The Other Side of Life

I love this time of the year! Because, it's time for a round up! Yay! I don't know about you, but I had a happening year. Between Graduation, Sherlock's knee surgery, living alone in Singapore, Sherlock moving to Singapore, me trying to find my footing at work and tonnes of resolutions to keep up, I had my hands full. I can look back at the year and say, I am glad we went through what we did, because believe it or not, as cliches go, we came out stronger. But, what made me the happiest this year was how hard I worked at my non-work related resolutions. I wanted to read 50 books and I completed my 50th book yesterday. It was hard, but I cannot put it in words, how much it was worth the effort. One of my complaints to myself was always that I didn't read enough non-fiction. This year, I read 15. I just cannot get over that. Here are the 50 books I read: I wanted to write a lot this year. I did it in spurts, but I did write. I did a blogatho...

This year I celebrated 10 years of blogging. And I told myself, this year is make or break. Either I take writing seriously, or I stop this languid approach I have towards writing, altogether. Thankfully, the former happened. And so, after years of writing (and not writing in long periods), I have, for the first time ever, taken the plunge into writing formally.  As of this month, I am now a Staff Writer on The Decision Lab, a behavioural science think tank that takes the lead in publishing content related to the subject.  Here's my first article for them ! Needless to say, this blog stays alive to see another day. I know, I know. Blogger sucks. Hard to comment. Time to move on and all that. But, you know, nostalgia. So, I'll still keep posting here. If nothing else, links to my articles on Decision Lab. Cheers! Preeks

I am not one for swallowing words. So, I will say this quite proudly before I start. I am a hypocrite and as Oscar Wilde would put it, "My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite." I am a hypocrite because I love tech and all the convenience that comes out of tech, and yet, I am once again going to ramble about how tech might be missing out an important human insight.  In the 1950s, post-war economy, men who were back from the war were rejoining the industrial workforce to replace women who had taken up these temporary roles while they were gone for the war. The women suddenly found themselves back in the kitchen. But gender equations had been altered irrevocably and women often struggled to prove their worth as a domestic goddess. Apparently, the real test to pass was to prove they knew how to bake a cake and an apple pie. At this confusing time, Marschalk, General Mills and a few more companies launched the first cake mix in the...

You can tell a lot about a city by how it deals with rain. I grew up in Delhi. Delhi has a spattering of monsoon showers. Touch and go. It will be sweltering hot. That in-between period when the cooler is no longer effective and the possibly huge AC bill lingers on your head. You will be cursing the weather gods. News about rains from other parts of the country will become anathema. All conversations will start and end with talks about rains. And then, finally, it happens. An extremely hot afternoon will suddenly give way to dark intense clouds and a heavy downpour. Just like that.  And just like that, people stop working. There'll be plans for pakaude and chai. People will rush home early.  And just as suddenly as it started, it stops raining and work resumes.  I cannot count the number of times I missed school because, rain.  Maybe it's meant to be like that by design. Rain makes people in Delhi wait for it. We are at the flag end of monsoons. After the whol...

The good news is, I still come to my blog when I have to vent. So, basically, the blog has a space in my life. Yay. Now that we have established that, let's move on to the venting.  My piano. My beautiful keyboard. Stopped working. 😟 I am not a great piano player. I was a horrible piano student, when I tried learning professionally a couple of years back.  But I do know this. I love playing the piano.  I don't learn all the typical songs. I am not good at reading notes. I am not a speed player. I cannot play in front of people (other than family).  But I love figuring out notes and chords of random songs I love and then keep playing them again and again and again, till I can hear the notes in my sleep.  That's my MO. And I can't do that now. And I am feeling so bad about that, I am sitting here in office fuming, silently wiping away my tears because I just learnt it can't be fixed. My keyboard was a good companion. When I moved to Singapore, Sher...