The spectacle survival predicament

 There are two types of people in this world. One - People who wear spectacles. Two - People who eventually wear spectacles. I used to belong proudly to Category 2. Of late, my guru acharya was worried about me reading nonsense from the Sanskrit shloka book. And I almost slapped my wife, being unable to gauge the distance at which the mosquito was flying. These episodes gave me subtle hints about something seriously wrong. And then one day, karma arrived in the form of an eye test.

The doctor calmly asked me to read the smallest letters on the board.

“E… F… P…”

“Tej, that is REFRIGERATOR,” he replied. When his damsel MD assistant silently giggled at this, I realized this was the beginning of my downfall. How in my college days, I had laughed at my bespectacled friends. “Bro, Yesht idu?" (how many fingers am I showing?) I’d ask my friend from 20 feet away in front of his crush. No doubts – Karma has served me cold turkey!

I recalled how my X friends suggested me to chuck Lenskart because of their very apparent Hindu phobic approach and help a local optometrist instead. So I walked out of the ophthalmologist to an optometrist next door and felt like that character Akash from the movie Andhadhun. Inside, the spectacle shopping experience was another spectacularly disappointing experience. There were some expensive Italian brands with names that sounded like ice cream flavours: Casetta Sensovino, Tabernaclle Florentine, Luxottica and Persol. After giving a hint to the optometrist that this is my first time buying a spectacle, he gave me that “Ohh, Lenskart wale customer ho..” look and showed frames with English names like Executive Titanium, Urban Intellectual, Minimalist Vision Pro Max Ultra which again I had no idea of!

Buying spectacles is the only time in life when people voluntarily pay money to look smarter than they are. I chose a frame that made me look like a tuition teacher, an underpaid software engineer, and a disappointed father, all at the same time. Then came the painful line from him:

“Wear it all the time.”

ALL THE TIME? Brother, I haven’t even emotionally processed the diagnosis called “Presbyopia” yet! The brutality the universe was smearing on me was just too much to handle!

The First Time Wearing Them

The moment I wore spectacles for the first time; I realized many things. The world is in High Definition! I looked at myself in the Teams video call and discovered my face was no more rendering in 480p *tears of joy*. Dust exists everywhere. Trees suddenly had individual leaves, My office walls had texture, movie stars had pores! Of all, that speed breaker enroute to office that I always thought was a pothole, hurt me the most!

The Walking Problem and the cleaning ritual

Nobody warns you about stairs. The first day with spectacles, every staircase looks like a boss level in a video game. Your brain goes: “Is this step 2D or 3D?” You walk like a penguin carrying national secrets until you get used to it. Oh wait, the rain? Absolute betrayal, buddy. The glasses fog up instantly, and suddenly you’re driving through Silent Hill.

Spectacle wearers don’t clean glasses. They perform ancient rituals, every five minutes: remove glasses, breathe aggressively, wipe with shirt, somehow make it worse, inspect against light like a forensic investigator. And why do fingerprints appear magically? Nobody touches the lens. Yet somehow it looks like someone placed a butter naan on it.

The Social Reactions

Relatives reacted like I had achieved enlightenment.“Ayyo, specs ah? You look very studious now.”

I murmured “No aunty, I still failed in life. Just that I can see the failure more clearly”

Some friends said “Bro, you look intelligent.” Amazing how two pieces of glass can increase society’s confidence in a person. So, if Einstein had no spectacles, half his theories would’ve been ignored? Brutal world I tell ya!

The Sleeping Disaster

The first week is the worst. You go to bed straight after shutting down your laptop wearing spectacles and suddenly lie sideways on the bed, hear a crrrrrrrrrrkk sound and all the Italian frame names pass in front of your eyes. And your mind experiences the kind of fear usually reserved for tax raids thinking of having to buy another pair. After that, removing spectacles before sleeping becomes a sacred ceremony.

The Ultimate Humiliation

The real humiliation comes when you remove your spectacles to clean them……and cannot find them afterward. So technically, along with remote, keys, mobile, here is another new element added to your list of Keep somewhere and forget things. You spend five minutes searching for the very object required to search properly. This is the optical equivalent of forgetting your password to the password manager.

Acceptance

Eventually, spectacles is no more an accessory. It has become part of my personality. I now adjust them every 30 seconds in conversations, for no reason—just to look like I’m processing complex life equations. I’ll pause mid-sentence, push them up my nose with intense focus, and stare into the distance like I’m solving a murder mystery like Poirot. Sometimes, I nod gravely while adjusting them, as if the other person just said something profound… even if they asked, “Did you eat lunch?”.  And my favorite move—removing them dramatically and squinting at absolutely nothing. That’s my “exhausted intellectual” mode.

At this point, if I lose my spectacles, I may not be blind, but I lose 80% of my personality and 100% of my acting prop!

Bottom of Form

Sayonara, mother!

Year on year, I brushed off celebrations like Mother's day thinking why single out one day for something as boundless as a mother’s love. I was of the honest opinion that if something is truly foundational, reducing it to one commercialized day can feel inadequate or performative. But today, it feels very different. It has been a little over 2 months without her and the Mother’s Day arrives quietly for me. I am very happy that the world still moves in familiar ways — flowers wrapped in pastel paper, WhatsApp statuses with messages of gratitude; many true, some cliché. Beneath all of that celebration sits a silence I cannot escape this time. My mother is gone, and I least expected that the void her absence has created feels larger on days like this. 

She did not leave suddenly. Dementia took her slowly. That is one of the cruelest things about the disease. It does not simply end a life; it gradually alters it, piece by piece. Post the diagnosis, it created a strange kind of mourning — one where the person is physically present, yet slipping further away with every passing day. I remember the early signs we tried to dismiss. Unable to operate the TV remote. Repeated questions. Small confusions explained away as fatigue or aging. There were funny moments too: Forgotten names. The caretaker lady’s names changed to a Pan India name every time - Nalinabai Kanitkar, Noida Bhanu, Kedareshwari and many more :). Then came the moments that could no longer be ignored: the hesitation in her eyes when she looked at familiar faces, the growing uncertainty in ordinary tasks, the painful realization that memory — the invisible thread connecting a person to their world — was beginning to fray. 

And yet, even as memory faded, something essential about my mother remained. There were flashes — a smile at the sound of a familiar Dasara Pada, the episodes of Mayamurga that she recalled, moments when her eyes briefly carried the same comfort they had throughout my childhood. Those moments became precious because they were unpredictable. They reminded me that beneath the confusion and forgetfulness was still the woman who raised me, loved me, and shaped my understanding of care itself. And then, there were days where she longed to spend time with people she loved, who never visited when she could still comprehend things, and my wife and son did all that they can to subdue that. 

This Mother’s Day, what I miss most is not only her presence, but the certainty of it. I never thought I would miss my Mother so much that I’ve been realizing only of late, that she was the emotional architect of my life. She did so much with whatever little she possessed! Parents are the people we unconsciously expect to remain — the steady voice we imagine we can always call; the reassurance we assume will exist somewhere in the background of our hardest days. When that presence disappears, the world does not collapse dramatically. Instead, it changes quietly. Ordinary moments become emptier than they used to be. There are many ways grief after dementia carries its own peculiar exhaustion because the loss happens twice. First comes the gradual disappearance of the person you knew. Then comes death itself — final, undeniable, absolute. 

Dementia stole many things from her. It stole memories, independence, recognition. But it could not erase the impact of her life. It could not undo the years of her sacrifice, guidance, affection, and strength she poured into me, the people she taught at school and people around her. This is the paradox of grief: absence can become its own form of presence. 

I certainly do not miss her everywhere anymore. But, in conversations I wish I could have with her; in moments where my instinct is still to do with two cups of coffee, one for her and one for me; songs, recipes, and small habits I inherited without realizing it; when people complement my good Hindi vocab in spite of being a south Indian and even in the room freshener aroma that we used in her room during her last days; The void her death created is real, and with all the frenzy around Mother’s Day, it becomes impossible to ignore. So here I am! Writing this piece before all this memory fades away and I get busy with life...again! 

But alongside that emptiness is gratitude that I must not forget. Gratitude that I knew her before the illness. Gratitude my wife shared the burden of this journey on her shoulders too, Gratitude that my spiritual guru HH Sri Satyatma Tirtharu constantly reminded me of my responsibilities by means of his discourses; Gratitude that even dementia — relentless as it was — could not completely extinguish the humanity within her. 

Watching both parents disappear in fragments to this dreaded disease is a heartbreak difficult to describe. There is only helplessness in it. You want to protect them, to pull them back into clarity, to remind them of everything they once knew effortlessly. But here is the hard truth - Dementia does not negotiate with love. It keeps moving forward, indifferent to devotion, patience, or prayers. The journey has been of a profound learning. Immersed in memory’s ocean, I reach for the strands of wisdom my parents taught. The past hasn’t merely slipped away; it has refined me. From the depths of this reckoning, I hope this leads me to a new awakening

Sayonara, mother — With your blessings, I’m off to chase the horizon. Happy mother's day to you!

In the heart of Mungaravalli - The Havyaka hospitality

 Before talking about this Malnad trip, I should give you an idea of its origins. S.O.C – The Strategic Observation Center – Our area buddies’ own christened hangout spot! SOC isn’t anything grand, just a corner we claimed as our own, a compound we sat on; but it is the beating heart of our little world. SOC is where time seems to slow down. Even to this day, we gather mostly after dinner or on lazy evenings, taking a stroll around the area, come back to SOC and talk about everything under the sun. The laughter, the debates, the teasing… it all blended into a rhythm that only we understand. Decade old codenames like Exhibit A, huLi (Tiger), Dr. Vitthal Rao, Stacy’s mom, 3rd PUC boys are encrypted even to this day. Our visit to Abhi’s century old ancestral home in Mungaravalli, Sagara was a plan conceived right there at SOC somewhere during pre-covid era. But thanks to the busy lives and schedules of all of us; And of course, Anil's moving to Nashik; Abhi's own startup, Alu's ABC diet and Swaroop & Chaitra's babysitting priorities; The trip was executed probably a decade after!

The expectation was simple enough — just a few quiet days in that century-old home, savoring authentic Malnad cuisine, soaking in the rustic charm and be back to our chores. We thought it would be a short retreat, nothing more. But what awaited us was far beyond what we had imagined. The warmth of the hosts, the little gestures of care turned those days into something unforgettable. Every meal felt like it was cooked with love, every conversation carried the ease of belonging, and every corner of that house seemed to whisper stories of the past. What was meant to be a brief getaway became a memory etched deep. The Havyaka hospitality truly bowled us over.

About the place

Mungaravalli is tucked in the lush green folds of the Western Ghats, a 6 km drive from the town of Sagara. The Malnad region of Karnataka is a land that smells of rain-soaked earth, freshly ground spices, and tender areca leaves swaying in the monsoon breeze. But beyond its scenic charm, what truly defines Malnad is its people — and among them, the Havyakas stand out for their deep-rooted culture and unmatched warmth.

Who Are the Havyakas?

They are a Brahmin community with origins tracing back several centuries, known for their traditional values, distinctive dialect of Kannada (Havyaka Kannada), and reverence for knowledge and simplicity. Primarily spread across Uttara Kannada, Shivamogga, and parts of Dakshina Kannada, they have long been stewards of the region’s cultural and ecological heritage. But more than their scholarship or cuisine, it’s their hospitality — gentle, genuine, and unpretentious — that leaves the most lasting impression.

A Home in Harmony with Nature

Abhi's century old ancestral home at Mungaravalli

The house was a world unto itself — A century old home with a red-oxide flooring, open verandahs, wooden beams polished by decades of care, and a courtyard with pillars that make way for a makeshift attic to dry the arecanuts in summers and a kitchen garden fragrant with basil and curry leaves. Right opposite the house, it stretched endless green: areca nut trees swaying gently, turmeric leaves unfurling, black peppers on the cusp of harvest. Everywhere I looked, nature wasn’t a backdrop — it was part of daily life. The Havyakas of Mungaravalli have a way of living that flows effortlessly with the seasons. It reflected a harmony with the natural rhythms of Malnad. I, Anil and Swaroop were more than just guests and found ourselves not just staying in a home, but in a living ecosystem that breathed generosity.

A Connection to Nature

Much of this hospitality springs from the Havyakas’ close relationship with nature. Their home was surrounded by areca plantations, paddy fields, and kitchen gardens — are sanctuaries of self-sufficiency. I was told, everything served to a guest often comes from their own soil: home-grown vegetables, freshly pressed coconut oil, and the day’s harvest from the backyard. The way aunty made way for our Sandhyavandane; showed the madi neeru (Holy water) and basil leaves and asked Anil to pluck it for his Pooja; the way Abhi’s uncle plucked cucumbers and green chillies from the backyard and prepared a salad – For someone like me who has only heard of 2 minute noodles, the 2-minute salad was the epitome of homesteading! I still can’t get over the ease of living that they are used to!

The backyard with sustainable mobilty

Hospitality in Everyday Life

In reality, we are nothing more than just Abhi’s friends who wanted to experience MaLenadu. But every home Abhi took us to, his relatives, his dad’s friends and neighbors, they all treated us with so much of love because we are “Mungaravalli Haribhat’s Son Nagaraj’s neighbours! Next time, even without Abhi, we can visit with the tag “Mungaravalli Haribhat’s Son Nagaraj’s neighbours" and they'd still treat us with the same vigor. We had uncle’s Zen Estilo with us for entire two days, so we could drive to Jog, Ikkeri, NiNaSam and other places. Abhi’s aunt took so much of effort to prepare steaming idli, freshly ground coconut chutney and a cup of aromatic filter coffee because we are from Bangalore. Refusing it is almost impossible — not because of politeness, but because every offering by her carried the warmth of the giver.

Festival

All set for Tulasi pooje

The day was TuLasi habba. I am told that the Havyaka hospitality shines brightest during festivals. Food took center stage — with an elaborate spread of dishes like Majjige Huli, Tambuli, Huli Avalakki, and the iconic Saasive, each carrying centuries of tradition were served. I and Swaroop decided to run an extra 5K when back in Bengaluru and declared it a cheat day **winks**. We were invited by their neighbours to the evening tuLasi habba! And they gave dakshine, because for them, it was Brahmans visiting them on festive day! I can’t recall when was the last time I did that to any of my brahman friends visiting home. **frowns**. There was also a short conversation on Queen Chennabhairadevi's bravery since she was from that region with neighbour akka, which I haven't done with anyone for long! In the midst of all these, Abhi's uncle understood our perpetual love for Midi mango pickles and arranged a bottle of those for all of us! How can I ever forget this! I Can go on and list a few hundred more things that made us happy there, in just two days!

This visit made me think; What is that they do so differently, that they won hearts in less than two days! What makes the essence of the entire Mungaravalli’s warmth so different from us? What makes their hospitality so memorable? For sure, one thing is convincing! Unlike the urban dwellers like us, what they offer the guests is not extravagance but sincerity. In a world that often rushes past, they embody the rare art of pausing for people – They genuinely invest their time to converse and connect with everyone. I say this because of the 10 odd homes we visited in 2days, we were the same strangers for them, yet we experienced the same warmth! 

Whether you are a guest in their home or just an acquaintance, you’ll carry back more than just memories of scenic beauty; After two long months of this visit, that feeling follows me — We arrived as guests — And left as family.

 

Down the memory lane…..

 It was not until I walked in to perform my father’s tri-pakshika that an unexplained sense of uneasiness hit me hard. I struggled unsuccessfully to regain that inner composure to perform the monthly death ritual. I think Srinivas Achar sensed this and did not mind correcting me this time. Perhaps, all these days, I was taking solace under the axiom that it was an end to his pro-longed suffering and so death was good. I came home, switched on the TV only to see the news flashing that SL Bhyrappa is no more. Suddenly the fingers of time played a heavy chord selection on the emotional strings of my memory guitar.

Two things that I and my father spoke a lot on; Books and Bollywood. Of course, it was him who introduced me to both; but over a period of time, on both fronts, I had carved out a niche of my own. So the debates concerning Books and Bollywood were always extended and serious. My father had this habit – He was always curious on what I read. Since it was one of the books from his own collection most of the times, he used to sneak in during my reading session to ask me – “what did you find interesting in that book” and then he would give his perspective.

I recalled a few lengthy conversations that I had with my father on SL Bhyrappa’s works, particularly his autobiography Bhitti, in which Bhyrappa has documented, in detail, the struggles of young self Bhyrappa. My father, somewhere deep down, had this delinquency that he did not do much for me and that I would do better in life if he had managed to facilitate my upbringing a little more structurally. He had said that he did not have the same delinquency about my sister because he knew her limitations, I had laughed it off, saying we both have anyway done good in life and it doesn’t really matter now. On many other occasions, we had debated on SL Bhyrappa’s other works too – Avarana were both our favorites. He did not like Uttara Kanda for some weird reasons. For some weird reasons, Lankesh was his favorite; But I hated him! Even to this day, it hasn’t changed J.

And then there were the Bollywood debates. He was a very serious movie aficionado. People who know him know how much he ate, drank and slept cinema. For the records, he has also compiled all his Kannada Prabha articles on Movies in a book named – Nenapugala Reelu Bichhutta (Translates to Unwinding the reels of memories) #TrueStory. I told him many times that is he is wasting his Cinema gyan, by not writing columns and anecdotes on national dailies and weekly magazines and monetizing it.

I had even told him very seriously that “If I were you, I’d work on a thesis and get a PhD on Bollywood”. He forced on me, his opinions of movies which were technically brilliant, but I wouldn’t get them because the stories were really duh! Movies like Pyasa impressed him, but I wouldn’t watch such movies at all and branded them “Patho”. For me, Bollywood was means of winding off after a busy day at work or road. So my go-to movies were the likes of Sooryavansham and Meri Jung - One Man Army, ROFLMAX! Occasionally, there were middle ground days where we both would watch a great movie together like Anand or The Guns of Navarone.

And then, there were the usual Indian middle class gyan :

“You guys are enjoying the capitalist regime. So you won’t understand the struggles of our Nehruvian socialist regime. I used to chase the BTS conductor to get the 75 paise change that he used to write on the back of the ticket so that I can use it for tomorrow’s journey “

“If you work hard and study well, you’ll do good in life. If you don’t take studies seriously, I don’t have money to buy you even an auto rickshaw"  (Hell, yeah. All my friends used to mimic this :)" 

The electricity and water bills that I am not willing to arrange as per the date; The LPG cylinder that he always remembered to book on time, but I am missing; Such small memories remind me of him and remind me of the void that is created without him. Along with it, it also haunts me with the memory of a feeding tube running through his nose, going down the throat and reaching his stomach; the memory of all skin and bones, at the mercy of doctors, his arms tied to the bed; his eyes, helpless and ruminating on the very nature of his existence. Arghhh!

Gods forbid, if at all, any of your loved ones’ life comes to this point of choosing between enduring cruel clinical procedures that does not come with any hope and a natural end, surrounded by his loved ones, choose the latter! I mean it. I know this is a million-dollar question, but be firm and choose wisely. The broad sympathies and discerning insights needed for the healing of earthly woes cannot be a mere intellectual consideration. As my father would have liked it

“Babu Mashoy….. Zindagi badi honi chahiye.. Lambi nahi”

Let go of caffeine, and the universe will pour you Kashaaya

After quitting all social media, coffee became the only social phenomenon I actively kept alive. So much so that I even made friends in clinic waiting rooms who shared my coffee overdose plight. My gastroenterologist started empathizing with me for paying him such hefty consultation fees. I even searched to see if the Indian government had a caffeine de-addiction program. #Winks.

My caffeine addiction went on for years, gifting me frequent burps and persistent discomfort. Antacids, Eno sachets, and Amlant tablets became essential items in my packing list. Even today, my laptop backpack always has a few Eno sachets tucked away. I tried decaf, tea, milk, hot water, buttermilk, green tea, chamomile tea, ice cream—you name it. But every alternative only amplified the craving, and within weeks, I’d be back to my six-cups-a-day routine. Once, I even managed to quit coffee for a glorious four or five days, but the internet—with its seductive buzzwords and poetic odes to filter kaapi—pulled me right back in.

Like many coffee lovers, I was unaware of caffeine’s adverse effects until it wrecked my digestion. My research unearthed a perspective I’d never considered: caffeine isn’t the elixir of life—it’s a drug. I was building tolerance, not savoring flavor. What started with one cup in the morning soon became two, then three, and kept escalating.

I was at Ground Zero—problem identified. But I’d also reached a point where I couldn’t function without that morning cup. Add to that, my father, who has Alzheimer’s and often forgets he already had his coffee. With his second cup came my second round too, and my wife was stuck in an endless loop of brewing coffee all day. Despite many failed attempts to reduce consumption, I felt helpless.

Fast forward to the Bengaluru "summer" of 2025—which, let’s be honest, didn’t exist. It rained almost all through May, with humidity soaring past 80%. When the flu swept through the ranks of my software engineer brethren—Anshul, Naveen, Girish, and the rest of us—we quit coffee cold turkey. We started ordering Kashaya, a traditional Indian hot beverage made with a blend of spices and herbs, inspired by Ayurveda, at the Udupi hotel. It has served its purpose. Proof? Less people clearing their throats in the Team meetings. So we are even considering replacing the VS Mani instant coffee powder in our office.

My Kashaya turning point came at my friend Abhi’s place. While sharing my tale of addiction with Abhi's mother, she served me her homemade Kashaya—and it was the best I’d ever had. She even gave me a batch of her own powder, generously made with fresh spices from her hometown in Malenadu. Now, the home coffee quota is down significantly. She taught me two versions: one with hot water, and another with milk. She’s promised to keep making it for me, freshly ground. True friendship isn’t about your Wi-Fi connecting at their house—it’s when the Kashaya flows freely! #Roflmax

Now, I only allow myself one cup of coffee—after my morning walk. No walk = no coffee. My digestion has normalized, and the caffeine–cortisol–appetite cycle has finally broken, bringing relief to my hunger pangs. Coffee lovers might come for me, but this is my truth: coffee isn’t a paradise drink—it’s a placebo.

Remember that iconic Bollywood dialogue?
Kehte hain agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho toh puri kaynat usse tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai. (If you desire something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to help you achieve it.)

Well, the universe conspired—and helped me decaf.

This journey has been one big realization: when you let go of what grips you, you signal to the universe that you are ready to receive. 

In other words... 

Let go of caffeine, and the universe will pour you Kashaaya.

Expect nothing and live frugally by surprise

My parents do not have a conscience anymore. Thanks to Alzheimer’s. They do not hesitate to say it all; saying all the stupid, obvious, nauseating things that conscience keeps most people from saying. With experience, I have come to terms with the fact that when people who know their condition do not give a damn, why would others. And this, of late, has upset me. So, of late, I am confined to my house and do not visit anyone or do not encourage anyone visiting home. With all the chaos at home, I no longer know - is home the place we run to or is it the place we run from. But this time, I had to fulfil a long pending visit to one of my father’s childhood friends. It was with the exact same fear, that I decided to visit him. But what unfolded there was a totally “Ok Zoomer” moment for me.

To give you a bit of background, Subbanna uncle and my father are friends for 60+ years now. They were childhood neighbours in a small town, grew up in the same locality, went to same school, same college and started working at the neighbouring PSUs in the same town. There was this disconnect when my father got transferred to Bangalore in the late 70s, but they still managed to keep up the friendship until last few years with a couple of must do annual visits. Fast forward to post covid era and they both have their own health concerns bothering them. With a lot of preparation and hesitation, I took my father to Subbanna uncle’s home yesterday.

After seeing my father going through his hallucinations often, it was a totally different, sane and happy version of him that I got to see yesterday. There was a momentary air of hesitation. But once they opened up, they spoke at length on the time they spent together in their childhood, the cinema they watched together and the books they read. I came to know only yesterday that my father had written a play which they enacted in one of the cultural events in college! They made a few phone calls to their other friends and planned another possible meet-up. Vishvanath uncle joined on phone, Subbanna uncle’s brother, Ramu, who is 88, came over with the help of a walker and joined the conversation. I so wanted to include him also in the pics I clicked, but couldn't ask him to get up and move again. They spoke on their gang's nick names and he recalled how my father was called as "Walking Dictionary" in office in those days. He recalled my father’s impeccable writing and asked if his handwriting was still that legit. They recalled watching movies at a nearby talkies and their club visits, my granny’s culinary skills and many other topics. I was really happy to see my father enjoying the company. I think this visit was precisely what my father wanted – A wing of change to socialize with real people.

Subbanna uncle had spoken to his brother who is a Neuro specialist, about my father’s condition and had gathered some tips to give me to take better care of my father. He was so confident that my father’s condition can be reversed or the progression be delayed, to say the least with those Dos and Don’ts. From Music to Medicine, every word of advice he gave me was echoing the concern he had for my father. I could recall him exclaiming to me at least 20 times, “See – He remembers!!”

I was silently witnessing all this, seeing a momentary happiness in my father’s otherwise lonely, deaf and hallucinating world; my mind comparing Subbanna uncle with all the people I reached out to, for help, to overcome my situation and the naive reasons they gave to abstain and the pretense they displayed. This was the “Expect Nothing.. Live frugally by surprise” moment for me. I’m so contented that in tonight’s dreams, the very Alzheimer’s disease, will sing to me, a rhapsody of illusory marvel that lightens up my heart and fill my brain with an intoxicating amount of dopamine, healing all the wounds of a man who is witnessing his parents deteriorating right in front of him.

I realized one thing today - When you keep up meaningful relationships in life, it can have benefits beyond lifting your spirits. The benefit of true friendship is really immeasurable.

I started my car only to see that even with all the difficulty to walk, Subbanna uncle walking up to us, stood beside my car window, shook hands with his old friend for good ten minutes and said goodbye. On a normal day, I’d yell at everyone for delaying boarding the car stating fuel price, but today, I wanted the engine to roar silently for a few more hours!

An open letter to Insensitive Intellectual Idiots

 The peace that prevailed all these years at my home, has slowly withered away. It was my mother first and now, my father too has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. My dad’s elder sister too is a victim of Alzheimer’s. My grandma had this. So my entire family is slowly waking up to the fact that there is genetics at play. My parents’ health is deteriorating every day and unfortunately, I have no other option than to be a witness for it. Of course, I am going that extra mile to ensure their wellbeing is always a priority. I often tell myself that the most fundamental element needed to sail through this difficult time is patience. But it been easier said than done to inculcate it.

The shenanigans of this bad ailment is such that more than the patients, it directly impacts the serotonins of their family and friends who are dealing with it first-hand. I’ve been embracing my fear of losing them, their faults, their uncertainties, their immaculate behavior; all by myself. A very few close friends know about this, but this is a very challenging time for me. Consequently, there have been some lapses on my commitments. This has led to a few verbal duels with my wife. It, in fact, has gone beyond this and we can now be called a mildly battered couple, thanks to two Alzheimer’s patients at home.

Trust me, impaired cognition is not so easy to deal with, especially when you know there is no change coming in, ever. You have to deal with it as long as they are alive. The situation will only get worse over time. I am not even going into the details of my father’s auditory hallucinations. The very fact that it is irreversible is enough to weaken the dependents emotionally. On top of it, being a middle class family, there are financial and societal implications that you have to deal with. While figuring out things on all these fronts, a few duels happened. I have had regrets on the way things were going, especially with the battered couple tag **winks**, but with god’s grace, life is back to normal. Honestly, I am repentant and have come to terms with how I should not repeat it. I have learnt to cope with the situation now. But what I am not able to cope is the presence of insensitive intellectual idiots (i3s) around me who do not even know what the disease is, but lecturing me on how I should cope. Argghhhh!

Some came home, spent 10 min with my father and gave me hour long lectures on “why have we reduced the food quantity”, “why should I buy him more shirts” and “how often should I take him to barber”, “GPS based tracker for my father” and what not! One one hand, my father is finding it difficult to operate his own cell-phone and TV remote, but my uncle wants my dad to do all the ironing of clothes, so he is occupied. A married couple in their late 30s who never even dreamt of having kids are lecturing me on my son’s upbringing. The worst of them all is this: A relative of my wife, who neither knows A of Alzheimer’s nor my parents name, thinks I have lied about my parent’s condition. She has written a long message to me on WA stating that I’m trying to cover up issues with my wife by lying about my parents’ condition. And that karma will catch up with me **duh**. There are specimens who have started doing Yoga just a couple of years ago and consider themselves spiritual icons, giving me lectures on DOs and DON’Ts of my life. I wanted to tell the person that my spiritual guru has been guiding me since the time you had not even reached your puberty.

I got curious and dug deeper to understand why there are so many i3s (insensitive intellectual idiots) who cannot shut up, to say the least, if not empathize with my family. My father’s Neurologist gave me the answer. Although Alzheimer’s is highly prevalent in the west, people in India, by large, do not know about this disease. Average Indian Life span used to be 65-66 years a couple of decades ago. But due to advancement in medicine and Human Development Index going very high in the metro cities of India in the last decade, life expectancy of Indians has gone up to 75+ years. This had led to surfacing of alarming number of Alzheimer’s patients in India. In other words, very few have known & dealt with the disease in past. Suddenly there is a buzz with a lot of cases and people yet to assimilate. Doctor is confident that people will learn to deal with it, I am not!

I am at that juncture of my life where I am not at peace to tolerate such nonsense. It is a challenging time for me and I do not think of consequences when I speak/reply. My mind is currently a jumble of inaccuracies and my responses might make you very uncomfortable. How can someone say I am lying about my parents, goddammit! I know I am bad at expressing my emotions in public. But saying that I’m lying about my parents is a blaze of akhand chutiyapa. Please give your thoughts some food before being an insensitive asshole. Reform your own lives before judging somebody else’s. See if your own mother is happy before passing insensitive comments on others. Be nice to people on your way up because you’ll meet them on your way down. There are better things to look after than lecturing how many times my father must shave his beard! Don’t let me grab you by the shoulders on another blog post. Educate yourself on this degenerative disease; how it impacts the caregivers, its emotional paradigm. Empathize with the caregiver and their family and help them lead a more contented life.

If not, at least, SHUT THE F*** UP!!

Image credits: Google Images

Single screen theaters in Bengaluru - A lost legacy

Gaurav sent an early morning news snippet in our Friends WA group. It said “Cauvery” theatre will be shut down and it will make way for a commercial complex”. The post received a sad emoji from all of us and was active after months of silence. My friends pulled my leg (I'll talk about that later) and we all recalled how we went to Cauvery theater to watch Kaante, but ended up watching a Saikumar starter Kannada movie, missing to check what was running for Morning show😊.

For a moment, my mind wandered through two decades of my pensive reserves of the happy association I had with Cauvery theatre.  Of course, this is not a new trend in Namma Bengaluru, we’ve been used to Individual theatres in the city shutting shop since a decade now. I’ve written in past about many of the once prominent theatres like Adarsha, Kino, Uma, Symphony, Plaza, Galaxy and many others on KG road.  But Cauvery is a special case for me. It is close to my home, my school, college and hence to my heart! If you’re a movie buff and you’re a proud namma Bengaluru resident since early 90s, then you’ll have a fair idea on what our city has lost on the entertainment front.

Cosmo culture

If you think Bangalore has turned multi-ethnic after the IT uprising, then you are off beam. Bangalore’s cosmopolitan culture dates to early and late 80s. While Hyderabad and Chennai play vernacular movies to a greater extent even today, Bangalore has been offering a rich, diverse and extravagant movie experience from ages. Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu and even Bengali & Malayalam movie fans have cherished their moments inside a Bangalore theatre. Remember, those were the days, Mallus and Bongs were not flocking to namma Bengaluru in search of jobs and their numbers were very limited.

No Language wars in our talkies

Unlike today, the Sandalwood movie industry’s cries that “we don’t get screens for vernacular movies” were just non-existent; because those were the days where Kannada movie industry was at its peak. Those were the days when Kannada movies ran to packed houses for one to two years and were remade in all other Indian languages, thanks to rich Kannada literature adaptations, great musicians, directors and lyricists. I fondly recall how my dad narrated his movie watching chronicles; Annavru’s Veerakesari was the first ever movie aired in Navarang and how he had bunked college to watch it, only to be caught by a neighborhood uncle next to his seat.

Cinema - Now and then

Along with movies, our movie going experience also has seen a radical makeover. Thanks, but no thanks to OTT! Those were the days where movie going was merriment. It was exciting for every middle-class family. The reason was very simple: It was the ultimate sort of entertainment for us. There was no internet; no IPL and no 200+ entertainment channels on television. And there were no mobile phones to be hooked onto for 10+ hours a day. If I tell any millennial kid that I have watched English movies in Sangam, they might get judgmental. But, yeah, true story! I still remember the ecstasy of watching English Movies like Jurassic Park, Jumanji, and a few other sci-fi thrillers in Sangam.

 Just like movies, the movie theatres were also equally special. Not just because of movies, it would also mean a bunch of other things followed by a movie. A good movie in the KG road/Majestic area would be followed by Lunch @ Kamat, if it was Urvashi, it would mean, lunch at MTR, movie in Navrang would always be accompanied by a visit to uncle’s place and so on. My favorites were Galaxy and Symphony because it’d be followed by ice cream at Lakeview, MG road and a chance to play in lifts at dad’s office. I still recall those movie going experiences because of such small pleasures. This is one of the reasons why I still remember watching movies in Puttanna in Jayanagar, Geetanjali in Malleshwara or Uma theatre. I got introduced to Rajni saar’s fandom in Kino, watching Arunachalam! Oh man, I can go on and on!

Cauvery memory

Talking specifically of Cauvery, for me, 2nd show movie meant only Cauvery. Watching movie at Cauvery was affordable compared to paying heavy parking fee at any of the Multiplexes. A torino (Remember “The Only” soft drink of yesteryears?) shared between me and my sister was, by far was more enjoyable compared to pre-booking nachos and Popcorn combos in PVR. My dad getting tickets to home and taking us was more exciting than today’s booking tickets online. I can never forget my first movie date disaster with my college crush **winks**. It was Hrithik Roshan starrer Aap Mujhe Acche Lagne Lage, was again in Cauvery theatre. When I drive through today’s eternally jammed Windsor-Mekhri stretch, I recall how Cauvery junction, without the BDA's engineering marvel called Magic box underpass, had traffic jams only when a movie show was just over and people would come out of theaters.. Be it Bollywood movie with Wife and friends or Puneet Rajkumar’s family entertainer with family, the preferred cinema hall was always Cauvery.

Cauvery Theater

Even to this day, all my school friends prefer individual theatres to watch a movie because we enjoy audience’s satirical comments in an individual theatre like Cauvery more than our corporate audiences’ silence in multiplexes. This post is incomplete without mentioning theatres of KG road. While Sagar played Hindi blockbusters like DDLJ and Hum Aapke hain Kaun, Tribhuvan played English flicks. Plaza, Adarsha, Swagath, Lido, Shanti, Pallavi, Kino, Nanda and so many other theatres appear in front of my eyes if I think of movie halls in Bangalore. Today, most of these have succumbed to the real estate roar.

Storylines and narratives in movies of today have changed, the city is changing and so are the movie watching experiences. From watching an early morning show for fans to Netflix and chill, a lot of things have changed. But the fact remains that in the necklace of Bangalore’s cosmopolitan entertainment, so many pendants are missing and many others are in the verge of getting lost.  Alas, a true Bangalorean will miss them forever!

The Return of the King

    It was just another lazy weekend and I was busy browsing OTTs, with an indecisive dilemma running an infinite loop on what to watch. Sudhindra ji’s call brought me back to senses and I realized I’d have, as usual, wasted at least 30 min trying to find something to watch that would interest me!

“What are you doing right now?”

“Nothing important. Watching something interesting” **duh**

“Tej, I need a help. Lakshman ji is injured and we need a known old face in the colony to accompany our folks to distribute Sri Rama’s Phala Mantrakshate that has arrived from Ayodhya.”

With zero determination, I said Okay”. Sudhindra ji described the Do’s and Don’ts for a few minutes and disconnected. With a subtle cry of confusion, I met the other RSS Karyakarta in my locality, who was assigned to distribute the Mantrakshate that has arrived from Ayodhya, to all the houses in the colony. I thought it would just be another “visiting my homies” event. But what happened over the next four hours was a boomerang of emotions! At the end of it, I was feeling totally elated with all the varied emotions people displayed. All the insightful interactions, the stories, their belief, betrayal they experienced back in 92 and how people have been waiting for the return of Sri Rama in Ayodhya; It gave me a real picture of how big and collectively congenial this event is for Indian Hindus! One thing was very evident - Bhaarata is witnessing its first mega divine event since 1947. Read on.

An uncle, on hearing why we are there, got fully teary eyed, wiped his tears and recalled the story of how he, in his mid-30s, dared collect funds in the Muslim majority neighborhood to buy 50 bricks and sent it to Ayodhya for the reconstruction of Sri Rama Mandira. He took us to his Pooja room to show us “how he has been reciting Rama taaraka mantra” every day for the last 32 years. I, for once, thought, I may not have not seen the pious disposition of humility of Shabari from Ramayana, but this uncle’s faith is no less. Faith can indeed move mountains!

Another entrepreneur that we visited enthusiastically said that he has declared 22^nd Jan, Monday, a holiday for his enterprise and wants all his employees to celebrate the return of Sri Ram Lalla to Ayodhya. He urged us to bunk offices that day and do a grand Pooja at home. He also said that a Live telecast of the Prana Pratishtapana event has been arranged in the temple’s hall and we can gather together to celebrate there in large numbers!

I could feel the restlessness in the old lady, who said, my sister in Chennai phoned that she has already received the mantrakashate and I was waiting for you guys since yesterday. The Old lady’s husband lauded our efforts of doing this and called it a divine work. We could see him feeling fetter when he expressed his inability of not being able to join us due to a knee surgery that he had undergone recently.

Another doctor couple explained how the estrangement in the neighborhood grew with other faiths post the babri masjid demolition incident and how their love thy neighbors failed to look at things beyond the lens of religion. He further said “It has been 32 years now, I don’t care anymore and will happily celebrate on 22^nd Jan, welcoming Sri Rama, come what may!” He said “A meteoric rise is inevitable after a fateful loss and we all will witness that rise now in our country”.

Some offered monetary help assuming we are going to Ayodhya on 22^nd for the Prana Pratishtapana event, which we casually declined, while others happily agreed to at least lamp a few diyas on the day of consecration of Sri Rama. Some also showed us the stock of firecrackers to be burnt on the consecration day. Of course, there were some Haider Hindus, who shooed us away without even being courteous, but it is not even worth talking about them here.

While it was not surprising to hear many showering laurels on the man who made it happen – Our Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, I was indeed very surprised to see families taking selfies with us, clicking pictures of us handing over the phala mantrakshate to them, offering sweets, coffee, fruits and displaying all forms of sweet hospitality. I couldn’t recall when was the last time people waited, took selfies and lauded strangers visiting their houses. I was glad to read similar stories on Social media as well. I could clearly see that this Return of the king event is re-igniting the penultimate dreams of billions of Indians; restoring the Rama Rajya in Bhaarata!

Indulgence in this activity is something I was glad I did not miss and will definitely remember for the rest of my life!  I came back home with a sheer satisfaction of happily exclaiming #JaiSriRam more than 1000 times.

And the old lady’s words are still abuzz in my mind - Raama Banda... Rama Rajya noo baratte (Translates to “The king has returned. The core ideals of virtue, morality and justice will also return to India).

Cant stop recalling Tolkein’s Poem from the Return of the King

 "From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.”

A mindful conversation

For a long time now, I have always evaded paying a visit to my sister’s home by giving the weirdest and very unreasonable excuses, purely because of traffic chaos that I have had to endure to reach Nelamangala. But circumstances this year were totally different, thanks to the unprecedented times in the family and I am a regular visitor now. My nephew who is now a student of a residential school, 400 km away from home, is studying eleventh grade. He had come home for a week for holidays. This time, my sister had asked me to come home and specifically talk to him because ever since he has gone away from home, it has become hard for her to connect with him and that he is behaving weird. This was making her very anxious. 

I've seen my nephew growing in front of my eyes. From his super mischievous deeds like him painting my bike with a weird colored enamel paint, to both of us doing Harry Potter and other superhero quizzes online, we have always been on good jovial terms. We never discussed academia or had intellectual conversations together in the past. The conversation that I had with him this time was so different, that I took some time to come to terms with it. It made me see remarkable changes in his attitude and thought process, and I realized quite a few things have changed for good. This blogpost is all about the conversational epiphany that I experienced. 

The conversation started with me inquiring about his hostel life. He said he is enjoying this life. He started talking about how his life has changed. From waking up at leisure 8AM in the past to 530AM, doing the laundry himself; how the absence of luxuries of zomato and swiggy is controlling his hunger pangs; how he has been accustomed to the meditation that he is forced to perform everyday for 15 min and in spite of being able to sense that he is sleep deprived, how the meditation is actually helping him concentrate better with his academia; I could feel a drastic change in his tone. 

He was then saying that it took him a lot of time to get used to this hostel life without gadgets and gaming. He said he has made very good friends and they all spend quality time; he explained the non-academia things they do to rewind after a busy day at college. To my surprise, he was appreciative of the conducive environment within the campus due to non-availability of mobile phones. I recalled all the games he played on the mobile phone in the past and told myself “not bad”.

And then came the most important thing, his future plans: He said he was confused about his future plans. He said he is unable to decide yet whether to go for both JEE-Mains and Advanced or just prepare for JEE-Mains so that it would help him prepare for K-CET and Comed-K in parallel. He spoke at length on why he thinks getting into an IIT would be difficult for him. He said he doesn't know if it is just insecurity with all that has happened recently or fear or both, that is stopping him from knocking the doors of IIT. Then he spoke of his hatred for chemistry. He took a pause to recall his dad’s love for chemistry and then went on talking about how he finds Chemistry so boring and difficult to even balance simple chemical equations; how he thinks those IUPAC names are just crazy and how chemistry alone has pulled his GPA down by significant margin. He was sad that he was still a seven point someone :). 

At that moment, I took a pause. For someone who has always discussed movies, super heroes, gaming and fantasy novels with me, such serious conversations were a little hard for me to absorb. My nonchalant nephew that I saw just six months ago was having such a mature conversation with me. 

I did not express any emotion, but I realized that he sensed that disconcerting look on my face too. This entire conversation lasted for about an hour and a half. At the end of it, the realization that I am in my late thirties already was hard to come by *winks*.

I just nodded happily and gave a subtle reply “Well, that is youth for you. It sets its own boundaries without even asking whether the body & mind can take it or not”. I advised him to start preparations for K-CET, COMED-K and JEE Mains, with a vision to get into a good NIT. When I said “As a fallback, we always have very good engg colleges in Karnataka too” he looked somewhat convinced and the conversation ended. I went inside and just told my sister “Don’t worry about his behavior. He is in the process of defining himself”. 

Until now, I was not a proponent of the belief that adolescence is a stage in life. But I am convinced that it is changed now. The saying "Chronological age is not a biological marker" is more evident than ever; even more so with the millennials. This entire episode felt like reading a Paulo Coelho’s novel. Phew; the fingers of time played a heavy chord selection on the emotional strings of my guitar!

The rising concern of virtue signaling in the Indian courtrooms

 Scene-1

An assailant, who has committed a heinous crime of raping and murdering a 4-year-old girl child is standing within the balustrade. He is pretty convinced of his fate that is awaiting him. Naturally, death is inevitable for him and is going to be a reality very soon. And why not! The most unpardonable, utterly disgusting and wicked sin that he has committed deserves nothing less than death.

The reading of the final judgement begins. The judge starts off calling the act barbaric and monstrous. The judgement also reads “A tiny, bud-like girl was smothered by the appellant before she could blossom in this world. The monstrous act of the appellant suffocated the victim to such an extent that she had no option but to leave this world.”

Scene-2

But the milords gave the most unprecedented twist to this case. The three judge bench declares that the crime committed cannot be termed as the rarest of the rare to award a death sentence.

** Audience and the victim’s family is flabbergasted** W.H.A.T?

Wait, it doesn’t end there. In what appears to be a Bollywood mimicked woke gathering where the judge who penned the judgement quotes Oscar Wilde “Every Saint has a past and every Sinner has a future” and reduces the death sentence to 20 years of imprisonment.

I’m sure the above scene puts even the most intriguing courtroom comedy scenes like Legally Blonde or even namma CSP to shame! But, this is no Netflix series. This happened in real, three days ago in the Supreme court of India. I frankly do not have enough imagination to recall the drama that would have unfolded in this court hearing! The bench refers to the principles of restorative justice and believes that the victim deserves an opportunity to become a socially useful person and repair the damages caused. On this grounds, milords reduce the death sentence awarded to a child rapist to 20 years’ imprisonment. Yeah! True story, this one!

I am not even going to the intricate details of what Oscar Wilde meant in his above quote. You can read it here. But of late, repeatedly, the Supreme court of India, through its judgement, has proven that it is more inclined on virtue signaling than sending a strong message to the offenders. In this case, I truly fail to understand the need to uphold the sentiments intended to demonstrate a rapist’s good character in a courtroom! It is truly shameful that a three judge bench, of which one is a woman, shows concern for a child rapist. And in the name of justice, all that victim’s family received was cliché! Oh dear lord; I cannot imagine the victim family’s plight.

Of late, such folly by milords of India has become a mainstream concern for the justice seekers of our country. There have been more and more judgements in which judges have their own ideas of what constitutes as justice as opposed to what is right circumstantially (Sabarimala case), giving weightage to their own views in deciding the judgements (Freeing Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins), unnecessary levels of virtue signaling (Sallu Bhai case), citing examples of the legal luminaries of west instead of our own (Chief Justice DY Chandrachud). I can go on and on!

Whenever someone spoke ill of judiciary in my informal debates with friends and family, I have always asked them not to throw rotten tomatoes at the judiciary. I always argued that when justice fails, it is the dawn of new bad beginnings. I am not sure If I myself have this opinion anymore. I am no legal expert, so I discussed this case with a lawyer in the family who practices in the supreme court. This is what he opined “there was a time when our judges were capable of identifying virtue signaling attempts by lawyers. They were capable of seeing through the façade and recognize the hidden motivations of such virtue signaling. Now, our judges need lessons on why it is not a good idea to base judgements in heinous crimes on restorative justice”. He said that the judges of yesteryears based judgements on mature jurisprudence than the contemporary judges

With such repeated woke liberal behaviors in the courtroom, justice is going to be far-fetched. It concerns me even more when I see that executive and legislature are seeing improvements (Yes, I have my reasons to say so), but judiciary is slowly becoming implausible. I sincerely pray to god that such irrational behaviors by milords will write its own death sentence, for the greater good! Let dharma prevail.

Digital Detox? Now is the time

The digital extravaganza has been an overkill of late. It looked like it is an opportunity, during the lockdown, to fill the gap with whatever you were doing when you could go out. During office, end of day meant 530pm, or even if we pushed it by an hour, I would surely unplug at 630 or 7pm, considering the traffic shenanigans. The luxury of work from home did not impose that restriction, so I was on my own in completing everyday tasks. I was starting an hour late, thanks to Ramayan, I was taking Mahabharat break every day for an hour and when I was not in any meeting, I would sit with my laptop in front of television and continue working. Initial few months of lockdown felt so good, that I started imagining televisions in office so that work is not stressful at all. But gradually, Mahabharat and Ramayan on television ended and my own Ramayan started. I got bored being inside four walls. Series binging with dad also came to an end. I had no time to read amidst the work. I started dedicating some time for my religious observances. Even though this was rewarding, this didn’t last either.

Uninstall Facebook WhatsApp Instagram

Even though life was slowly getting back to normal, with every new thing I was trying to do, I was spending more time with electronics and mobile phone. By the end of Oct, I realized that I was addicted to Twitter, WhatsApp, Insta, FB, Netflix, HOTSTAR and all other OTTs I had access to. With no walk/run/gym and lunch and dinner served to me on my laptop table, an unexplained lethargy had kicked in. I added screen-time for the apps. But even after the limit was reached, I was craving to turn it off and spending more time on SM. This was an indicator that I had to get out of it. I was struggling to find a window of time that feels right for you to unplug and do a digital detox, because I was in front of laptop for better part of the day. WhatsApp web was a possibility now. And twitter tab was always open! For almost a month, although it did not affect my day to day office work, with SM and office work together, I ended up sitting in front of laptop for a good 12 hours a day. At the back of my mind, I always knew, I can’t do this for long and I was sure I can spend “that” time constructively, doing something better. The motivation that ‘reading more, writing more, spending gala time with family’ – are all better options than spending time on SM - was always there. But when I tried chalking out a plan to get out of it, I didn’t know where to start, how to proceed, which ones to keep and what to delete. It was all muddled and I was caught in the SM web. Trust me, Digital detox isn’t so easy, unless you plan it and more importantly, prepare your mind!

Mark Zuckerberg stating "The future is private"

While I was almost on the verge of dropping the idea of Digital Detox, Mr. Zuckerberg has come to my rescue, like a blessing in disguise. His new privacy policy and updated terms & conditions, which has created outrage globally, has in fact motivated me to take a digital detox!. Adding fuel to the fire, the new terms by Zuki, is shocking! Come on, using your financial transaction data, monitoring your approximate location 24/7 in-spite of location services turned OFF, selling your data to all FB companies; outrageous and I would call it despicable too! If he really did think this is the only way to do justice to his 21 billion $ WhatsApp deal and generate revenue, I don’t trust any of his products at all. Besides, the targeted ad is just the beginning. This is going to open a pandora’s box of the shadier possibilities of what could be done to the world with data.

Digital Detox

Also, imagine the benefits of deleting your FB-Insta-WhatsApp accounts. With all your friend’s friend, who is not even your common friend or acquaintance’s whereabouts and his/her information popping up on your wall, your FB timeline is just a bunch of suggested videos with ads and twitter snapshots. Arghh! It has long lost its good old sheen! Honestly, Facebook has become so irksome. I am keeping FB active only because it is a perfect platform to share my blog posts to 500+ people at once. Nothing more!

While WhatsApp forwards can save a few tens of gigs of data and a couple of hours, WhatsApp Status can save you remaining 22 hours. My uncle, who in his entire life has not watched a half time of a football match, updates his status with the hashtags #RipMaradona #SoccerLegend. I’ll not have to tolerate such nauseating sycophancy anymore. Although Instagram wasn’t this painful for long, the reels, are really waste of time. [Confession: I’ll really miss Dr. Richa Negi’s refreshing dancing groove videos on Instagram.**winks**]

I believe the best way to beat the quintessential social establishment and protect our privacy is to stop invading other’s privacy. And above all, the true evaluation of whether any privacy expectations are reasonable or not can never be assessed on any Social Media application. This is exactly why I am happy to be getting rid of FaceBook, Insta and WhatsApp.

Data Wars

Whether Zuki takes it back owing to public outcry or not, whether my friends like it or not, whether my cousins miss me on SM or not, I have decided to delete my FB-WA-Insta accounts permanently. I’ll keep twitter for my rants and Signal for my instant messaging needs. PERIOD. I can totally live without the rest. And I strongly believe it is the need of the hour too! When wrong people without morals and ethics; without concerns; without the sense of what’s fair and what’s not, get access to our data, they will always gain an advantage over the rest of us, until we decide to put an end to it. So, the onus is on every one of us!

Well, what do you think of my decision? WhatsApp… errrr… Call me! Let’s start to socialize the real, good old way!

Image credits: Google

Is your LinkedIn another FaceBook Profile?

In Indian job market, job portals like Naukri and Monster have played a big role since long, leaving very less market share for other players like LinkedIn. There are no second thoughts about LinkedIn’s potential. But somehow, for long, it was etched in job seeker’s mind that when someone started preparing for a job change, the first conversation began with “Update Naukri everyday bro, otherwise you won’t get calls”. I’m sure many in the entry and mid-career level can connect to this. But this seems to have changed in the recent times. There were a few recruiters asking me with an awe of surprise “You don’t have a LinkedIn profile”? Well, I always had it. But I never bothered to update it because I never expected job opportunities coming my way from LinkedIn. The possibility was too feeble. But looks like things have changed. Nowadays, a lot of recruiters use LinkedIn because of its robust networking capabilities, seamless cross-border connections with over 600 million user base and feature rich platform not just for employees, but for employers too. So I realized that it is important to have mine updated and started looking into it often. I installed the app too. This is when the surprise unfolded.

A video of a grandpa dancing (Left) and a MP updating distribution of ration kit (Right) on LinkedIn

What a mess LinkedIn really is! It is nothing more than just another facebook. From work-out and Yoga videos, ration distribution pics by certain MP, people posting Salsa videos of their grandparents begging their followers to like the video, content writers writing poems to scenic photograph posts with 3000+ likes which made absolutely ZERO SENSE. In other words, I was browsing through another social media profile of mine. With all such godforsaken updates, I was dreading to see the updates that made sense to me. I sat for more than two hours to remove unwanted connections, un follow/hide spammers. Despite my best efforts, after the clean-up, my LinkedIn feed just feels better, but still far from what I expect from a Professional networking website. I realized this is a big problem because people perceive LinkedIn as another social networking site. Here are a few things that you DON”T do on LinkedIn so that it remains a job and professional networking platform.

Profile picture

Your profile picture is undoubtedly the most important element of any networking site, be it professional or social platforms. Research has established psychological evidences that without a display picture, the accounts are perceived to be dormant. But if you have added a picture of John Snow, Ronaldo or your favorite god Hanuman as a profile picture to give an impression of being creative, you’re on self damage mode.  And yeah, the professor from Money Heist as your DP on LinkedIn does not make you a genius. Don’t get overboard with your creativity. Keep it simple, silly!

Whacky Profile Pictures n Linkedin-1

Whacky LinkedIn Profile Picture-2

Whacky LinkedIn Profile Picture-3

Adding connections

Adding qualified connections increase your job prospects. Yes of course. But you need not add every goddamn person you know and hype it. I was thinking twice to send a connection request to a good friend from my previous organization, because even though we connected over lot of cultural initiatives, we never worked together on any products/services. But here I am, getting connection request from a stranger car service guy who is my friend’s connection. Arggh! 

Updating the pic of The Atlantic Road, Norway (Left) and Writing Poems on LinkedIn (Right)

Your house maid’s husband’s distant relative who has completed his engineering and is now seeking job, your wife’s retired PSU uncle’s daughter who is a nutritionist, your college crush whose designation is Home maker, your primary school friend who is doing  research on zombies from Sudan University of Science and Technology need not be your professional connects. DON’T YOU GET IT? They neither belong to your domain/organization/technology/services nor can be of any professional value addition. If they really have known connections, ask them to introduce you to them. Accepting connections from every Tom Dick and Harry you’ve met in life perpetually is useless.  Go back to your profile, browse through your connections to check how many amongst your connection can really have a potential impact on your careers. Remember, connections are just numbers. 1000+ random connections from acquaintances do not; I repeat, DO NOT add any weight to your digital resume. For god sake, please stop adding the entire world’s populace to your connection list, morons!

Pro-tip: Create separate email-IDs for your professional needs and social media requirements. This will avoid a lot of your personal contacts sending you requests and it also give you more power to manage professional profiles.

Posting updates

Posting significant professional updates are indeed good way to let everyone know of your achievements. But majority of the updates from my connections did not seem deserved to be even there. A software engineer in my connection had posted her pics of distributing food packets during Covid-19 lockdown.  Why why why? Had her profession been Social Work groups, it would be worth an update. But in IT Industry, It will not give her any professional edge over others who have not done it. Another friend had copied leadership quotes from Google and pasted it. Will it help his followers inculcate leadership habits? I also found people posting the certificates of their organization’s mandatory trainings like EHS and Data Privacy. For heavens’ sake, stop this! A funny video with caption “Don’t give up” made some sense. But after seeing screenshots of a newspaper article on Happy Iftaar and a meme on Yamaha RX-100 to describe the Japanese engineering, alas! I lost my mind.

 

An Iftaar party cooking update (Left) Personal updates about Daughter on LinkedIn

In the midst of all these unwanted junk, many important updates go unnoticed. And even bigger problem is that unlike FaceBook, we cannot even delete the profile. It has to be there, up and running. You never know when you’ll have to make real use of your connections. So please don’t be willful and a pain in someone’s professional life. Be responsible and have social conscience. If LinkedIn becomes another FaceBook, destinies of many professionals may become undeniably enmeshed.  As we prepare for another economic depression, this gibberish will not take us anywhere. Go and act now. Because if you don’t, sooner or later we’ll be victims of our own complacency.

No; I am not posting this blog on my LinkedIn.