Life of a Girl in India (Chennai)

1. Step out of the house not well dressed, but well covered. A dupatta or scarf or overcoat. Something to extra cover the breasts. Full pants or leggings, basically full leg covered. No sleeveless. No short tops. Nothing showing your curves. 
2. Still feel like everyone's looking at you. Walking on the streets feels like someone's following you. 
3. Don't smile. Have a serous face. If you smile, your sending wrong signs to people on the road. 
4. Hold your handbag or purse as close and tight as possible. Always having a constant fear of money being stolen. 
5. Make sure gold jewelry are secured tight and are simple and invisible. You remember all the stories of chain snappers and robbers. 
6. Getting late. Use the main roads. Not the narrow/ dark roads. Again an insecure feeling. 
7. Walk looking down. One because you don't wanna step on dirt and the other being you don't want to give wrong signals to strangers on the road. 
8. Hold on to drinking too much water when out. And avoid peeing when out. Restrooms are the worst maintained. 
9. Going for shopping? Want to try a dress? The trail room ! You remember those forwards and videos. 
10. Walking in a crowded place. You have no idea where that bad touch is from. Yeeks... 

 

Naming a child

Things to consider while naming a child 

1. Full names sound well- First name and last name should go well together. Read it loud to check how it sounds. 
2. Easy to pronounce-  By your natives as well as foreigners (whether you live abroad or if he/she would travel in the future). 
3. A good meaning- Unlikely to be bullied in school (not a cuddly name nor an opposite gender name). 
4. Let it be short- easy on the filling of applications and reading out on phone calls. 
5. Consider initials and nick names- not to sound bad. 
6. Important tip - Never choose to disclose the name to early. You would run into to chances of criticism unless you want to hear them. Sometimes it may help to check the pronunciation. In such cases, choose wisely who you plan to disclose it to. Also sometimes when there are other expecting parents around, you don't want anyone to steal that favorite name. 

Do you like India or USA?

This question is asked to every person who moves from India to USA, at many stages of such a person's life and by many people in their life. The old and repetitive question. You would hear it time in and again. 

My answer - I wish USA was near to India .. like Singapore/ Dubai ... so I can come to India whenever I want.. but I would not live in India, just come for a vacation. 

Reason - 

Pros of living in the states 

1. Land of opportunity - career, job, studying, etc 
2. Land of freedom - independence 
3. Cleanliness at its max - roads
4. Land of variety - food and entertainment 

Cons of living in USA 

1. How much ever you try to celebrate your hometown celebration here in USA, it won't match with that of India
2. You miss almost all events - weddings, coz of the traveling distance, flights costs, short vacation periods, and jet lag 

Pros of living in India 

1. Rich in festivals 
2. Heavy Spices n food 
3. Colorful clothes 
4. Family is there 
5. And so is events, never ending lists of celebrations- weddings, birthdays, baby showers, etc 

Cons of living in India 

1. High heat 
2. Traffic and pollution 
3. Mosquitoes 
4. Dirt 
5. Corruption 

Other miscellaneous differences are 

1. Easier to cook in US but more tastier food in India 
2. Comfortable clothes in US whereas beautiful dresses in India 
3. Simple outlook homes (in terms of layout and home decor) vs architectural unique homes in India 
4. Friends are family in US and family are friends in India 
5. Independent lives (each one car) prominently in US  whereas multiple transport options in India 
6. Store and eat - US, Cook fresh daily - India 
7. Variety of restaurants- US, street food craze - India 
8. India Vacation - US, temple tour vacation - India 
9. Studies full of options - US, studies full importance - India 
10. 4 seasons in US, summer and super summer - India 

The Masala smell (in the states)

Indian cooking uses lots of heat and spices - the Masala ! 

So what's happening as we cook our daily meals ? 

1. Only the gas stove is right for us. But prominently one only finds the electric stove or the induction one, which we still use. So what's wrong? It doesn't fit all our pans and pots. 
2. Kitchens are small. Less on storage. We have so much of utensils- a grinder, a blender, many pressure cookers and so much ingredients and freaking cook daily - all three meals! If it's Indian dishes- everything requires the stove. 
3. The exhaust fan has to go on. So much smoke. The fan makes a lot of noise and sometimes if it doesn't take all the smoke produced, imagine what happens. The house is full of smoke. And that's why I am sneezing my lungs out.., (yummy fish fry in the cooking) lol 
4. So what did we do to get the smoke out. Open the door, open couple windows 
5. Then what happens? The neighbors get the Masala smell. 
6. When you get to work, after cooking, or if the cloth was near the kitchen area.. you would be carrying it to work. Smelly! Colleagues would ask?! 

So what do we do? 

1. Shut the doors! Put jackets and clothes away, into closets and rooms. And shut the doors! 
2. Boil water with cinnamon and let the fragrance spread around the house. candles would do as well. 
3. Most important, change your clothes after cooking and before you step out. 

Tips to land a job

1. Have an excel sheet with all the info of jobs you have applied to. At what stage each application is and what's got to be done next. 
2. Have folders of resumes and cover letters submitted to each job position organized well. 
3. To apply for a job, work on a good resume and cover letter. 
4. Make sure your cover letter sounds exciting and shows ur enthusiasm. 
5. A resume should have most recent work on the top. Most important skills and dates should be clearly mentioned. 
6. Once called for an interview, prepare for the interview with all technical and behavioral questions and answers. 
7. While preparing- talk aloud the answers to possible and potential questions. Tools that can be used are mirror, recording answers, talking to a friend (mock interview). 
8. Be on time. Or even better before time. 
9. Always listen well to the interviewer. 
10. Give firm handshakes. 
11. Dress well. 
12. Have sticky eyes. 
13. Smile. 
14. Ask a couple of questions to each of the interviewers about theirselves and the company. 
15. Follow up after the interview. 

Is anything edible?

Food not to eat for a healthy lifestyle - a sarcastic look 

1. No grains which means no rice, no bread, no pasta - carbs makes you fat if you don't exercise enough to burn them all. 
2. No butter, No bad oils which is all the oils but for the oil used for dressing - olive oil - fats are fats! 
3. Proteins are required. But what do vegetarians do with just the dhal (lentils) without the rice (carbs). If you could have meat and seafood- again they are processed and packaged. 
4. Vitamins and minerals- found in the chemically pesticided fruits and vegetables. So they are unreal as well. 
5. No sugars - here we have a couple of items double scored out- no fruits, no fruit juice, no honey, etc. 
6. Milk is bad for you is a new buzz running around. Which means how come curd, that's made of milk. 
7. No caffeine- no coffee nor tea. 
8. No salt - causes hypertension 
9. No food- they either have sugar, salt, packaged, chemicals, GMOs, animal produced, etc. 
10. Water is the only thing not abused. 

Ideas to a non screen day

P.S- No experience.. 

A non screen day excludes the usage of phone, tv, tablet. Any electronic basically. But probably could include answering short phone calls. 

1. Cooking 
2. Cleaning 
3. Taking a walk 
4. Adult coloring / any art or craft 
5. Gardening 
6. Exercise / gym 
7. Go out - shopping or groceries
8. Meeting neighbors 
9. Take a long shower/ bath / facial / going to the beauty parlor 
10. Taking pictures (probably accepted to use the phone) 

What's your idea of a non screen day? What should the barriers be? 

Anti bucket list

Things I would never do / do again in my life 

1. Body piercing 
2. Skiing
3. Surfing 
4. Get a tattoo
5. Go to a haunted house 
6. Cliff jumping 
7. Hitchhiking 
8. Climb a mountain 
9. Get a pet 
10. Do public speaking
11. Mountain biking 
12. Buy a boat 
13. Play holi 
14. Hunting 
15. Go on a crash diet 
16. Swimming with dolphins or sharks 

My one place stop - my phone

I live on my phone. You name it- 

1. Texting 
2. Audio calls 
3. Video calls 
4. Web browsing 
5. Camera 
6. Photo editor / collage maker 
7. Weather check 
8. Calculator 
9. Emails 
10. GPS 
11. World clock 
12. Banking 
13. Shopping 
14. Social media 
15. Note pad 
16. Blogging 
17. Watch videos 

And many others - fitness tracker, parenting tit bits, yelp, Uber, news app, calendar, etc. 

I literally do everything on my phone, that I have no purpose to switch on my laptop anymore. And I really did that - hardly turned on my laptop in the last two years. 

The best part is one can use phone even without wifi! 

Maybe the one thing I still haven't changed to is uploading all pictures to an online storage. I still use the outdated way of storage. And that's one time I need my computer to help me transfer pictures to my hard drive. 

Maybe the other situation I would need to turn it on would be to use the Office. Being out of school- I hardly have the need to use it. 

Do you still use your laptop? Let me know if you have points to support the laptop to be more useful! 

I am neither a fan of the tablet. It was irritating to get social media and email notifications on both places. 

More than anything the phone is the most handy of all! 

Gifting getting tough

1. Everyone buys what they want then and there. 
2. There's hardly any wish list and yet to buy things these days.
3. And if it's there, it just means u really don't need it and can do without it. 
4. Buying something cheap is cheap. 
5. Buying something expensive should be useful. 
6. Buying something cute is just taking space. 
7. Making a gift is time and effort. 
8. Increasing people are becoming brand specific and sensitive to product types.
9. So many choices but so little time to enjoy it! 
10. Sharing a meal together is great. Or sending a cake or chocolates can't go wrong! 

From simple scrolling to keeping up to date with it !!

Yes, I am talking about social media! 

Be it timelines, posts, likes, messages, pins or tweets! 

It's all on my phone. Long forgotten the turning on of the computer or laptop. A bunch of apps, that I'm constantly on and off for the next one. 

Gone are the days - simply scrolling, liking a couple & forgetting once your out of it. Oh ya, out of it reminds me, there's no more logging out. Realized that?! Even if your using your laptops- it's called remember password! 

Now I am keeping up with the mom's discussions on fb groups. Stop by interesting articles on timelines. Wish people with life events. Hardly care about birthday wishes. Like pictures that impress me. 

Blogging is either number one on the list or it's far forgotten. 

More importance to the personal messages. And smaller groups.

Pins are just to myself- keep my creativity live! 

New media to explore are tweets and LinkedIn. Looking forward to fit in time for it. 

Oh ya, I'm always on my phone. It's sometimes called timepass, other times called productivity! Lol 

 

Secret obsessions

1. Counting likes on anything I do on Facebook. (It's like getting an award). Imagine if someone replies / comments! 😜
2. Clicking photos. Everyday things are in my gallery. Ask me when I did any event- eating or sleeping?! I will check the gallery for time of a particular click taken around the time. 

                    

Blogging - my inspiration

I draw my inspiration from things that happen around me. I travel - I write about it, adding some tips too. I had a grand wedding- wrote about it. I became a mom- writing about it. And then there's all the random things happening around me- opinions, ideas, etc. 

My thoughts into words! 

My tone- just the way I speak. I hate reading books. But I do read forums and follow discussions on various groups on social media. Therefore my tone is a very informal one. 

Since I hate reading myself. While I write for others to read. I try to make it short, simple and in lay language. Sometimes into bullet points. A small article that you could just skim through. And it's more like I am talking to you rather than reading. 

Some secrets - 

1. I hardly read my article again. It's written and straight published. 
2. I write in one stretch. 5-10 mins max. 
3. If I pause, think too much while writing, the post wouldn't reach the end. My thoughts wouldn't get complete. 
4. I write on my notepad on phone. And everything from draft to publishing is done on phone. (I stopped using laptop for 2 years now, and stopped opening laptop to edit my blogs recently). 
5. Some random Topics emerge as I chat with friends. 

 

Ph.D - my opinion

You have all heard "never ask a Ph.D. student when they will finish?". It's literally that never ending. 

 

So after a Ph.D., where are those fellows working? Did you know even they are called freshers in the job market. No job experience babe. Just been studying, writing grants, publishing papers and lots of research. 

The large majorities destiny is at the universities, on a long journey- Ph.D., Postdoctoral, double postdoctoral, and a far dream of a professor at almost the time of retirement, if your in sciences or engineering. Yes couple people do get into companies- but you know one could do that job with a bachelors or master degree too plus couple years of work experience. 

Other non- Indian courses (just joking- but I mean the courses that the vast majority of Indians don't pick) economics, education, arts, etc. maybe they get to be a professor a bit earlier than the engineering folks. 

Ph.D. is for the ones really interested in pure research and not in getting rich. There's hardly any great funding there. 

But yes kudos to those Ph.D. fellows out there. You guys got  a lot of great ideas and are the ones behind the unknown to be known! 

A glimpse of my school days

Believe it or not, I was the silent most girl in class. Super shy and reserved. My voice so low. 

I always loved to be friends of all. But there  were groups. And one group wouldn't talk to the other. May be I wasn't that immature like those girls. I liked to talk with all. Had one bestie with this group and one from that. Then I slowly got into one group of 3-4 girls, of which I used to talk more to only one. She is my friend till date. Will talk about her more on another day. 

I was an average student. Never participated in extra curricular activities. Math and science were interesting till tenth. I hated social sciences, especially history. Hindi was another headache. While French was my favorite. And the teacher too. I liked my science teacher as well. 

I went to school by my cycle. Never closed my eyes during prayer. Polished my white shoes with chalk. Gave pieces of my ribbons to friends who forgot to wear theirs. But promptly remembered to get the scissors to cut from my long ribbons. I hardly took any days off. Maintained a full attendance. Always took notes during class. I was always roll number one. And during oral poetry test, used to every time ask my English teacher to skip me and go with roll no 2. Haha! 

Till date I have that stage fear to stand before a class or hall of people. My voice will sink in, hardly audible. And my hand and legs would tremble. 

School reminds me of exams. And exams reminds me of copying. Yes I used to carry chits and bits of papers to the tests and exams in school. Wrote answers on the desks. Wrote formulas on my pencil pouch. Those days all that mattered was marks.. scores! Great percentages. 

I have a good handwriting that saved me most of the time. And for the finals.. I never copied then. If caught the punishment would be severe. I would carry color pens. And write in bigger font. My answer sheet pages used to be so colorful and neat. 

School days were so silly. The most unwanted things were given the most importance. Who cares about those percentages. It doesn't matter at all today. 

Opinion- annoying mom's

Before being a mom 

I hated when mom's keep talking about their kid. I would have nothing to say about it. I didn't relate to their situation. 

And there was this one mom who spoke to me about her kids poop. Ekkkssss. Oh I was pregnant by then, but still I didn't relate to it. 

Being pregnant 

I still had the same mindset about mom's who always talk about their kids- especially complaining about them. 

Being a mom 

I will definitely not annoy anyone with my babies stories. 

Nor spam fb with the pictures of her. 

Now I am interested in kids stories - read plenty of forums and comments/ posts on mom groups on how to avoid and overcome those annoying cribbing moments. No point just complaining. I am on a hunt of a good parenting style that favors my family, especially me. Letting me enjoy as well. 

E.g. She sleeps in a noisy place during the day- so I could watch movies and my mom can cook- the kitchen is the noisiest unavoidable place and then the vacuum cleaning makes much more. So a silent place for her to sleep would make it tough to do our daily chores and also she did be a very light sleeper. 

These are extra supporting points but the main thing is I get to watch movies and overlook her at the same place. (Convenience) 

The advice part 

From the day you are expecting, there tags along a never-ending bunch of advices, tips and suggestions. 

It's 50:50! Useful ones and useless ones. From day one, I heard all the things that people had to say- simultaneously filtering them to my needs and situation. If it did work for me, I take or else throw it- one ear to the other. Out it goes. 

Those advices that pour in more than once from the same person are sometimes annoying. When I am not gonna follow and they keep insisting. But I just friendly nod my head off - saying fine okay! But they don't self realize. 

I always find myself in those places when I'm in search of good advice. When needed I will ask. Instead of those days when they just pour in - Free advice - totally unrelated! 

Filtering them to match your situation is the best way to deal with them. 

The right time to have babies - My opinion

Ofcourse this topic is only for the ones who wish to have babies in the first place. 

Let me start off saying - having a child is boon. 

You are lucky if you have your kid when you wished for it. It more happens when you least expect it. 

You are gifted to have one if you had it before you expected it. 

To raise a baby is a gift from heaven. Love it and cherish every moment. 

Setting this aside. I would like to comment on My idea of the right time to have a baby and the controversy of what some friends think. 

My idea is to establish a career, know where you wanna get back to after a maternity break. So that included taking a specific work related training and traveling among a couple of healthcare companies as a validation engineer. Learning that I would love to stick to the same. But I work as a contractor. I would love to find a spot in a permanent full time job. And have a maternity break. But probably this is good too. I can stay longer with my baby whose growing up fast and needs me the most. And then look for that dream job which I have already learnt I like it. 

Others think it's better to have a kid first and then start from scratch on the job profile. But there the disadvantage would be the initial steps - of training if be and finding that right job. You would be juggling with this new baby (learning about her) and then the job in hand. 

Likewise having that baby right after your marriage to a stranger is another juggling moment. When you did be juggling between learning each other in the new relationship vs holding this huge responsibility in your hands with less intimacy. 

An initial two years is what most young couples wish for. To get to know each other. Plus on the job front- establish it before wedding or after- and if after a little time in for it. 

These are some things to consider on the emotional front. Ofcourse there's financials that you should be comfortable and ready for. And both parents-to-be to be ready to accept this huge responsibility with a lot of excitement. 

The older couples probably don't stand this chance of choice. But their career would be at a high level. And much more mature. 

Not sure if I could classify couples into older or younger. It's more into the character of each. Age would just matter for the biological clock ticking. 

It's purely my opinion. 

Invitation

An invitation could be in many forms - 

1. Word of mouth - in person or over the phone 
2. Text message - using any social media or a normal text message
3. Card - e-card via email or again any social media or physical card via post or in-person 

We generally can divide them into two categories 

1. Formal - to request with respect
2. Informal - to request in a friendly manner 

What does it consist of ? And the priority!

1. Date 
2. Time 
3. Venue 
4. Purpose (first 4 - required) 
5. Any specification - e.g. Dress code, something bring along or something's not allowed or unwanted or certain age group etc (optional) 
6. The kind words (most important) 

It's importance and expectations around it! 

An event could be as big as a wedding or as small as meeting a friend at a restaurant. It's either a family or person inviting a group or discussing with a group and inviting people over to a particular location. Whatever it did be, there's an invite with the required contents and more importantly a kind message of inviting. 

An invitation should invite! So an invitation without the kind requesting words... just don't stand being called an invitation. 

Differences in the process differ in different cultures. 

The Indian untold customs are below- 

1. The IST (Indian standard time) - pun intended- people just arrive late than the time mentioned 
2. Even if the whole family is invited, if it's a not so close friends or relatives event - only 1 or 2 people attend the occasion 
3. Friend's invites are easy- a phone call or text is good enough 
4. Whereas family and relatives usually expect much more- they usually want it in person for the elders in the family to be present 
5. A gift is always expected either in the form of cash or a present gift wrapped 
6. Gifts are never opened before the crowd 
7. Ladies and girls dress according to the occasion