Done

I blogged every-day for two full months! Missed one day in January but managed to make it on every other day. Some days I barely put together some sensible sentences, on some days, I got carried away by my own stories.

A week into the 2^nd month, I was flying on adrenaline. If I could force myself to write regularly, why not exercise and diet. So I added two more resolutions to my day.

And pushed myself to become thin and a writer over the next three weeks.

If you have about my old history with exercise, you already know what happens next. 

Monitoring my weights on the electronic weighing machine did not make a difference-it would move up by 800g after every weekend. I would walk faster and longer in the evenings and skip the samosa and eat the sprouts instead. My bones would be creaking, all the joints would keep screeching and squabling. Google fit would give me the heart points to cheer me on but the weighing machine would show that all I could accomplish was lose those 800g by Friday. And I was so bored of eating the healthy stuff that I had to binge on biryani on the third weekend and I refused to check my weight after that.

I realized that I was just as bad as keeping resolutions as ever.

I could stick to blogging, because in spite of all the moaning and groaning, I was happy writing. I was happy venting out in words. I was happy revisiting places in my mind and sharing them with the world. 

I am happy when I get to play with words and that is why I will continue writing. Not because of another challenge of the month, but just because I have more stories to tell.

It won’t be every day for sure, but just whenever I get the chance.

I just hope some of you keep reading 😊.

Day 30

Just two more days to go for the January blogathon.

How was it for me?

Really tough-there were days I had force myself to log in at the end of the day, fighting sleep, fighting the urge to not look at a computer screen after the full day staring at one, and fighting the urge to let it slip, for just one day.

I had long days at work. Days when I had to optimize family time. And I was driving through what is now officially the world’s no. 1 city for traffic congestion.

And there were times, I went through the mechanics of writing, but wrote without putting my heart into it.

Really satisfying-I learnt yet again, that when we can do no further, we still can.

I relived the satisfaction of typing one word after the other and see a story emerge. Sometimes, a story surprisingly different from one I had intended to write.

I cherished the satisfaction of putting a mental tick on a challenge I set up for myself. And I loved re-experiencing old travels, of flipping through old photos, feeling the chill of the winds from the snowy mountains in Nubra valley or feeling the tug of the kite-string slipping through my fingers as I wrote about Sankrant.

In reliving old memories, I also re-discovered a lot about what was more important for me-reflecting, remembering, sharing and writing yes, venting too.

I know very few people read my blog now. Swaram was the only one who would regularly post a comment to let me know she was there. But I still felt connected to many more as I shared my posts for anyone to read. Thank you to each one who took out the time to read anything that I wrote.

Getting off the treadmill

I am sleepy. I am tired. I don’t think I can write today.

I realized that I had been saying the same words to myself as I log in late at night to somehow complete that day’s post before the clock strikes 12.

I realized that once I start writing I often go beyond my self-imposed minimum word requirement.

So maybe one part of the daily challenge is figuring out what to write about.

My world has become very small now (not in kms though). Office-Traffic-Home. I haven’t had a real long conversation with someone outside the family for weeks. I haven’t done anything new. I haven’t travelled or even read something interesting.

I don’t have the time.

And this is where the impact shows.

To write, I either need to dwell upon the future which holds more doubts hope at the moment or sift through memories.

Wouldn’t it be more sensible to make a blog calendar-plan in advance what to write about, so that I waste less time and write more useful stuff.

a)    When would I make the list?

b)    Wouldn’t that become like another assignment then?

One of the points of this exercise was to rediscover the joy of writing for the sake of writing. Just letting the words flow and watch them form a post by themselves. To do something effortless for a change and just enjoying that process instead of stressing over-what is the purpose/is it good enough/how can I make it better?

I have got so programmed to do things more efficiently, to keep increasing the settings on the treadmill, that sometimes it takes so much effort to do a thing effortlessly-just do it for fun, or maybe just do it.

Stop checking the treadmill numbers. Get off it completely. And walk barefoot.

Half-way down the month!

The month is half-over; half left to go.

It’s been good going, but it is time to plan the goodbye.

The first month it was about pushing myself to get into the discipline of logging and posting everyday-no matter what.

There were times I posted half in sleep, drafted a couple of posts on flights on travels and posted them on landing, drafted a few in advance to make up for the days I knew it will not be possible to log in, and some I posted even though they didn’t make complete sense, for the sake of putting that check on my list.
Some of my posts may seem not-so-sensible anyway, but they should at least make sense to me, or I will not post-that was the second month’s resolution as I was excited about my success at managing to complete the first month’s challenge.

Half-way through the second month, now I have proved to myself I can do it.
The next question is it worth the stress and the effort?

So far, YES. Because it helped me get back in the flow, reminded me of the joy of writing and gave me a big boost of satisfaction.

But in taking on this and a parallel fitness challenge, I have realized that I have left a few important ones slip. Things that are more important from a life-plan perspective.

So yes, I am glad I kept on at the challenge.
And no, I am not quitting half-way through.

But yes, it’s time to plan ahead. To take other priorities up with the same zeal or just stubborn resolve.

I’ll continue to blog. But maybe make it a weekly instead of a daily challenge. That may give me time to think and compose my posts or maybe at times, still post in zombie mode once in a while. Let’s see.

There is half a month of the daily challenge yet to go. Let's see how that tuens out first.

Completing 2019!

As we were having a quiet chat about the year that was, we all felt that the last couple of years were especially busy.

We had less holidays, less fun, too much travel, work, college admissions, board exams and all other stresses of growing up, growing older.

And yet, as my mom insists, when we gather to count our blessings and say ‘Thank yous’ there was so much to be grateful for.

Today, I was too busy to watch the sun go down on the year. The office day seemed to keep stretching on a day when usually people wind up early to party. I guess that’s symbolic of the whole year.

I wonder what the new year will be like.
Will the dates make a difference to our lives?
Will we become wiser as we move in twenty-twenties?
Will the world become saner and happier?

I guess it is all upto us.

To paraphrase Dumbledore (he is all for turning phrases): It is our choices that make our world.

Let’s choose to be better selves, make a happier world and celebrate a wonderful New Year!

Let’s choose to have more fun

…and write a little more,

We did it Swaram!
Bring on January!!

Lessons from blogging everyday III

I have given myself a lot of pats on the back for almost completing the exercise. (3 more days to go after this).

So what next?

Enjoy the evening with one stress less in life. Read a book, watch a movie, talk to a friend instead. Yes, I want to do that and more.

But I also want to do this ‘stress’ thing again. I still need to live the challenge for another month. Why on earth?

Because, as I wrote earlier, this year was also about facing mortality. Of recognizing the finiteness of time and the futility of regrets. I do have a list of things I did not do this year, even knowing that this time would never come back. But I also have the satisfaction, of doing a little more than before.

The challenge was one part, what I also rediscovered was the joy of writing. Writing for its own sake, not for a job or for a reader, but just for the fun of playing with words.

This stress helped me get through all the other stresses in life. It made me reflect within and focus ahead.

What I would really love to do in the time ahead, is to write more meaningfully. Maybe write shorter or less frequent posts, but hopefully write to contribute, to make a change, to make people think. And to change myself.

Most of my posts have been about myself, my work search for work life balance, my encounters with the education systems my thoughts and fears. It is then that I realized that how small my world has become. Going ahead, I hope I use time to reconnect with the amazing people doing amazing work around me. To read more interesting posts. To discover more interesting stories. More words, more worlds.

Lessons from blogging everyday-II

In the previous blogging avatar, writing came naturally. I wrote when I had the time (I have no clue how I found the time). It was more about sharing snippets of my life, trying to keep myself sane. And I had a group-bloggers like me who wrote regularly, read my posts, shared their reactions through comments. I think that kept me on. Sometimes a single comment would make me write another post.

This time it was one big exercise. I know for sure Swaram was reading my posts, that and my stubborn resolve kept me going.

Maybe some of the posts didn’t make much sense to anyone else, but each of them was a big learning for me. Each of them was a reassurance that I could take out this time and complete what I promised. A few months ago, while talking of my writing and exercise, a close friend had told me to face the fact that I was not a ‘upholder’. I was better off working a salaried job than trying to write on my own; joining a class than promising to exercise. I agreed with her.

This month of blogging gave me hope that maybe I could be a ‘upholder’. A month is not very long-maybe it would take three months to really prove myself-but it felt very long. Taking out time every day, that too when my kid is at home (After her semester starts, I’ll probably not meet her for five months).

There have been days when I was very late reaching home. There were days of travel. Of visitors and of precious family time. I have written a couple of posts using my phone while on a flight and some which I have written without knowing in advance what I was writing about.

I am so thankful and glad; I could do it.

Lessons from blogging everyday

The most challenging part of this challenge for me was when I finally logged in to the personal laptop, opened Word and tried to write.  I wouldn’t know what to write. Having finally packed and stepped on to the station-you don’t know where you want to go, which train to take!

I tried making a blog calendar-or at least a list of possible topics, but that began to feel too much like work.

And then I complicated it for myself (yeah, I am weird) by self-imposing a minimum word limit of 300. No 55-ers or 100 worders except for the days I was in transit. So, I don’t have time to write, I don’t know what to write and yet I have to do it every day (for 300words).  

I started writing ‘from the top of my head’. Just whatever my hands felt like typing. It was therapeutic. Just the act of letting the words flow, drawing pictures and smudging them out because many times they would not make sense.

I realized the words would start writing themselves after I struggled for good ten-fifteen minutes. Then I would end up writing something which I didn’t even plan to.

Wow! If only I had the time to keep typing till it became a coherent book.

Sometimes I would get multiple ideas, like a string of firecrackers lighting up on Diwai. But by the time I came back from another day at work, my mind would be like an ancient tubelight once again.

Would it be better to stay up one night and keep writing?
But that would defeat the basic theory of building up the discipline to log in every day-no matter what.

I didn’t write very scintillation stuff or anything that could save the planet. Mostly I ended up writing about traffic, juggling tasks and everything I was stressed up. I was just writing about my thoughts and even that was difficult.

It makes me respect regular writers so much more. People who have nothing to prove, but yet write for the joy of it. People who sit and type for an hour two, with military discipline, and people who look at the blank screen and know what to write. Big salute to all of you!

A dark new world

Gosh! I have turned so dark! Each post I have written in the last few days is gloomier than the previous one. My thoughts can almost be used to create the sets for 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II'.

I am on my blog regularly (for the last 20 days) after a decade. Most of the time I am writing on a stop-watch mode: log out of work-drive-write-post blog-shut down-move to next task. It’s Friday evening and I have half-a-dozen less things to do today evening so I got a few minutes to click randomly on my older posts from a decade ago.

That was like watching 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone'. There was wonder and hope. There was fun and innocence and a sense of faith.The kids were on the brink of discovering a whole new magical world. The newness of it all-the majesty of the bewitched world of schools, making friends, discovering spells and learning to fly! 

There were so many people who read my posts back then. There were strangers who commented and shared their reactions. Now it is mostly a solitary reflection. It was a commitment made on Facebook that made me come back and stick through for the last twenty days. I thought I’d get over my reticence over sharing my blog with known people and broadcast the recent posts on Facebook. Maybe more people reading the random posts will make me write more (and less randomly).

When I logged on, I realized what a battlefield social media had become. The country is raging over the latest bills/acts, but it was unnerving to read the words thrown by people I thought, I knew. It’s not just the views of some my ‘friends’ but the stringent violence and outright nastiness of it. And yes, I am shocked at the depth of naivety (or plain dumbness if that’s a word) of so many of who have turned into pawns of dark wizards on both sides of the battle. So many different masks have emerged under the faces that were so familiar!

The streets of our cities are full of death-eaters and the dementors have taken over the virtual world. It is not just me; the whole world has gone dark. There is no place for our barbie-fairytopias here. This world needs a million patronuses.

...because I have promises to keep

I didn’t snooze the alarm today. I started driving full eight minutes ahead of yesterday’s start time. See this is what measuring and optimizing can do. Today, I will check off at least one more task than yesterday, and sleep for 15 mins more.

I got stuck behind a water tanker in a narrow lane.

Maybe I should have snoozed the alarm.

No! I don’t give up so easily. I have managed to post for 11 days straight. I am changing as a person. Let me start (restart for the 105^th time) the weight-loss project too.

I managed to reach office at the target time.

My laptop went into an update mode even before starting. I decided to go up to the gym before the deluge pours out of the mailbox and submerges me.

I do know where the gym is; I just had to ask someone how to operate the door. And then I saw the 'pros' discussing the right way to swing the weights and do squats, and wanted to disappear. I stayed on, asked someone where the weighing machine was, and figured out on my own how that worked. Isn’t that a beginning? Anyway, I wasn’t dressed for a workout. Didn’t have shoes, or a towel or a change of clothing, so I couldn’t do anything much today.

At least I had measured my weight and knew the target one. The new, changed me will get there one day, soon.

The workday was extra-long today because of an extended workshop. That meant I had to drive back through peak traffic. And there was a call I had to log in for after reaching home. There; Mr. Murphy had done his usual thing with my beautifully laid plans.

I have to go through the same madness tomorrow again. That’s just a few hours away. Couldn’t I miss just one post and make up for it tomorrow, or over the weekend?

I am tired, hungry, sleepy. I haven’t had a decent conversation with my daughter all day. I need to call my parents too. I don’t know what it is that is still making me write. Maybe because I know how bad I’d feel to give up after sticking through for nearly half the month. Or maybe it’s for the sense of satisfaction I feel after knowing that yes, I managed to uphold the promise one more day.

(Will get to the weight loss and the book writing one too-one day-soon-hopefully)

Going On

What makes people go on?

I look at change-makers, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, successful people from myriad walks of life and see a common characteristic. Of not giving up. Of going on despite the odds, fighting to the end even when failure is imminent and of not letting go even when there is nothing to hang on. Some do it because there is no other option, some do it because it is what they are.

And then there are the ones who give up rather than fight back. The ones who want to fly and make a few attempts too, but then they fail. They consider their options. What if they fail again? They analyze. What is the possibility that their dream would work out? They listen to their fears. Is it worth the risk? They step back and walk the path more traveled by, and they make peace with their choice. Well, they did try, but then there are the thousand and one reasons why we have to wake up and let go of our dreams.

I am more of the second type, although I wish I could be more of the first.

That’s one of the main reasons, why I keep swinging between taking up writing and dreaming about it. That’s one of the reasons why I started with this blog a decade ago and why I find it so difficult to post regularly. I give up when there are more important things to do (which there always are). I give up when I am too tired or stressed or have nothing to write about, which is often the case. I give up when I see nobody reads my posts anymore, which too is quite often. And I let go.

This time it was more of a promise that happened over a Facebook conversation with Swaram that is making me post every day. The irony is that I am struggling with Going On, while she writes about Letting Go.

Blogging in the now

Doesn't anyone read blogs anymore?

I don't. Or do so very rarely. Mostly those are occasions when I would have logged on to post something and manage to sneak in a few minutes to check on what others have written. Or I find a link in the few minutes I am on Twitter or Facebook and click on it.

Have I become busier than when I was bringing up two school going kids? 

I used to still find the time to pick up a book or switch on the personal laptop. Then the smartphone happened. In a few months (was it weeks), it changed my habits, my hobbies, my personality.

It did the same to my friends and my uncles, aunts, children and readers. We read what is ready available, which doesn't run into more than three lines, which doesn't take more than a few minutes.

So now I attempt to write, on a phone that completes and corrects my words for me. Soon it will start writing for me and posting in minutes. That has already happened to the readers- there are way too many machines commenting on my posts than people. Might as well get one to write for me; while I use the time to check some pics on insta. 

2 Minute Posts

I don't know if I will get time so will have to manage with a micro post today. 

In any case  that is what we all have time  for today, after macro demands on time and attention.

As a professional, I was shocked a few years ago when a client wanted to transform an 180 hour training to eLearning. He wanted to keep it in chunks of 3-hour sessions. We took a few weeks to convince him to try 45 minute modules.

Now we create 2-minute  microlearnings. Because according to studies that is the amount of information users can digest at a time, now.

Stories are told in 100 words (Hemmingway wrote a classic in six words) and social media tornadoes are brewed in 140 characters.

There is a message here for bloggers like me. Or a really good excuse.

Country Roads

It’s just my blog, not an assignment. I don’t have a topic, or rules, or word limits. How difficult can writing ‘something’ be?

It’s not difficult. And I mean that about the writing.

What is difficult is making the effort, keeping that promise to yourself, committing time. I do it for my job, for my family, even for friends and neighbours. Yet I find it so difficult to find time to do a thing for myself. I feel guilty. The kid is home for only a few weeks, I spend the whole day at work anyway and then I again sit down to write? There is so much more productive and important work to do, and yet I sit down and write? I doubt myself-why am I even writing. This stuff is not going to change anybody’s life, it is not going to change anything in my life, why am I even doing this?

Maybe I am doing it because of the challenge. To see whether I can keep the commitment, whether I can write. It is definitely because Swathi pulled me into the challenge, and I can see others like me making the effort too.

But most of all I think, it is for the satisfaction. It’s like coming back to your hometown after many years though you are a very different person now. Most of the landmarks have changed and the people the family next door has moved away, but that gnarly rain-tree under which you waited for the school bus is still there. 

You turn into a lane and remember happy times and your old self. You connect back to something you have left behind, and yet never left, just forgot. You have to get back to your new life in the new city. You promise to visit more regularly, but that is up to the plans life make for you. You are just glad you could come this time.

This space is that hometown for me. It is difficult to break the daily routine, to take time out for myself and even get into a mind-frame where I can hold an idea for 15-20 minutes and write about it. I may give up one day when the struggle gets too much. For now, I am just glad I could come.

Post to myself

This looks like just another New Year resolution.


This year (maybe I need to specify 2012) I resolve(d) to write regularly. Also to be specified that since I never stopped posting in my head that I also intent(ed) and to add those posts on my blog.


January is almost over.


But in a desperate attempt at not giving up, I did reach this point of actually writing something non-work on the laptop. I so want to continue and write-because I really miss it all: the joy of sharing my crazy world with all; the support I got from friends old and new, the thrill of finding new ideas, making new friends; and the awesome feeling of learning from so many different experiences of wonderful people around.


The interaction is what I miss a lot. But what I also miss is the solace I find in putting down my thoughts in words. Because when I do, all the craziness begins to make some kind of sense, the frustrations begin to sound almost funny, the darkness actually seem to highlight the slivers of silver, and the mundane actually starts becoming a memory to cherish.


Let me try once more!

Blog Friends!! Now what's that?

I met Swaram

Someone whom I have known only through her words and that too only for the last couple of months…

And it was the same as meeting an old friend from years ago.

It shouldn’t be like this.

After all what you put in your blog is just a tiny fraction of what your life is all about. And then how do you know even if that is for real?

I guess there is no algorithm to find that out.

But when you have been reading each others words for some time, sharing memories, exchanging smile (and apprehensions), chasing dreams and laughing at each others posts, you do begin to go beyond the blog-etiquette of reciprocating on comments and start connecting to the real person out there.

And when you meet, you really don’t need the introductions. It’s the person you’ve known for quite some time now.

Thanks a ton, Swaram for coming over. It was lovely meeting you; I just wish it could have been for longer and that I’d clicked some photos.

Looking forward to meeting you and all my other blog friends through our blogs for now……. until the next time. :)