Whatever...

These days, I often take an Uber cab to commute to/from work. On one such trip last week, I received some of the most precious insights on work ethics. I thought about them over the weekend and decided to internalize them in my personal & work life. So I thought of sharing them here for the reader's benefit. Since I do not have the driver's consent to share his name etc., let us just call him Mr. Uber. It was 9:35 PM when I booked my Uber. It is sometimes tough to get a cab at this time since many people are in transit and probably the number of cabs is also lesser during night. I was lucky to be assigned a cab quickly, which seemed to be travelling in opposite direction. Half expecting a cancellation, I called the driver and he said he will be there in 2 minutes. As soon as I entered the car, he asked if I was going back home. Now, I won't go into word for word dialogues, but some lines stuck with me, which I am sharing along with how I intend to apply them for mysel...

There is no end to this debate. I have been a faithful android user from 2010 to 2015. I started with using a sleek HTC handset that I bought on Vijaya Dashmi . Every 2 years I have had to change my android phone as the older one could not support a new update or became unusably slow as more apps were installed. Till I moved to an iPhone towards end of 2015.  3 years gone and I am still in favour of the Apple phone I am using - an iPhone 6 plus 16 GB that iPaid a whopping fifty thousand rupees for. It is stable, secure & consistent performer. It has supported all iOS upgrades that Apple has released so far. It is a great business phone because of it's reliability.  But not all is hunky dory after 3 years. With an ever increasing mobile focus from various applications, high definition content and digital media, the 16 GB internal storage is insufficient. I need to backup videos and photographs twice every month. On a 7 day vacation, I invariably run out of space for...

I have been living in a city for more than 10 years now. Before that, I have lived in a village in Goa, India. The total population of my village was less than five thousand. Whereas, since 2004, I have lived in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune & now Hyderabad. Being raised in a village, I have always had difficulty liking a city. In fact, the first time I visited a house on 14th Floor in Mumbai, I got a very weird feeling. It is a perspective I had never had in my village! Since then, I have tried to blend in, albeit forcefully. Over the last decade, having lived across cities, with all the constraints of a family man, I have zeroed in on 3 main issues that stare us in the face. And these issues have remediation (if not to resolve, at least ease it) at individual level. We need not wait for the government to do anything. I have already started doing my bit. This post is only for setting the context on each of these issues. I will dedicate another post individually to how I am trying...

Yes! Having settled the matter there, let us move forward with some rant since this is a blog... There are a lot of religious places that are banning women from entering. This includes temples, mosques and not sure if also a few churches. In retaliation, women and feminists are going all crazy calling it their fundamental right, challenging the diktat in court etc. I have a different view point on this and may sound crazy to a few, but since you are reading till now, go on further... Practicing your religion is your fundamental right, not going to a specific building. So just chuck it and practice your religion somewhere else. Just like if you want to gulp a few drinks but are not allowed in a specific bar because of dress code, you don't go to the judiciary or stage a protest!!?? You just go to the theka, get some daaru home and get high.  Why do you desperately want to go to a place that does not want you? Would you visit a jewellery shop or saari shop if they ill treat...

Liberalization, represented by Pepsico, entered our lives with this slogan in 1998. And since then it has held and grown it's roots through our existence. Everybody who was yet to take up a job in the 90's is today possessed with the 'need' for more. Mind it, it's not wanting more of everything but needing it! Today the careers we all are into are mostly driven by this need for more. More speed in cars, computers and phones, more return on investment, more homes to live, more luxury, more health care and what not. If you take a ratio of everything that is more today to what the same parameter was 20 years ago, the result will almost be infinity! But does all of this come for free? How come all of us are inclined to believe that this 'infinite' amount of 'progress' has come with no cost at all. In fact most of these things have become cheaper than they were 20 years ago. Isn't that hard to believe and against the order of nature? In my opinion,...

A couple of years ago I wrote this piece about how to work from home. From the stats and comments I received, it looked like a pretty famous topic close to many people's heart. However, after having worked from home for 2 years (and also having worked from office before that), I believe today that working from home ALL THE TIME is not such a good idea.  I am not denying the benefits of WFH entirely. You get to babysit when needed, spend time with parents if required, run errands etc. But, this cannot be the norm! The days you decide to work from your home should be an exception which should be generously allowed by your employer. Like, an acquaintance who worked from home for 6 months to look after her bed ridden mother. Or, like another friend who could work from home while her husband got transferred from city to city. But what changed my mind? Here it is - Networking: one of the main advantages of going to an office facility is when you come face to face with people wh...

I have been working for 11 years now. The first 2 years I spent in a bank. Doing trade finance operations. I used computer like a took back then. I used it to do my job faster and better. Circa 2006, I moved into I.T. Consulting because it was 'the place to be'.  Since then, my life has changed a lot. From being a people person who liked to go out and meet people, I have become a laptop & smart phone person. Having spent close to a decade in IT, I have started believing that a person can achieve a lot and 'get things done'  through just a laptop and a data connection. Well, guess what, I AM WRONG! This feeling has been fuelled further by all the on line utilities like paying bills, bank transactions, shopping, ticket booking and what not. You can even get entertained (or so you think) in front of the laptop! You almost feel like you can live your entire life in front of the laptop and not regret it at all. I don't mean to blame my job entirely for it, si...

When I read  this post on Facebook, I began thinking if I really needed to be told this and in this manner! Are men so insensitive that they can't see their wife tired? Do men of my generation who have access to Internet, don't know how demanding is it to be a mother? I felt offended for being typecast. So, I decided to respond... Dear Breastfeeding Wife, First of all, it's OUR baby, not MY baby. Stop referring to the baby like a strange object that has entered our relationship. Didn't we speak at length about this? Didn't we both know raising a baby would be demanding, both for you and me? I didn't do it to you by force!!! Coming to the part of breastfeeding the baby. I know it's demanding. I can SEE that you are tired from all the chores and the breastfeeding. I don't have an iota of doubt that it's taking a toll on you. If it was practical, I would have left you to only nursing the baby and do all the chores myself. But it is not! Which is...

Dear kids, Hope you are having a good time! Since you believe in Santa, fairies, knights and all the mythical characters that are righteous, I am sure you live with eternal optimism (though you don't have a clue what that word means) through all the thick and thin.The stories you have heard of obedience, selflessness, honesty and all the other right virtues are probably shaping you into an ideal person. But this is not going to last! You will soon turn into an adult, which is a far worse version of yourself. Your parents will teach you to lie. All the kids will help each other in becoming adult humans with egos (I can't really describe to you what an 'ego' is, but is it what makes us adults, other than a moustache) bigger than the largest playground you have seen. We all adults wish that our kids remain kids, but we haven't so neither will our kids remain! The purpose of this letter is to bust some myths about adults or grown ups, whatever you call us. I will go ...

I have spent last few weeks trying to make choices between health, children's education, career choices, safe & secure environment for kids, time with parents and most importantly - money. People who have witnessed my dilemma have told me I am too emotional, not ambitious enough, 'wasting my talent' and what not! At the same time, I have also seen people of my age and caliber make the same choices with ease. So, I got thinking. What is it that helps them make these decisions? After a lot of deliberation, I think it is money. I have grown up in a household that places minimal emphasis on money. My father once told me that money will help me survive but it's my passion that will help me have a life. So, money has been no more than a tool! In fact so much was my self gratification that I even looked down upon people as 'money-minded'. My definition of such people was - people who would make decisions purely based on monetary gain. While, I made my decisio...