R@J aur Sweety ka Scribble Pad

I wonder what percentage of Indian parents return home with their heads held high after school Parent Teacher Meetings, When the teachers share the progress and give direct feedback about the child. I had this humbling experience last week when I went to kid's school. Meeting each teacher, and hearing a set of complaints about my daughter who is studying 5th grade was not an enjoyable experience.  As I was returning from school, my mind was thinking about how my father handled feedback about me when I was a kid. I probably had potential but was too distracted to ever live up to potential during my early years. After PTM's, my father used to say nothing to me, my mother would continue to nag for the whole week. My mother would always bring in the comparison with the next-door neighbor's kid who was doing great. My daughter also displays some similar traits, like being overconfident, wanting attention, being unable to focus, and being too lazy to write anything in class.   ...

It would be an understatement to say Covid Pandemic has changed lives. People Across the globe experienced Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Loneliness, or isolation. This weekend I took some "ME" time out to reflect on the 3.5 years since the lockdown. Covid had a positive effect on me as I reevaluated myself. As a child, we used to watch Mahabharat on Television, it was a Sunday ritual for the whole family to get ready and sit down to watch the serial. By the end of the series, I had learned the Mahabharat title song by heart. There was a verse in the song . yada yada hi dharmasya gyanir bhavati bharata abhyutthanam adharmasya tadatmanam srjamy aham paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ  vināśhāya cha duṣhkṛitām dharma-sansthāpanārthāya  sambhavāmi yuge yuge I never really understood the verse, one of the covid lockdown days I was googling the meaning of this Sanskrit Shloka. I actually found that this verse is from the Bhagwad GITA Chapter 4 Verse 7 and 8.  Before this day the onl...

"The low-pressure system formed on the coast of North Andhra and South Odisha in the Bay of Bengal has intensified" This is what the official Met Department statement says. For a layman like me who looks up to the sky to figure out the weather, I see the rain pouring 23 hours out of the last 24 hours. It has rained continuously for the last 7 days and in the last two days, Life is almost at a standstill. Kids school moved online this week and today they declared a holiday anticipating disruptions to the networks.  When it comes to traffic, Hyderabad, IT and the financial district are no different from the Bengaluru outer ring road. long traffic jams, hours on the road is common, especially during rains.  I have never regretted moving to fully remote working. It gives me more silence (being away from traffic), some additional ME time, and the ability to switch off from work the moment I shut down my laptop. On days like this, while sipping my morning tea, I actually can't ...

My earliest memory of Kargil war was reading a news clip in Lokmat newspaper in 1999. It was the final year of engineering and we would scan the newspapers for potential employment postings. Somewhere hidden as a very small column, it was mentioned that some intruders were spotted in the Kargil region. At this point, there was no clarity of who they were. In the next couple of months, it turned out to be one of the largest military mobilizations post-1971 war with over 2,00,000 Indian troops being mobilized.  Official figures vary, but over 500+ soldiers were martyred. A thought for the families of these soldiers and a salute to all men and women in uniform. As a practice, I am doing my small bit by contributing to Bharath ke veer corpus fund.

Div headed back to US to restart her life post vacation. Last week was extremely unusual, I let down my guard, and let someone come close to know me, I shared and showed emotions after many many years. It is time to get back to my life and put back the firewalls and barriers again. I started by deleting all communication (emails, whats app, phone numbers) both current and historic. Found some old images on Google Photos and Flickr, and deleted them as well. I just don’t want anything to be vulnerable again and cause any emotional upheaval. This is just me being a Taurus Bull. With this interaction, I think I found my closure. Just before leaving for the Airport, she messaged me on what’s app, I was outside, and when I saw the message I responded and called her. There was nothing to talk about, more of a courtesy, and it ended in 3 minutes. She had to get ready to start for the airport and for me, it was a good excuse to hang up. Not sure if she messaged out of courtesy. As a typica...

"When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure"  don't know who said this. But this week was a Memory treasure hunt. During the initial days of Div's marriage, beer was my fav evening refuge, each pint brought back one of her memories and each memory made me start another pint of beer. One day I had the resolve to give up on drinks and became a teetotaler. I drowned myself in work instead by working long 14 to 15 hours days, that was the only way out of the overcome and be distracted from thinking or attempting to contact her. While I was successful on most occasions, the urge to know about would overcome me and I would keep a tab on the latest about her. Occasionally knowing that she is doing ok would make me happy. Jagjit Singh and Maroon 5 brought some solace.  Fav songs from that time  "Chand ke saath kai dard purane nikle kitne gum the jo tere gum ke bahane nikle"  Maroon 5 - Memories -   Amazing lyrics -  Cheers to the wis...

  Continuing the blog from where I left 16 years ago. A lot has happened in these years, I finally gave in to family pressures and got married in 2009. When mindset and wavelengths don't match, adjustment is not easy. There are family pressures and expectations from the spouse and then there is how you want to live, what you want to do, and how you want to do it. if blackmailing is a craft, families (mother, father, siblings etc) are extremely good at it. When you have nothing in common with your spouse, gelling with your spouse is not easy. If there is physical attraction, kiss and make-up may help with the problem at least initially, if there is no attraction and only egos it is a long-drawn battle. My life was probably the latter. Due to the constant blackmail from parents and inlaws claiming heart disease, Char log kya kahenge, etc separation was never an option. It was a daily grind of tempers flaring, shouting, avoiding eye contact, sleeping separately, and so on.  But t...

The title of the blog seems like a B grade bollywood movie,  or a perfect example of my bad sense of humor. 16 years have passed since I last blogged, and I dont remember why I stopped. The stories of the 16 years are definitely Oscar nomination grade, bollywood can really make a few hit movies taking chapters out of these years. I just need to think about the actors who will play key roles. I was reminded of my Blog by Div who pinged me and persuaded me to connect again.  While I will talk about that in a separate blog, I had lost the link to my blog and she graciously shared it with me. I made a promise to Div that I will try to restart the blog, If only I could remember how to as I don't remember the email id used to create it. So as a Jugad, I created a new Id, and here is the link to all the posts that I had made in the past.  Raj's Page (jrajsekhar.blogspot.com)