2022 - The Year That Went By

As we are gearing up to welcome 2023, many of us are eagerly making resolutions for the year that is yet to come, while some are looking back at the year that has gone by. As always, I decided to do the latter and this time, like in 2019, 2020, & 2021 (images below), I decided to record it here for me to be able to revisit it anytime in the future! 😃

We welcomed the year 2022 with my daughter making a premonition kind of statement, ‘Amma the coming year is 2022. 22 is 2 times 11. I just hope the year does not end up being 2 times the year 2011. Fingers crossed.’

My first reaction was horror because 2011 was one of the toughest until 2022 came to be. 😊That was the year when I was pregnant with my second-born son, dealing with the palliative care for my Father-in-law (FIL) in his final stages of cancer, playing the host for my sister-in-law during her laparoscopic surgery & recovery, Grihapravesam (calling it house warming kind of simplifies the concept as well the work involved in organising it), passing of my FIL, birth of my son, my post-partum, a beginning of the undoing of a marital relationship of a close family member, being a witness when the family was grieving that loss of its head (my FIL), moving into our new owned home. Did you also take a deep breath like I did when I finished typing this recap? 

Now to a rundown of the year 2022… It began with our family being affected with COVID in Jan 2022, when India was having its third wave, including my pregnant sibling who did an international travel in the hope to be with family to handle her pregnancy and delivery in India rather than staying in a foreign country, all by herself (with just her spouse for support). I joined Lurnable (a digital EdTech firm) as Operations Manager. I became a facilitator of the programme #IamRemarkable (a Google Initiative) and have also conducted two workshops this year. We had a scare in April for a really pre-mature labour that might have been critical for the child for sure, and to the mother (mentally and emotionally). We had a few hospitalisations for my Mom, Sister & her Spouse, and my Aunt. Health-related issues that come and go for our ageing parents. Loss of lives – 2 within the family and one a child (less than 15 yrs old) who was a close buddy of my son in our gated community, a beautiful soul who always stood up against playground bullies (for my son) and had deep conversations on the concepts of care, right & wrong, integrity and more. Of course, my niece was an addition to the family as a healthy child who decided to stay full term after the initial scare, sharing the same star sign as my son. They both bonded instantly and every time they are together, the mutual love and adoration is a pleasure to watch.

I became a homeowner. I wrote my first semester exams for my M.Sc Counselling Psychology (2 year Masters course) that I am currently pursuing. I published an e-book on Blogchatter and have been roped in on another authoring project by Let’s Author to collaborate with a few more authors for the book ‘How to Parent in a Crazy World – Life Lessons on New Age Parenting’ to be published sometime next year (Click the link to pre-order the book). Amidst all this, we transitioned from a pandemic lifestyle to a post-pandemic new normal (whatever that means)… and the craziness has not ended yet. 

And in all this, I also managed to hold on to my reading. Thanks to Blogchatter’s TBR Challenge, this year I tracked the books that I read (which probably only covers 50% of what I read). Another big sigh…

While this year probably looked twice the challenge of the year 2011, it has been a mixed bag, which can be said about almost any year that comes and goes. I resonate very strongly with the Yin-Yang symbolism, a philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. While the literature on Yin-Yang philosophies & interpretations is available in abundance, my simplified explanation for this is in the lines of the dialogue from Alavandhan Movie ‘Kadavul Paadhi Mirugam Paadhi kalandhu seidha kalavai naan’ (crudely translated – I am the perfect mix of God & Animal/Devil). The deeper meaning that I infer is that there is no absolute good or absolute bad in this world. There is a little bit of good in bad and a little bit of bad in good and these two exist in perfect balance for the whole to be complete. Here the good and bad can be represented in black or white colour, and the symbolism stays intact.

In this exercise of looking back at the year gone by, which I have been doing since 2019, I have come to understand that every year brings with it a mixed bag of experiences – a few successes, a few misses/loses, loads of learnings from both to take away for the years to come, wonderful experiences that enrich our life by becoming stories & narratives to tell and take forward. I am filled with gratitude and pride. Gratitude for the learnings and achievements, pride at surviving the year. I think I am going to hold on to this practice of looking back at the year that has gone by just so that I practice self-love and self-appreciation which in turn positively impacts self-image and self-confidence by increasing self-awareness. What better way to enrich our mental wellness than this. 😊

I am not the type to make resolutions, but I guess the practice of looking back at the year that has passed, that I began in 2019, is a resolution that happened on its own accord and will probably stay for years to come. Will be happy to hear your retrospective of 2022 in the “comment” section.

Wishing you all a very happy new year 2023 to come, and along with it a lot of personal/professional growth & development also. 

 

This post also wraps up the #TBRChallenge by Blogchatter for the year 2022. I'm participating in the #TBRChallenge by Blogchatter

How can women be the champion of change in MSME business?

We all know and have heard how educating women can change the dynamics of an entire family and even a nation. Here are some powerful ones:

“When women are educated, their countries become stronger and more prosperous.” - Michelle Obama

“When you invest in a girl’s education, she feeds herself, her children, her community, and her nation.” - Erna Solberg

“A girl child who is even a little bit educated is more conscious of family planning, health care and, in turn, her children's own education.” - Azim Premji

Beacons of Change 

While we now have a lot of schemes in India for Girl child education, what happens to most of them after they are educated? The socio-cultural conditioning still finds space for the unconscious bias of family care and nurture being solely dependent on women. This becomes even more detrimental when the career progress of women is concerned. Yet, we see on a regular basis that, many women are undeterred by the hurdles that these unconscious biases (their own and that of the society’s) poses for them and can figure out their individual path, that brings them back on the track to career and contribute towards conscious community care and development as well. This lived experience is different for every woman and these variations are what bring novelty to their individual experiences. 

When these women stabilise their journey back into a career and sustain their growth despite the changes in their personal life, and challenges in their professional life that might be conflicting with their personal needs, become beacons of light and leaders, who inspire by walking the path. They inspire the possibility of change for many women wanting change in their lives due to decisions taken out of generational conditioning. Women in Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) are a smaller subset of this larger group of women who choose self-run business as their career option. While there are many successful women to highlight understanding those women who are probably much closer to us by the proximity of distance or relationship would help us relate to how each of us can become one such woman inspiring change by living it.

To understand this better, before we get into real-life inspirations that each of us might have in our own circle of family, friends, and acquaintances, let us take a couple of relatable modern-day movie characters, that bring out this aspect very well.

Sashi (from English Vinglish)

Shashi Godbole is an Indian homemaker who makes and sells laddoos as a home-run business. Her husband and daughter take her for granted, mock her because she doesn't speak much English, and generally treat her with disrespect, making Shashi feel vulnerable and insecure. Sashi’s character is representative of most homemakers in India. The rest of the movies unfolds with lived experiences of how a non-English speaking Indian woman finds her way around New York City, manages to enroll in a Spoken English class that has people from different countries of the world, giving her an international multi-cultural exposure as a bonus. The money that she uses for payment towards the spoken English course is from the income of her laddoo business. Finally, with her command over the language (upskilling), her event management skills to manage a wedding in foreign soil, building and nurturing relationships accommodating for the changing times, with healthy boundaries that mirror her personal values, she ends up being an inspiration to many. 

Vasanthi (from 36 Vayadhinile)

Vasanthi is a working woman, doing the run-of-the-mill job as a clerk in Revenue Department and managing her home - again a typical characterisation of a middle-class working woman in India. When her husband aspires to emigrate to Ireland, she is unable to join him due to her age acting as a hindrance for job applications. When her husband and her daughter travel to Ireland, she is left behind in India and finds a lot of time on her hand with lesser responsibilities at home after work. 

A happenstance meeting with her college friend (who is now a CXO), reminds Vasanthi of herself when she was a college student. This inspires Vasanthi to rediscover herself, whom she lost in the mundane everyday life, with no personal time or space till now. This quest of hers takes her down the path of creating a sustainable business model of sourcing and using organically grown and sourced vegetables for a wedding catering, by using the unused terrace spaces of a modern city dwelling into organic greenhouses and the manual effort of homemakers and retired citizens who love gardening. Eventually, the movie goes on to show her winning regional and national accolades for her idea and achievement and the successful meeting with the President of India, with complete confidence.

Shashi & Vasanthi inspirations in my Life

I have met such women in real life as well. A trailing spouse from India, living in the USA with a young child, graduate in her local medium (but did not know English), loved cooking, made a source of income, by making homemade Indian community around us, used that income to find a private English tutor for herself, to come home to teach her (as her child was too young for her to leave home for a class). Now, she is quite well-versed in English and financially also independent and contributing to her family. 

When I lived in the UK, I had the opportunity to know another such strong woman who was from the same state from where I come, in her late 30s, but never had the experience of having a formal school education, before she relocated. She could not read or write in any language and could only speak in her mother tongue. She had three children and loved cooking. She started with making home-cooked meals for elderly and known people, for a nominal price, to support her spouse’s paltry income, to care for the needs of the family. I saw her transform into someone who now knows to make simple sentences in English, found herself a job through a UK job centre, in one of the retail stores. Now she has a day job and a micro business.

While both these women are my real-life examples (but outside India), I am sure we all will have such stories of women who transformed to inspire others in our own lives in our own neighbourhood in India. Sometimes we miss noticing them, as we are too close to the conditioning thoughts/culture that blind us from seeing such women for their achievements. 

Champions of Change

The above examples show how traditional skills and passion areas can be turned into possible opportunities for a woman’s livelihood when supported by necessary skilling and networking. 

Many of women's contributions to the economy continue to go unrecognized because their work is not easily counted within the conventional structures. Women do most of the work within this unorganized sector (and mostly from their homes) and as a result, much of their work is not counted (or is underrepresented) in official statistics. Yet these experiences naturally equip women with some basic skills that benefit those who wish to enter the MSME segment:

• Thriving in adversity makes women resilient in the face of failure. Setting up a business has its own journey of ups & downs, filled with challenges and changes before it can start making a profit. Having experienced such adversities on the personal front, helps them to stay the course till the business starts making money.
  
• Maximising impact with limited resources: Something women are used to, on a regular basis, while running a family within budget. Bootstrapping, working with limited funds and resources in an MSME business is just a natural extension. 
  
• Agile Learner: Learning to adapt to change in environment (during marriage and as trailing spouses), transitioning through stages of growth daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, mother, grandmother. In all these phases, the constant being shouldering the responsibility of home management as default. In some cases, women also play the role of a tutor, counsellor, and first aider. This ability enables women to dig into the business nitty-gritty, understand its depth and width, look for help and ask for it as well when needed, and keep marching ahead. 
  
• Home Management Skills: Planning, Bookkeeping, Procurement, Budgeting, Personal care, Teaching. These are transferable skills that are useful assets in setting up a business and becoming a trainer for self and others thereby minimising training costs and personal costs. Childcare, a major responsibility heavily dependent on the woman is a viable business option today for creche or pre-school/playschools with the necessary skilling and certifications along with safety requirements.
  
• Hobbies into Business Ideas: More traditional housekeeping and self-care skills that are taught as hobbies to women such as sewing, embroidery, lace making, crochet, tatting, candle making, art, craft, dance, music, yoga, fitness, are all possible sustainable business idea for MSME with minimal or no investment or advertising costs. 
  
• Research shows that Women are more Emotionally Intelligent than men. Handling relationships, childcare, care of ailing family members, are natural means to learning emotional intelligence on the job and this comes in as a strength in the business world while learning to manage professional relationships and work with different people their cultural conditioning.
• The Right to Education & Educating a Girl Child campaign has been liberating and empowering women to establish a presence in every field. MSME is no exception. Read more about the women who have achieved by being trailblazers in the MSME segment in this article by The CEO Story.

Encouraging more Women into the MSME Segment

Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), on the eve of International Women’s day 2018, launched Udayam Sakhi, a network for nurturing social entrepreneurship creating business models revolving around low-cost products and services to resolve social inequities [2]. The ministry’s website is also content-rich with multiple resources and reading material on MSME for those who wish to venture out in this direction.

The ministry also has a programme called MSME Champions to promote sustainable growth to promising MSME through mentoring and make them national and international champions.

For more in-depth reading and information here are a few recent reports:

• MSME insider 2021 focusing on women’s role in MSME
• Financial Inclusion for Woman-Owned Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India

Growth Matters Forum is a community for business owners to explore ideas, streamline growth and create an impact. Join the community here.

Pictures: Stills from the movies English Vinglish & 36 Vayadhinile.

Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 2 of 2)

If you would like to read the part 1 the Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2), follow the link. 

“No health without mental health” – Surgeon General David Satcher

Here are a few coping mechanisms I practice for my personal mental wellbeing (most involve a mindset shift from what we have been conditioned, a reframing of sorts)

1. Learn to Pause: We are conditioned to believe that we must always be engaged and contributing something. Doing nothing, is not equivalent to wasting precious time. Sometimes we need that pause of doing nothing to rejuvenate ourselves and our overworked mental and physical system. Even a supercomputer needs to be shutdown to keep it working well for long.
   
   
2. Read Different Genres: I enjoy reading (anything). I love to explore different genres and different authors. I may not read to the extent of quoting the author with the phrase or passage, but now we have the luxury or searching for the same before we share it on the digital platforms. I love to read to explore unexplored territories to widen my thoughts and diversify my thinking pattern.
   
   
3. Create Something From Scratch: I love counted cross stitch and writing. My go-to comforter is one of these two and I am always pulled into it so deeply that the needed distance from whatever is bothering my mental wellbeing is automatically created. This enables me to clearly look into it from afar and then find a way to tackle it to bring back my mental peace. The last year+ saw the conceptualisation of a memoire book on my father-in-law. What started as a digitisation effort of his written work from more than 3-4 decades ago, as it progressed the book had snippets from significant people about him and his positive influence in their lives. The process of conceptualising and shaping such a creation kept me grounded during the pandemic times stuck indoors. The coordination of getting input from people living in different parts of the state and compiling it to a complete book was cathartic. Seeing the book published and released on 31st August 2021 (on his 75th Birth anniversary) in his memory gave a sense of accomplishment.
   
   
   
   
   The whole effort also seemed like a cathartic closure for the family dealing with the grief of his passing (a decade ago). In 2019, I did a similar effort of compiling the devotional songs of my paternal grandmother in a book format to be given as memorabilia for the family on her first death anniversary.

   
   
4. A Good Sleep: Earlier I used to think that sleeping without solving a fight or a problem is not good for the relationship or self. Now I have come to realise that ‘sleep over a problem’ was told by someone who knew what they meant. When you sleep your body and mind are well rested. Sometimes your dreams could be a way of finding innovative, interesting, and simple solutions to the problem that you had before you slept. There have been extensive studies on this. Here are a couple of articles that has scientific data to support this need.
• Do Women Need More Sleep Than Men?
• FACT or FICTION: Do women need more sleep than men?
  
  
5. Pick your Partner-in-crime’s brain: This could be anyone from your sibling, spouse, cousin, friend, work colleague, parent, teacher, or a counsellor who is a good listener and ideator, who understands inclusivity and knows to compassionately look at things from your point of view and then come up with perspectives that would make us think differently from what we had assumed. I read somewhere a quote on assumption – When you ‘assume’ you make an Ass of U and Me. This stuck with me forever. Now, every single time I move into the zone of assuming that I know what goes in someone else’s mind or what they might be feeling, this quote pops into my head and there ends my assumptions. I find that it is easier to clarify what we are thinking to be true or not by openly paraphrasing it without being judgmental when we articulate our thoughts. Doing so also helps in enriching the said relationship and increases our personal score on the integrity index!
   
   
6. Free yourselves from expectations: Everyone has expectations – we from others and others from us. Yet many of us want and wish to be free of it. This takes conscious effort, but it is worth the effort. When you free yourself from expectations, there are no disappointments. Here is something that can help you see how expectations are formed. When you are able to see that, you will figure out your own way to break free of it.
   
   

   

   My 100 word story first published on Momspresso

   
   
7. Solocation: Try going on a solocation, when possible. It really does wonders to self-care. Sometime in March I decided to go on a solocation, just to get away from the daily churn of things and came back after a relaxed couple of days and much more happier than how I left. My family also seemed to have benefited from my 2 days of absence.
   
   
8. Seek Professional Support: While the above do help, there might be instances where they may not be enough. In such situations, there is always an option to seek professional help through personal/relationship/parenting counselling as the need is and ensure that your (above) efforts also have a backing of the scientific process that would fit your lifestyle, temperament, family & individual needs, and abilities. Make sure that you are seeking the right kind of professional support and not just getting some random advice from friendly neighbour, family member, or well-wisher who might not completely understand all the variables that need to be addressed in a specific manner for you and your loved ones to benefit from the same. 

Were(Are) you a primary caregiver & have similar or other coping mechanisms? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks.

Lockdown Chaos: Disparities for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2)

One year after the first announcement of lockdown in India, I wrote a post on Momspresso on the topic I am not okay as a weekly challenge prompt. While writing that blog was cathartic, the constant changes due to the COVID restrictions, the new variants of the virus, the uncertainty of this pandemic lifestyle comes back to haunt us a lot. In these uncertain times, when schools went online, and work came into my home, I lost my personal space & “Me-time” routines. 

As an EdTech & Life Skills Consultant, I worked from home for the most part of my work engagements, yet there was a routine to it. I would finish my work, when my family was away from home in school and office respectively. In fact, I would also squeeze in some self-care routines daily to keep my cool when the family returned home in the evening. In the last year+ my routines have gone for a toss including the family chores.

The lack of routines, private space, and time for the primary caregiver (home maker) has also brought with it the focus on imbalanced division of labour within the home. While the home is everyone’s responsibility, most of the daily chores such as the upkeep of the house, inventory management & maintenance, bringing edible food to the table, catering to the never-ending snack requests of bored family members who do not understand or realise what goes into getting a quick bite-snack ready-to-consume leaves very little time for the primary caregiver for self-care and personal time. If this primary caregiver is also a part-time or full-time working person, then there is absolutely no time for anything else other than crossing out the to-do list from morning when they are awake till the time their body shuts down in exhaustion in the night. Add to this the fiasco of online school and the emotional toll that it has taken on the child’s psych and development. Not all schools and teachers are even partially trained to handle the nuances of online school along with the socio-emotional parameters that need to be given special care in this modality. 

Even in the so-called progressive homes where we celebrated equal participation, the pandemic showed that it really wasn’t the case. There was still quite a lot of imbalances where the primary care giver is implicitly expected to be the one to do the following:

• Plan & Provide for Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner and the odd snacks: Includes working with available resources inside home when there was strict lockdown, plan for refilling the dwindling supplies in the kitchen stock and be prepared for those uninformed requests of odd hour snacks because you couldn’t order in during the strict lockdown periods. This has a secondary problem of additional work of pots and pans being used, cleaned, and stored appropriately. There were days when domestic support was unavailable, and the family wasn’t even aware that they had to pitch in till either they were told or in some cases the caregiver had an emotional breakdown to bring to the attention of the family that (s)he needed help.
• Teaching Assistant (TA): The unwritten expectation of being the TA even outside the lockdown was there, but the lockdown saw the primary caregiver huff and puff and juggle with the available time at hand to ensure that the child(ren) sat through the online class, did their homework and class works (that were usually done in school and hence was never on the caregiver responsibility plate), projects – specifically group projects follow up on WhatsApp and hangouts, revision before the continuous year-long assessments, and fill in for the lack of understanding that they have due to not being able follow the class due to internet connectivity and clarity on a regular basis. If an educated stay-at-home-parent finds this difficult, then we can only imagine the plight an un(der)educated parent or an educated-working-parent would have been through.
• Routines: They are always there for a very good reason. You know what to expect and hence you can plan for contingencies. This way even the rare case where something that wasn’t anticipated happens, we are able to cope. Pandemic saw to it that all routines went out the door when the entire family started staying indoors. Everyday was a new day, new pattern, and hence new adaptation. Change management usually has a peak (when emotions are at a high), lull (when we start questioning the purpose of the change), and a plateau (when we enjoy the new norm while we prepare ourselves) before the next change that is around the corner comes upon us. Unfortunately, pandemic did not give us this luxury. There were only peak after peak that leads to exhaustion due to emotional overdose. Even those who were emotional intelligence or mindfulness practitioners, the pandemic induced anxiety & uncertainty caught up with them, pushing almost everyone into a collective burn out.
• Emotional Numbness: The loss of job, finances, lifestyle, routines, lives of loved ones and otherwise, was too much that there has been a collective numbing of emotions in dealing with the grief that these loses usually trigger. Added to this was the inability to follow through with the mourning rituals due to the COVID restrictions. In the process of following the SMS protocols, despite the availability of technology to stay connected, the personal touch that is paramount in dealing with grief was missing. The losses also were quite sudden which rendered those affected by it in a state of shock. Without the support system and the rituals of handling grief most moved from shock to numbing of emotions as they did not know what else to do. The grief was either suppressed or repressed and we know what happens when either of the routes are taken without handling grief as it should be.
• Domestic Violence, Child Marriage & Child Labour: In some cases, with the entire family stuck indoors and no reprieve to reach for support there has been an increase in the cases of domestic violence. Loss of income and rise of expenses ended up in many getting their underage children to go to work or to get them married off (mostly girls). 

These are just some of them among many such deviations from what we knew life as usual. 

While I enumerate the problems that contribute to the disruption of mental wellbeing of self and the family, what can we as individuals do to ensure our mental safety and that of our families in that order. You can never pour from an empty cup, which means the first need is to ensure our own mental and physical wellbeing. Will elaborate them in the coping mechanisms I benefitted from, in the second part. 

Were you a primary caregiver & have similar or other experiences? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks. Incidentally, this is also my 100^th blog.

You might also enjoy reading

• The Conundrum of the Gendered Glasses
• To Work or not to Work? A Stay-At-Home-Mom's Perspective

Can Success be a Stressor?

There are many definitions of success. In this mad rush to achieve success (any extrinsic definition that we choose) we forget that true success is only intrinsic. The feeling of being content is what enables you to enjoy the pleasure of success and revel in it. Else, the celebration of success is truly short-lived, temporary. Does this definition of success make you curious? Then read on. 

Consider yourself in these scenarios:

• A 6 yr old comes home carrying a trophy for winning in their school running competition, and the whole house goes berserk about the victory. Everyone says he/she is a born-champion and shows a promising attitude for a bright as an Athlete!
• A 14 yr old brings home a bigger trophy for football (or co-curricular activity for that matter), while he/she is an Average scorer in academics. Now, what would you think the reaction would be at home?
• A 17yr old boy wants to choose Fine arts, Fashion Designing, Literature, or any such ‘soft subject’ as his career path starting with UG, while a 17 yr old girl says she wishes to join the Armed forces, Political science, Mechanical/Automobile Engineering or any such ‘hard subject’ as her career path. Now how would we define success for them?

In all the above scenarios, how do you think the reaction of the family around that child, impact their self-image and their definition of success among other things? What do you think happens to the curiosity quotient (that is found in abundance in their early development years) as the child grows up?

So, do we say the 6yr was successful while the 14yr and 17yr are struggling? 

The dictionary defines success as a measure of succeeding. And to succeed means to turn out well or to attain a desired object or end. Narrowing the scope of this definition to students, we have reduced the measure of success for a student in relation to their rank/order.

For a long time, this is how success has been measured. Yet time and again we have questioned this mode of measuring. Though being on the top gives a momentary feeling of elation and achievement, after a short while, many of them feel a void. Their search for something else begins. Many end up with mental agony, stress because they are unable to understand the reason behind this void and mindless search. The story does not end here. When the world sees the person who has succeeded, they are usually subject to harsh criticism. Success brings with it a level of fame as well and this also adds to the stress for the individual, especially due to the breach in their privacy.

Many successful adults are lost after they reach their set goal (as defined by this world, which they also assumed as theirs). To quote a few examples district / state first rank holders in higher secondary. Toppers of JEEE, University toppers… What happened to them after this achievement? Can we name at least a few of them from past few years? I am sure like me you are shrugging your shoulder! 

I grew up with friends who would parrot their parents’ dream as though it was theirs. 

‘I want to become a Doctor’ or an Engineer… 

The moment I ask the question. ‘Why?’ there would either be a never-ending pause or a spontaneous response ‘That is what is in demand. Once I finish my studies, I will be job-ready, and start earning a five-figure salary and lead a peaceful life.’ (parroted response).

I am sure you are now wondering what I did when my friends were doing this. My goal as a school-going kid was to get into BITS, Pilani. The reason was, of course, partially parroting the elders in my life ‘You will learn to live independently.’ Hostel life was romanticised in my family and I am glad that this was what was romanticised and not the placement figures. When I did get into BITS, I was sent with the advice ‘Learn about self, time, and financial management.’ 

How else can success look like? 

For me, rewards & trophies (extrinsic) were/are never the definition of success. I am not against anyone participating in competitions nor winning certificates of merit/honour. Even today at 40, I participate in competitions, but now it is more to experiment rather than to prove my abilities (to myself/the world). 

Success and failure for me are similar with each giving their own lessons for us to take away. Anu Hasan’s note to self was something I agree to

‘Do not let your success go to your head and your failure to your heart’

Success needs to be responded to with genuine gratitude from the heart, while failure needs to be analysed and lessons learned, using the head. And this is what has been driving my actions. As a child, I was not able to put in words this phenomenon. Now, I am able to, thanks to all the continuous learning that I have done in so many years! I believe that failure is one of the main ingredients for success.

So, this opens the scope of defining success and lets each one of us make a personalised definition of what success means to us. 

I define success for me, as having a purpose, working towards it while continuously evaluating progress learning along the way, being content that I am headed in the right direction towards my goal. Once I reach my goal, I define another purpose and hence another goal to achieve. How do I do this? The key driver is, to be and do better than what I have been and have done so far. 

As my family likes to fondly say, my bar is never a stagnant one. It keeps changing. And I agree, but it changes as per my norms and needs. I also urge my family to do the same and I am happy and content that in my first circle of influence (family) I have been able to bring this mindset shift within each member of my family. It gives me hope that this disturbance that I have created in a still pond as far as mindset is concerned, will have its ripple effect, and hope that someday maybe even create a Tsumani – a major mindset shift, among the future generations. 

This mindset shift will bring an intrinsic view on the success required motivation. It will also eliminate the stress that is currently a package deal with the measure of extrinsically driven success definition. As we say, the comparison now becomes apple with apple (yesterday’s self with today’s self) rather than an apple with orange/tomato/beet! 

This thought as a seed and a few more ideas from other members of my alumni group, resulted in the creation of an amazing panel discussion titled 'The Imperfect Me!', that attempts to discuss these things and more, focusing on developing an individualistic outlook towards life’s challenges and come up with our own mantras for leading a life, that includes positive mental health as well. 

Now that you have read my take/perspective on success/failure, their definitions, and roles, I would love to hear your point of view on success, failure, and associated stress and anxiety to perform and prove!

This post is part of Blogchatter's #CauseAChatter #MentalHealthTalks. 

Why Solocation can rejuvenate homemakers?

I have been thinking of going on a vacation by myself (solocation) for a while, but it never materialised until recently. The COVID 19 Pandemic lockdown became a catalyst to this thought and the subsequent Work-from-Home (WFH) and School-from-Home scenarios that reduced my rejuvenating “Me-time” drastically (to be read as NIL). 

My definition of me-time isn’t just reading books, creating or doing stuff that I love doing, but really absolute silence, where I can listen to and feel my own breathing, pick & look at my thoughts without judgment, be aware of everything inside and around me, what they now call being aware, mindful or meditation (No, I do not close my eyes for this, I just stay in the moment and relish it). I love staying still and doing nothing. Over the years, doing this as a regular practice has helped me cope with all the amplified chaos, that my status as trailing spouse (with international relocations) has brought for me on a golden platter (this is a topic for some other time).

There is an interesting scene from a recent Tamil movie - ‘Mookuthi Amman’ which I watched on OTT - where the brother asks his family members what their wishes were and the elder sister (who dons the homemaker responsibilities) very humbly requests ‘I need one day vacation from the kitchen’, was something I was able to correlate with, instantly. I am sure many homemakers would have had this thought in their minds sometime or the other in their lifetime! 

I would blame my socially conditioned thought process for not considering solocations early on in my life. If you are wondering what this means, here I list a few:

• I always feared that the family would suffer if I left my home for a while. 
• I thought I must not take off on my own for my personal pleasure, despite being an advocate of self-care myself for many of the people whom I have impacted in my professional avatar as a wellness and parenting coach.
• Worry about so many ‘what-ifs’ plaguing my mind.
• Being a homemaker was my choice, hence the challenges are mine to deal with.
• I am not the only one facing such circumstances. Why am I acting as though it is just me?

I hope you now get the drift. Considering the pandemic situation, I did not want to travel too far from my home either. So, my #solocation plan was to check-in to a hotel with good amnesties, a 10 min drive from my home. 

I packed my backpack on a Friday morning, finished my lunch with my family, took a cab, and checked in to the hotel at 3 p.m. My Hubby man had booked a room with King size bed and oh boy, was I thankful!

Stepping into the room, the concierge told me that a surprise awaited me. I thought it was my husband’s doing with some surprise, but what I saw was really a heart-warming gesture from the hotel staff. On the writing desk lay a beautiful card, with an amazing message welcoming me for a great and safe solocation. They congratulated me for stepping out of my comfort zone by choosing to travel solo and comforted me with the assurance of safety during the duration of my stay. This hotel – Novotel OMR - won me over that instant (though I already was a great fan of their hospitality, having experienced them in other countries).

That gesture was a big step towards easing the doubts that were rearing their ugly head on my decision to go solo. The rest of my stay during the weekend was pure bliss. The benefits I enjoyed during my stay:

Completely Rested: Sleep early and wake up early and refreshed the entire day – my comfort schedule which I had forgotten since motherhood; changed to, sleep late wake up early, and stay exhausted. Oh… The King-sized luxury bed was quite the comfort and I slept like my husband. (I recently read a quote on my friend’s FB wall – I do not want to sleep like my baby, I wish to sleep like my husband. I am sure you get the drift.)

Stomach full without having to cook: Eat filling meals without having to think about what to cook and then actually cooking them! Being weekend, the breakfast buffet at Novotel was filled with choices including South Indian and North Indian choices. I had my fill all three mornings – Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Oh! And there was Galette (My French colleagues will relate to this dish) too. I felt so stuffed that I skipped lunch. I can still feel the refreshing taste of the breakfast on my taste buds. Their to-order coffee was perfect. Novotel OMR weekend breakfast menu is one of the best.

Experiencing Hospitality: Amazing staff at the restaurant. Always serving with a smile and every happy to oblige any service I requested. Welcoming me every morning with a cheery ‘Good morning’. Enquiring me about my stay and how I was liking the food. I felt like royalty! 

Productive Work Meetings: Yes, I got some office work done too. I was able to get a lot of my writing assignments completed, did some brainstorming for one of the volunteering initiatives, and was also able to catch-up with my old friends over undisturbed phone calls. All this without distractions or disturbances at my home or the doorbell going off every now and then.

Reading: I did get to read a lot on the digital platform. I had also packed a book ‘Teaching through the Heart’ by Meera Ravi which I have been wanting to read for a while now. I missed my reading-for-hours-without-disturbance mode. These two days I was able to do that as well. 

Silence: I had all the silent me-time I could ask for. Doing all the above, I still got this silence, and it helped me in calming myself and come back home with a fresh perspective and a smiling persona that my entire family noticed the change!

On my return on Monday, I had an extended surprise waiting for me at home. 

Lunch was prepared by my Hubby and ready for me to eat. I did not have to come home and immediately resume duties. I had time till dinner for me to take over.

Last but definitely not the least reason to make solocation a normalised event in every household. I got to hear these words from my spouse’s mouth, ‘Now I know how you make things look easy. Two days when I had to hold fort, there were a lot of things I realised were not as easy as I thought they were’.  For example, seems our son rated his morning health drink prepared by his Dad as ‘okay, but needs improvement’. That made him realise how many zillion times I had prepared the same thing, to meet the needs of every individual at home. ‘Though I only did a fraction of things in comparison to what you do daily, I was exhausted by nightfall, both days. I knew being a homemaker was not easy, but I really got a glimpse of how extremely exhausting and difficult it is and for years you never let any of us feel this side of it. You deserve these breaks more often.’

And I have a champion in my son. He said, ‘Amma needs her rest and downtime. She is overworked and less rested. We will all do our chores and pitch in more regularly.’ I do not have to remind them about their home chores (at least not that frequently). The family is more sensitive to my needs, fluctuating moods, and exhaustion. They are now conscious of my office work and hence are more participative in household tasks more. We have family lunches and dinners more frequently where conversations (all kinds) are helping build healthy connection rituals resulting in a secure attachment. These small changes in our family helped the homemaker in me feel valued and that it is now well acknowledged and appreciated by everyone in the family.

My son and spouse are the organisers, sensitive, and emotional characters while I and my daughter are the logical decisive quick thinking and emotionally stronger individuals in the home. She loves pointing out in every possible situation that our family would probably win the award for the ‘maximum stereotypes broken’ category if there was one anyway and feels so much pride and contentment when she states this. 

What more can I ask for? Along with a relaxed and rejuvenated me, I also have a spouse who appreciates what I do much more than before. I think solocations occasionally are beneficial in more than one aspect. I see more of such solocations in my future! I would urge all homemakers (in fact each one in any capacity) also to go ahead and try it out, at least once, if not for anything else, but their personal wellbeing, as part of a self-care practice. 

If you have already had these in your past, would love to hear of your personal experiences as well and understand what other benefits that this can offer (for self and the family as a whole).

This post is part of #CauseAChatter #MentalHealthTalks with Blogchatter. 

My Perspectives on “Shakuntala Devi” by Anu Menon

Even while being locked inside the home during this unprecedented Covid19 lockdown, I managed to see the movie Shakuntala Devi by Anu Menon – an Amazon Prime exclusive release, only recently. One word to summarize the movie is ‘Awesome’. The life story of the ‘Human Computer’ has been given a focus from humanising her as a Mother and a self-made Entrepreneur and the angle of mental health of the woman, from the viewpoint of her daughter.

Every dialogue, every incident, and every personal struggle that unfolded in this genius’ life has been well captured - in the choice of words used for dialogues, narration, or enacting by lead characters.

The dialogues that I related very well with

'हर माँ बुरी माँ होती है ।' (Har Maa Buri Maa Hoti Hai) – ‘Every mother is a bad mother’ - A statement that Anu’s (Daughter of Shakuntala Devi) mother-in-law tells Anu when she self criticizes her inability to put her own daughter to sleep and is torn from within, due hormonal, psychological & physiological mess that pregnancy, delivery, perinatal care leaves a mother in. Even my daughter who watched this movie had a reaction to this sequence of dialogues – She asked me with eyes popping out ‘So do you really spoil us either way?’

'मैंने अपने माँ को सिर्फ एक माँ के रूप में देखा, उसे एक औरत के नज़रिये से देखा ही नहीं!' (Meine apne maa ko sirf ek maa ke roop mein dheka, use ek aurath ke nazariye se dheka hi nahi) – ‘I never understood my Mom as a woman and only looked at her as a mother’. This line at the end of the movie summarises the hate and anger that almost every daughter has towards her mother while growing up and vows to never become like her mother (very few idolise their mother during their teenage).

These two statements break the circle of toxicity that surrounds a woman due to the socio-cultural expectations of a woman and a mother. The movie very beautifully unfolds by trying to highlight this inner battle that every woman goes through in her life trying to be who she is and trying to fit herself in the mold of who she should be. It tugs at my heartstring every time the insecurity of having to choose responsibility above passion, in the fear of losing a battle – a battle more within me rather than with any external factor.

How complex have we made the society with gender-based norms and clichés, that anything we discuss always seems like going in circles, with seemingly no end, unless we break it with self-reflection and realisation!

Another line that I loved was the one by Tarabai (Sheeba Chadda), 'एक लड़की जो अपनी मन की  सुनती है और दिल खोल के हस्ती है, मर्द के लिए उससे डरावना क्या हो सकता है?' (Ek ladki jo apni man ki sunti hai aur dil khol ke hasti hai, mardo ke liye usse daravana kya ho sakta hai?) – A girl who follows her heart, laughs loudly with no inhibitions, is already a reason to be scared in the perspective of men. The free spirit of wanting to enjoy life and live in the moment is well brought out by the most talented Vidhya Balan (as Shakunthala Devi) and also by Sanya Malhotra (as Anupama).

But the best dialogue that brings out the prevalent sexism, that is not only there in India but worldwide, is the dialogue between young Shakuntala and her sister

Shakuntala’s sister: एक दिन तू भी बहुत बड़ी आदमी बनेगी। (Ek din tu bhi bahut badi aadmi banegi - One day you will become a great man).

Shakuntala: आदमी क्यों बनूँगी? (Aadmi kyun banungi? - Why will I become a man?)

Shakuntala’s sister: बड़ी औरत बनूँगी थोड़ी कुछ है? (Badi aurat banungi thodi kuch hota hai? - There is no term like great woman)

Shakuntala: फिर तो मैं बड़ी औरत ही बनूँगी! (Fir toh main badi aurat hi banungi! - Then I will surely become a great woman)

This also showed the grit, determination, and fearless nature of young Shakuntala who would grow up to challenge this world and its (gender) norms!

For me, this movie showed how a young girl child grows up to be a successful woman known worldwide, despite the personal struggles that she has at every stage, not just with the society but with herself being torn between who she should be and who she is. Despite this struggle and many setbacks, she is able to stay true to her words 'मैं कभी नहीं हारति, always remember that!' (Main kabhi nahi haarti always remember that! - I never fail, always remember that). This attitude to never give up is what always gives her the strength to pull herself out of any situation, even the emotional mess that she herself creates for her and her loved ones. This also allows her to accept ‘What is’ before finding the ‘What next’, even if it means accepting the slew of charges that her daughter (through the hired lawyer) files against her in a criminal case against her own mother! It turns out that this was as a result of another one of the dramatical steps taken by Shakuntala (who owns up to the dramatical nature of Indians earlier in the movie) to get in touch with her daughter, who refuses to even answer phone calls from her mother’s secretary.

The movie also very nicely captures the nurturing side of men in the charaterisation of Javier (Shakuntala’s mentor, who develops a liking for her and as per Shakuntala her lover as she professes when he leaves her, as he feels that she does not need him anymore), Paritosh Banerji (Shakuntala’s husband who gives a very beautiful definition for loving his wife – ‘To love Shakuntala is to Let her go’ breaking the stereotype of a controlling patriarchal male figure), and Amit Sadh (Anupama’s husband. The lovely banter that goes back-and-forth between this young couple and how at every juncture he is characterised as a supportive husband who tells her to deal with her internal struggles with herself, her parents and his parents instead of jumping on him or any other unsuspecting person, who unknowingly becomes a trigger for her unresolved issues to surface).

By the end of the movie, I was in tears mainly because of how beautifully the message on the importance of addressing one’s mental trauma, especially childhood trauma with one’s own parents was highlighted. When this is not addressed, it can have a huge impact on the child’s self-image and self-worth during their lifetime! Nothing or no one can satiate the thirst of this child to be someone unless this early trauma is addressed!

Makes me very happy that such movies and messages can be part of commercialised cinema as well so that it reaches the masses. Added pride is that I am a part of the proud alumni network as the director of the movie!

Note to the movie crew: I saw this movie on a weekday evening around 5 p.m. My son (9 yrs old) saw half the movie and then went out to play with his friends. When it was dinner time and I was in the kitchen, my son was convincing my daughter (13 yrs old) to watch this movie as their dinner-time movie. His pitch was ‘Oh this is a movie about a girl who is a Math genius and can find cube roots faster than a computer’ and they start watching. My daughter tells me when I come out to join them with my dinner plate, ‘I have been smiling ear-to-ear while watching the movie so far and I do not know why I am smiling. She (Shakuntala) is trying so hard (to prove herself).’

Thank you team Shakuntala for engaging children from different age groups and gender with a riveting storyline and screenplay. I had to create a logical break for them to stick to their weekday routine for bed so that they wake up well rested for the online school the next morning. They came back to the movie to complete watching it the next day evening after school!

Gratitude: I am very grateful that this movie has brought to life the internal struggles of people who do not fit the norm of society, not just Shakuntala or Anupama, but also in the form of their supportive and understanding husbands. It enables the discussion on perception and the resulting stress that a person goes through due to perceived notions (real or hypothetical, self-directed or external). It also brings to light the power of looking within to break the cycle of toxicity by accepting ‘What is’ and then addressing ‘What can be done’ to bring contentment in one’s life!

If I have to dissect the aspects of this gratitude then I will have to elaborately speak on every frame of this movie that seems to bring out layers of human nature, emotions, perception and the behaviour that these emotions & perception result in, based on the circumstances at a particular instance of an individual’s life. Doing that level of analysis will result in my writing a book (and not an article about the movie) on life philosophies that are deeply rooted in behavioural science fundamentals!

As an end note, I would like to leave you all with this food for thought: The good, bad, ugly and nasty emotions, and ensuing behaviour are all part of each and every one of us. This movie very beautifully brought that aspect of human nature to light by seamlessly bringing this in every character (central or otherwise) of the plot. Highly recommended watch.

Saying Goodbye to 2019

As parents, there have been times when we the years just whizzed past so fast - some we recollect with fondness while some bring with it a heaviness in the heart. 2019 has been a year with both.

Refitment to Indian Way of Life: When we moved back to India in 2018, settling in a young family (2 children aged 12 & 8) to the Indian way of life without losing the learnings over the years that we picked up from our other travels abroad (UK and France) was a challenge looming in front of us. We have always been adaptive in that way, but the good thing is that as a family, we also retained all that we loved from every culture that we happened to experience during our travel and still retaining the "Indianess" in us. The initial 6 months were very difficult but as 2019 began, the family settled in with each of us finding our comfort zone with our extended families and new-found friends, and neighbours.

Getting Back to Professional World: After resigning from my Technical Writing career (13 yrs back), I managed to stay connected with writing through my blog, volunteering and freelancing projects, wherever we relocated! This move back to India gave me connections with Alumni and friends through whom I have been able to find a part-time position in a start-up and explore the avenues of branding myself as a Consultant Content Developer, Career Counselor & Trainer/Tutor. This is a personal achievement that I am very proud of. Our parenting has been instrumental in bringing forth the instant adaptiveness from my children to this change of mine, my spouse's unwavering confidence in me, and my mother's close presence are a few things I am grateful to have to my advantage!

Quality Time with Family: 2019 saw many from our extended family visiting us at our home. Children got to spend quality time with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The interactions that ensued - some were captured on a camera while some remain etched in our memories (a camera of its own kind). They also got to spend a few moments with their great grandmother before she went on her life's last journey.

Personal Fitness: Morning walks that started as an effort to control my obesity and a chance to have meaningful conversations with my spouse. Zumba came as an addition for better cardio training on the insistence of a friend, which surprisingly I have started enjoying. Weight training is a recent addition to muscle strength and toning. A hashtag that started as a fun conversation with my spouse has now become my mantra for fitness - #FitBy50.

Overall the year that went by had some great moments, some personal growth, some personal losses - a typical sine wave - with its crests and troughs. This year, I think, was a perfect example of what life is all about - yin-yang combination - the good in bad, and the bad in good going hand in hand - the transientness of happy and sad, success & failure, gain and loss - a content year in all. Guess I have finally grown up enough to understand this - of course reaching close to the milestone of 40 years of age I am sure, has nothing to do with it (wink).

Wishing you and your Family a Happy 2020. Keeping in mind the WhatsApp message that is making the rounds, do not forget to make it a habit to write the year as a four-digit representation instead of the usual 2 digits (I have been doing this for 2 decades now). 

Typical Day If Something Goes Missing - Won The Hachette India Contest!

Pic. Courtesy: Google Images

Today evening I received my prize for winning the Contest Alert on March 9, from Hachette India. The challenge for the contest was to 'Create a story about a typical day if something goes missing'. Below is my entry for the same which won me the book - THE GOLLANCZ BOOK OF SOUTH ASIAN SCIENCE FICTION. I am thrilled and excited to start reading this book.

This is my first attempt at writing fiction.

_____________________________________________________

It is 7 a.m. in the morning. Aashi and Aadi walk down the stairs, as always, half asleep, to get to the wash basin to brush their teeth. The house is unusually silent for this time of the day, but they are still unaware of the eerie silence. They enter the kitchen and find that their morning hot drink is ready for them, which they pick up and drink and then switch on the TV. After 15 minutes, Aashi, heads to take bath and get ready for school while Aadi is still seated on the couch watching TV. Nishanth (their Dad) is sleeping. Aashi, on her way to the bathroom, wakes up her Dad and heads to the take bath. Nishanth, comes down for his coffee and notices the silence (or rather just the noise that is coming from the TV and nothing else). A school day morning is never silent. What was wrong? He heads to the kitchen and finds it empty. He thought he didn't see Nithya beside him when he woke up and she is neither here in the kitchen, and that too on a working morning. Now he is concerned and looks in every room, but she is nowhere. His heart is beating fast and he is very close to a panic attack. He rushes outside hoping to find her in the garden or walking around in the community only to have his hopes crushed. Now he is in full-blown panic mode.

He comes inside and asks Aadi if he saw his mom. Aadi says, "No papa."

Aashi is out of her bath and Nishanth asks her "Do you know where your Mom is?"

Aashi says, "I thought she was in the bath in your room."

Nishant says, "No, I have searched for her everywhere but I can't find her."

Aashi says, "Did you try calling her mobile or messaging her on hangouts?"

Nishanth does both only to find that the phone was ringing in their room. Now he goes frantic with anxiety, wondering if she actually did take his word seriously and walked out on him to her Mom's place or elsewhere, as he had asked her to when they were arguing the previous night, just before hitting bed. He picked up his phone to call his Mother-in-law, but then stopped himself. What would he tell his mom-in-law if Nithya wasn't there? Just then, Aadi notices that it is time for his bath and walks up the stairs, picks his clothes from his room, and then opens the door to the sit out calling out, "Ma, it is time for my bath. Can you help me with some warm water please?"

Nithya, promptly responds, "It is already done. Go and take your bath.".

She walks down the stairs with her head held high and a knowing smile on her face (and a glint of pride in her eyes only for Nishanth to see) and into the kitchen to pack the children's lunches. Understanding dawns on Nishanth and he realises how much he took her presence for granted and vows to himself to give more quality time for Nithya and their personal relationship over and beyond the roles they play as spouses, parents, among others. He now knows that Nithya is his earthing and he needs her by his side always for him to be the successful husband, father, employee, son, brother, and friend. A few seconds of her absence was enough to realise her importance in his life.

Life lessons that we can take from 3 Idiots

3 Idiots - a movie that released during Christmas 2009, starring Amir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Madavan, Sharman Joshi, Boman Irani, Javed Jaffery to name a few. I wrote a quick short review, when I first saw this movie during the Jan 2010. I even received a comment for that post mentioning that it already has a cult status. Now after 9 years of first seeing this movie, I must have seen it countless times and still haven’t gotten tired of it, those review pointers are still relevant. I even saw the Tamil remake of it in 2012 - Nanban starring Vijay, Ileana D’Curz, Jiva, Satyaraj, Srikanth, S.J. Surya. Personally, I prefer the Hindi version (probably because I saw the Hindi version first, but both are equally good)

Every time I see it, depending on the stage of my maturity I have seen layers in the movie that conveyed a message to every role that I have played till now. You might ask, “How”?. Here is a break down of what I saw and learnt from the movie:

Warning - For those who haven’t yet seen the movie there are a lot of spoilers on the story line and the characters. Maybe this is your chance to see this movie yourself and if you are a parent, please do see it with your children (age 6 and above will surely enjoy this movie)

Phunsuk Wangdu -The main character (protagonist) - called by many other names in a movie (mainly Rancho by his college mates), is a lifetime learner who keeps his creativity alive. His thirst to 'learn it all' (any way you can) along with the aspect of wanting to simplify it for use for the development of the community and make the process of learning enjoyable is very contagious. His character is inspired from a real life role model Sonam Wangchuk. His target is not marks or grades but the quest for information and how to use that information to attain efficiency and effectiveness with limited resources. 

Learning

1. He teaches us the importance of staying a lifetime learner and how that can keep you younger than most and stress free.
2. Every failure can be a learning experience.
3. Always stay calm and stay in your ‘Zen state’ in order to be able to achieve better.
4. Studies is just a means to reach your destination.
5. Encourage out-of-the-box thinking, practical applications of learning, & keep the creative trait alive by using it to enhancing life skills.
6. Learn to question authority when necessary and when they deserved to be questioned.

Virus (Dr. Viru Sahastrabuddhe) - the antagonist - the strict college principal who has a very strong conviction about doctrinal method of teaching and is unyieldingly stubborn in believing that being the first (top) is the most important target in one's life (Winning the rat race). He is also quite miserable most of the time as his target is always to be at the top which naturally creates stress.

Learning 

1. A little bit of flexibility to deviate from norm when needed.
2. To be humane towards the needs of the students.
3. Focus on performing to the best of one’s abilities.
4. Rat race and winning it, is not everything in life.
5. Challenge the monotonous and outdated curriculum and teaching methodology of institutions.

All the above are welcome aspects for one's personal sanity and contentment.

From a parent's perspective, 

1. Mad rush towards the tag of “Engineering” or such professional courses isn't the only career option. 
2. Career / course option should be more by choice than force.
3. Learn to listen to what your child is saying, to identify the strength of your child and support them to explore untried path as well as long as it is not detrimental to their progress. 

Virus’s son (gets mentioned when Pia, his daughter, reveals the real reason why her brother took his own life) and Joy Lobo (the boy who begs Virus for an extension for project submission date which he denies) 

Learning

1. By giving up they might have found a way out of the personal humiliation that failure might bring but in the process they end up giving life long pain and suffering to their family and friends. 
2. It is inhumane to pressurize people by threatening/humiliating them with failure. 

Farhan Qureshi - a student from a middle class background who is torn between the fact of wanting to live his parent’s dream of their child becoming an engineer and wanting to follow his heart and pursue photography as a profession but is unable to muster the courage to speak to his parents. Eventually with Rancho’s support speaks to his parents and convinces them to let him pursue his passion. He then goes on to have a fulfilling career once his internship is completed.

Raju Rastogi - a student from an impoverished background with an ailing father, a older spinster sister, and a retired school teacher mom who keeps reminding him that it is he who needs to shoulder the family’s responsibilities once he finishes his studies in flying colours and gets placed in a white collared job during campus recruitment. He finally manages to break free of the stress (that pushes him to attempt suicide) that this combination of expectations and doctrinal educational methods create and goes on to become a successful executive.

Learning from the above two: 

1. Turn the focus from Fear Of Failure (FOF) to Fun Of Learning (FOL). 
2. Build confidence to speak your mind (to parents and authority figures) with mutual respect & confidence in self. 
3. Be ready to learn and adapt.
4. Attempting to end one’s life is never a solution to escape from stress.

Pia and Mona Sahastrabuddhe - daughters of Virus who in their own individualistic ways play a part in standing up to their father’s wrongful convictions and methods. Eventually, they do nudge their father to accepting the (above) three students that he despises the most due to their antics. 

Learning 

1. Have the courage to stand up to your parents/authority when you know they are wrong.

Chatur Ramalingam (nicknamed Silencer) - A Tamil speaking student who has little knowledge of Hindi (In the Tamil version of the movie, he takes on the character of an Anglo-Indian who doesn’t know literature Tamil). When Rancho changes the speech that he delivers on stage for a college fest, he is publicly humiliated which turns him to despise these three for almost a decade. Eventually, though he is the VP in a USA based firm, he still has to run behind targets and deal closures for his job security. 

Learning

1. Difference between fun and public humiliation (to be avoided). 
2. Being the top in class is not everything.

With exams around the corner, it would be nice if parents and children together watched this movie again to refresh on what is necessary and what is not, re-evaluate priorities, and approach the exams with less stress and more joy as exams are one of the many means of evaluating one’s level of understanding. It is not the end of life and it is surely not a reason to end one's life!