Thoughts and writes

 The ‘Idea of India’ appeals to everyone, in fact even to the people who haven’t been here. It has been said that my country has a way of getting into people and changing them . History has shown, that the invaders got so trapped into her magic, that many made it their home. There is colour everywhere and cuisines that completely change if you travel 200km in any direction. Flora, fauna, terrain, climates, and even the physical appearance of people change as you travel from the hills in the north to the southern peninsula , or if you take a journey from the economic capital on the Arabian Sea, and reach the lush green tea estates of the far east. Something about its spirit and earthy love digs and settles deep into your being and tugs at your heartstrings as flashes of memories surface. On the anniversary of its birth this August, I would like to give you a small glimpse of my India , the memories of living in various places, across the land of my forefathers, and which will bel...

 The concept of ‘Soldier’ and ‘Scout’ in our everyday decision-making and behavior has been in the frontline of discussion ever since Julia Galef explained it in her Tedtalk. Cultures across the world have their way of decision-making and behavior towards people different from them. Asian cultures expect decisions and behaviors to benefit the greater good of the community or family . In the west, the need for individuality or freedom of expression influences the decision-making process and actions. Can the #learnings of the #Soldier and #Scout method help us reach the right #decision-making process? What is Soldier behavior? As the word suggests, a soldier approaches any situation with attacking and defending . Anyone challenging them with alternatives is perceived as the enemy, and the only option is to shut down the opposition. Having to change their mind or accept an opposing view is a sure defeat for the soldier. What is Scout behavior? A scout is motivated...

  Life has weird ways to whack some strange learnings into you! For most, it comes in the form of a child. Bringing up a Millenial had its elements of fresh learnings which, this #GenX parent assumed will be in existence for at least the next 20 years. Things being ‘awesome’, everyone having a ‘bae’ and ‘chill ma’ being a mantra regularly recited to you, tends to slowly percolate into your system. Sadly the #Millenials remained just that, rarely referred to as an up-trending Gen Y. The blame for the stunted growth of lingo and culture of Millenials, I place squarely on the advent and bold prowess of the next lot known as the “#Gen-Z” For us GenX, if the previous 10 years were a quiet resignation of acceptance of change, the next 10 years, to date, being upgraded by Gen-Z has been a series of shocked: what? why? how? but why again? Being #Basic , we the parents were relegated from ‘ma and pa’ to #Bros and #FAM. Following which a sort of machine language took control of fa...

  The previous post on #Moonlighting or #Gig jobs gave an understanding of the term with reasons and proof of escalation in this activity in the IT and ITES sectors in the current WFH situation https://writersara.blogspot.com/2021/07/moonlighting-in-time-of-wfh-part-i.html In today’s knowledge-oriented economies, the responsibility of managing careers rests solely with an individual. They have to be proactive at developing skills, screening the market, and grabbing all available opportunities. They frequently move jobs using their knowledge, skills, and dynamically updated capabilities. This phenomenon has promoted the uptrend in moonlighting. The primary employee reasons and pros of moonlighting are: - To upgrade or diversify skill levels in a highly competitive and shrinking employment market . When employees comprehend that they have expertise in emerging technology or a skill they have nurtured, which is now valued by other businesses, they offer services as #freelance...

 What is moonlighting? In simple terms, it means having another job in addition to your Primary one. Moonlighting is also known as ‘side-hustle’, side-gig’ or ‘private consulting’. It has been endemically present in the non-IT sector, but with WFH and smart technology, it has aggressively moved into this vertical.                                              #Moonlighting can be categorized as ‘ Inbred Moonlighting’ and ‘Outbred moonlighting’ . Inbred moonlighting is working on additional jobs or assignments in the same or similar industry where your primary job is, ‘Outbred moonlighting’ is working in an industry unrelated to the industry your primary employment is in. As per the study of Manipal Global Education- one of India’s largest Education services Groups, India is second to only the USA with more than 15million freelancers. In preco...

‘ Lying flat’ till the recent past was what my family would do through the weekend while I vented on. Suddenly this term has been recognized as a #lifestyle with an exotic Asian name ‘ Tang ping’ ( 躺平 ) . The humans in this state call themselves ‘#Lying flatists’ and a powerful country like #China has declared them a threat to the stability of their nation. Any discussions or posts on this term are being consciously censored and deleted. The idea was birthed by # Luo Huazhong who discovered that he enjoyed doing nothing .  The state-sponsored media screams of the shamefulness of the act of #‘lying flat’, as it is against the idea of working hard for the economic growth of the person and country.                                      Personally, I was delighted that there is, at last, a real term to the lifestyle I have lived for the past few years, without a sense of guilt or r...

  July 1, today India celebrates ‘Doctors Day’. The nation thanks our doctors for your endless sacrifices and unseen struggles in these tough times. The pandemic quickly moved you into the appointment of a warrior, without arms and ammunition and with an abundance of judgement from people in power.                                                        For my children and their friends in this profession this is my prayer for you: I pray for you to have the strength and patience to toil away in the cumbersome safety gear in an uncomfortable climate. I pray that the virus you fight does not travel back home with you, and your families stay safe. I pray that the people you serve and their families see you also as, a much loved and missed parent of your children, a child to aged parents , a dear friend, a mother ...

  The Little Traitor: A movie showing on Prime video, follows the unusual friendship between Proffy Liebowitz, a precocious and articulate 12-year-old Jewish boy, and a British soldier posted in Palestine named Stephen Dunlop. Though a sweet unassuming ‘coming of age' movie set in innocent times, it teaches us a lot about relationships, learning, and life .                                      1. Unexpected friendships are the best ones : As we meander through life, the possibility to make a friend lurks at every corner. Life gives us this beautiful gift of opportunity through  surprising and sometimes strange situation and coincidences. Take the opportunity, walk the common path and explore where it carries you. Keeping it or leaving it the power of choice is yours. The movie shows us a glimp...

                               ‘Be where you are or you will miss your life’ -  Buddha How is it possible today to contribute a hundred percent to your home and work when both the entities have merged into a big confusing mesh? What changes can we make to reach the right balance? Everyone is walking the tight rope more than ever, but there is an upside in it all. Working parents and dads especially, in large metros specifically, get the unique opportunity to share time with their children, schooling or playing with them. Parents actually have more time on your hands. Gone are the days of preparing multiple tiffins, waterbags schoolbags, hair plaits, polished shoes, costumes for stage and games, ironed uniforms, drops to bustops and school runs, spending a couple of hours travelling and then settling down to work. A mindboggling list of activities and stress in a mere 2 or 3 hours, no more exist. ...

‘WE RISE BY LIFTING OTHERS’ No quote summarises the year 2020-21 better than this. The year that has ravaged the world and our country especially has left a trail of destruction in every aspect of our lives. It has ravaged individual families, relationships in communities, economic stability and seeded a deep-seated mistrust and wariness for the future. All around people have lost family to death, workers their livelihood, children their childhood and human freedom on the whole. It was almost as if someone had pulled the plug on normal human existence. Amid this devastation stood tall one single aspect ‘the generosity and kindness of the human race.’ In the past decades of accelerated technology development and improved quality of life, somewhere the ‘Act of Kindness’ became the forte of the extreme rich (who made a profession of it) or the religious organisations who received the funding and manpower for the same.  The youth of this generation were consumed by movements ...

Hiraeth ; a Welsh word that has no direct English translation. Hiraeth  is  a feeling   with many layers . It is homesickness for a home you can't return to, or that never was and also sense of regret, along with a general sadness over the lost or departed. It's a longing for a place, for one’s homeland , a romanticized past , but unlike homesickness, hiraeth  can be felt for a place one has never been to. To  feel hiraeth  is to feel a deep incompleteness and recognize it as familiar. Globalization and strife have pushed a huge diaspora of humans to every corner of the world, feeling Hiraeth. It is the longing you hear in the voices of the ones who have left their homeland long ago, a homeland which continues to remain in their hearts. A homeland, which has ceased to physically exist , maybe simply due to decades of development, done to ensure the improvement of the current occupant’s quality of life. The places they once inhabited, the people ...

JUNE 2021 brought the rains lashing into the city. A half breathing half living city, wanting to be up and about but restricted and held back due to the COVID situation. The upside of it all was, the mind went whirling to another time; a long forgotten college season , to a city in past times with naturally empty stretches of  roads, sounds of birds tweeting , clean fresh air and cyclists trying to make it to their destination before the next shower. Collegians of that generation have today forgotten that cycles were not only mean exercising and health maintaining machines but literally carried you wherever your heart desired. Being the only mode of affordable transport to the struggling student (besides the sparse municipal transport) it was an asset to the owner, the only worry being getting an easily accessible spot in the college cycle parking lot. Quick exits after hurried breakfasts from homes, in order to beat the rain somehow seem to be a hard won battle. The old a...