are all time running-after or “dying-for”.  From the materialistic pleasures to the emotional pains, we have devoted ourselves day and night to these commitments. In reality they are just a figment of imagination of our cosmos which is conceptualising this false concept of “life”.  Some of our basic motives are baseless: What do we want to do in life...

During the past few weeks, I wanted to write on so many occasions but sometimes the situations held me back and sometimes I didn't have the flow to complete the post. So I intend to give it a try now... Its not so long ago that I wrote last but there are so many big wins and small losses that happened with me during this period:  I won a lot of time with my son. I especially love our exclusive walks at odd hours when mostly no one is around and we are just ourselves talking about the trees, our favorite things, school stuff, some teachings and learnings from both sides, running, sometimes cycling and being silent. I lost the zeal to grab projects and be on top of things. Well, you got to set your priorities. Sometimes life is calling out to you to retrospect, pause and redo certain things. You accept the reality of the situation and you choose what is important for now. I won a couple of great friends. I am a social person in general but I am neither a person who hangs out in group...