Life insights :)

 

Just the other day, my son was telling me that he remembers my advice that to know someone's true nature, you should watch them playing any sport (individual or team sport). I had told him this last year when he changed schools and moved to a school much bigger than his previous one. I was trying to prepare him for the change and adjustment issues he might come across.

Then I added that's the first level of assessment when you are in school and college.

The 2nd level is - you should see how they behave in a Restaurant (Munna Bhai MBBS advice) or any public space. 

The 3rd level is - you should watch how they behave with their family members at their own homes. (This one is really required if you are planning to go for any serious long-term relationship.)

And the 4rth one  - How they behave with or in and around Animals/living beings. You can have a different interpretation of how people behave, but generally, you will get an idea of how they feel about the lives around.

You don't meet people by accident ..

Has it happened with you , that meeting someone for the first time, suddenly reminded of someone, you had met 20-25 years back, whom you had met only once or twice, and you realize how fortunate you were to have met them then and how you wish  now that you could meet more people like them when you are much wiser (hopefully ;)) . 

Ponytail Partha , I met him in year 1998 or 1999 at the badminton courts of Chinnaswamy stadium Bangalore on a weekend along with some of my other Wipro badminton enthusiast. Most of us were pretty regular and would ensure that at least 4 of us are there to occupy the court - Vinay Kamath, Deepak Embar, Prabin Deka were the guys who were pretty regular, and I knew them well from office. There were few others not so regular Sanjay, Mahesh but I knew them. Partha, was also in not so regular people and I didn't know him, and he did look like a senior as in experience and age 

Most of us were in our early 20s and in the range of 1- 4 yrs. of work experience, Deepak was the most senior around 4 yrs. of experience who knew people or rather was aware of people in positions in Wipro. So the day Partha came to play, there were not enough guys to play doubles. Partha did warm up sessions with Deepak and even though much senior in age, he had a pretty decent ponytail and made the younger guy sweat! and he had a ponytail too which none of the youngster had! absolutely impressive :) After playing singles he wanted to play doubles, but only 3 guys were there, so he asked me to join him.  I got little conscious (i did play pretty ok, but absolutely no good to play with him) and was not sure, but he asked me to join him.  What a game we played; he was so encouraging and supportive and - talking, shouting and laughing. 

It was after he left the court, I tried to figure out who Partha was, and Deepak filled in the information saying that Partha - 'N S Parthasarthy' was GM in Wipro (he was in Wipro for around 15 years) and had recently (1998/99) left and started a new company along with few other Wipro colleagues Ashok Soota and Subrata Bagchi - 'Mindtree'. I was wowed! That was my first time in life meeting and interacting with a Big Shot so close and personal.  His sportsmanship showed, what a well-grounded and rounded overall person he was, and I have no doubt he still is.

I never tried to keep connect with or follow Partha all these years and was surprised that after all these years, I remembered him, I remembered him when I met another so-called Bigshot recently and had not so great interaction -- that's when I remembered Partha.

I never realized how some people have influenced me in making my opinion about things in general and at times on specific matter and that's when it dawns that "You don't meet people accidently, they are meant to cross our path for a reason "

Mummy, what exactly are zombies ?

Mummy, what exactly are zombies ?

Eh Zombies !! when your teenager child gets curious about Zombies and is wondering about the possibilities of existence of Zombies - I was not sure what should I answer 😕 The fact is i have fairly enjoyed some dark humor Zombie movies (thanks to movies like Train to Busan and The Odd Family - Zombie on sale) and am sure my children were curious about Zombie after watching some animation or movie . 

So the first answer I gave like you have all the superhero characters (Antman, Spiderman, Ironman, Wonder Women etc etc zombie is also a fiction).

But mummy - Zombies are suppose to be dead people right ? - Yea Right Dead people .

So can dead people actually come back to life and start walking ? 

Well there are times you wish you could give a convincing answer. All this conversation was happening in our kitchen and it was fun talk , not serious discussion -- I have realised the best way to bond with your children is through such conversations on random topics 😊 Yea so coming back to Zombies, so I asked my daughter if she remembers "Lazarus" story (yea yea the guy who was raised from dead by Jesus) - Of course I know the story - came the answer - So, I asked - what do you think Lazarus was when he actually got raised from his tomb with all the bandage around him ? "Zombie !!!" there you got the answer 😀 and I tried walking like a zombie . We still smile when ever we hear the reading on Lazarus in church and look at each other and try not to laugh 😉

I am not sure what happened to Lazarus after he was risen from dead , hope his rotten body got healed. wonder if he could get back to his normal life , did people accept him as a normal person or was he a .... ? Any thoughts ?  

Snacks time

In this times of corona when the whole family is at home 24/7 - one constant questions most of the mothers face atleast 4- 10 times a day is - 'Aaj khanne mein kya hai' and 'Mummy snacks mein kya hai ' (what's there for Breakfast/lunch/dinner today or what's there for snacks).

Now that going out in general is so limited and going out with family for dinner is almost ruled out - its a big task to keep the meals interesting everyday, and even more difficult is to manage the snacks part . Cookies, cake, biscuits, chips and most sort after - fried items are the fast moving things at home. 

So after being fed up with buying same things again and again - and also making few quick snacks at home - this week i decided to make Kerala special "banana chips" at home. Though its very simple and easy snack to make , but somehow I feel its too much of hassle making it. So this week saw good 'Nendraka' the plantain used in Kerala for making chips for very reasonable rate in the local market, I just bought it . 

Before the Tea time started frying and after couple of rounds of frying asked Esther (my daughter) to help me with frying. Naturally we both started munching also while frying - me scolding her in between for not doing things properly and she complaining that I don't have patience :) End of the frying we sat down with our tea and chips, and after a while my daughter said - 'Mummy you should make chips for us when you grow old"  

Owners Pride

I decided to quit Social media almost 2 years back
Someone who had got into it relatively late in life and after being very active for 5-6 yr deciding to quit was not something sudden.It was couple of months before the General Election in 2019 that I firmly decided to quit Facebook as in delete my account.I had deactivated my account couple of times for few months and decided that i will delete my account this time.The reason was seeing too much of Polarised opinion of people whom i thought i knew well, was painful and based on the kind of posts/ forwards people put on facebook and whatsapp i decided to unfriend people from my friends list.At any point of time i did not have more that 350 friends in any social media platform. which I feel is very few numbers taking into consideration that i have changed 3 schools and studied in 1 college for 5 yrs , and worked in more than 10 companies, moved around a lot within India and worked for a little while in couple of countries. I thought i knew atleast the basics of people in my friends list pretty well. But I was mistaken......

With information on your fingertips , one seems to know everything about other people and one also seems to know everything about what one believes. And anything one doesn't belive in, does not exist or is wrong. what ever one does is justifiable there is no absolute right or wrong - everything is circumstantial, everything is about - from which point of view you look at it. While growing up we were always reminded that we need to be "simple and humble", I cant say the same now. Today its all about how much you can show off and how much you can talk confidently. If you have it you flaunt it and there is nothing wrong in doing so, its afterall your own thing/money/beauty/skill.And then you have so many platforms to show it to the whole world , whats wrong in doing that ? So true ... but then why is it I still feel that its all wrong ... Is it jealousy, envy ? or is it disgust ? Recent example viral video was that of the Baby Gender announcement Party in Dubai ... Really ?