Mumbai Terrorist Attacks - An year later

My friend, Kanth's post reminded me that its already an year since the tragic, heinous terrorist attacks in Mumbai. It is also almost an year since we (small group of like minded friends and family) organized a grassroots level 'Non-Corruption Day' on Dec 18th, 2008. So, as I am trying to evaluate and see how much we have progressed or not towards a safer, less corrupt world, I am rather disappointed to say that we have not shown much noticeable/measurable progress.

However, I am very optimistic about few things:

- I see a number of grassroots level campaigns (one more) kicked off to spread awareness around social responsibility and taking control into our hands. Although, such campaigns take years before showing a measurable improvement, I am positive that they planted a seed of rationality, social responsibility and clarity of thought in many many people.

- I noticed a positive change during the recent elections in India. We chose stability over communal differences, we chose not to get carried away by the glamor of the candidates like Chiranjeevi, we chose to give J.P. garu a chance albeit just one. People seem to be becoming more aware of what they are capable of and what they need to demand/expect from the politicians and leaders and are trying to make their voice heard one way or the other. This is encouraging.

- I see that the financial market meltdown initiated by glossy numbers not backed by strong financials helped us realize the value of 'true' potential vs. 'perceived' potential. This, I am imagining will help the world reset expectations and re-evaluate with more due diligence giving hope that meritocracy is what will triumph at the end of the day.

- I see my generation(the mid-30s) slowly, but surely shifting focus from just career/money towards self-realization and social responsibility.

- I see there is gradually more and more intellectual capital and entrepreneurial resources being poured into more socially uplifting ideas.

- I see our kids are now privy to lot more opportunities and avenues to explore and luckily for them their parents (our generation) have been lucky enough to be more educated than their previous generation, more worldly wise due to the early exposure they had to different cultures, countries, economies, etc and have the potential and means to guide them towards much more than just building a solid career, but also contributing towards building a solid global society.

So, in closing I think what I am most optimistic about is 'us' and 'our' power to influence others by example and our power to influence and guide our children towards being "Globally Aware Socially Responsible Citizens".

Teach to Learn

One of our friends - Vishy had asked on facebook "What do you tell 400 graduating engineers at NIT Surathkal?" and some of the responses were:

"Get Real. Be open to new ideas, fields and skills.. never know where you will find your true passion"

"1. Tell them about importance of written down Goals and how it helps them achieve what they want in life..

2. Tell them there will be reasons to chase money but spiritual / value development will make the difference between the best and the rest."

"Tell them that they can no longer be taught, but they should never stop to learn."

The last one caught my attention and I started to ponder few things: How do you really teach someone how to learn and apply their learnings. I sometimes catch myself telling Avi 'Think Avi.. pay attention and think' and Thank God he didn't yet, but I wonder what I will say if he asks ''what do you mean by think?'

Also, another thing I wonder is how do you teach someone to have clarity of thought and be able to judge right vs. wrong. As I mentioned earlier, kids do have lot more influences in their day than just us parents and since we cannot be with them everytime they are making a decision - big or small, is there anyway we can instil in them the smarts to figure out what is right vs. wrong. A rule of thumb that Mom told me when I was young(er) was that if I am about to do something that I am not comfortable sharing and feel I should hide it from my parents/family, then its most probably wrong.

I think some of this decision making and deciphering skills are intuitive to humans just like breathing or eating or sleeping and as parents we need to constantly reinforce by setting an example than just preaching and lecturing. Perhaps, sometimes letting them fail or fall a bit so they understand the consequences is another effective way to teach a lesson that they will never forget.

Are there some other tips that other parents use to teach their kids right vs. wrong, good vs. evil?

My Mom and Dad

Like so many things in life - Hindsight is 20/20 and similarly, I am able to see more clearly the strong bond that Mom and Dad shared after Mom's passing. I felt like writing this post commemorating the wonderful relationship they built. As I notice the current generation youngsters talking about 'finding' soul mates and such, it makes me wonder how our previous generation and in particular my parents got married first and then grew to become soul mates. There must be a definite something... perhaps a strong conviction and belief in the institute of marriage that makes them work hard on that relationship that makes them become soul mates.

Mom and Dad like many others in their generation were married very young and theirs was also an 'arranged' marriage. It seems like once they got married, they never had a question in their mind and just took the promise 'till death do us apart' to their heart and lived it day in and day out. Mom and Dad - externally were poles apart...She was the effervescent, expressive, talkative, naive, emotional kind of a person and he the rock, very balanced, restrained and reticent kind of a person. But, what I know of them is this couple that complemented each other - she was the voice of the house and the implementer of the rules, while he the rules maker, she was the fun mom who would let us have fun while still reminding us of our limits, while he the strict disciplinarian, she was the talking, walking center piece that weaved our family's relations with the extended family and world and Dad would follow her lead in these aspects. Like any other couple, we saw them argue, work things out and you could see their different personalities emerge once in a while, but it was their union that emerged even stronger and they were always a team.

There were things that they just did for each other and only they did.. for example, Mom was the one who would pack for Daddy for every single trip of his, she would be the one who took out his clothes each and every day. Dad would never have his lunch or dinner without mom and he would wait for her however late it got. Throughout mom's health issues and trials, Dad was the eternal optimist and never lost hope. It was his optimism that rubbed off on her as she fought the longest battle of her life.

With Dad's eternal optimism and strength in accepting life's realities and mom's 'never die' attitude and zest for life, they made a perfect pair and the best team together that tackled life and its curve balls with utmost dignity. As they say, "Marriages are made in heaven" and I am sure theirs was too. Although, it may seem like mom and dad were not made for each other at the outset, they sure 'Became for each other' and Daddy even now shows us what it means to be true 'Soul mates'.

Dil Bole Hadippa...My cricketing days

There... Rani's movie (Dil Bole Hadippa) released after a long gap and ofcourse we had to go see it. It was a fun movie.. a typical Yash Raj movie.. that is beautiful, colorful, Indian and a perfect friday night movie with the family. As a bonus, I was able to recollect and relive my childhood cricketing days yet again. Some of you may know and others will know now after reading this.. I played lot of cricket growing up. It started pretty innocently when I started playing cricket with my neighborhood kids in Ammasandra and slowly it became more than just another game to play. We formed a team and I was thrilled to be selected as the 12th (wo)man :). To this day, I am not sure if I was more excited about the uniform and hat I got to wear or about the chance to actually play on the team.
Oh well, it was quite a proud moment, since I was not only the youngest member(was 7.5 I think while others were 11 and up) but also the only girl member. To confess, I don't think I was selected based on my world class batting, but more for the world class bat (or seemed that way compared to the plastic ones others had) that I had. Nevertheless, I didn't take my position on the team for granted, I used to wake up everyday at 6 to 'practice'. I don't remember what exactly I used to practice, but sure remember that the games wouldn't start until I reached the grounds... coz I had the bat remember !! I was given very special treatment during these practice sessions... like having a batsman to bat on my behalf while I stand next to him and just run when needed.. very funny coz I was actually the runner for my own batting because I was too scared to face the fast bowlers. I was allowed to not field because I used to fall asleep at the position (being so early in the mornings and all).

I remember the "Big match" we had with our counterparts in the factory area (we were the mining area). I woke up early, wore my uniform and of course the hat and took the bus to reach the grounds which was opposite our family friends'(Shinghal Uncle) house. So, mom made sure that uncle and aunty would watch over me and feed me food, snacks, etc. Our team got to bat first and I actually faced the ball this time and did actually make contact once and got out on the second ball. This was achievement enough for me since I actually got to face a fast bowler without wetting my pants. Then, in the afternoon, I was very excited to be fielding and imagined myself saving all these runs, 4's, etc. But, not sure what happened.. must have been my nap time...I was too tired to stay awake or something like that and was taken to uncle's house for my nap. I was still thrilled because our team didn't lose miserably and put up a decent fight and I got to contribute to this team instead of just being a reserve.
I used to observe Daddy listen intently to the commentary on our radio at home and also the little pocket radio he used to take to office and as I used to imitate him in everything to be like him, I used to force myself to listen and follow the commentary. I still distinctly remember the days when Dad and I used to lie down on the bed with the little radio on the pillow between us, Dad following the commentary and me pretending to and bugging Daddy every 5 mins for the score. For the record, Sunil Gavaskar was my first cricket idol. I continued playing regularly with the boys and just like Veera in the movie, dreamt about playing for India and then Daddy told me about the women's team and Shanta Rangaswamy, the then captain of the Indian Women's Cricket team.. and then I went onto dream about playing on the Indian Women's team for many more years until ofcourse my dreams changed path and shape :)

Quotable Quotes - Commemorating Mommy

“Smrityanjali” is our way to commemorate our Mother, Mrs. Gullapalli Sarala Devi who was a supporting wife, caring daughter, loving sister, loyal friend and as our mother was lot more to us than words can express. Most of us remember her for her effervescent spirit, child-like innocence, undying passion for giving and her knack of playing with words that are just right for any occasion or mood. Our mommy was never afraid of death… she was just not done living her life and we think this book compiled from her own collection is one way to keep her alive in all our hearts. - Anita, Vasantha

Mommy had this wonderful habit of collecting interesting literary pieces -- be it books or quotations or interesting writeups on any subject. Not only did she collect them, but she used to quote them at the most appropriate time or ocassion. She liked immensely to spread the little nuggets she collected to all those around her. After she passed away, we found many books filled with her collections and we felt getting this book published and passed on to our friends and family was a meaningful way to commemorate her. I am adding it to my blog here to make it available to my online readers as well.

Smrityanjali (in pdf format)

Some of my favorites from her collection are:

How Chapatis can be good for SEO too?

Yes, you read it right.. making chapatis and more precisely, writing about 'making chapatis' can be very good for the SEO ranking of your website. Here is how I learned about it.. purely serendipity. I started this blog about 2 years back now. It was purely intended to be my own journal and I didn't plan to do anything special to attract traffic or followers as such. Slowly, some of my friends started enjoying my posts and ended up being regular visitors. So, sometime early this year, I started getting emails from random people and also strangers commenting about some post or the other. I got curious and enabled google analytics to learn more about the traffic pattern to my blog. I noticed that the traffic was very sporadic and also inconsistent. On days that I posted something, it would generally peak and this is most likely because I mention it to someone or share it on facebook or something like that. But, the point is this traffic was mostly driven by me personally or by people who accidentally bump into my blog somehow or the other.
This was pretty much the pattern until sometime in April of this year.
In April, I wrote a post about 'How to make soft chapatis'. I noticed after this point, traffic to my blog has been consistently increasing and also pretty consistent day to day.
See what I mean (this is my vists and pageviews graph from the Google analytics dashboard)


This got me curious and I started doing bit more analysis using the Google Analytics reports (which are awesome by the way and easy to use).
Few things that I learned upon analyzing:
- Useful Content: Well, however narcissistic you are, the first obvious principle is that you need to have something useful on your website. Your website needs to have content or tools that people find useful, fun or worth their time. As I said earlier, my blog was started and intended to be just my journal and so it was mostly relevant or useful only to people I knew. Slowly some of my posts were appealing to broader audience.. like when I wrote some movie reviews (Gandhi, My Father, Taare Zameen Par or Jodha Akbar, etc) or when I wrote about corruption in India and recent terror attacks in Mumbai and this is when I started getting some comments/messages from even total strangers since what I wrote probably sparked them in one way or the other. So, the bottom line is that if your website is deemed useful to the viewers in one way or the other, then they will come to your site. Now, assuming you have all the goodies that people are looking for on your website, how do you make it easier for them to find your site.. this is where SEO comes into play as one of the many marketing techniques.
- Evergreen Content: If your website is not something that is updated/refreshed daily with something relevant then having ever green content on the site is key to consistent traffic. News sites fall under the category of having daily content and so as long as they are a trusted news source with loyal users, they can have some consistent baseline traffic. Ofcourse, there are challenges to keep this loyalty given the increasing competition etc, but that is a different topic. So, for sites that are not refreshed daily, evergreen content is the Key.. By this I mean, content that is always relevant. So, it turns out 'How to make soft chapatis' is an evergreen question that people ask again and again and so this piece became evergreen on my blog. See what I mean: Here are the top posts with most traffic on my blog:

Notice: How the top pages all have titles that are very generic and pretty much 'evergeen' in nature.
- Title: Title of the article is another important factor that search engines use to rank relevancy. Apparently, I used the most appropriate title for the post and it had all the search keywords that users normally use right in the title which made it rank high in relevancy by the search engine. The title I used is 'How to make soft chapatis - 34,101st recipe for beginners'. I myself typed in 'how to make soft chapatis' in the google search bar when I wanted to get some recipes. Notice when I earlier wrote about movies, my titles were not good at all (SEO wise). For example, when I wrote about the movie 'Gandhi, my Father', my title was 'Father of the Nation...Mahatma'. It didn't say anything about the movie nor did it have good search keywords that people will use when they are searching for either that movie's reviews or even about Gandhi. See what I mean, here are the top keywords driving traffic to my blog as of this morning:

- Relevant content - Obviously, if one uses 'chapati' in the title, but writes just about their menu for the day and chapati happens to one of the items on the menu, then I bet that piece of content would not have ranked high when people are searching for 'chapati recipes'. So, it helped that I was true to the title and gave a real recipe for making chapatis and used all the appropriate words in describing the recipe that both people and smart search engines associate with recipes. On the contrary, going back to my example about my earlier post about the movie "Gandhi, my father" - my title and content were not exactly tied well together. The title doesn't indicate that it is in fact a post about this movie.
- Keywords in URL - This is another aspect of the content that search engines weigh in and it so happens blogger is really good at generating URLs with the right keywords from the title of the post. I cannot take credit for this, but this must have certainly helped.
I know the science of driving SEO rankings is not something simple with a one size fits all prescription. Lot of website developers whose bread and butter depends on driving page views to their site spend months and months analyzing user behavior, brand association to keywords people use, traffic trends by days/times, common keywords used by users while looking for their site and come up with various strategies with content, metadata, URL structures, page layouts, etc to get as many clicks to their website as possible, but this little analysis on my blog helped me understand and appreciate all those principles and techniques a little better.
There may be few other reasons for this traffic pattern on my blog, but this is the position I have today which I am kinda proud of:

My new blog

Announcing the launch of my new blog.... which is 'Project Management is NOT for dummies' It may sound narcissistic, but hopefully as I write more and more about the various nuances of project management, I will be able to convince you all as to why 'Effective Project Management' is not just something that you can learn from books, but more a personality that you need to build..

The curtain raises and always falls...

As I was reading, watching and pondering over the recent news about Michael Jackson's death and all the related stories mushrooming all over about his life, what he was and what he was not, what he had and what he had not, one thing that jumped at me was - how in birth and death, we are all exactly the same... its just the time in between that is 'to each their own'. If you compare this to a movie, imagine if every single movie started the same way and ended the same way, but with a different plot in between.. how interesting or rather how boring would that be...and would we want to still keep going and watching those movies. But, here is where comes the genius of our Creator... it seems like He has an unlimited supply of screenplays up his sleeve and although He brings us all into this being the same way and takes us away in the same way, he makes the period in-between so interesting and totally action packed and a nail-biting suspense thriller right until the very end.
Something I read recently also stayed with me... its about the purity in a child's smile/joy. When we are born, we are so pure, devoid of any expectations from the world, from each other and can accept anything and everything just for what it is. This purity gives us the ability to feel the pure love, sheer happiness without too much analysis and reasoning. As we grow older and older and our reasoning power develops, it also takes away our ability to accept things just as is.. we start to analyze and over-analyze each interaction, situation, start to plan and over-plan our days, our life and slowly lose the ability to just live in the moment and experience the moment.
Ok.. I think I am getting confusing now...just recollect the last time you saw a smile or joy on a child's face.. it is so pure, children just feel the love when you give them a little hug or a little smile or even a little lollipop and experience it whole heartedly... now lets say we did the same to another 'grown up' person, the first thing they start to think is 'why did this person be nice to me? Does he/she want something from me? How should I react? I don't want to look dumb or silly... lemme just ignore for now... so on and so forth' and in the process completely miss enjoying/feeling that smile or love. Imagine.. if only we could preserve the child like purity through out life and experience life for what it is....
Anyway, so as the curtain of our life is lifted, we all start off the same way...as a little baby with so much purity. Then, as the movie starts reeling, our lives transform from one to the other just as the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, there are also so many expectations built, impressions made, there are so many bonds made, so many bonds broken, there are so many emotions experienced, so many of so many things happen in between making us constantly thinking or planning for 'what next'... and then suddenly..poof....He decides.. 'Time is up'... and the curtain comes down. The curtain raising and the curtain closing are the constant and everything in between... is what we call Life... a Live Movie where characters are all real and not fictitious, but not representing any other person living or dead.. each character is absolutely unique...

So, what exactly am I trying to convey: NOTHING. Don't read too much into it.. its just me expressing my conundrum of thoughts, confusions and musings... that's all

Just learning to live with it

Ani and I started talking, planning for Mom’s 1yr anniversary and I cannot really believe it’s almost a year since her passing. I remember rushing to Hyd on July 13th, 2008 as the doctors thought she was ‘critical’. The next 3 weeks felt like being caught in the worst tornado of our lifetime as we saw mommy slowly but surely slipping away. She was becoming more and more 'distant' and I think that was God’s way of preparing Mom and us for what was coming or rather going.
The days, weeks and the months following that have been somewhat of a roller coaster ride as we try to slip back into our lives. I remember people trying to console us saying ‘Only time can heal this pain’.. I really don’t think this pain can be healed and this is called 'healing'.. its just getting used to living with this pain. There have been days when I cannot shake her off my head, there have been times when I am missing her most and thats when I most definitely feel her presence and hear her voice in my head as though trying to tell me that she has not gone away, but is still part of our lives. There are also times when I feel she is putting in a word to God on our behalf and taking care of matters for us from up there.
I know we have our lives to go on and in addition to the memories of the past, we still have lot more memories to build upon in our lives, kids, etc but there is this part of me that just cannot feel the same again.. I cannot pin point what it is, but there is something that is lost.. its probably the secure feeling of having mom to run to with anything and everything, its probably the craving for her hug, its probably her sympathetic ear that listened attentively to anything small or big and her reassurance that things will be ‘just fine’. There is no cure to this pain.. am just learning to live with it.

Doctors, Practitioners and all

I have been dealing with a few doctors lately for some minor issues (Thank God.. they were just minor annoyances and not more than that). First for the disclaimers: I have the highest regard for the medical profession and think it’s a true Gift to be able to be in that field that can have real life impact every single day. I am also surrounded by a family of doctors and I dare not offend any of them :)

Anyway, interestingly, I came across these definitions for Doctor, Practitioners and they made me ponder:

Physician/Doctor: A physician, medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, or medical doctor practices medicine, and is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment ofdisease and injury

Practioner:
An individual who supplies health care services, ie, physician, psychologist, nurse practitioner.
Someone who practices a learned profession.

I think (don’t mean to simplify) the art and science of proper diagnosis involves processing of a massive flowchart with the answers we give to doctors’ questions and/or the symptoms we describe, helping the doctor traverse the flowchart. In the simple cases, this following through the chart will lead to a fairly solid conclusive diagnosis and that leads to a fairly sure shot treatment. Now, as things get a bit more complex or tricky which I assume they often do, the flow through the chart may not lead to a conclusive diagnosis and this is when you can differentiate a good/experienced doctor vs. a not so great one The good ones look beyond the flowchart and use other data points such as their own experience from seeing other patients and other characteristics of the patient itself and generally from these can come up with a good game plan on how to proceed, but the not so good ones end up looking for guidance from the textbooks and end up ‘practicing’ his profession and not playing the real game. (Pun intended).

So, what does one do if they are caught in these practice games?.. well.. lets hope they play well so we get out of the game altogether. If not, what works for me is to get a second opinion and that’s usually from one of the doctors in the family or rather mostly from my bro (who I think is the best doctor in the whole world) and decide if its time to switch doctors or stick to the practice game.

Disclaimer again: This post is not intended to offend Doctors or the Medical profession.. it is just a post reminiscing my recent experiences.