Favourite Photos of 2024

There isn't much to say. Just sharing somenof my favourites from last year:

January: Loaded up on lots of bread from Thom's

February:  Going to work at the crack of dawn

March: Driving down beautiful winding roads

April: Enjoyed the sites and scenes of Chicago

June: Enjoyed long walks and mangoes at Lal Bagh

August: Walked under the green skies of Cubbon Park

September: Enjoyed the festivities

October: Dimsums in whole wheat wrappers

November: Enjoyed lazing animals at Bannerghatta 

December: Drove without purpose to Chikkaballapur 

2024- Restart

In 2023, though I had every intention of actively posting on my blog, it did not materialize. I prioritised my work, which demanded more energy from me, and rest, which I needed to replenish my energy after all the efforts that went in. I did read quite a bit to unwind and also journaled on a daily basis, which seemed more important to me than focusing on the blog.

I love blogging and this year, I plan to make a comeback and hopefully I will not only be consistent but also try my best to provide value rather than just life updates.

I have developed a lot of new interests and I am excited to share some of them with soon.

See you soon.

I'm Back

I did not write a word the whole of 2022 in this blog. I have no excuse, it was just not my priority. However, I realised how much I love sharing in this space, so decided to return this year when I did a mid year life assessment. 

What has changed since I last wrote properly?

- The pandemic has eased and it is no longer a global health emergency

- After working from home for 2 whole years, now there is a hybrid way of working (working from home on certain days and from office on other days)

-  Gaining some pandemic weight

- Resumption of travel world over

- A war

- Twitter take over

What have I been upto?

- Lots of reading

- Working on my goals

- Calligraphy classes

- Returning to office

- Working hard

Anyway, this post was mainly to share that I am returning here and I have every intention to stay regular here. Watch out for this space!

Happy 2020

Hi Everyone,

Wish you a very Happy 2020. It is already 12 days. I wonder until what time it is okay to greet people a Happy New Year after the new year has begun. As always a new year brings us all hope and excitement. We feel we can start our living our ideal lives, not repeat the mistakes of the previous year, making new changes and hope that it is our best year yet. I am also one of these hopeful people.

While I look forward to this year, I am also thankful for 2019. I am thankful for all that I could achieve, all the people that I met, all the travelling that I did, all the new things that I learnt and every experience that I had. I am also thankful for some revelations that I had about myself, the people around me and the world in general. There were some amazing things that happened in my country and some disappointments too but despite everything, I am hopeful that things will happen for the better this year.

I somehow feel better prepared to face 2020 than I did any of the previous years. It could be due to the fact that I had already started thinking of my goals and what I wanted to achieve in 2020, toward the end of 2019 itself and started planning around them upfront and finalized all that I wanted to do with a proper plan in place within the first week of Jan,2020 itself. This year, I have put in place a planner that I feel will help me achieve my goals. My next blog would be about my goals for 2020, which I hope to publish next week.

I hope this would be a fantastic year for my friends and family.

Wishing everyone a 2020 filled with lots of successes with everything good that you may want to do, a year full of good health and lots of happiness.

-S

Favourite Pictures of 2019

We are just 3 days away from 2020 and at this point, I thought of sharing my favourite pictures for this year. It was quite difficult for me to select a few. These may be a part of my Instagram posts etc, and may not be the best ones I shot. They are just my favourite. Also, these are in no particular order.

1. Kodial Teru: Or the Mangalore Car Festival. Earlier this year, I went to my home town to attend the week of the annual Managalore Car Festival, also known as Ratha Saptami. The atmosphere was colourful, vibrant and high on energy. For a person, who is not particularly fond of crowds, I just loved the whole atmosphere.

2. Sundays at Cubbon Park: For a big part of the first half of this year, it was a ritual to visit Cubbon Park on Sundays, to be one with nature and acclimatise our lungs to some fresh air, the below picture was taken on one such occasion.

3. Trevi Fountain: I would be blogging about this soon. I had an opportunity this year this to visit Rome and there were some mind blowing places there, one of which was the Trevi Fountain- the bright white marble fountain.

4.  The Colosseum of Rome: It was a privilege to visit one of the 7 wonders of the World- the Colosseum of Rome. It was supposed to be a quarry and before that an amphitheater to view gladiatorial fights and races.

5. The Spiral Stairs at the Vatican Museum: This is not an attraction in the Vatican, I just loved the view.

6. Pieces of Moon: It is a dream to be on the moon but I do not know if it would be ever realized in this lifetime. I consider myself fortunate to have seen some small pieces of it at the Vatican museum- gifted by Richard Nixon to the People of Vatican City. 

7.  View from Stanserhorn: I also had the opportunity to visit Switzerland this year- coming soon on my blog and this majestic view below is said to be that of the birthplace of Switzerland by one of the fellow visitors of the place. This picture was taken atop Stanserhorn.

8. Belur: In my last blog, I have written already how I was blown away by Belur. The below picture taken close to sunset is one of my favourites. 

9. Book House: Sometimes visits to a book shop brings me a lot of calm, the smell of old books and new and the touch of paper have an indescribable satisfaction. It is sometimes my Happy Place. Just being amidst piles of books brought a smile to my face.

10. The Most Extraordinary Autorickshaw: Given the traffic in Bangalore city, it is hard to imagine that anyone driving can be passionate about their job. This summer, I happened to take a ride on the most extraordinary auto. It had a mobile charging station, drinking water, a fan, make-up mirror, positive quotes, calendar, clock etc. Each of those were my favourites. I am just posting one of them. When I reflect on it at the end of the year, I realised what an effort the autodriver/owner had made to provide some amount of service to the passengers and how in turn it made him satisfied with his really tough and stressful job of navigating through the traffic all through the day, which in turn motivated him. If someone doing such a job can manage a smile and show care for his passengers, I think we in our comfortable offices have really got no reason to complain.

The Perception of Pain

This post is another reflection of mine on Pain and another rambling. It might not hold any value to anyone, just some thoughts that come to mind.

Pain is sometimes physical and sometimes mental, sometimes visible and sometimes invisible. Sometimes some others experience our pain along with us and sometimes it is mysterious and intangible. A talk I had with my aunt, inspired this post.

A close relative of ours had passed away. His sons were very close to him and the family was close knit. When the last rites were to be performed, the pain which the family experienced was so perceptible by everyone around. It is not at all easy to carry on all the death related rites when the new grief is running high. I told my aunt that it would have been impossible for me to carry out these rites. She told me that it is one of the reasons why that most ancient texts prescribe sons to perform last rites. Women have to endure a comparable pain through labour, while men do the same through performing last rites in a time of grief. She went on to say that at least the pain endured by women was short lived and fructified in joy, it was not the same for men who had to be present in the public eye, keep a straight face through tough times. It was interesting for me to see how she perceived pain. One kind was more measurable, short lived and resulted in joy while the other was not really measurable, the life of which could not be anticipated and leaves hearts empty. My feminist friends, please do not jump in and try to prove a point. It is not about men or women, it is about pain in this case.

Sometimes we can point to the exact region where we are hurting and sometimes it is so difficult to do it. Could it be that a pain experienced by the mind is manifesting itself in the form of physical pain? It is hard to say. If you remember my post about the book Complications by Atul Gawande, I had briefly touched up on a point that sometimes all the blood tests, scans and physical exams indicate that nothing is wrong but the person continues to suffer. Pain is one condition that is mysterious. Only the person suffering from it can validate its existence. Sometimes, you may see some inflammation in some part of the body and expect that the individual is in deep pain but in reality, the person is not experiencing any.

Studies show that women report pain more frequently than men. It could partly because men want to appear more macho and not report it, or the perceive it as negligible enough to ignore. However, how well pain is tolerated between genders is not clear. 

How I perceive pain- well, for me everyday or every other day we experience pain of one kind or the other and most of the time we ignore it as it is tolerable or a part of body's day to day wear and tear. My body has a specific way of reacting to pain- even if I think pain is tolerable, I know that my body is unable to tolerate it when I throw up, vomit. It can be any kind of pain, that is how my body copes. Once I throw-up, I can feel my body able to manage the pain much better and the pain disappears completely. If I do not throw-up, I know my body is comfortably managing the pain. 

I think I have rambled enough. These are just thoughts coming in to my mind while writing and I have just transcribed them on to this blog, it probably does not make any sense :-).

The Thing About Faith

I have been reflecting a lot about faith in the last few days. I do not mean religion. I have been thinking about it in terms of trust/belief/conviction or confidence. It is something in the mind but can do wonders outside of the mind. Warning: This post is a rambling so read it only if you do not have much to do.

In my observation, if you have a strong faith in accomplishing something or that some event would definitely happen, it indeed happens. The universe does conspire to help you accomplish your vision.

We have often heard Faith can move mountains which is to say that if one has faith in something, he or she can achieve it. In high school, one of my teachers told us a story which has stuck with me till today. It is about this man who wanted to challenge the saying- Faith can move mountains. There was a mountain range which could be viewed from his bedroom window. He declared, "I have all the faith  in the world, let us see if those mountains will move today." Every hour, he would peep outside his window to see if the mountains moved. At the end of the day, he mentioned to all those around him, "I had the faith, but the mountains did not move. I checked myself every hour if they moved but nothing happened. Looks like faith does not move mountains after all." One old wise man in his audience said, "If you had the faith that the mountains would move, you would never check if they moved. You checked because you did not have faith." This story was so wise and had a lot of truth. Sometimes, in our personal lives as well, we think or hope some events to take place or accomplish something difficult, but if we do not believe strongly in ourselves or the event, it is not very likely that it would materialise.


The story, The Last Leaf by O. Henry also revolves around a similar theme. SPOILER AHEAD.
For those who do not know this story, it is a story about a sick girl who looks at a plant outside her window and relates her health condition to that of the plant. Everyday, there would be some leaves that the plant would shed; and with every shedding of the leaves, she thought her health deteriorated further. One day, she notices that there is only one last leaf remaining. She is very concerned that when the last leaf sheds, she will be no more. Her friend sees her concern and contacts an artist and requests him to paint a leaf on the plant, so that her friend's belief in life remains. He agrees to it. The night is very dark coupled with heavy rains and thunderstorms. She is extremely worried that it could be the last day of her life and spends the night hoping that the leaf does not shed. Meanwhile, the artist is hard at work under very testing circumstances. He battles on and completes painting the leaf on the plant. The following morning, when the girl opens her eyes, she is cheerful and her joy new no bounds to see the leaf intact. She conveys her joy to her friend that her faith in live is restored. Her friend gently breaks to her the reality of the leaf and that the artist died in the bad weather after painting the leaf.

As a child, I read a true story in Tinkle comics, sent in by one of their young readers. On a dark stormy night, a young boy of around 9 years was frightened of the thunder and lightning. There was a power breakdown too. He was unable to sleep due to fear. He did not want to appear timid to his parents. He believed that if he held on to the Bible, he will survive the night and will remain safe. He gropes for the Bible in the dark and finally finds the book. He holds it close to his chest and finds this energy and courage that he can make it through the night and gradually fell in to a deep slumber. When he wakes up the next morning, he notices that the book he held so close to him all night was not the Bible, but a  dictionary. It was just his faith that holding the Bible close to him will protect him that actually saw him through the night.

The last anecdote is from my personal life. Someone I knew was battling a life threatening disease. He was treated at a hospital and believed that he was responding well to the treatment. He was very spirited and spoke to his visitors about returning home soon. He could walk about and would enjoy watching TV and have interesting conversations with his family. All this until the day when the doctors told him that he was not really responding to any treatment and would not survive for long. This news really shattered his faith and destroyed his spirit. In a day, the person found himself to be bed-ridden, not able to eat or walk or talk to people. He passed away, in a week's time. When discussing the doctors, they said that he was fighting the disease with all his might but they did not think, the news would deteriorate his health so quickly. They thought he had a few months.

I do not know why I am narrating these stories and anecdotes or if I am conveying them well enough. When I sat down and reflected on Faith, all these came rushing to my mind and I just thought of penning them down on this blog.

Happy 2019!

Hello,

I wanted to wish you all a very Happy 2019!  I know I am slightly over a week late (wow! how the fast the days have flown!!) in my greeting but better late than never I guess.

I am still working on my goals for this year and putting a bit of a thought while defining them. Overall, I am looking for a more fulfilling 2019. 2018 was a good year- I say this because despite all the ups and down in life, we came out surviving and stronger and made it to 2019. I could not achieve all that I set out to do in the beginning of the year but I did get some direction on setting goals for this year. I love the phrase used by Stephen Covey- Live your life by design and not by default (well, something to that effect!) and there were moments in 2018 where I switched to a default mode, an auto-pilot  mode and would not want that for 2019.

Though 2018 had its share of stresses, it was not all that bad- I enjoyed my travels, I enjoyed my time with my family tremendously. I enjoyed reading the books that I did. I enjoyed preparing meals for my family. I enjoyed my job a lot. I loved the experience of watching the movies that I did. I loved the blogging that I did. I enjoyed going to several events. I enjoyed several experiences in Bangalore in the first year after my stint in Hyderabad. I enjoyed my morning walks and there were so many other great experiences. There were a lot of things to be thankful for in 2018.

I hope 2019 brings my family, my friends and everyone I know great joy and happiness. I hope everyone achieves everything good that they want to.

Wishing you all your best year yet!
- S

Favourite Pictures of 2018

As we wind down with 2018, I thought of sharing some of my favourite pictures from 2018.  These are in no particular order and may be part of some of my other posts, Instagram etc.  Also, these are my favourite, not necessarily the ones shot the best.

So, let's begin.

Walk in the Park: I shot this during one of my morning walks in the park. These are the kind of sights which motivates me to get out of the bed, put on my shoes and march to the park. This is in the park, which is man-made- makes one believe that man is capable of creating beauty too.

Trekking at Puck's Glen: Puck's glen is really pleasant to the eye. I shot this during my picture during my trek there. The area is filled with so much beauty that the camera does not do enough justice to it.

Peering into the Atlantic: Well, it is the part of the Irish Sea which joins into the Atlantic. I love this picture as my family look out from the pier into the ocean. There is a sense of togetherness and calm.

Snapshot of the West Coast: This December, I visited my birth place and home town Mangalore after years. It was nice to be welcomed by beautifully lined coconut and palm trees. There are so many of them and they impart a sense of belonging.

The Prime Meridian: From here, the time and the world begins :-)

Palace of Westminster: Also, known as the British Parliament, this is a huge and magnificent building both inside and outside. I enjoyed the guided tour of the place thoroughly.

At the Temple Door: This beautifully ornate door/gate is from the Mangalore Sri Venkataramana temple. It is a classic door of any Sri Venkataramana temple in the South Canara district.

Chariot at Manjeshwar: I had the opportunity to visit Manjeshwar, in Kerala this year. This is a typical chariot in the South Canara district and adjoining areas but I love this picture in particular as this chariot really stood out as the sunlight fell on it directly during the afternoon and brought out the colours much more than any other.

Ikebana: This is a picture of one of the many Ikebanas, the traditional Japanese flower arrangements at Japan Habba this year. All of them were beautiful but I picked my favourite for this post.

Realistic Art: I love realistic art and this piece in particular. This was shot at Chitra Sante outside Chitrakala Parishat in Bangalore and while we were browsing through several paintings, this one, from a distance, looked so real. I actually thought, who could have got furniture from home at a place like this!

Work from home: I shot this picture on one of the days that I was working from home, towards the late afternoon, when I was taking a break and having a cup of something warm. I love this picture, as it reminds me of the stressful day on which it was shot and having something warm, instantly relaxed me. Also, as the sun streamed through our windows, the whole set-up seemed heart warming :-).

A Year in Bengaluru/Bangalore

I cannot believe it has already been a year since I moved back to Bangalore. How time just flew!! It feels like just yesterday that we moved back to this city. I thought it would be a good idea to reflect on how the one year in Bangalore has been.

I must say the city has changed a lot and not always for the best. It has become extremely populous compared to when I left it in 2012. This has also contributed to an unmanageable traffic situation in most parts of the city. In a way I am not surprised by this as the city still presents itself as an attractive hub for jobs and start-up that people from a big part of the country migrate here every year. My brother told me that every year, the city's population grows by 38%!! Now that is really huge! I am surprised that the city, being completely unprepared for this unplanned growth, is still surviving.
This being said, now that the Government and city administration has noted this, the efforts made to improve the infrastructure of the city to cope with this kind of growth is not catching up or able to keep pace with the growth. I hope they are doing something in the background to prevent the city from crumbling under the gigantic growth.

When I left the city, it was clean and green. While there is still quite a bit of green cover in the city, it is rapidly depleting to make way for growth. It is nice to see the citizens coming together to save the greenery. So, the administration is working towards translocating the trees. I just wish all the green is just within the city so that people living in the city can benefit from it. Due to the growth, there are a lot of vehicles on the street contributing to some heavy pollution. I think the increase in greenery would serve to benefit the city massively.

I do not know how many remember that in 2014-2015, Bangalore was the cleanest capital in the country and raked 7th in the list of cleanest cities in the country. Don't believe me, read this. However, in 2018, it is probably right in the bottom of the list. The garbage disposal system is currently not meeting the city's needs. Though a lot of initiatives have been introduced like waste segregation, ban on plastics etc, their implementation is not effective. Also, I have come to understand the city's administration has some budget and resource issues due to which the garbage pick-up is not regular and there is open dumping in several places in the city. I think this is something the city administration really needs to work on and really fast.

The other area of focus would be provision of clean and safe water to the citizens. The amount of water supplied to the city is not enough, increasing the dependency on water tankers. I do not want to talk much about how important water is and why there is a shortage. I think we all know by now, why.

What I love about the city is the vibrant vibe it still possesses. There are so many interesting and unique events all across the city all through the city. People love going to these and so do I. There are so many affordable food joints in almost every nook and corner of most localities and they offer a large variety too.

The other thing that I like is, each locality is quite self contained. Vegetable shops, groceries, schools, hospitals, parks etc are present in all localities and are easily accessible, usually by a short walk. Fortunately, this aspect of the city has not undergone any change and has in fact, improved for the better.

A big change in the transport sector is the introduction of fast and reliable Metro in the city. Though a bigger network is required for this rapidly becoming massive city, it is work in progress and hope all the other lines are ready soon. In most of my metro journeys so far, there have been tremendous crowds in the train. Sometimes it surprises me that there is still enough oxygen inside the trains to keep everyone from fainting.

The well-loved mild weather of Bangalore is still in tact. Though it has become slightly warmer than before, it is still quite cool and amazing. It has been raining on most days in this last year, keeping the temperature under control.

The city seems to believe in early to bed and early to rise. While most shops are open until 10pm, many close by 8pm. In the mornings, if you are in the neighbourhood park around 5am, you will find it bustling with walkers and joggers and you can see the same in the gyms. When I was in Hyderabad, the newspaper and milk delivery seldom happened before 7:45-8:00 am, but here, it is available by 6:00-6:30am in the morning. Only after moving to Hyderabad, did I realise that Bangalore is a city of early risers. The pace of life may not be comparable to that of cities like Mumbai, but is definitely fast paced compared to Hyderabad, which comes across as a very laid back city.

These are my initial thoughts about the year that went by. If I think of anything else later on, I will update the same in the comments section. As you may have noticed, it is a mixed bag of experiences so far. Whatever the experience maybe, I love living in the city, despite its flaws and only a Bangalorean would understand what I mean!

Teachers' Day Tribute to All My Teachers

A Happy Teachers' Day to all my teachers. In every walk of life, we all have had teachers of different kinds- some of them who teach us to function as human beings, some formally educate us and some teach us how to not be a bad teacher. We have different labels for every kind of teacher- parents, teacher, coach, trainer, friend etc.

This Teachers' Day, I would like to extend my gratitude to my parents and family for teaching me everything from my first step to my first word, for giving me the values I cherish and the guidance provided to me whenever I needed it and not to forget the innumerable recipes and quick tips and hacks to make life easy. You gave me the survival skills needed to fend the world- thank you!

I would like to thank my mentor and coaches for enabling a satisfying professional life, for bringing me out of my shell and developing me not only into a trained resource but also a confident human being.

Today I would specifically like to thank my English teacher in middle school in New Delhi for making me love literature and inculcating a habit of reading and writing in me. This teacher (let us call her Mrs. RT in this blog), was really special. I loved attending her classes and never liked to miss them. I specifically remember her taking us through Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. The book was a part of our curriculum. Mrs. RT had tremendous story telling skills and when she took us through the book, it felt like we were amidst the characters in the book and very much a part of the story. I never wanted her classes to end. On lazy days, it was knowing that we had her class, motivated me to go to school. She encouraged us to read and write about what we read. She also encouraged us to write biographies and autobiographies by pretending to be someone else- a gardener, a porter, a potter etc.  I genuinely found my love for reading and writing from her. She encouraged us to be creative.

I think about what a wonderful teacher she was quite often and yesterday, I ended up googling for her name after all these years. Turns out, she became the principal of the same school and won an award from the Government for Education Excellence and Educationist of the Year, a few years back. She truly deserved those accolades. I did write to the school to convey my message to her. Thank you Ma'am for being a terrific teacher.

Conversations with Siri

Inspired by the episode on the Big Bang Theory where Raj and Siri, the virtual assistant on Apple products engage in a conversation, I have tried the same on several occasions when I did not have much to do. Excerpts of some recent conversations:

When the focus is on Siri:











On My Boredom:



On Friendship






Apple vs Google vs Microsoft
























When Siri resorts to Sidhuism/Tharoorism



Some random chit-chat