Author: AK U

Categories
Society

5 things to do during Covid lockdown

If you focus on the cup being half full instead of it being half empty, there is plenty to cheer about during the Covid lockdown. Some things to do to create memories and meaning, taking advantage of the Covid situation:

Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash
  1. Connect deeply with family
    You may not get so much time to spend with family in the rest of your life like you do now. So, make the best use of it. Cook, Sing and laugh together. Play carrom, cards or invent a new game. Tell your children stories that your grandma told you. If you are lucky to have your grandma around, call her up and ask for a recipe that her grandma proudly cooked !
  2. Find or revive a hobby
    A hobby is a great way to experience happiness in a relaxed way. If you never had a proper hobby, this is the time to explore the joy of one. If you had a hobby that is gathering dust in your memory lane, this is a great time to bring it back. Pencil Sketching. Gardening. Poetry. Sky gazing. Blogging.
  3. Enhance your health
    Home cooked food, lack of rush hour commute and forced stay at home give you time to exercise and start a healthier routine. Try inermittent fasting. Replace processed food with home made alternatives (Tip: Start with peanut butter which is super easy to make at home). Fix your broken sleep (read ‘put away your phone after finishing dinner early’). Recharge your health as much as possible for the sake of the post Corona phase of your life and career,
  4. Review your finances
    Sometimes, we forget that an important reason we all work is to have financial stability. Your medium term and long term financial goals need to be defined and addressed systematically now if you want to avoid dragging yourself to work in your late fifties. Don’t take the shortcut of taking financial planning advice from a broker or a banker. Read good books/articles about investing and retirement planning (not some random Youtube video by an excited 20-something).
  5. Explore the spiritual dimension
    Ponder about the purpose of life. Wonder about sleep and death. Try meditation, Yoga and/or read philosophical/spiritual books. Listen to insightful talks by enlightened masters on Youtube/Podcasts. I can already hear the murmurs of my agnostic friends – I have something for you too – Read about the ancient atheists, the Charvakas ! For other people, I highly recommend Advaita Vedanta.
Categories
Simplicity

Remote work with a punch

Companies in Bangalore and other cities are asking their employees to work from home for a few days to cut the risk of Corona virus. We are living in interesting times.

Photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash

Employees, teams and managements can do some simple things to maintain business continuity and high productivity.

What employees can do

  1. Dedicate a separate room in your home for work, at least during the working hours. Declutter the room, if needed. Do everything you can to make it appear like an office room. For example, position the furniture to get the best natural light and fresh air. Set up any hardware needed for meetings like this neat speakerphone or this comfortable headset.
  2. Make and stick to a schedule. Start work early. This way, you will be able to finish a lot of work in the first half of the day and then possibly take a relaxed lunch break. The idea here is to utilize your regular commute time to boost your productivity when your brain is fresh. Take predetermined short coffee/snack breaks. When you plan them, they don’t rob your time! Curb the tendency to drag your work day into late evening just because you have nothing else to do at home – This can make you less fresh the next morning.
  3. Track your work on a daily basis. Meticulously. Sysems like Jira can greatly help, but if unavailable, use a simple text file or Excel sheet or a shared document that your manager can look at when convenient.

What teams can do

  1. Communicate each others’ work timings, and ensure plenty of overlap. If possible, schedule a couple of meeting slots during the day to avoid ad hoc interactions.
  2. Seek and give help proactively to resolve blocking issues for each other. Do not allow physical separation to make team members slow to reach out to other team members. Be judicous with instant messaging, so it does n’t become chatter and disturbs everyone randomly. Establish ‘preferred times’ to discuss non-critical issues.
  3. Ensure everyone joins meetings on time, so no one’s time is wasted. This way, you can keep meetings crisp and to the point, sometimes as short as 15 minutes.

What managements can do

  1. Establish a common way to track and update status, if you already do not have a good system in place. This removes the need for a manager o constantly check if an employee is working or not. Instead, the status can be reviewed on a periodic basis.
  2. Encourage standard working hours and structured communication to keep teams productive as units.
  3. Make your employees feel good by telling them ‘We trust you that you will do your work’. This will eliminate the uncomfortable feelings in their minds about being ‘watched’.

Happy working from home and stay safe from the virus!

Categories
Leisure

Soul of Sambar

Being from a family of obsessive compulsive Sambar drinkers, I have some deep insights to share with the rest of the world.

A good Sambar has a well rounded personality.

Its enviable body is made of smoothly mashed cooked toor lentils (துவரம் பருப்பு / तुवर दाल). The key is ‘smoothly mashed’.

Its mind arises from the delicate blend of spcices and flavors – Coriander dominates, but not too much. Sambar is where red chilli reached enlightenment – what a pilgrimage from Central America to South India ! Fenugreek may be hardly noticeable in Sambar, but is inevitable. Tamarind / tomato for tanginess completes the mix.

Have you discovered your soul ? Till you do, lets stay with Sambar. The soul of Sambar is some fresh, slow cooked vegetables that have absorbed the flavors and spices – s l o w is the key ! Sorry, pressure cooking is not slow cooking. The way the essence of vegetables enrich the Sambar is a separate topic in itself.

When organic, these individual ingredients take Sambar to the next level – Something that the current chemical generation may not be familiar with.

Try out on a Sunday.

Categories
Leisure

Walking in the rain

After a long gap, I rediscovered the joy of walking in the rain with an umbrella today. I avoided main roads as much as possible, but had to deal with stretches of streets that were water logged. Despite the strain of navigating such streets, I felt good. The temporary relief from air pollution coupled with the sound of rain drops hitting my umbrella was very relaxing to the mind.

I think anything that takes us closer to nature tends to be relaxing. And healing. We have come too too far from nature. Think about it.

I hope for more such rain-walks in my life.

Categories
Society

I, Vegan (v-gun)

I have been a vegan for one and a half years now.
Keeping low profile most of the time. Never actively trying to propogate the idea.

Finally, I feel I should talk about it more. At least make people aware that it is possible to live a cruelty free life.

Human species is evolving fast. Veganism is inevitable. For our descendants, if not us.

How long can this mindless killing and exploitation of animals continue ? Nature will not let one species go too far. It did not let the dinosaurs. We need to stop. And think.

Do we still believe that we need milk for protien ? Even adult cows don’t need it !
Do we need that silk saree which came out of the painful death of thousands of silkworms ?

Vegans will conquer. It is just a question of time, folks.

Categories
Philosophy

Satvik Mind

The 3 gunas(attributes) of the mind – satva( सत्व ), rajas( रजस् ) and tamas( तमस् ).

This idea is often oversimplified to things like food. I wonder if this idea of gunas of the mind can be put to some real use.

We spend one-third of our life sleeping, which is perhaps tamasic.

We spend another third working, which is mostly rajasic.

The remaining third with TV, house-keeping and bill-paying. This is definitely not satvik.

Where is the satva ? Satva in my understanding is ‘awakened state of non-action’. When the mind observes the surroundings calmly with no impulse to react or judge, without ego.

When the mind enters the realm of satva, it gives us a small chance to elevate ourselves beyond the mundane.  The chance is small, but is definitely the only one.

I wonder what people will do to enter the realm of satva, if they are aware of this possibility. I will probably go for a long walk on a calm road with trees on the sides (and try not to think about important things).

Categories
Philosophy

Change is nature

‘Change is the only constant’

We have heard this many times. Have n’t we ? But, how deeply do we understand this idea ?

If you believe in science, then you will appreciate probability theory. “Good” and “bad” things in our life are merely perceptions. Mathematically, these are just positives and negatives in a graph called life. A straight up-trending line in a graph would sound too silly and unnatural to even a school child. Then why do we expect it in our life ? Are n’t we being too irrational ?

I am happily confused.

Categories
Society

Life Templates

There are templates for everything.

You buy a greeting card for your loved one. It does n’t matter even if it takes half the time and double the pleasure to make one yourself. You know, everybody buys.

Life insurance, a housing loan for your sweet home and a mutual fund portfolio. Very popular financial plan template.

Career template. Get a college degree in a subject that is ‘in demand’. Get a job. Get promoted. Get promoted. If not, change the job. Get promoted. Get promoted. Die.

Can one do something without a template ? Anything at all ?

Categories
Philosophy

iDeath

“Death is very likely the single best invention of Life” – This is a quote by none other than Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder. His untimely death is a shocker and makes me take a fresh look at the common attitude to seek material perfection.

It makes me wonder about life more. And death. Ironically, this is my first blog post using my new iPad, an Apple product launched by Steve Jobs one and a half years ago. It created a new category of gadgets then. Very much like the iPod and the iPhone. But the fact remains that everything is so stupidly transient in this world. Micro planning one’s own life seems to me as the most stupid thing one can do. Can’t life flow like a river? It can, only if we would allow it to.

Categories
Society

Birth Certificate

United States law makes it illegal for a person to become its president if he/she is not born in the country. Makes sense, right ?

You do not need a Phd in Political Science to rationalize this law. It is just about national security.

Obama had to ‘prove’ that he was born in the USA. That is accountability to the voters.

Sonia Gandhi 🙁