Shades of Green

I can't wait to go home! There's nothing like home. I miss my sister. I miss my dog, Teddy. I miss my mom, dad, and grandmom. I miss them so much.  A few months back, my sister and I sat along with our mom reminiscing memories from our childhood. We love teasing our mom for how rude she used to be and how bad teachers were those days. It's just beautiful. Days just went by so quick that, before we even realized we've become young adults.  I sat laughing to myself as I came across this particular childhood memory of mine -- I, my sister and mom went out for some evening shopping. Those days mom had just learnt how to drive and so we usually travelled everywhere on our Maruti Alto.  We'd almost been done with our shopping. But, mummy had to get some medicines for our grandpa. It was probably six thirty by then and was getting dark. She parked the car by the side of the road and told us to sit inside the car, while she would go get the medicines. We both happily agreed

"Don't give up, even if the path seems narrow" Every woman deserves just as many rights as a man does. When I first got into the corporate world, landing my first job after university, I was happy beyond words.  One month into the job, I realized I was being paid lesser than I deserved. I came to senses on the fact that I could have negotiated for an increase in my pay. But, what pulled me back then from even thinking about a negotiation? When I paid exactly the same fee for a degree in the University as every male counterpart of mine did, what possibly could have made me refrain from a salary negotiation?  I was highly unaware of this widely prevalent gender gap that still exists until I came across Sheryl Sandberg's TEDx talk show on YouTube.  "The phenomenon of capable people being plagued by self-doubt has a name - the impostor syndrome" She writes about the reason why women consistently underestimate themselves and that in moments when men judge their p

My thoughts have since always and forever bothered me. I never realized the kind of impact my thoughts had on my life until I came across a few books that helped me realize it. Have you noticed how we self-sabotage ourselves most of the time. Accepting everything else around us seems possible, except us. We tend to always place our failures on billboards and our achievements in small bits of paper, folded and hidden somewhere.  When we were little children, we always did things which made us happy. We loved ourselves naturally. But then as we grew up, we were taught to put others before us because self-love equaled selfishness. That led us to completely ignoring anything we did for us and prioritizing everything we did for others.  Over time, we started to find solace in other people's approval of us. Any time we got reprimanded for something we did, especially by the ones we loved, we were sent straight to gloom. If we were good today, tomorrow we were nothing but trash. Okay. If

Me to my connection - "I've just graduated and I'm looking for jobs." My connection - "Hope for the best! Jobs are harder to get during this pandemic." This leaves me wondering... Were job hunts in actual fact easier prior to the pandemic? Was procuring a job much seamless than it is today?  2020 was like the sweet candy I had been craving for, all through six years of my study curriculum. Only to discover, the candy had been deceiving me and many others like me with its looks! Urrgh!  Freshers of 2020 are certainly having a bad time and let me not lie, some jolly good time too! ;-) One year back, interviews were mostly dress-up, reach the destination on time, wait for your turn, walk-in, impress the panellists, get rejected, come back home, lament, try again, and the cycle repeats.  Today, it's gotten better. No dress-up! No hassles like having to reach on time! No waiting! Less tension as we don't have to see the million other candidates waiting fo

Envy is 'a human nature' which we reckon to be no more; when in fact the truth is that it legit exists much worse and stronger than ever before. This emotion subsists inside us and all around us. While some people counterbalance for their emotions of envy whenever something delightful happens in their life, another few who cannot contain this emotion within themselves and are always unsatisfied with the unfairness of life; find joy in the destruction and infliction of pain upon others who get better than them in life.  Long back, jealousy could be expressed or articulated by seizing anything the envier wanted or even by resorting to killing. Take the biblical example of Cain and Abel where Cain killed Abel because he could not tolerate his brother. From the legendary story 'Padmaavat', you'll know how Sultan Alauddin Khilji tries to destroy a prosperous Kingdom with the sole aim of pursuing Queen Padmavati. The emotion jealousy could be unleashed and let free even i

Hi Readers, In my previous blog, I talked about the choices we have to make in life when we arrive at a juncture:  Stand by what you choose That made me think about those choices we play no part in, those choices which have been pre-decided for us. Our curly hair, plump face, skinny hands, dark skin, narrow eyes, an imprisoned parent, a lost child, an amputated leg, and so much more. Do we get a choice to make about this? Can we change it even if we want to? I had a really good friend who was on the heavier side. She was obese from a very young age, was diagnosed with diabetes when she was just ten, had PCOS when she turned fifteen, encountered facial hair growth when she was too young to even understand it. She shares her story oftentimes with disappointment as she recalls the many pleasures she was denied of which other kids of her age were bestowed with. Did she have a choice?  A great majority of us keep narrowing our focus onto the drawbacks we have. "I hate my curly hair&quo

The inspiration for what I am writing right now comes from an interview given by Indian actress Neena Gupta.  She is a brave lady who once got pregnant out of wedlock and decided to keep her baby. When the interviewer asks her if the most difficult choice she had to make in her life was, whether or not to keep the baby; she says, "the most difficult choice was to stand by the decision she had taken." Visit this link to get a brief sketch of the interview:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QjUaLYQqI4 Plenty times, in life we arrive at the intersection of the list of many choices we have available. And we get to choose only one among them. Each one of us has our own strategies of analysing which ones among them work the best for us. We finally decide to choose one. But how do we know if we made the right choice? What if in the long run, we regret our decision? Can we turn back and redo it all from the start?  The funny fact is that, in life; many choices we make do not have a r

Dear Readers, A very Good Morning to you all. What is the 'joy of giving' like? Do we actually feel good from within or depleted of all that we have. If we take a good look around, it's not uncommon to hear - the poor are happier. But why is it so?  Aren't we a lot more blessed and insured than they are, with food to eat, a home to live in and clothes to wear? Aren't we supposed to be much much happier than they are?  Then where has it all gone wrong? One of the biggest difference between the poor and the middle-class/rich community is that the poor don't have a lot to lose. The rich carry worries about what they might lose which deprives them of the experiences of the present. We can be happy even if we are rich if we train our minds that way. Be okay to lose everything.  "Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one." - Dr Seuss Become able enough, that you can say this without a moment of hesitation. I had a silver bracelet when I was eigh

Dear Readers, Has it ever come across you that when you were really small, you might have had so-and-so goals in mind, like becoming a doctor when you grow up or to talk like someone whom you really admired or to study in a particular university or to make something really praiseworthy. And then, you just passed by those milestones without even realising they were once upon a time the dreams of that little child inside you.  Your goals just keep drifting further away from you the closer you get to it. What might once have been the biggest dream of your life may now be just a tiny memory of your past today.  I've written mission statements and made it to them but reminisced they were my mission statements only when I saw those written notes again. This book by Thomas M. Sterner is worth reading. If you've ever been lost in the fog of reaching your goals, only to realise that those goals just keep moving further and further away from you, then this book is you

How many of you have given up on studying something because you felt like you wouldn't remember anything from it anyways? How many times have you found it hard to concentrate on something? How many times have you been embarrassed when you were questioned in a meeting because you couldn't recall things that were really relevant in the discussion? "The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them" - Friedrich Nietzcshe Memory is such an integral part of learning and yet our schools never train us on how to use it properly and effectively. Companies employ people with a good memory; to be a good player of cards you require a good memory; even people like people who can remember their names even after a very long time. Where is memory not required? Man is nothing if it weren't for memories. It is the cornerstone of our existence and it determines the quality of our decisions. Your mem