Re-invent yourself!

i know that people who know me personally would know the motivation behind this post. They may say that i am sending out this advice to others because it worked out for me. But i know there’s a way it can work out for everyone.

For people who have been wondering what all this about, here it is. You know how we were all excited about even simple things in life when we were teenagers. Movies with college friends or a getting a new top made us so happy. And then we grew up. Real life took over, we got busy with our jobs and just forgot to do things that make us happy. Even things that we might not have done before. Our sense of adventure definitely went down with age and responsibilities. And it does come to us as a surprise when we see others probably do something drastic to their looks or their clothes. Some of us even wish we could be that brave and try different things out.

So today’s post is about - why not? Go ahead and re-invent yourself. This is as important as anything else that we do in our life. Probably more important because this is just for You! A caveat tho - trying different things isn’t a one time thing. You may have changed your hairstyle 10 years ago and thought you were cool. But you left it at that. And now you think - gone are those days when i could do crazy stuff. i am grown up and responsible. Well, we all are! But should that stop us from doing things that will us happy. And trust me, when you look around, those things might not even be as expensive or crazy or time consuming as you think.

i have been doing that every couple of years. For me, it’s mostly my hair. i feel the best way to make a difference to how you feel - and look - is to play around with your hair. My fantasy has always been to have really short hair. But i always chicken out and decided go as short as it would suit me on the eve of hitting the 3rd decade of my life. i wasn’t generally too brave above short hair in the front but i did it. And it looked and felt awesome. And since then, it’s been something new every couple of years. Straight hair to now, bangs! i never thought i could get this adventurous but i guess the part of the fun is in stretching our limits.

i understand that if you are a management consultant, you may not want to turn up at a client meeting in hair that’s streaked red. But i am sure there can be other crazy things that appeal to you. How about getting on to the bandwagon of coloured pants for men? Or getting some fuchsia pink lip colour for the women. They are not permanent but can definitely brighten up your day. And you can go around with a spring in your step because you just got cooler than you were!

All i am saying is - stop dreaming and go do what you always wanted to but just chickened out. It wont cost your life. It’s just little changes in your hair, clothes, shoes (remember the pencil heels you wanted to always own?). Anything that makes you hold up the finger to life and say - you can be unfair and stressful and demanding, but that will not stop me from finding the time and the inclination to do what makes me happy!

My Bhaaji wala in my ipad!

Who would have ever thought that onions and potatoes could be bought at the click of a mouse in the comfort of one’s home? That the ubiquitous bhaji wala and the friendly neighborhood grocery store would converge into your computer? Neatly lined stacks of products from all categories. Widest possible choice. Shopping at the convenient time of your choice. And much easier to pick up and dump in your trolley. Just click! It’s heartening to notice (which i did recently) that something as mundane as grocery shopping has gone online and so smoothly!

Even though it is a very convenient way of quickly finishing an otherwise time consuming task in a woman’s life, i have mixed feelings about online grocery shopping chains.

First the good. There are a lot of such websites to choose from. Popular ones include bigbasket.com, Nature’s Basket from Godrej and (newly discovered today) localbaniya.com. And you can find pretty much everything you would in a full fledged supermarket. Sometimes more! So rest assured that shopping online for groceries isn’t some new fangled gimmick for a privileged social strata. But very housewife-friendly activity that can get you the most mundane of articles required in your household.

Online shopping also saves the huge trouble of having to lug the monthly supplies to your car to carry them home. Or worse still, like in my case, find an auto rickshaw and put all of it into the vehicle and then carry it to my apartment up the stairs. Too much hard work, that.

Now, the bad. Despite all these good points, i still have a few pretty strong reasons why online shopping doesn’t really work for me. (In fact, i placed my very first online order only today and i am waiting to see how my experience goes when the supplies arrive tomorrow). Utility of online shopping aside, i think the very rush of adrenaline when you enter a supermarket and look around at neatly stacked brand new items on aisles is replaced by nothing. The joy of personally picking up items, turning them around in your hand and reading labels before you toss them into your basket is totally lost with online shopping.

i am still willing to forego the tactile experience of the real shopping world if it wasn’t for my next two problems. Online shopping is really useful when you have the whole month’s supplies to order. It is not at all ideal to order a few things that might be out of stock along the way. You have to step out right then to get them from your local store. And i actually prefer the local store that’ll help me fill that in-between gap to jing bang of online shopping. And the last of my problems is related to this very time frame. The time slots in which they deliver aren’t usually when i want them to the stuff i order. If i order this evening, i prefer to have my it latest by tonight. And not having to sit at home at some random time slot the next day when they are available to deliver. So, for their time slots to work for me, i need to plan in advance so that my things arrive before the existing stock is over. And I am not sure it is possible to do that all the time.

So, online grocery shopping has is definitely a revolution in a county full of conservative shoppers. Yet there can still be more to improve it and make get skeptics like me into its fold. i am not suggesting that my suggestions be put to practice. i am just saying that even though the concept is great, it still doesn’t completely work for me.

Long live Internet!




PS: Just an update, since this post couldn't go live last night - It's 11am and my eggs and bread from localbaniya.com haven't arrived yet forcing me to have last night's leftover pizza for breakfast. Well, the slot ends and 12.30, so fingers crossed!

The joy of being a student!

i count myself so lucky to have been gifted with a natural disposition to want to learn new things. Not just about things that will help me in my profession but also general topics that might have a bearing on everyday life. With the internet explosion, knowledge is available through multiple media at the tip of my fingers. You name the topic and you have got it. And i am glad that i have started my new year by being a part of a course which adds to my knowledge of a topic i never thought would be a subject of formal study - a course on morality! It is called Moralities of everyday life.

The website coursera.org offers free courses from renowned universities  from across the world on every conceivable topic on earth. Anyone can join in and there isn’t like a minimum eligibility criteria to join them except for knowledge of english language and the technological paraphernalia to view online content.

Coming back to the course, even though it is just week 1, it is quite intriguing in the issues it raises. All of us have an inherent sense of right and wrong. It could be genetic, cultural or intuitive. But are there a set of rules that govern that? Or do we just follow gut feel? Or do we decide between right and wrong based on just how we feel at the time of decision making? Week one of the course looks at historical and philosophical approaches to morality. It talks about whether emotion guides us to our sense of right and wrong or reason - it turns out that passion wins over reason!

Apart from the lectures and reading lists, there are these forums where you have people starting posts and putting up ideas on every conceivable aspect related to the course in question. Going through the forum posts alone could hugely satisfying and learning experience in itself. To know what ideas people from different parts of the world think about depending on their demographics like age, gender, culture and their views and preferences on the course being studied.

i find a medium like this very interesting to continue to study. Since this doesn't have a formal admission process, i don't have to decide in advance. i just enroll at the spur of the moment because something appeals to me. It not just brings back the joy of learning something new but also the school girl in me on her toes trying to catch up with all the material. There is this surge of happiness and positive energy in me when i think of writing notes and trying to assimilate the news things learnt. It's almost like my happy place (apart from, of course, the books i read). i also think it's a great way to keep my mind away from idling away and ill the empty hours of my day.

i have joined other courses on this website but haven’t managed to complete any of them. The work load per week turns out to be a lot more than they casually mention in the course guidelines. But i am up to the challenge this time and hope to keep up with the engaging content, week after week, for just 6 week!!

One down, five more to go! :)

Happy New Year!

It’s that time of the year again. When all of us have our anticipating eyes set on the new year. The remaining days of this year don’t count. Some of us are planning parties. Some others are a part of parties thrown by others. And some others, like me, don’t mind ushering in the new year quietly in the confines of their homes. But all of us are thinking of at least one thing that we want to change about ourselves in the new year. Choose to call it a resolution or by any other name, all of us think of the new year as the best time to kick bad habits and begin afresh with good ones. i can wildly guess that the resolution on top of most people’s list is to lose weight. At least to start and stick to a regular exercise routine. It’s the most common because this goal is perennially on our list as we begin, flounder, give up and begin again with renewed energy only to fall back into the vicious circle through the year. Many others might want to kick the butt or the bottle. Maybe develop a new skill, start looking for that dream job you have postponed for so long or simply stop biting your nails!

The resolution could be anything. We all know what the end result is going to be. The first few days of the new year will keep us motivated and remind us to be regular with whatever goal we have in mind. But gradually we’ll miss it for a day or two, real life will take over. And as the new year wears on, so will our enthusiasm. The reassurance we should look for is that our intentions behind the resolutions were honest. We just need to be constantly motivated and realize that setbacks are a part of any change process. We just need to start afresh as many times as we fail. There is no other way to do it. And probably we’ll be more successful if we didn’t wait for the new year to start initiating change yet again.

Whatever your resolutions - all the best!

And a Happy New Year to you all!

Trials in the life of a freelance trainer

Being a freelancer in any field has both, advantages and disadvantages. As a freelancer myself, i can vouch for the the fact that the biggest perk of being a freelancer is the flexibility it offers to plan your work around other things in your life. You can decide how much work you want to take on. And also appraise your own worth as you gain experience over a period of time.

When i tell people that I am a freelance corporate trainer, their eye brows go up in admiration (God knows why?) possibly because it’s not exactly a mainstream career. A whole retinue of trainers have spawned only in the recent past. A whole bunch of freelancers I should say. This happened because a lot of companies woke up to the new fangled idea of having training sessions organized for their staff.

On an individual level, i definitely feel passionate about training - meeting new people, handling new content and ensuring that the training is a success at the end of the day. The thrill begins with stepping into a training session with participants i set eyes on on the same day. And to not just build rapport with them but also be able to get the learnings across through building credibility by the end of mere 8 hours of a day. The failure to rightly assess the participants at the beginning of the session can spell doom for the rest of the session.

In all the years that I have been freelancing, i have come across certain challenges which are unique to freelance training profession. Especially if you are an individual not affiliated to any organisation. First of all, as a freelancer, one is perennially a job seeker, you might get assignments faster and better ones with experience, but work doesn’t land on one’s lap unless there’s constant effort towards it. If you are new to the field without much experience to boast of, it could be a rough ride.

We all work in exchange for money. As a freelancer, you earn as much as you work almost on a pro rata basis. Consulting companies, who are mediators between the client and the trainer, definitely get work for the trainer. But at the expense of the fee that the trainer’s work and worth deserves. Since the consultant does the majority of the work, the trainer ends up with a very small percentage of the deal. This might sound fair but the expectations from the trainer to get excellent feedback after having steeped into the scene on the day of the training far exceeds the compensation given for fulfilling them.

The dates for training programs have to be committed in advance to the client. So one has to ensure that uncertainties in life don’t interfere with them. This is a bigger difficulty since there are no substitutes for a freelancer. If i commit dates to a client a month in advance, its pretty much a commitment on which my integrity towards my work rests. i better have a really strong reason for calling them off, if the need arises. So suffering from fever etc are definitely paltry reasons to jeopardize your relationship with the client by canceling the session.

This brings me to the next big challenge. A trainer is as good as his or her last session. i have done great programs for consultants but got dropped out suddenly because one session didn’t fetch good feedback. That too because the training needs analysis wasn’t done well and hence the content was unsuitable for the group. And i could have done precious little to save the day having just stepped in at the training stage in front of live audience. The consultant refused to take the blame and expected me to have done something to keep the participants happy! So, one slip and you might lose the rapport built painstakingly with a client over a long time. The feedback based on the preliminary perceptions of the trainees is more critical to the career of a trainer than the real long term benefits a company might gain from the program. Sad, but true!

Another thing that is generally never mentioned as a hardship in training is the physically strenuous nature of the sessions. The trainer is on his or her feet for almost 8 hours of the session to sustain the energy levels of the group. This can have a huge effect on a person training on an average 4 days a week. The back, legs, soles of the feet are just a few areas that bear the highest brunt apart from vocal chords that can get harmed with constant talking. i speak from experience of one of the assignments I had worked on for 6 months. It’s not just mentally arduous but also takes a toll on one’s body.

i have tried to put forth an insider’s view of a trainer’s life. It is great to interact with new people and do exciting assignments. But it’s not as glamourous as it looks. It is, sometimes literally, back breaking work. It is worthwhile only for the satisfaction it brings to a trainer’s life of having made some difference to people’s lives, albeit for a short while.

Innocence lost

The longer i stay away from Delhi, the harder it is for me to adjust back during my trips. Sometimes i am surprised that i lived in the city for 12 years of my life. But i guess those were simpler times. Though i’ve always had problems with the class/status obsession among the people of the city. The car you drive, the house you own, the clothes you wear, the dog you have, the bai who comes to your house, the look of the guests you receive, the colour of your watchman’s pants and the size of your crockery cupboard. Every single thing points only to your status. Crazy but very true about the capital city of india.

Okay! So i console myself thinking we all know how it works and how much of it is just a show off.  But there is one thing that truly disturbed me this time. And that is the effect all this show-shaw has on kids. And age no-bar here. i always knew my niece had her school van friends boasting about the movies they watched and she came back home complaining that she hadn’t. And i also knew that these kids had an eye on the birthday cakes in other kids’ parties to make sure they matched up to the trend on their own special day. And birthday party is as fun or memorable as the return gift.

But as my niece reached her 7th birthday, this sense of competition seems to have reached new heights. And at that age, we were busy taking care of one doll we ever got and a couple of comic books. A new dress on the day is definitely still the norm. But the dress has to be unique - a Snow white costume or a Cinderella dress. And if you have the one that no one else did among friends, the kid feels a new sense of respect. (We later realised that her idea behind choosing a particular dress was to tease another show-off friend, a year younger,  who had teased her earlier!) Toffees for class mates is fine but how about cupcakes for the school van companions. She wants to obviously stand out and be the talk of the town by using these novel ideas.

The materialism bug has definitely bit the kids industry. There is the largest variety of games and toys available and at ridiculously high prices. i wonder if it even makes sense to have entire household set with a Barbie doll for kids to play. The tiny pieces in the set are lost as fast as the kid’s interest in the novelty of the toy. But the number and type of gifts received for the day are equally important to make an impression among the peer group. No matter how many Barbie doll a kid has, there is always scope for more. And the more gifts kids get the more they hope to get. And that’s because the high point is in opening new gifts and then they lose interest in exactly 5 seconds hoping on to unwrap the next one. 

And the worst part is the sense of superiority with which they are going to go back and ‘show-off’ to their friends about how many latest and expensive toys they own. And the tone is ‘oh-so-perfect’ and condescending. I feel really scared for these kids who have lost the innocence of a toys and books being just that rather that status symbols in their own baby world.

When i really think deeply about this i realize that it’s impossible to keep them away from all this. They live in a society where appearances are more important and are used to judge the real you. How would young kids attach meanings to inanimate objects unless parents have somewhere been instrumental in guiding them towards it? i agree that parents might have the means to make a mega event out of their child’s birthday. Maybe it’s their way of reasserting their position in the social strata. But is that more important than instilling the value of more important things in their kid. Aren’t there other areas where they could make the same point? Is it so shameful to teach their children to value their toys instead of saying we can afford to get more every few days so it’s ok to throw things around?

Food for thought? Yeah! But we'll have to rise above the petty materialism and broaden our horizons so that the next generation can perceive the true value of things that truly matter.

Rain rain...go away!

They: Oh! The weather’s so lovely! Raining and green and romantic! I love this weather!
Me: i hate the rains!
They: What are you saying? Really??
Me: What’s so romantic?
They: Wow! Sipping coffee, watching the rain is so wonderful!
Me: And what happens when you have to step out?

Dig a little deeper and to that love of rain comes with a ‘conditions apply’. It lasts only as long as the cup of coffee comfortably sprawled on your couch. And then it’s all there. The troubles of reaching office in muddy waters. Sitting all day with wet ends of your pants folded. The stubborn rickshaw walas who exercise their right to free will exactly during monsoons. Clogged roads that make walking on them a messy task. Puddled potholes that further slow down the drive home. The groceries that are finally over and you have to step out now to buy more. Or maybe order food for home delivery. But the torrential rain ensures that by the time your food arrives, you’ve waited so long for it that you want to just curl into your bed and sleep. Not to mention the dampness that creeps into every inch of the indoors that you really begin missing the dry crispness of summers.

There is an alternate world like Bollywood that has turned monsoons into a fantastic opportunity for romance. Invariably, it's the leading lady drenched to the core unleashing sensuality...or something like that. (Trust me, all I am thinking watching something like that is "yuck! wet clothes sticking to the body. Get her some dry clothes!) And some of those romantic associations seem to be stuck in real life as well.

In the end, i know it’s fun to watch the rain from the safe distance of our homes and enjoy Raveena gyrating to tip tip barsa paani on TV. But it’s totally different to encounter it in all aspects of life while trying to get on with the practical business of life. So guys, just own up! Rains aren't as wow! on second thoughts as it comes across in the first!