2025 Post -1

 19th April 2025 :

What about Title of this post, lack of  creativity or writers block or plain laziness ?
Perhaps all of the above or I'm not sure if I'm going to write more than one post per year now (the way things are going off late)

And what's with the date as the title of the post.

Its the day I'm writing this post, Perhaps it will be weeks and months before I could conclude and post it. So a nice litter reminder regarding how many days it takes for me to write a post.

Plus its my parents 47th anniversary; And birthday of one of my best friend (at least we were when in college). We have drifted apart now and its almost impossible to repair the relations. Its sad but inevitable as don't have many common interest area and we are separated physically as well (both the factors are important as my experience shows with other friends)

21st October 2025 :

The date above is a giveaway that I'm opening this page now in October after April. Which means almost a whole year gone by just like that. 

This is the second year in a row where I have spent spent almost no time on activities that I used to like and devote time quite regularly; reading and writing. And coincidently, this is the second year of my so called promotion. (I was promoted in November 2023). So probably I'm paying the price of growth. Anyway more on that later (in another post maybe...)

Since this post is more like a diary entry. So first few lines on why this date. Well first of all 17 October was my birthday followed closely by Diwali festival which was yesterday. So here I'm; on very next day after Diwali, in relatively early morning when the house is nice and quite. Weather is usually nice this time of the year and I could hear birds chirping outside. But I could also sense horrible pollution as a consequence of firecrackers burned last time. AQI is close to 350 and I could feel minor irritation in my throat.
Partially because I don't feel like exercising due to this pollution and partially because we have holidays after Diwali so I don't have to attend some urgent senseless official meetings today. I could spend some time in writing this post. Not to say I'm perfectly capable of wasting time on not doing anything, So this should count for something.

My birthday has been a trigger point for my writing for a long time time. You could find a lot of posts on my birthday or new year where I try to introspect, plan for future and the post serve as a platform where I try to put my thoughts into writing, A brain dump if you may call it so.

So the broader trend looks something like this, I write a post on birthday, ruing lost momentum and opportunities in last year. Reaffirming that I should get serious now. And this mood continues till new year which is resolution time for most of the world. There I make plans on how this year will be different and my personal milestones that I wanted to achieve. Sometimes these goals includes no of posts that I wanted to write as well. This time was similar is some ways yet quite different in others. One I was feeling quite tired and jaded, I was trying to build a fitness routing and included brisk walking so partially because of that. But there were others reasons as well that I cant really put a finger on right now. I actually forget how many years older I'm now. Maybe the sign of getting older that birthday gives you more guilt than joy. The guild of wasting one more year and seeing your life wasting away on the whole. And your constant feeling of tiredness in part physical and part mental. On Diwali as well I'm was unusually bitter, I had a bad episode on office; an usual case of office politics but it was not the trigger point. It was more like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I was feeling bitter before this episode as well and this particular incident just added oil to fire. When your mind is not really into it. These activities just feels like a waste of time. And I'm getting drawn into concept of "Time rationing" off late as well. So I sort of went through the motions and today morning my relative calm is more from the sense of relieve that its over now. So much for the occasion of Diwali which should rejuvenate you and fill you with positive energy. 

Continuing the brain dump for second day as well as the pollution from Diwali is still very much there, with AQI is the range of 400 to 500, Exercise is not advisable and as I'm still in Diwali break so I can spend some quality time in rummaging thoughts. 

I have written so many times regarding planning the goals and objectives that I actually have nothing to add to it. Though we can argue that situation every year is different and unique which should be factored in while tailoring the plan. After so many years, one thing is certain that the new year resolutions just doesn't work. Perhaps its due to my tendency to do so many thing at same time that I end up getting overwhelmed, or perhaps I can't sustain my focus and motivation at consistent basis on long term. 

So Maybe its better to sort of "live in the moment". To take thing as they are. And see where we end in the end. New year is around 8 week away. And even if I could sustain these minor changes for these 8 weeks, there is still hope...

 posted on 22nd Oct.

2024 Diary -1

1st Jan :

So, we are well and truly in 2024. Even though we can’t take much credit for it as we have done nothing except staying alive (which might count for something in present scheme of things). It was the natural progression of thing, the earth completed one more rotation as per its pre-defined natural order and because of that the calendar dates shifts by one more day. So here I find myself. physically in Pune as I was travelling from Delhi to Pune on the first day of this year. As the very cliched saying goes that you are bound of repeat the activity that you did on first of Jan for the rest of the year; I see myself shuttling between Delhi and Pune more frequently. As far as physical fitness goes not in the best shape by a fair bit of margin. My pre-declared objective of becoming more fit in this year cannot have a worst start that this (pattern of sedentary lifestyle for last two years coupled with irregular sleep pattern and a Spain trip just before Christmas where I managed to catch a severe bout of cold). Now that I'm on the wrong of wrong side of 40, time is catching up with my biological clock and I'm already late on this journey of getting serious about my health. After hitting rock bottom as I had a severe bout of Covid in 2021. I'm recovered after battling with its side effects aptly called "Long Covid". But I was guilty of not taking my health seriously at all. I went down with Covid in May and had my second daughter in October. Even since then, my sleeping and eating schedule is in total disarray. I had made it one of my major new year resolutions for this year to get back in shape. Let’s see how this goes in coming days and years. 

Professionally I found myself in a good space. After a long time, I'm keen in retaining my place rather than thinking about further growth. I was recently promoted in November last year. And I’m coming on terms with added responsibility and how best to manage it. Though I was aiming for this position for many months and in the end, it was a quite dragged-out affair (which did not help my motivation for later half of last year), I don’t have any false sense of entitlement here. I’m very clear in my mind that this is one of biggest challenge in my overall carrier spanning around two decades now. Performing in this new role will not be easy for me and I need to be at my productive best to do justice to this role (And frankly to avoid getting fired).

Intellectually (as the mind seeks new challenges and you want to see yourself growing holistically), I had always identified goals and challenges for me. Majority of times I had failed in achieving them or sometimes even to make even a small progress towards them. But it has kept my mental outlook in a stable frame of mind (As I’m high on Neuroticism personality trait and tend to slip into overthinking leading to depression time and again). Again, taking my Covid illness as a starting point (as it’s a good benchmark personally for me). I more of less recovered in June, then enrolled in a course called “Becoming a morning person” in July / August, basically it was sort of 5am club habit building course. I could retain the habit of getting up at 5am sharp for a few months after this course, and had few other takeaways like gratitude journalling, habit tracker to name a few. In October I had my second daughter (which again is a good person benchmark) after I was forced to let go of this habit as my sleeping and eating schedule went for a toss.

In April 2022, one of my friend and ex-colleague suggested to go a PMP certification and as typically of my impulsive nature, I had dived headlong into this without thinking in detail. It clashed majorly with me personal life (due to small child at home). However professionally I was not doing great as my company was in a great turmoil and we are fighting to survive. PMP certification is not easy and the more time and energy I poured into its preparation, the less time I had for overthinking and undue worrying about my company and my professional future. I managed to clear PMP in staring of 2023 (Even though I had to renew this every three years). I allowed myself couple of months to relax and enjoy this achievement. But I was on constant lookout for my next step or next level of skill enhancement or professional certification to collect. Coincidentally at the same time, my company’s fortune changed dramatically as I become more and more busy. I could figure out the next certification after some time (CMSE) and finding out the way to acquire this certification still took bit more time (as getting these certifications or any academic degree for that matter is a process and a big part of success is to figure out the correct process including resources to consult). But the problem was that I was very busy and was not able to spare time required to study. Also as stated earlier, my mental motivation was not high which did not help my case at all. In the end I had to postpone this plan for 2024.

The last missing link was learning new language. I become really interested in this aspect in last few years. I had always held polyglots in high esteem. Unfortunately, due to my background and upbringing I’m proficient in only Hindi and English unlike majority of Indian who can speak at least three languages. My mother tongue is Punjabi but I’m very limited in the same as my education was in Hindi only (another reason why I’m a big advocate of primary education in local languages). Ever since I joined my present company (around 3.5 years back). I become interested in learning Marathi (as my company is in Pune) and Spanish (as our head office is in Spain). The progress is not great at all and its more of start and stop (ironically like all my other goals) but I’m still stubbornly clinging to this goal. I do get selective opportunities to immerge myself (when I’m travelling to Pune or to Spain). And I had colleague to converse with me in that language but I need to be more disciplined about it, and let go of initially reluctance to speak in that language and make mistakes but not worry about it.

Travel to Spain - Dec 2023 - Part 1

 This is my third trip to Spain as I’m working with a company (for around 3.5 years now) that has offices in Spain. Writing travelogues has been a struggle off late. In any case business trips leaves you with very less time to indulge in general site-seeing and immersing in local culture. Still as its almost end of the year and ‘writing’ has been a constant in new goals, objectives for new year resolutions all those years. I will try my hand once again and see if I can write a nice travelogue (in my own eyes) about this visit.

So, here I am in Spain on a week preceding Christmas, the official agenda is to participate in annual business meeting for taking stock of last year progress and deciding next year’s objectives. The unofficial agenda is that company top management does not want to travel to India so close to Christmas, and they would rather have us travelling Spain. The added cherry on top is that there have been some recent top-level hires at group level. And this visit gives us a chance to meet those guys face to face. Plus, I have been partially promoted and I’m now expected to be a part of these events.

Though I have had my fair shares of overseas trips in the past (courtesy my job profile). The novelty of the experience starts right from airport itself (specially if you are travelling to Europe which is much away from middle east. Total flight timing of around 11 hours plus airport lay overs in between are not a joke, specially if you are wrong side of 40 and has food limitations. The only thing breaking this pattern is horde of Punjabis’ (I’m myself a Punjabi too) queueing up in lines at Airport check-in counters. We are sort of like global travellers and there is a unique class of persons travelling at airports. Normally these are aged parents travelling to be with their children settled abroad. In our culture and society, the parents send their wards abroad by spending their lives saving in the hope of a better future. Then if they become settled enough, they call their parent to live with them. Hence you will find old people from remote places in Punjab at airport. They are very limited in English communication and probably are travelling outside their state for the first time. My flight was from Turkish airlines with a lay over in Istanbul, which is apparently a convenient place for travelling to Canada which is like a mini-Punjab outside India. 

My flight timing was 6 in the early morning, considering international flight and state of rush in the Delhi airport. I had to be at the airport maximum by 2 in morning (or night?). So, it was almost an all nighter for me on the day before I travel. As my travel frequency has increased lately (for both domestic and international travel), I have been trying to plan my schedule to makes it less hectic on my body (enough of early morning and late nights flights for me as I’m not getting any younger now). But I don’t have much of options this time around. Generally international flights are scheduled at an ungodly time in India. Also, my total flying time was around 11-12 hours and adding 2.5 hours of layover and accounting for the time difference, it means I was landing in evening in Madrid and my hotel was further 2.5 hours away in Burgos. So, I was reaching my hotel just in time to catch enough rest before reporting to office next day. I was flying by Turkish Airlines this time and the layover was in Istanbul. Both the airlines and the layer airport were new to me.

I had an windows seat for first leg of journey, and I was looking forward to it. As it means more comfortable journey where you can use the windows as head support, and nobody to disturb you in sleep for bathroom break. But as the luck would have it. I find one old lady already occupying my seat in plane. Apparently, she was travelling to her family in England and as She was in a wheelchair. She boarded before everyone one. She was more comfortable in the window seat, and I don’t have a hear to ask her to move. Even if it means spending a long flight of 7 hours in uncomfortable middle seat. The layover was uneventful even if I can’t find anything to eat and I reached Madrid without any major issue only a bit hungry and tired. The driver was there to pickup us up, his car was as comfortable as you imagine it to be but there was a strange smell of smoke in the car. Either it was some peculiar brand of tobacco or some other drug (I decided that I don’t really want to know). As a result, when I landed at hotel in Burgos, Spain. I was already feeling a bit ill. 

 

 

That time of the year

 That time of the year.

I have mentioned this in many earlier posts as well. About this so-called time of the year. In financial terms, you can call it the last quarter of the year i.e., from October to December. For people like us who live in an area prone to extreme weather conditions. The onset of winters comes as a big respite after months and months of scorching heat. I feel it’s more than sheer coincidence that all major festivals in our religion happen to lie in the period of pleasant weather. In my case, I have added incentive that my (and for that matter even my wife and one of my daughter’s) birthday falls in this period as well.

So, it culminates in a period of reflection, introspection and ultimately planning for next year which coincides with new year eve on 31^st December.

08-Oct-2023

The major milestone is my birthday which falls on 17^th of October. This serves as a reminder for me to spend some time in introspection. More so as I will be officially on wrong side of 40s after this date.  It’s very natural to have this feeling that life is slipping by, and you are a failure or under-achieve at best. Even more in my case as I could have gotten a promotion just before my birthday which would have sweetened the deal a bit more. But the decision was put on backburner for some time due to a bit of corporate politics (a topic for another post when I’m in relatively calmer state of mind). So, to avoid digressing further, I had reasons to be resentful (as anyone will always have). But there are reasons to be happy, content and grateful too, even if it’s not really apparent. Some months back, I decided to work on a smaller set of goals lest I get overwhelmed by the big list of so-called objectives and very litter progress to show. So, I selected only two major objectives if my memory serves me right. One was to focus more on my fitness, it’s still a work in progress but slowly and gradually, I’m building on my consistency on this. The second objective was to learn Spanish. It’s not easy at all, but here again I’m taking baby steps in its direction. Now I feel I can be bold enough to embark on my third objective, which perhaps is going to be toughest compared to the previous two but will help in achieving the previous two objectives as well if I could even partially achieve it. And that goal is...

Discipline against distraction, on social media and elsewhere. Mainly time guzzlers like Facebook, Quora, YouTube, OTT and general random scrolling on chrome.

14-Oct-2023

Getting close to the D Day now. And so-called Fate or destiny has found a nice way to assert themselves and bite me. As I was getting a bit ambitious with my plans and all. And I hit a roadblock in the form of variety of ways. First, I had minor physical discomfort like body pain and tiredness which persisted for the better part of the week. Then my daughter who is not even two years old. Start showing some tantrums (maybe it’s a result of change in weather conditions) But She was not sleeping soundly from last one week. As a nuclear family without the support of grandparents. This effectively means that me and my wife can’t sleep either for the last week. And as if all these things were not enough, I had some urgent official targets as my workload is increasing day by day.

So, it all resulted in a sort of daily routine which was very different from how I want it to be. Waking up late in the day. Feeling sleepy for most of the morning and working till late night to finish the urgent work. So, my so-called daily routine which I had built very painstakingly went down the drain. And the positive momentum is all but lost.

Now I am feeling a bit better at-least physically (I think partially it was due to so called intermittent fasting that I was following to lose excess weight, as you are not in best of the spirits when your stomach is empty. So, I’m trying to recalibrate my approach. Ensuring that I’m well fed and well hydrated most of the time. And slowly increasing my intensity towards the shared goals again. It’s quite frustrating to lose the momentum and start all over again. But still, it’s much better than wallowing in self-pity.

So, I had a very little workout in the morning today (even though I literally had to push myself and my body and mind was screaming to get away). And Now I’m penning down (or typing to be more accurate) these thoughts to ensure that I continue to write as well.

My goals remain the same as before.

Physical Fitness

Proficiency in Spanish

Less Distraction (Phone and PC)

 

17-Oct-2023

So, the D here is here ultimately, the weather seems pleasant today after unseasonal heat wave for many days.  The year gone by has been quite eventful to say the least but ultimately more good than bad. I generally avoid spending too much to dwell on the past too much. I would rather utilize my time in planning for the future. Still spending time in introspection and reflection is a necessary evil. Perhaps I will do that on 31^st December, which is also not very far way by the way. Today I will indulge myself and take it a bit easy. There is a full one year ahead (at-least I would like to think so even if life is very unpredictable.)

My objective as stated above remains fixed, I’m not going to add any other names to that list. At least not officially. You can make the list of your so-called goals as long as possible. But unless you have a small list of priorities. You will find it difficult to focus, and it high time I get really serious about my health (No 1). Also, I’m working in a company with head-office in Spain for around 3.5 year now. And If I really wanted to learn Spanish, I need to achieve this target within next one year. The third target is also not going to be an easy one to achieve as it’s a sort of an intangible target.

 02-Dec-2023

This is the time when you can claim that end of the year is officially here as we are into the last month of the year. Based on my experience and observation, different group of people behaves differently as this time of the year. Some are in the mode of enjoying their life to the fullest, throwing caution to the winds convincing themselves about enjoying one last time before they will turn up all disciplined and focused come 1st of January. However more often than not, it becomes even more difficult as discipline is something that builds up gradually. Another set of people who are actually in minority, use this time to prepare themselves for easing into the new year routing that they have envisaged for themselves. A third and even rarer group is the one who had actually plotted and selected goals for themselves last year, And are actually tenacious enough to not to let go of their goals and try their best even when they realize that time is running out very fast. I cant be in the third group but I definitely aspire to be in the second group.

 

Solitude

Solitude is a very alien concept to contemporary Indian psyche. Its partially due to the sheer size of population that we have and partially due to the innate curiosity to meddle in the affairs of other person. Its a strange contradiction of sorts as we are supposed to be the pioneers of mediation which can be loosely defined as contemplating and focusing in solitude only. On perhaps these are two different aspects co-existing in our society. Even human personality is actually an amalgamation of big five traits of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Still we are not really new to concept to solitude on mental level thanks to spirituality and meditation. Drawing on my personal experience, my mental state is like a pendulum which swings from one extreme to another depending on various factors some tangible and some intangible. As this multi-variance analysis is beyond my cognitive abilities right now. I'll avoid the temptation of delving into probable causes for my so-called mood swings. But the fact remain that sometimes we really crave solitude (mainly when we have realization that we are running in circles in this rat-race), On the other hands its really difficult to draw the line between solitude and loneliness. On the other extremities we felt lonely even while surrounded by tons and tons of people. The contrast is right there when you look at empirical data and find that being burnt out and depression are two common factors affecting mental health today.

Ironically, one of the major areas for me where I need solitude is the one that I'm focusing on right now, writing. For last few weeks. I have outlined few areas where I'm tying to be more consistent. And reading and writing both figure quite prominently on that list. Out of these two, reading is considering as the easy part more-so if you don't set your expectation too high and compromise a bit on the quality, In other words, searching for good book to read can be quite a challenge. But if you lower your expectation, Than there is no dearth of matter to read. 

Writing on the other hand, is far more complex and demanding endeavor on my part. I do run into the very cliche writer's block. I start writing on something and after first few lines, run out of ideas to explore it further. Also the strains of personal and professional responsibilities is making it tougher and tougher to find solitude as a certain degree of mental piece is required for writing anything worthwhile. Even 5-10 minutes are enough for me to read few pages at least every day. But I need longer slice of me time to articulate my thoughts and put it on paper.

As I have indicated few times already in previous blogs, I'm prone to neurotism aspect of personality types. I'm guilty of indulging in overthinking or day-dreaming in the past. One of the option to keep this tendency in check is to keep yourself busy. But when you are trying to find time for meditation, then there is a risk that you can fall back to these habits.

The other part which is quite pedantic compared to first one is pure laziness or sleepiness. I have a little one a half year old devil in my house who neither sleep herself nor allows others to sleeps. She wants to play with me (and her mother off-course) at 3am in the night. I have prided myself as a early riser for a long time (I even have tried my hand at so-called 4am club for a while). As the body conditioning does not happen overnight and even it does not deteriorate overnight too. I still can wake up early in the morning without much of an issue. But... the cumulative lack of sleep shows after a while and you tend to feel sleepy all the time. So sitting in a relaxed posture and closing your eyes is not a good idea at all when your body is craving sleep.

As I touched earlier too, both physically and mental fitness is required to keep up with an increasingly demanding job and in a way, both of them are actually related to each other. 

Pune - Gurgaon and Back

 Actually the correct title should be Gurgaon to Pune and back. Because that's the title of an email that I write monthly to travel agent for ticket booking purpose.

However my relationship with Pune City goes beyond my first company. So as a (im) famous politician has said. You have to understand the chronology. I started working after I completed my education in 2004 (a good 19 years back). And since 2006 I'm associated with project based job which involves fair bit of travelling. Apart from some abroad visits (which generated quite a buzz in my personal circle), My major travel used to be in Delhi NCR or Mumbai. So though not directly to Pune, but I had started traveling to Mumbai region quite early. I always had a funny feeling even back then that these places are my so called karmabhoomi in future.

I moved jobs and shifted to Gurgaon in 2011. Which I now relate as my actual home. So one of the wishes come true.

"Back on Track" or "Finding your Way"

 The dialogue "I'm back" has such a nice ring to it that many movies, novels etc. had look to use it. Strangely we find it much more powerful than lets say a dialogue like "I'm here" or "I got it". Mainly because the story of loosing your way and than making the comeback is the universal story that appeals to everyone. 

Okay, to come back to the main point without further digressing. I'm in a short of comeback mode from last few weeks. That is, I'm trying to restart the activities that were put in a standby mode. The reason or should I say 'excuses' were the usual ones. No free time, No mental peace, I'm not that interested or invested in this anymore or I have got a new and better plan, objectives. Even though I should have known better, still its easy to fall back to this line of thinking.

Anyways, now that I have at-least succeeded to get my immediate attention back on the original objectives. I have been trying to build the momentum and side by side trying to learn from my last failures (and there have been many, a bit more than I would have liked). So that I try different ways of attacking the same problem and see if I can succeed this time.

PPS : One of the main challenge that I face whenever I embark on this endeavor is how to make effective use of my time.  Based on my experience and one of the book that I'm reading right now (12 rules by Jordan Peterson). I have realized that total active time available to you in a day (excluding of sleeping time although you can cut on your sleeping time to inflate your active time for short-term), Can be divided into 3 major groups. Time devoted to your official endeavors (basically the time which pays your salary), Second is the family time (your obligation and responsibility towards your family). Third and the last slot is so called Me time (which is actually a very cliché word and most often than not a very misunderstood and abused concept. 

Now all the activities and task that you plan for your holistic growth will eat up this personal chunk of time only. So either you compromise on your official time. 

I have experienced that at the starting point of my carrier and upto some extent I still experience it, I had friends who were pursuing distance education side by side while working in full time job. But very evidently, this education was equally important for them as the job. I, on the other hand, was into this education thing a bit half-heartedly, As my main focus was on my job. I was working longer hours even eating into family time (there was almost no me-time for me at that period of my life). In the hindsight and after a good old decade has passed, Its interesting to see how that experiment went for me and any friends. Initially I found good success in my present company and I was ahead of the curve slightly, then the work-related pressure got to me and to add to that, I had serious personal issues cropping up in my personal life. As a result of it, I was asked to resign from my job and I came very close to having a nervous breakdown. My friends on the other hand, were initially growing at a smaller pace but later on they managed to clear their exams and went on to get high paying jobs leveraging  that degrees. I agree that this is not a multi-variant analysis and should be taken with a grain of salt. There were multiple factors at play like my and their personality traits. Our family background. There is so much I don't know about them and off-course there are some thing within my psyche that I don't even know about me either. Still I can draw some conclusion from this episode. Number one conclusion sounds very cliché but its actually true that you should love your job, not your company. Secondly more often than not, its your job insecurity which forces you to work longer hours at-least you want to be perceived as someone who works longer hour than others. And last that confidence is supremely important in your corporate life, Imposter can be pretty successful in the long run. 

If I have to define myself back then in terms of personality traits. I was very high on Neuroticism and Agreeableness. Which is a recipe for disaster ever. And to make it worse, I was very low on Extraversion. Even if I was high on conscientiousness, it was not going to save me. I'm not really sure, where do I rank on Openness scale. 

PS : Very recently one of my friend (we are from same college) has enrolled in a reputed institute in Gurgaon to pursue his executive MBA. I think it was a big and brave step on this part. We are on same age (40) and finding the time to invest is a major challenge. Not to mention the financial aspect of it which is also an substantial amount. This further motivates to work harder on my goals. I know he has to attend classes from Thursday to Saturday every week which runs till 10 in the night. His job is quite easy and like me they also have two small kids. So I know its not easy to manage this for the period of 2 years. I also know from my personal experience that if somehow if you could bear and manage through this period. You only stand to gain in longer run.

Another friend and ex-colleague of mine has moved into software and control system (He was selling conventional printing solutions for many years). He is around 6-7 years senior to me if I'm not wrong and to be able to pivot your job at that age and side by side maintaining / increasing your salary is commendable in my books.