Fair play

Another year was drawing to a close and my mandatory annual blog entry was still pending. This had been the most eventful year in my life which included my getting married and getting gifted the first pair of Aldo shoes! Despite such life changing events, my blog still awaited a refresh

I had to google creative writing ideas to start penning my thoughts down. A scan of the preceding pages of my blog showed the rigour with which I wrote, I expressed about things I felt or about things that mattered to me. Did I stop feeling? Or worse, did I stop thinking or is this what happens when you cross your thirties?? Did I just suddenly inherit reticence out of nowhere? Or am I scared to say things out loud?!

Over the last few years of my working life, I have come to form an opinion about sustenance of women in corporate. I work with an equal opportunity employer. What I have concluded off-late is that opportunity is not a concern, the working environment is. It was further fueled after reading Lean In. Over the years I have interacted with a lot of internal and external stakeholders. When I was introduced as a project lead, team lead, point person etc, an immediate response would be – ‘Which batch of MBA are you?’ Over time, it became easy to realize that what follows this question is a judgement on lack of experience and a question mark on capability. It is not easy to accept a young manager, more so if it is a female manager. There is a fair amount of scanning and guesstimation of age – more so if you are single. Senior women leaders and mentors at times agreed that it helps to ‘look’ older. A woman who is capable but cannot drink with her male counterparts or partners at work, also at times takes longer to rise up the corporate ladder. This somewhere makes the entire premise of equal opportunity fallible. Most women I know had no choice but to move companies post their maternity leave because the growth options upon their return were limited or not thought through at all. What is a bigger concern is that most women accept a base rating during the appraisal year if they have taken a maternity leave. It is further expected that women make 2-3 career compromises. First one, at the time of marriage. Almost always, the would-be bride relocates because a fellow woman (mother-in-law) feels that the son’s career is more important. Second or third compromise comes at the time of maternity depending on the number of kids she decides to have. A prospective company feels it is their right to ask a woman candidate her marriage thoughts or family plans because corporations weigh business continuity far higher than sensitivity. Be it 8 am or 8pm, calls, reviews and meetings, working Sundays just go on to show disrespect towards personal life and more so for women who also have to probably instruct the maid, feed the baby, replenish the grocery of the house or pack tiffins

Women tend to bring a lot to the table; dedication, compassion and a silent determination which is also sometimes perceived as ‘not enough aggression’. How could I miss hurling abuses as a must-do in the upper echelons of the man’s world? A woman is judged for the way she dresses, she speaks, she abuses, her food as well as her drinking/ smoking habits. While everyone has to prove their worth, a women additionally also has to justify her standing shoulder to shoulder with a male colleague; more so at senior positions. I would also like to mention that some women also make principle level compromises and these are encouraged by her male colleagues. This makes the rest of the world believe that women have it easy. It is unfair but true, because few women chose to be ‘easy’

All said and done, women in corporate today are role models to young girls for whom good education and a great career is the sole way leading to a better life. The group I work for takes care of creating a conducive work environment but on a larger scale the efforts need to be a lot more conscious. What we need is not just equal opportunity employers, but sensitive employers as well as colleagues who would encourage and enable women to give their best!

Ascend

‘Get up or you will miss the sunrise!’ was a beautiful contrast to ‘get up or you will miss the bus.’ 6 days amid the Himalayas was an inexplicable sojourn into a world which was unaffected by the fancies, fallacies or the miseries of the mortal world where I had to eventually return

The stay order on camping at various sites in Uttarakhand did dampen our spirits briefly, however we had chosen between Dayara Bugyal and Phulara Ridge after Kuari Pass got cancelled. Dayara Bugyal it was, after some soul searching which was not influenced by Quora users. Flight, AC train and a tempo traveler which allowed the Dehradun breeze to drift in; brought us to the basecamp from where we were to begin a 30 kilometers journey on foot along the meadows and ridges of the mighty Himalayas

Rewind 30 days; and our group of 8 realized we need to take this trip seriously. Well, you cannot just wake up one fine day and start ascending to reach 13000 feet above sea level. Thus commenced the efforts to take care of oneself. From different locations, in groups of twos and threes, we did our 5k jogs; posted our pace values and routes to inspire or make others envious! We tried getting into a routine wherein we slept well, ate well and had enough energy to challenge our 5k pace day after day. Shoes, warm clothes, torches, et al, we shopped together; created a master list for packing and started counting days for a trek of a lifetime!

Little did I know what to expect beyond starlit skies and chilling winds for the next 4 days. Having a Brit trek leader did add a touch of glamor to the experience! For 4 days after the morning we left the base camp, we did not have tap water, electricity or a roof over our heads. We walked 7-8 kms each day, taking community breaks where healthy finger food and water infused with ORS was shared. I don’t remember awaiting vegetarian food more than what I did during this trip! Black tea at 6am, breakfast at 7, lunch at 2, tea with snacks at 4:30, soup at 6 and dinner at 8; Indiahikes ensured we were well fed. The cold and the climb burnt the calories consumed in this elaborate meal plan. On the first night, we had dinner in our individual plates. Fairly soon, we realized washing a plate, bowl n spoon individually in the freezing cold water was the toughest task at hand. A lot of plate sharing followed in the subsequent meals, initially out of convenience; later out of care. Measuring the blood pressure and SpO2 created a lot of suspense because no one wanted to be prone to altitude sickness. The days were beautiful, we could catch the sun rise, the wild flowers, fiery red autumn leaves and the peaks seemed like they were at a stone throw away! Gangotri, John Lee, Draupadi ka danda became familiar like M G Road and LBS Marg! Being one with nature was an overly used yet a huge understatement. Stretching together was another fun activity to do. Nature’s calls were challenging, the long ones more than the short ones!

The first night I was sleepless, 4 layers couldn’t warm me enough, the sleeping bag was inconvenient and the liner stifled my entire body. I wouldn’t step out of the tent in the middle of the night to pee because it was too cold and too dark. It was almost like programming micturition! The dog at times barked, the neighbor snored and the cold gave grief but I lay still trying to sleep. The following night I gained immunity against the snoring, the liner was probably a tad bit more comfortable but sleep was still disturbed. The third day tired us so much that I slept like a baby that night oblivious to the dog, the snores and the discomfort of the sleeping bag. It was blissful getting up to snow on the tents and frozen rivulets which gullied the basecamp. Un-pitching the tent was another tiresome task. Pulling out the hooks, rods and squeezing the tent into a duffle bag was quite difficult with frozen hands. As conscious trekkers, we carried waste along the way in our eco-bags and contributed to preserving nature in little ways we could

When I narrated the routine to my mother, she asked why one would cause oneself so much discomfort and complete a task which required so much effort; when the entire thing could be easily avoided!! I could have initially said that I did all of this for climbing a mountain, it is no child’s play! Looking back, I think there is so much more to a trekking expedition that just climbing a mountain. Right from packing our bags to eating off shared plates, to not using plastic or telephone network or electricity to consciously clearing litter on the way; the mountain life is all about minimalism and making the most out of available resources. When you carry your weight on your back, you do not carry 6 sets of clothes for two days. You probably carry two shirts and one pajama. How often do we feel grateful for the tap water running 24*7 or a heater in our bathrooms or the mattresses on our king size beds and our maid who does the dishes? Affluence in many ways makes us take the basics for granted. I honestly feel a trek connects us to the basics, makes us more responsible and has the power to humble individuals. Very often our necessities escalate to desires and then further to wants and needs. You and I, fortunately or otherwise are preys to the delights of city life. Routine life puts us back into the quest to be the best and to be able to finish first in everything we do. The best part in a trek is no one tries to climb the summit first, everyone walks together ensuring that each one of us is safe and energized. Once you actually climb the summit, you aren’t sure if the journey was beautiful or the destination is!

To sum up my experience, I would say trekking is not about climbing the mountain, it is just something that happens along the way!

Topics under the burkha

While office commute can be a source of endless complaints and heartburn, it can be a blessing in disguise. It is completely your ‘me time’ and it can run into 1, 2 or more than 3 hours daily. Imagine in a day of 24 hours, where people choose to work for over 12; this is the time when you can completely zone out. Maybe drive, listen to music, pray, read, watch a series or chose to talk to all the friends and family members who you ignored through the day

On one such day at work, I happened to time my exit perfectly well with a couple of colleagues who could give a free home delivery of my self. At times a company is not always considered as intruding upon this ‘me time’. After complaining about controllable and uncontrollable things at work, we decided to give ourselves a break and talk about everything but anything related to office. From which are the newly opened restaurants or movies you have watched recently; our conversation went to women empowerment. A theme, maybe overused, abused in all forms of media. Lipstick under my burkha was a trigger for this discussion. While one of them said it was too dark, the other said it was soft porn and one felt it was real but crude

If you think about it, why would you call it soft porn? The movie did talk about female sexuality in a nation which is probably sexually frustrated. But it also did tell the story of an aspiring rockstar and woman trying to gain financial independence. But what most chose to remember was a hag who fantasized in her old age and the young girl who couldn’t take a stand between her boyfriend and her fiancé. We all know pornographic content is viewed the most on mobile phones. People across social strata, literally invest in data packs to calm their nerves or possibly titillate their senses. One of the colleagues said India’s population is testimony to the horniness of the country. Well, I flatly refused the claim saying it is the testimony to India’s under-education in the areas which need a lot of attention. We all have seen people abroad making out in trams or metros; we still are a nation which tries to ‘get a room’ in most circumstances if our wallets / houses provide. So yes, we are not the horniest; probably a highly curious and an unsatisfied bunch of people somewhere struggling between traditional expectations and a modern outlook

Having read a couple of adaptations of the Mahabharat, and a few other mythologies; I strongly feel India has regressed greatly in the last 200 years. If our schools taught the unadulterated version of the Mahabharat, our children would have understood teenage pregnancies, surrogacy, infidelity, polygamy a lot better than what they do today by talking under wraps. Not only is the epic one of best ways to understand human emotions of love, enmity, friendship and deceit; one can have modern day parallels to everything that happened thousands of years ago. It is hypocritical how carvings on the temple of Khajuraho are pious but uttering the s-word is against morality! We are the same nation which spoke boldly about Balbir Pasha a couple of years ago but is banning condom ads during the day, today! Possibly people dying of STDs is a better way to control population!

I briefly did feel bad about the state of affairs but then got back to reading The Great Indian Novel, where my favorite characters from the Mahabharat were brought to life during the British Raj 

Promises

Have you ever wondered, what it would be like,

To hold hands and be still and just gaze into the night?

Out there of the window, is the enchanting expanse,

The moonlight and the stars are urging us to romance!

I sit next to you and I steal a glance,

While in my head you and I, slow dance

The breeze brings the sound of the silent waves,

In the golden sand, our names I engrave

You don’t say a word, just look into my eyes,

And holding my hand, we begin to rise

One step at a time, and then two and three,

Our souls undivided, entangled yet free…

Do you see that the dawn has already begun?

Under the midnight sun, we promise to be one!

The Golden Meadow

Morning today when I opened the door,

I was led by an angel to a faraway shore... 

There was no sky, there was no ground, 

No voice, no sound; but radiance abound. 

Rich or poor, young or old, 

Shone with a smile, as bright as gold. 

No guile, no lie, no strife, no fight, 

Just a silent prayer in the quest for the right... 

There was no greed, no power, no fear, 

A relentless thirst for peace, so sheer! 

No God, no ghost, no religion, no hate, 

Here people knew love, had trust in faith... 

'Is this for real,  O' angel!  Can you tell? 

Or is it a dream in my mind that dwells? 

I want to call my home, this land so blessed, 

As precious as the jewels from the treasurer's chest!'

She smiled to me and said with a wink, 

'Write this story', and lend me the ink, 

Of love and warmth and kindness so pure, 

'O' human set sail, for this path to steer!'

Post quarter-life crisis (and also Happy New Year)

Most common things keep happening to most of us. After all, we are commoners and no special beings. We have a great set of friends, a reliable family and a job no matter how it is; well most of us do have these things. Yet if you are over 25 by a good margin, there is a strong sense of loneliness that could possibly grip you. It is a scary time because the decisions that one needs to take at this age are life changing (life threatening?) and bound to stay for long.

Most articles will talk about how at 25, there is a difference between an adult and a non-adult and there is a confusion within the self to counter and contain these two personas. There is always a denial mode, and there are certainly friends and cousins getting promoted or getting married all over. Then there are parents who think you are so ambitious that marriage is never on your mind. Little do they know about your struggle to discover yourself, your likes and dislikes, your wants and desires; which have evolved, changed or vanished altogether??!  For a person who probably doesn’t know to handle tax returns well, ambition can be far fetched and possibly, overrated.

I bet most of us who –

1.       Don’t have a girlfriend/ boyfriend or a fiancé, and/ or

2.       Don’t like our jobs, and/ or

3.       Don’t seem to have the same metabolism that we did a couple of years ago,

Don’t even have a resume!

By this age we have lost many of our hobbies, probably forgotten what our passions were like, had numerous fights with our boss for no tangible outcomes, arguments with our mom on general generation gap issues, disillusionment over the entire purpose of post grad education, one super serious break up, have been thoroughly used by so called friends, learnt the hard way the true value of real friends, probably lost faith in God, killed the effervescent child within, lost our innocence, our original killer looks and hearsay is that we have probably lost the drinking capacity as well. Not the best age to be in, is it?

Has it happened that you signed up for too much work so that you can prove a point at work or more often than not, you wanted to be constantly occupied? It is another way of running away from taking decisions and avoiding thinking. Eventually you would burn out and think that you don’t have a life! Don’t be the craftsman of your own dead routine!

Do you frequently have to apply for leaves to attend marriages of friends or cousins? Mere yaar ki shaadi is always an easier option as you can ogle at random people but in a family wedding you are under the radar for potential alliances. At such Hum aapke hain kaun shaadis, question is – To look good or not to?!

It so happens that arrange marriage tops this list of processes (or necessary occurrences) that seem to unknowingly disrupt your peace of mind. You know of friends who dated for a lifetime and then suddenly realized they do not know each other enough and parted ways. The floor slips beneath your feet when you realize your online profile is making claims about your love for kids and career and traveling blended perfectly with impeccable homeliness! You would probably be making a decision to move cities, probably leave your job to marry someone with whom your astrological match is more than perfect. Such a crazy idea, but seems to have worked for generations together. Then you wonder whether why aren’t you convinced that it will work for you as well, applying the same commoners’ logic. Many a times you find yourself staring at the laptop screen, figuring out what caused your only break up (or the most serious break up), wondering when you will post honeymoon hashtags and dinner date pictures; probably unconsciously crying and not knowing why this is happening to you. Then there is always this regret of ‘I did everything right!’ and look how people who never did the ‘right’ things are so happy and have everything in their life! What was indeed the point of being ‘right’ all the time! Who defines the ‘right’ is a separate epic altogether!

You are almost on the verge of being jealous of happy people, not out of hatred but out of self-pity and more than that, out of a high degree of disturbance caused by uncertainty in one or more or all of the aforementioned 3 key areas of life viz. partner, career and metabolism. Amid this turbulence, if a dear friend asks you to share your concerns, you say “I am ok”. You probably aren’t lying, you may be perfectly ok but you keep having this feeling that something is amiss and don’t even know what exactly you need to share! Such an incredible being you are! Such inexplicable things keep happening to you!

You do have one friend each (minimum) of both the sexes with whom you discuss the matrimony thing in detail and feel amazed at how exactly you know and understand the deepest fears mutually. You catch up with these folks regularly and discuss the ‘pipeline’ created by your parents and crib about not feeling the ‘click’ when you meet a matrimony prospect. These are probably your companions to go to Himalayas post renunciation or in the case when nothing else works out for you. You possibly tried Tinder or Floh and resigned on taking the onus of finding your own partner. Delegation is always easy, be it work or life!

Like the solitary cloud with a silver lining, there is a brighter side to this age too! On the pretext of getting married and responsible soon, you can make more than most of the time at hand. Chill with friends over weekends, go to endless road trips, spend money a little frivolously on shopping and binge eating, go on a solo trip (preferably international) and explore places, people and yourself! Try to revive the most engaging hobby you once possessed, learn to dance, experiment with jobs and do at least one thing that is dangerous. The next best dangerous thing to that should be getting married!

All said and done, a day from now the calendar will turn the page and a new year will present itself to us. A year with new possibilities, new hopes and new aspirations! Let new dreams be formed as we infuse a new lease of life into our daily routines, yet again! Hope each one of us sleeps with starry eyes tonight!

Wishing everyone a super Happy New Year!!

The magic of 90s

It was the era of Madonna and Michael Jackson. But it was also the era of Madhuri and Anil Kapoor, of scrap books and video games and hard cover albums and audio cassettes. Marked by humility and innocence, the 90s are remembered for everything that was simple, at times incredibly silly yet dreamily real!

It was the time when I had to get though uncle and aunty to talk to a Pooja about studies. That is why I had personally spoken to moms and dads of all my close friends. Whole of my childhood went in the suburbs around Mumbai and girly trips to fashion street and linking road gave us the best bargains. Back in 1997, I remember having queued to taste the burger when Mc Donald’s first came to my city. Music was worth a purchase rather than free download and Planet M was frequented for its updated music collection. I also remember having struggled to listen to free music at a planet M kiosk on a high-footfall weekend. Malls were sheer novelty and meeting up with friends happened more at their homes. Sets of cousins took turns to play Super Mario and Battle City. Children played lagori and langadi and pillar-pillar was a fanciful game! The feeling of extended family was strong and every middle aged person was easily your uncle or aunt! Career discussions happened more at friend’s places than at counselling centres. Rasna was as popular as coke (or maybe more) and renting videos at Rs 50 for 4 hours and at Rs 100 for a day had its own charm. Cricket wasn’t too regular and India v/s Pakistan meant 50 + 50 overs of unbridled action. Big trophy matches happened once in 2 years and hence got its due share of anticipating audience. Glucose biscuits were staple evening snack and Ruffles Lays was a crazy packet of attraction!

I miss being at the mercy of the radio stations to listen to my favourite song. English music was restricted to a few hours through the day and that too on nothing else but Rainbow. Thanks to the two-in-one, I could record songs played on FM onto a cassette and when 10 songs on side A&B were completed, I had my very own music collection. Then I spent some more time in creating the cassette cover on a chart paper with newspaper and magazine cuttings. I remember taking efforts in replicating the fonts of Dil Se and Gupt on such a pirated audio cassette! Life then wasn’t as easy as mp3skull.com or hungama.com. Walk-man was the trendiest gadget. Nothing was readymade, customized or custom made. A lot of everything was handmade and effectively soul-made!

The Chintu Comic strip from Loksatta

I remember saving money for buying picture postcards. Rs 5 for a big poster and Rs 2 for a small one! SRK came at a premium after Kuch kuch hota hai. 10 postcards came for a discount! I remember pasting them all on a notebook and designing the cover page with sketch pens. As far as I can recollect, almost every one of my age had a favourite and everyone’s favourite reflected in their scrap books. I remember collecting bits of commentary and photos and recording world cups and Bollywood in scrap books

The 90s was a time when Bollywood was still humble. Delhi’s Pragati Maidan, Mysore’s Vrindavan gardens, Mumbai’s Lokhandwala complex, Asiatic library and Marine drive were commonplace for movie shoots. Film city ensured a fair number of celebrity turn out every day and DDLJ provided the attraction of scenic Europe. It was a time when advance booking was necessary to get a balcony seat, all cinema houses were yet to have air conditioning and watching Hum aapke hain kaun was as compulsory as homework! The styles of the actors were imitated locally within no time of a movie release. I remember GAP t-shirts and COSCO basket balls and I remember 4 different groups dancing to Koi mil gaya in a choreographed sequence for a society function

Event photographs had to be developed and duplicated so as to be shared in hard copies. Almost every family would have the instant Poloroid photo clicked on the sands of our tourist beaches! Sundays meant watching international travel shows on Star Plus and Ramayan & Mahabharat on Zee TV. Going to restaurants was restricted to official promotions or birthdays. Shopping had a tremendous significance on Diwali for every person of every caste and creed. Food exchanges between neighbours happened at an enviable frequency. Shifting jobs and homes wasn’t very easy. A certain umbilical cord tied the people together in colonies or in societies and perhaps these are the very people who sense claustrophobia in a plush green open township because somewhere they feel that the cord is broken

Life today has reduced to a click of a button. A lot has changed in the last 10 years and decades from now will continue to bring revolutionary changes in lives of simple people around the world to reduce the efforts taken to live. But the best part is that I can still hold onto the magic of the 90s and pace towards the 2020, smiling with gratitude that I would eternally hold towards those timeless times!

A list of favorites captured in a slam book 

A Sony walk man