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Aren’t we obsessed with dieting?

December 9, 2008
Yesterday I chanced to dine with one of my associates along with her young daughter. While we were ordering the meal, this young girl was absolutely not willing to eat anything. When her mother insisted a lot, she ordered some sandwich and that too she left it half eaten saying she is done. I asked smilingly if she has already eaten her meals or she did not like the sandwich of that place. Her mother replied, “no yaar, she is again on diet”! “Diet!!! But why and what’s her age???”, she looked perfectly alright to me, in fact I found her to be slimmer than average teen age girls of her age. I think she was hardly 14-15 years old. The gal who was on her fancy mobile by now gave a glance to her mother and walked away and then that lady heaved an exasperated sigh saying her daughter and her friend circle is crazily obsessed with slim figure, size zero, dieting and what nots! Even if some of the gals are perfectly alright including her daughter but still they are perpetually on diet. Their success parameter is to get fitted into tops and t-shirts from kid’s section of apparel stores and if someday they can’t fit and if they have to end up buying clothes from the section meant for their age then it’s nothing less than a disaster! Those days get followed by weeks of dieting and survival on juices and soups. Her daughter hardly eats one meal a day as she is always afraid that she will put on weight!!!

I was sort of shocked. Not that I am not aware of craziness for hourglass figure and picture perfect look amongst youngsters but dieting at that age and for no good reason left me amazed! If you ask me, that gal really needed to put on some weight and here she was surviving on juices and soups. One quick flash back at what I was doing at her age and all I could think of was board exams and my braided look! In our times, in fact our mothers used to force us with all nutritious and home cooked food so that we can have good health and concentrate more on studies. Size Zero and hourglass figure were unheard kind of terms. Well, I know time has changed a lot but so much? It’s not that I am myself not conscious about my weight or dieting etc but then I don’t think I have ever been obsessed about the same. To me a healthy body is more important than a thin body, a fit figure is more important than a slim figure and it’s ok to sometimes have those few extra kgs for the sake of ice-cream or chocolates :-). After all I don’t need to walk the ramp tomorrow and I know that those can be shed if I put in some healthy effort like exercise and walk. Who doesn’t want to have a model like figure but starving oneself to achieve that or dieting in an unhealthy way is nothing less than madness. There are many ways to maintain that “oh so perfect body” but guess most of us esp. teenage girls are just not willing to put in those effort. And this gal is just another example of soooo many people around me who speak nothing but DIETING and WEIGHT LOSS! Aren’t we obsessed with these two terms now? Probably Fashion ka hai yeh Jalwa… 🙂

Oh Award for my blog!!!

November 26, 2008

Thanks Sindhu for giving me this award…:-) In fact this is the 1st award for my this blogspot blog, so all the more special for me. And yeah getting a blog award just like that is definitely a very sweet and pleasant surprise. Now I need to follow these rules if I have to accept them!

Put the logo on your blog
Link the person who awarded it to you
Link the bloggers you are about to honor

Hmmm if I would have got this from someone else I would have definitely passed it on to Sindhu as her blog is really the coolest and my favorite one :-). And next in my list would have been Nautankey. But it’s through these two chains only that I got this award. So, let me pass this on to some of other blogs which I think are really cool:
So, here I pass on this award to:
Rhett: For those lovely and soulful poems!
Abhishek: For his cool blog where I hang out often
Chhavi: For those lovely pics and such a cool photoblog!
Clap Clap Clap for the new recipients. May I request all three of you to accept this award please?

Don’t know why?

November 12, 2008
I was talking to this colleague friend of mine who said “why am I so silent these days? Is it introspection or is it sadness?” And my answer was, “silent? Nahi toh”. He again asked, “you don’t seem to be in your lively mood for past few days and I simply shook my head, “pata nahi yaar.” He smiled and replied “if you are introspecting, it’s ok. Maybe another great idea is going to come out of your mind and if you’re sad then too it’s ok as one cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often, so it’s good to be sad sometimes”. This quote from Erich Fromm was like a soother for me today.

Hmmm I think it’s one of those phases when nothing seems to be right in life, when optimism looks like a theoretical word, when your rational brain goes for a toss, when despite good things happening to you at work you don’t feel like working, when you find all this race of career, life and money worthless, when even small things upset you a lot, when despite your immense patience level you don’t feel like tolerating certain people and certain circumstances, when hope seems to be a far cry, when everything around you looks just so irritable, when even if you try you can’t find the reason of your sadness…ah my “when” list seems to be a never ending one, so better I should put a stop here. Well, I think it’s just another bad day when certain things have triggered me into my gloomy and contemplative mood and all I want to do is just be silent! Wondering if I’m tired or is it just my one of those cancerian mood swings? Whatever it is, I hope something good happens and this phase ends soon…

I’m back

November 6, 2008

I’m back to Bangalore and back to blogging :-). Ah, I was off from blogging for more than two weeks now…well LOADS of work at office, new marketing initiatives and alliances to deal with, coupled with frequent travelling! To add to that maid on unplanned leave for more than ten days now :-(. Life was frenzied and yeah it was one of those periods when you feel – oh hell, work life is so damn demanding in a start-up! But why start-ups, I think these days work life is full of pressure and demands for most of us in this downturn period. Everybody is speaking of lay-offs, pink slips, leave without pay and salary cuts! Everyone is trying hard to put in his or her best to survive the giant known as layoff! In fact wherever you go the common topic of discussion remains the same. I met this interesting elderly gentleman on my flight back to Bangalore last night, he is having his own company in Seattle and he shared some interesting statistics regarding layoffs. Whatever I can remember, I am sharing those here:

  • Massive layoffs in current times leading to increasing unemployment is one of the worst which job market could have ever faced.
  • Jobless rate has reached approx 8% now which is the highest in last 25 years, it was 6.1% in 2003 and 7.8% in 1992.
  • There are lots of companies which are resorting to mindless layoffs in a panic situation. Not every company needs to go for such huge scraping.
  • Wages are once again going to be monopolized now by the employers as there are many job seekers for lesser number of vacancies.
  • These dramatic layoffs will only lead to further worse economy. More credit in the market as people are unable to pay their EMIs, reduced expense which is leading to less sales for most of the consumer oriented companies.

It was a good insightful discussion but well it was scary, really scary. Nobody knows exactly when this situation will improve…everybody is just predicting and praying!

Small gestures do make a big difference!

October 16, 2008
In this mad-mad world there are days which are really crazy but then there are those sweet li’ll gestures which make your day worthwhile despite its all craziness and chaos. I think today was one such day for me 🙂

With an online campaign getting live tomorrow, a key alliance finalization and planning of the new web product launch, it was quite frenetic for me today in office. Day was busy in calls and meetings but suddenly when I reach my desk I see a sweet card and a cute gift box waiting for me. Bewildered I asked my one of the team mates what’s the occasion and suddenly all of them gathered around my desk and wished in chorus, “Wish you a very HAPPY BOSS DAY”. Oh, I wasn’t even knowing it was a Boss’s Day today! The card was having interesting wishes handwritten by each of my team members and I found it to be so cute that I couldn’t stop myself from clicking this picture from my mobile and pasting it here. The gift was also very sweet but sweeter was their gesture and effort which just made my day! I’m so touched, thanks team!

Mom called me in the evening and I was sort of hassled because of work and was upset over one spineless character…in all this, I spoke to her with bit low spirit and told her that I will call her back once I reach home. For last two-three days I’ve not been able to talk to her properly and hence mom was worried for me. After this, the moment I open my personal mail, I get a mail from my Mom with subject “Beta hum apna pehla email tumko kar rahe hai” and the mail text was one of her own poems which she had written for me when I was a child, the first two lines of that poem are, “Gar vash chalta mera toh har leti tera krandan…”. Mom is trying to learn internet these days and this was her first email from her new email account. Oh I wonder what life would have been without mothers! With a smile on my face I immediately called her back and talked at length.

While coming back from office, it was raining. I generally have to walk for some distance to reach that vehicle stand and in rains Bangalore auto drivers are ready with more tantrums to irritate and spoil your mood. Annoyed I started walking in rain, but suddenly saw hubby standing in front of me with an umbrella! Oh wow, he had come to pick me up. Smilingly he took my bag, since he knew that I was not carrying any umbrella so he came all the way to pick me up. Smile on my face, just a silent smile :-)…

Thank god for those smiling moments and those delightful gestures which made my day lovely today. These small gestures do make a big difference in life.

Aftereffects of downturn – 1. LAY-OFFS

October 15, 2008

I somehow knew that this is going to come the moment I saw Jet-KF alliance news on Monday late night. Though both the spokespersons kept on insisting that this alliance would be in the benefit of consumers and industry but the first thing which came to my mind was – alliance and that too joint operation deal, well looks like they are definitely now gonna trim down their team size. And here we go, my apprehension turned out to be true when I read today’s TOI with headline “Jet Air lays off 850 flight attendants”! As per TOI dated 15th Oct’08 – The tremors brought about by the worst downturn yet in the airline industry were felt on Tuesday itself, hours before the first Jet Airways flight of the day took off. Said a crew member, “About three and a half hours before a flight, the office transport reaches your home to pick you up. In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, hundreds of cabin crew members in Mumbai who were rostered for early morning flights waited in their uniforms to be picked up.” When the worried flight attendants called up the airline dispatch office, they were told they had been de-rostered till further notice.

If TOI is to be believed then what a sudden and scary layoff!!! It’s quite frightening to read the newspaper headlines these days, either there are news of terrorist attacks or there are news of bankruptcy and lay-offs. What started few weeks back as a small economic recession has now become a global downturn of all times. As per analysts, this downturn is far worse than dot com doom and infact first of its kind in last 80 years. Lay-offs started with IT and financial sector but is now engulfing every other industry – be it aviation, retail or hospitality. So, many people have lost their jobs and god knows how many of them would be having car loan, house loan, personal loan or this-that kind of loan with monthly EMIs hanging like a sword over their head and in this tough time of recession it’s really unpredictable if they will get any other job immediately! The worse is that most of us in today’s fast generation never believed in the power of saving and deposits. In the generation of high disposable income almost all the money have been disposed! It scares you when you listen to the experience of lay-off from somebody close to you, it scares you when you listen that some of your very well-settled friends with quality degrees and high paying jobs in US based MNCs have been asked to leave for India over night. It scares you to realize that he is left with no cash to support his needs and it scares you to realize that many of them are depressed to the extent that they intend to give in to the pressure of life. Well to be honest, my intention is not to scare anyone rather express my realistic feelings regarding this issue. And it’s not too late for all of us to be cautious and take some basic steps to deal with this bad time (of course to whatever extent it is possible…). Here are some of my thoughts which I think we can take in person to be prepared for the bad days:

  • Please remember “Cash is King” atleast for a downturn period like this. So, please try to not go for mindless investment and deposits. Ask those who are bleeding under the stock-market blood-bath or ask those who have lost money because of bankruptcy.
  • You think you are getting underpaid, well think again – atleast you are getting paid. Ask those who have lost their job overnight without any backup.
  • Not having job satisfaction? You think you deserve a better opportunity? Well you definitely can get a better opportunity, but think again before quitting your already established job…atleast you are settled in one job and don’t forget that whenever there is trim down movement in any company, the first lot to be effected is the new joinees or the probation ones.
  • So, planning to start a new business, why not afterall entrepreneurship is the “in” thing in India? Well, I am not trying to de-motivate you and I have immense respect for those who have the guts to take the unconventional path and start something on their own but all I would like to say is think again if you are starting some web based or social media company. Gone are the days of easy VC funding and heavy buy-outs! Atleast for next few months for sure.
  • Thinking to upgrade to a new car or a bigger house? Trust me it can wait for some more time…atleast you have a vehicle or a shelter on your head. Its really not the time to increase the burden of your EMIs.
  • Revisit your day to day expense and remember our parents and their good old habit of saving money. With my own experience I can tell you that there are enough expenses which we make just like that. For e.g., in a city like Bangalore, a meal for two in any normal restaurant can cause you an expense of easily Rs. 800-1000 and well for foodies like me and my husband these random eating out used to happen just any day or any moment. Trust me eating more at home on regular days is helpful both ways – it keeps a check on the weighing scale pointer as well as on our wallets :-). And for those occasional cravings definitely you can party out once in a while. Even small one on one savings like these can lead to a noticeable amount at the end of an year.

I know the situation in India is not that bad as of now as compared to US but no one knows if it can happen in India as well. It really hits you hard when you realize that such lay-offs have happened with your close friends and god forbid, it can happen to you too. So, be cautious, work hard to be in top list in your company and save smart for those darker days.

Aside: This is my first post in the series of “after-effects of downturn”, I have some other observations as well as concerns which I will post in my subsequent series. I was speaking to one of my ex-colleagues who and her husband have been laid off from very reputed companies in US. Talking to her really disturbed me a lot! They are coming back to India next week and I pray that they get a job in India soon as even they have a family and those intimidating EMIs to cater to!

I Yearn For…

October 9, 2008
Ah, it’s that time of year again when I’m in complete love with the air around! I love this celebration spirit, this cheerful mood, this vibrant environment, this liveliness, this…ummm I can keep on writing about these THISs, well to sum it up I just loooooove this FESTIVE ATMOSPEHERE all around me. Its Dusshera today – Wish You All A Very Happy Dusshera!

Well, I’m sure many of you love this Oct-Dec season of the year, so many festivals and hence so much merriment – Navratri, Eid, Dusshera, Karwa Chauth, Diwali, Bhai Dooj, Chat, Guru Purnima, Christmas and New Year! Each of these festivals have got unique tradition and unique reason to celebrate. I remember as a child how excited I used to be for festivals, the eagerness with which we used to wait for new clothes or the enthusiasm with which we used to clean and decorate our homes or the gleam in our eyes with which we used to sit on the kitchen slab when Mummy used to prepare those festival special dishes – Kheer, Mithais, Puris, Curries and what not! Sometimes I wonder where those good old days have gone? Now we have all the money to buy any kind of cloth but still that excitement of getting new clothes is missing, now any kind of food is affordable and infact there is plethora of options of festival special cuisines in every other restaurant but still that taste of mom made food is missing, lots of glamorous options of celebrating festivals are there like Dandiya Nights, Garba specials, Glittering Diwali and New Year rock parties with celebs and DJs but still that enthusiasm of childhood days is missing. While I love this period with festivity all around me but at the same time this period makes me really nostalgic. I suddenly yearn for my carefree and sweet childhood days when even in such limited means there was unlimited amount of happiness, I yearn for my home in that small little town, my mummy, her home cooked food, my brothers, my cousins, my gharonda on diwali, my colorful pencils which I used to get as gifts on Bhai Dooj and my childhood friends with whom festivals used to have a different meaning all together. I yearn to be the same li’ll girl again, I really & really yearn for……well!

Weekend with “The Last Lear” and “50 first dates”

September 21, 2008
Why do weekends end so soooon :-(??? Well, another weekend just went by but nonetheless it was a relaxed and lazy weekend for me, something which I was desperately longing for since last so many days. Just spent time reading book, watching movies and ah cooking some of mine and hubby’s favorite dishes – mint chicken curry and baked fish. The kind of foodie we both are, weekends are generally spent with some good food. Watched two very good movies as well – “The Last Lear” and “50 First Dates” and I just loved both these movies. Here is my take on these movies and I’m sure these will strike a cord with all those who like watching good movies

The Last Lear: I think this is one of the best movies of Amitabh Bachchan I would have ever seen and Preity has never acted better than this. Again as I say I wont go into details of the story much as I want all of you to watch this movie J. In short, Amitabh plays the role of reclusive yet passionate theater artist whose life is all about Shakespeare and his plays but because of some reasons he backed out of his dream role of King Lear and never went back to stage again. Arjun Rampal who is a young generation director decides to make a film on fading talent and he offers this magnificent role of a joker to Amitabh Bachchan. Amitabh in his endeavor to give his best takes a very emotional decision and ends up risking his life into a paralytic situation. I just loved the ending scene of the movie where Amitabh even his memory is lost, is able to recall those very captive words of his master, Shakespeare! Though Rituparno Ghosh has given some wonderful masterpieces to Indian Cinema but I think this is one of his best directorial works ever. Every actor in this movie has outshone his / her previous performances, be it Shefali Shah, Divya Dutta or Arjun Rampal. One may find the pace of the movie bit slow but I think that is very much required by the story. I can summarize this whole movie experience in just two words – INTENSE & BRILLIANT and a must watch for all those who are open towards some serious cinema viewing, but in case you are looking for a light hearted movie then I don’t think this would suit your taste, rather watch movie like 50 first dates of a DVD at home 🙂

50 First Dates: Well, this movie got released in 2004 only but somehow never got the chance to watch the same, watched it today on a DVD and found it to be a very sweet movie. “50 first dates” is a romantic comedy having Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore as the lead actors. It’s a story of a guy who never gets hooked on to one guy and finally when he falls in love truly with this girl, then he realizes that the girl suffers from a brain injury and hence has a short term memory problem. Determined that he is for his love, he finally he manages to convince the girl and after a series of incidences finally they get settled happily in married life. A very very sweet romantic movie which touches your heart at the end J. In case you have also missed out on this movie like me, please do watch it, I’m sure most of the people are gonna like this movie for sure :-).

Hmmm time to log off and hit the sack now, afterall its Monday morning tomorrow and another hectic week ahead :-(!

Wish You All A Very Happy New Year

December 29, 2006
“Another fresh new year is here . . .Another year to live!To banish worry, doubt, and fear,To love and laugh and give!This bright new year is given meTo live each day with zest . . .To daily grow and try to beMy highest and my best!I have the opportunityOnce more to right some wrongs,To pray for peace, to plant a tree,And sing more joyful songs!”
– William Arthur Ward

Well, I think this will be my last blog for this year. One more year gone, with some dreams fulfilled whereas many more still waiting to be fulfilled, with some good moments as well as some bad, some successes & some failures, some happiness & some disappointments, some smiles & some tears…but all in all I am happy that one more year has passed ahead & God has given me yet another year to carry on with my dreams…
Do you know the origin of New Year celebration? I found this info to be quite interesting, so thought of summarizing & putting up here. Well, according to online sources (Britannica, Wikipedia etc.), the celebration of the new year on January 1st is a relatively new phenomenon.
  • The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia,in 2000 B.C. and was celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, ie., in Mid-March.
  • Then later on the early Roman calendar designated March 1 as the New Year. The calendar had just ten months, beginning with March.
  • The first time the new year was celebrated on January 1st was in Rome in 153 B.C. (In fact, the month of January did not even exist until around 700 B.C., when the second king of Rome, Numa Pontilius, added the months of January and February.) The new year was moved from March to January because that was the beginning of the civil year, the month that the two newly elected Roman consuls—the highest officials in the Roman republic—began their one-year tenure.
  • In 46 B.C. Julius Caesar introduced a new calendar & this Julian calendar decreed that the New Year would occur with January 1, and within the Roman world, January 1 became the consistently observed start of the New Year.
  • However, in 567 the Council of Tours abolished January 1 as the beginning of the year. At various times and in various places throughout medieval Christian Europe, the new year was celebrated on Dec. 25, the birth of Jesus; March 1; March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation; and Easter.
  • Finally In 1582, the Gregorian calendar reform restored January 1 as New Year’s Day & most Catholic countries adopted the Gregorian calendar almost immediately.

Since then, January 1st is observed as New Year’s Day in most of the countries. However, if we go culture wise deep, I know most of us have got different new year’s day depending upon our caste & religion but globally most of us now follow Jan 1st as New Year’s Day.
I would like to wish all my blogger friends a New Year filled with New Joy, New Hope & New Beginnings…A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU!!!

I am pen!!!

November 6, 2006

I am pen, sob sob, sob…
What do you mean by “What Pen or Whose Pen”, Arey baba I am pen, your writing pen which you used to use earlier for writing…See you can’t even recognize me spontaneously now!!! Such is my poor fate now, sob sniff sniff!!!
Yes, I am crying because I am seeing my death slowly-slowly in front of my own eyes. I am undergoing the pain of self-extinction and extermination. You know there was a time when I was being considered the tongue of human mind & people used to tell “Pen is mightier than sword”, but now forget about being mighty; I don’t even find my existence on most of the workstations.
How would you feel when after enjoying a long regal life, you would see your supremacy slowly fading away? I know you will not feel good. Even I don’t feel good by losing all my power to this newer generation. I used to enjoy such imperial existence. People used to adorn me so proudly in their pockets or on their working desks. There was a time when I was being considered one of the most precious gifts for all important occasions like success in exams, competitions, first job, first promotion etc. Not only that, people used to give me as good omen to their loved ones for wishing luck like parents giving me to their kids for writing exams or teachers gifting me to their favorite students for some important contest. What a belief kids used to have in me as their “Good Luck Pen” & with what care they used to keep me for especially using at some important exams!!! Oh I can’t forget the excitements which kids used to have when they used to get me first time in their lives & how proudly they used to flaunt me in their friend circle or to their younger siblings who were still using pencils.
Now all my authority has been snatched away by this newer generation. I no longer enjoy my throne i.e., the pockets of people, I have been replaced by PDAs/Palmtops/Blackberrys & what nots!!! Now I don’t have any presence in my erstwhile kingdom i.e., workstations and office desks. While I am carelessly thrown out in outskirts i.e., drawers of workstations, my premium position has been occupied by this new age key boards. Snifffff….
I know now I am of no use to you & you don’t remember me at all, but I can’t forget the gleam which was there in your eyes on the day when your daddy gifted me to you for the first time & I still remember the proud which you felt when your teacher gifted me to you with your name etched on my body for scoring the highest marks in class. Ahhhh Good old days…An era bygone…
Sob, Sob, Sob…

P.S: This post is dedicated to my earlier hobby of collecting good pens. There was a time when I used to be very fond of pens & my near and dear ones used to gift me different types of pens. Believe me, I used to be thrilled to receive pens as gifts & used to show off my collection of pens to my friends. But now I hardly get chance to use those lovely pens. I think I use pens now only for very few specific activities like signature etc. With all these digitization & online world, my life has definitely become more comfortable but at the same time I do miss my small yet lovely hobby of writing by different pens on different occasions!!!