Woman's Day 2016 - Thats what a woman wants and does: Celebrating myself.

There was this story I read long time back, for which I am not able to find the source to cite here. Here is how it goes, from my memory.

Once upon a time there was a king who wanted to know the correct answer to an intriguing question "What does a woman want?". He sent his soldiers far and wide in search of the answer, but in vain. Finally he sent his trusted adviser in search of the answer. That adviser, roamed mountains and deep forests until he stumbled upon a witch's hut. He posed the question to her as last resort. Without blinking the ugly witch replied, "Yes Ofcourse!. I can tell the answer, but on condition that you must marry me". The adviser was caught between his loyalty to the King, and his personal taste, for you see, she was ineffably ugly. After much contemplation he agreed to marry her, and took the answer to his King.

Here is the answer: "A woman wants to do what she decides to do". Simple sentence yet acutely profound. An answer that flashes before my eyes every time someone talks about feminism. A woman (or man for that matter) should have the breathing space to decide on her own and take action, for she being the kind, strong, compassionate person that she is biologically wired to be, would end up taking the right decisions for the betterment of human race. I am being practical here and going to mention that there could be some exceptions. But lets' focus on the majority here.

The story does not end there. The adviser, being true to his words, came back to marry the scarred, humped, ugly witch. The witch got excited and added a flexibility clause to the condition. She asked him, "Do you want a fair beautiful maiden during day time and my witch self during night, or the other way around being: witch self during day time, and ravishing maiden during the night, for I have the power to do so for half the day ?".

The adviser again was in a dilemma. He can have a spectacular wife to attend parties and functions, or he could have a divine beauty to rest his head upon.

Now, pause a little and answer me this. Imagine you are that wise witch and tell me which one would you want your prince charming to chose?






Think deeply before answering because this is going to be a decision of the lifetime.







If you are smart, you would want your prince to chose damsel during day light because you want him to be a gentleman and a protector, don't you?




But if you are smarter you would have guessed the correct answer.




Now coming back to the story, the advisor, remembered the answer that the witch gave, and the one that the King was extremely satisfied with. "A woman wants to do what she decides to do". So, he took the higher ground and replied "Its your wish that counts, my lady. Whatever you decide, I would oblige".


You guessed it right. The witch was pleased, and changed into enchanting princess permanently, for day light and night. For she was testing the charming advisor.



God only knows why she was testing, but we all do that from time to time.


But taking the essence of the story, it is true. I feel women want to do what she decides to do. I feel energized and full of action when I plan (with suggestions from others obviously) and execute for the betterment of my loved ones, and that by its innate nature becomes a celebration of my capabilities. Don't you do and feel the same?


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This blog is an entry in the woman's day contest: http://www.womensweb.in/articles/celebrating-myself/

Important life lessons wish I had learnt a lot earlier (Still true in 2020)

Not in any particular order,

1. One need not fill silence gaps during, before, or after a conversation. Sometimes silence is beautiful. (Still true in 2020)

2. One  need not explain everything to everyone. I could control and filter what I say and to whom I say it.  (Still true in 2020)

 
3. Learning something new is beautiful experience. I wish I had focused more on the material than grades. (Still true in 2020)

4. Friendship is like a glass jar. It needs to be handled very very carefully and you have to put your heart and lots of effort into maintaining a good one and not take it for granted. Same goes for any relationship. (Still true in 2020)

 
5. Having a passion and hobby is very essential to living a purposeful life. (Especially true in 2020)

 
6. Living a purposeful life is very essential to human being. (Still true in 2020)

7. Focusing on accessories or makeup when getting ready, is not always directly proportional to decrease in work concentration. (Still true in 2020 like "wear and let wear"

8. Parents are just trying to protect you, though it might seem like decisions make no sense at all. (Still true in 2020)

9. Not all questions are direct. People do ask indirect questions/statements and expect you to understand . (Still true in 2020)

10. One has to pay very close attention to how they feel, in order to know what they want. (Still true in 2020)

11. Thinking with mind and not with words would be of great help in the future corporate world. Especially when you are required to  make highly important decisions in a meeting. (Still true in 2020)

12. Joining a negative person in their whining process is going to drown everyone else as well. They have lots of excuses to feel terrible and to make others feel terrible. Do not join in. Occasional empathy  is fine between friends. But if that person is a constant energy vampire, one need not join in. (Still true in 2020)

A novel without a Letter.

I am writing this blog after more than a year gap. I had lots of free time to work on the blogs when I was doing my Masters, but once I started working, I now hardly find any free time to do Me stuff. 

Well, anyways, I will try to write them up as and when I find time. Here is something interesting I read recently. This is a novel written by Ernest Vincent Wright. A story that was written entirely without a vowel and that vowel is the most used vowel of all . E. 

If you dont believe me, read this. http://www.spinelessbooks.com/gadsby/index.html and the manuscript in that website. Its really amazing how such a seemingly impossible task was achieved. Like I am always constantly reminded. Nothing is impossible,if done with dedication and time and practice.

Enchantress of numbers

I am one week behind ada lovelace day (March 24). Read this pledge of writing about women role models in blogs just recently. Though I missed to pledge ahead of time, I thought it would be good to write about Ada Lovelace. She was called as Enchantress of numbers for her passion in metaphysics. She was the one who translated her husband's work on analytical calculator which later was developed into general computers. She was hightly talented and saw great scope in the comptures and their mathematical abilities. 

Ada Lovelace was a sagacious women mathematician during those times where men were almost the only ones pursuing maths, astronomy and physics. 

I feel proud about Ada Lovelace, that she pursued her hearts desires though it must have been difficult to compete with men during her times. Read more about Ada Lovelace here 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace Read more about other women pioneers here http://ada.pint.org.uk/subject.php

His smile

from morning till night there are lots of NO in my life. most of them are said by me to my son (20months). Sanjay NO no wire touching no touching no pulling hair no scratching face no hitting no outing without shoes no shoes in kitchen no shaving cream no staying awake after 10 pm no push Sanjay wait Sanjay stop SANJAYYY but my son is smarter than me. As soon as start the no word, he will immediately look into my eyes, and give a big innocent smile showing his 14 teensy weensy teeth with his hands holding each other. that very moment, it is highly difficult to suppress my smile and stay angry. that one smile will melt all of my anger and provide me with unconditional bliss. that smile is the one haunting me all day at college. every day i just cant wait to get home to Sanjay.

Life's lessons - they repeat themselves.

when I was a kid, most of the time i followed my sister's footsteps in many decisions. If she wore salwars, i also took them from her shelf and wore them even if it were two sizes bigger than me. if she was allergic to eggplant, and also said i was allergic and did not take it. even now i somehow cant find myself eating eggplant even though i know perfectly well that i am most certainly not allergic to eggplant. if she loved kulfi icecreams, kulfi was definitely my favourite too. she is my role model and i was so fascinated by the way she handled things. Two incidents happened in my childhood which came back to me with a smirk on its face. the first one is about night gowns. at that time, long nightys were the fashion. 

My mom is a talented tailor. she made two pajamas out of thick fabric. one for me and one for my sister. they were two piece night wear like a pant and shirt. but unfortunately the design looked like we were out on a camping trip. I still remember the pattern. it was green with lots of chaotic design on them. My sis had one look at the dress and immmediately said "no". being a dutiful follower, i also said "hell no". we always used to rave and rant about the unsophisticated look of the dress and finally my mom gave up and said , "fine wear whatever you want, i give up". fastforwarding 15 years ahead, my mom came to visit me at my Undergraduate hostel, and i was wearing a two piece night wear which had become famous at that time. 

Imagine the looks that she gave me that meant "this is exactly what me and your father used to tell you guys. when have you ever listened to me"....... the second one is about kanji mavu, when we were kids, my mom used to insist on having kanji milk daily morning because it is very good for health. it is also called as raagi mavu. i tried it and it tasted fine. but as usual me and my sis said we dint like the raagi, and protested it. fast forward... 20 years later.. I am running around the house with my son , insisting him to drink kanji maavu. I can hear my mom secretly laughing with a " i told you so" face. ;) There are lot more incidents like these, but most embarrassing moments are named for a reason ;)

my next role model

It would not do justice if i talked about my mom and not about my sister. She is my dearest closest friend. Though my parents say we never ever fought over anything in our childhood. it is hard to believe since i see so many siblings fighting for everything. I do not remember fighting for toys, since mostly she considered them baby toys and did not come near mine .... ;). but i remember us fighting over clothes.

I adored her when i was a kid (even now)and always wanted to wear her clothes, how much ever loose fitting they might be. and she hated that to the core because u know they are her clothes, and did not want to share. She always believed in uniqueness. She used to search for a shoe that none of her friends wore in the past, for a whole day in more than 10 shops and never felt tired about that.

She is the more matured than me in our house. She helped dad in house budget and finances as soon as she entered college, while i mostly went home from hostel to relax, watch tv, read books, and eat heartily :). I always look up to her and try (remember i said try) to be perfect like her.

she always knew when and how to soothe me, she knows what mood i am in anytime, she understands my feelings, she says the right things, she showers her love for me, and most important of all she is the only one who understands me whenever i go jetspeed in my talks. when we were kids my parents used to say me and my sister came home from school and i used to talk in ultra speed about what happened in school. My parents used to listen to the end, and turn to my sister to say "Sona, why dont u translate what your sister just said" .... It would be like greek and latin to my parents, but my sister always understood what i tried to convey. that is why she is my dearest friend.

My role model

I am writing about women achievers, and I thought who can be a more personal woman role model than our own mother? the answer is 'none'. I have seen my mom struggle with daily unseen and seen forces of life. She takes two buses to reach the college where she is now HOD of Chemistry department. about two hours of to and fro travel in dust, pollution and hot summers. It took her about 25 years to reach this highly esteemed position of Head of the Department. 25 years of perseverance, honesty, passion, bad times, and good times. 

What made her the HOD today is her passion forteaching, passion for guiding young minds in the right direction. She is a very cool mom, mainly because she spends most of her day with youths. She knows how younger generation thinks and she adapts herself, in order to be a good example of righteous values. I am proud to say that my interest in learning new things comes from my mother, and my maturity to take the right decisions at the right time ( I hope they are matured decisions. only time can tell) comes from my father. 

Now you tell me , who can be a better role model than our own mother?

What is the value of PI

Have you felt embarrased that you do not even know your sister's phone number unless you have your cell phone with you? Have you had details remembering project details in a meeting with your manager? Do you want to enthrall your friends by telling them the number of PI upto some N number of decimals? Do you sigh, when someone gets recognised for super duper memory? Well, there is a good news for you, remembering things strongly is not a superman's deed. Anybody can do it. With some little practice and dedication of course. But hey the rewarding consequences overweight the hardwork needed. Retaining the important things in our life is most essential factor in leading a peaceful life. You can easily remember you wife's birthday, your tax benefits, and any other complicated things, which you normally tend to forget. You can convey your wishes on your manager's son's birthday, and earn a few brownie points in ur work place. you can keep important phone numbers in your finger tip in case you need them in emergency and your cell is out of battery power. I have always some problem with remembering hard or complex things. The way I remember things are like studying one day before exam. When I started preparing for my GRE exam, this drawback pulled me even more backwards. So I decided to roll up my sleeves, take a drink of water, and challenge it with audacity. But what techniques do I follow to improve my memory retainment skills. I read a lot of related books and articles and here is what they all say. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Memory tends to retain more stuff into long term memory room (sort of like a hard disk), if things are repeatedly added to the short term memory ( like a RAM). I tried this method for a few days, and it worked. I was able to remember details after practice, which I would normally forget. Great, but wait, this is not enough. I spending extra time in the repetition process, which could be spent wisely otherwise. So I need a more enhanced technique in which I would remember things after just one study. It should be strong enough that whenever I try to recollect, I should be able to remember all the items without much sweat. It is at this point of time, that I came across this site. This website gave me all I needed to deal with studying one time, and remembering it for a long time. I specifically like the peg system and substitute system. It worked wonders for me. I am able to remember lists, odd data and what not using a combination of the methods mentioned in the website. I would suggest you too try it and see how it works. This generic method will be of value to people in all aspects of life - students, professors, software engineers, doctors, astronomers, researchers, housewives, and you name it. Hey everyone wants a pat on the back from time to time. Its increases self esteem, and makes life easier.

What we learn from success stories

I read an article which posts the conversation of Mr. Iwata of Nintendo Wii during one of his visits to the office. He talks about the reasons behind creation of world famous games. The little chat is segmented into eleven sections, three of which was posted online, and the rest are expected soon. You can read the conversation here, before reading my blog, because I am not going to talk about what he says during that supper time. Well actually I am going to write about that only, but from a different perspective. His little talk is pretty clear by itself. But the analysis of Mr. Itoi's and Mr. Iwata's actions and the reasons behind them are discussed here. Disclaimer: This is my first blog on net. So if it has any information that is not intended to be published online, then I ask for forgiveness of my ignorance. (i hope to laugh at this line when I come back after few years of experience in blogging.) 

With all due respect to Mr. Iwata, I start my first blog. In the first section, Mr. Iwata talks about Mr. Miyamoto's definition of "ideas". It is something which solved multiple issues at once. The former goes on an elaborate discussion explaining what the definition means. During the conversation, Mr. Shigesato Itoi, explains the concept to his staff, with a simple yet effective example. This showcases the great dedication Mr. Itoi has, in keeping his staff inline with the concept, to make it interesting to the listeners, and to grab their undivided attention. He wishes his staff members to learn from Mr. Iwata's words, and as a manager, is concerned about his team's interests too. This is an industrial management lesson to be learnt from Mr. Itoi, for those who aspire to become great managers themselves. 

In the next section, Mr. Iwata talks about viewing things over someone else's shoulder, which is known to me as "third person's point of view", which I heard for the first time from my Mother's brother-in-law Mr. Swaminathan, when I was in my childhood days. I call him periappa (note: I am from Tamil Nadu, India). I remember him sitting on our living room floor, and explaining the concept to me. Ever since I have tried to master that quality, and even after nearly 8 years, I am still on the process. I guess some things take longer time than you expect. Anyways coming back to Mr. Iwata's insight, as he was clarifying the notion, he has said that during early times, when he was a game programmer, his games were less popular than that of Mr. Miyamoto's games, and he proceeded to find out the reason behind his "low-selling-games" and to make his games as popular as Mr. Miyamoto's. The important thing to notice here is Mr. Iwata's attitude about his failures. It is remarkable that instead of going down the drains, thinking " ya My Miyamoto's games are popular, he is a great person, I can't think like him, I can not reach his level, " and other similar negative thoughts, he actually was eager to fill the gap, and to make his games as successful as Mr. Miyamoto's. 

This kind of thinking reminds me of Steve Pavlina's blog the abundance mindset In this blog, Pavlina has dealt with the mindset of abundance. Instead of seeing someone spending $10k on a hotel as an "outrageous act", if a person starts to see that, as a possibility of them rising to that level of spending, then he would move up from his position. Similar kind of mindset can be seen with Mr. Iwata's action of reasoning out his failure, and moving towards success. He started analyzing Mr. Miyamoto's reasons behind success, and succeeded in his attempt. The trigger for such action is his frustration, frustration that his game did not sell out as expected. In the same section, Mr. Iwata had talked about Mr. Miyamoto's strategy of letting a novice user play his game and watching his actions and reactions from the back. This aspect is highly important for a product company, whose final aim is to make the product popular among the users. No use in creating a product for the developer's satisfaction right? It is the end users who are going to use the product in the end. This concept is the core one in the User Interface Design class, which I took during spring semester. The one thing to keep in mind throughout the software cycle of development is "users, users, users". Mr. Itoi has expressed that Mr. Miyamoto was making use of what he studied in college in developing great games. It is not the subject matter that Mr. Miyamoto was implementing, for he did industrial design degree in his college, but the basic concept of observation, users' point of view, and picking the correct answers from the user's response. Many of us, including me are under the notion that what we learnt in college has no relevance to what we do for living. 

This is true especially for Indians like me who do MS in USA and then get a job here. It is true to some extent, in that we might not use all the technology that we learnt, or we might be using an altogether different platform or technology in the company. But that doesn’t mean that our college education is mere waste or just a portal to enter the US corporate section. Certain technologies that we learn in college might not be used in our career. But the cognitive thinking behind it, the approach, reasoning, and observation that we subconsciously learn at the college goes a long way with our career and personal life. Many of us fail to recognize these gems of education. If we realize these intricate qualities and consciously nourish them, the probability of success is more. More to come as the talk gets updated.