Every day is women's day, however...

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 09:29:44 GMT

... it being International Women's Day today, I was asked "If you could meet your younger self at the start of your working life, what advice would you give?" Took me back to a talk and blog post a few years back. Sharing it here, for all of it means as much today as it did then! Set Goals: Set Goals for yourself. Get organized. Discipline your work & personal life. Make your priority list. Live up to your own standards. Address important tasks first before they become urgent. Confront hard realities. Understand and explore your ability to multitask. More Responsibility: The only way to...Read More

Are Educators helping Students Develop a Positive Digital Footprint?

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 09:24:00 GMT

In the recent past I have had the opportunity to talk to many school principals, headmasters, and educators about how to help their students develop and sustain a positive digital footprint. Obviously, this is not something my team and I alone can achieve; they too need to seamlessly integrate the concept of positive digital footprints within their day to day student interaction. The educational institution and every educator within must incorporate the concept and integrate it within their system of digital documentation, mentoring and guidance. In the current high school education...Read More

10 reasons why students should have personal websites

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 09:22:44 GMT

Social media presence is a high priority among students and most of them don’t realize that their social media activity may be detrimental to their digital foot print. The “Internet is Forever” and each of us is leaving a permanent trail of activity; good or bad. Building a positive digital image via a personal website is the need of the hour. Here are 10 reasons for students to build a personal website that can work effectively towards building them a positive digital footprint. It’s a central hub of informationYour personal website is the central hub of all the information you wish to...Read More

Vipassana

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:49:24 GMT

Today I was sitting with a friend and recounting my Vipassana experience, when it struck me that I never shared in on my blog. While I was narrating instances from my time at the course, it all came back to me, and I though I’d put this up before I forget the highlights. I’ve kind of already forgotten the details of the meditation hours, which are a whole lot, btw, however, the overall experience and the joy of it is still fresh in my mind. We were sitting with a bunch of friends, making small talk, when one of them mentioned her parents’ experience of Vipassana, and something about it...Read More

Woman Entrepreneurship - Opportunities & Challenges

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:07:47 GMT

I was invited to be a part of a panel discussion on the topic of Women Entrepreneurship at the MCM, DAV college, Sector 36 on the 26th of Feb 2011. We were expected to talk of our initial days, and our work-home balance etc. etc. and what opportunities and challenges present themselves as you go along…and of course any advise one could give to the young ones. Chhavi came along to attend and did a smart thing by video recording part of the talk, so I don’t have to write too much about what I spoke. The people at the college were so enthusiastic, that the lady welcoming us had done more...Read More

The Dabangg Chulbul Pandey

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:40:35 GMT

I’m in love with Sub Inspector Chulbul Pandey! Just finished watching Dabangg with the husband and kids over beer and pizza. What a movie! I truly loved it. Salman Khan at his best, to say the least! This man can do the most ridiculous stuff on screen and look completely convincing doing it. We laughed our heads of at how he jerks his arms in the Dabangg song, and pulls his trouser waistband up and down and looks like an idiot doing it, but in all seriousness and a sense of being completely at home with his moves. Amazing! I’ve never fancied the man in general, but I think SK outdid...Read More

A couple of incidents

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:24:33 GMT

Over the last 3 weeks I’ve had a couple of incidents at work, which make me really wonder how the young so-called professional’s mind of today works… First incident… The human resource dept. got a reference check call from an independent agency that forwarded some papers produced by this young girl who used to work for us. HR forwarded them further to me because they saw a discrepancy. The young girl had, in an endeavor to get a higher paying job, after quitting our company, forged my signatures on a document that would have definitely got her a higher pay packet. HR reverted with facts,...Read More

7th Blood Donation Camp at RedAlkemi

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:11:47 GMT

We held our 7th blood donation camp yesterday at RedAlkemi, since year 2002. It was my fourth time, and possibly the final one. Unfortunately, I seem to have really thin veins, so the doctor piercing my vein had a blast poking this thick needle in and out of my arm for about half a minute till finally a little trickle of blood started to flow. I was supposed to continuously squeeze the rubber ball they handed me, but nothing helped beyond a point. Seems like I have enough blood, but not thick enough veins to help pull out a decent flow for donation. Sad! They gave up half way and I was...Read More

Bald Me!!

Fri, 07 May 2010 13:54:55 GMT

For years now, I’ve wondered what the exact shape of my head is. The only way to find out was to take off all the hair and go BALD…. which I did on the 5th of May 2010. Yippee…. finally I know!! OK, its wasn’t so much the shape that I wondered about, but maybe a combination of a few things… how would it be to wake up in the morning and not have to comb or shampoo all that hair? How would a bald head feel to my own hands, would I look weird or good or just OK? Is my head symmetrical or bumpy? Could I just get up and DO IT?? Turns out I could, and I don’t look so bad. The shape of my head is...Read More

The Pond

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:10:29 GMT

The pond was one of the first features we worked on. It was also a controversial decision. Atul wanted a pond, to fill it with aquatic plants, fish and ducks. I did not want a pond at all. We started this project exactly 2 years back, April 2008. I’m glad we built it though. It has potential to look nicer than it does currently, but overall its a pleasant feature. We get a direct view of the pond from our dresser window on the first floor of the house. This is one of the earliest pictures I have of the pond. We got a JCB to come in and dig the basic shape, which Atul and I marked out...Read More

Macrame Hammock

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:19:59 GMT

Here’s something I started making last year, 2009…. a hammock in Macramé Knots. Its laborious work, and the fingers do tend to start hurting if you stay at it for too long. Impossible to do in the winters so this sat in the farm motor room for over 6 months. Have pulled it out again, but am not so excited about finishing it quickly. Given that its meant to be hitched up on strong trunked trees, and we’re not getting any of those for a couple of years, I can safely target finishing this by year 2012

Shakespeare & such!

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:27:31 GMT

Today I did two unusual, but interesting things: ONE: Listened to a discourse on the appreciation of western classical music…. hmm… was almost convinced, but not quite… Pancham sent a link….take a look athttp://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html TWO: Read Shakespeare (Julius Caesar) with my 16 year old daughter, Ada….. more interesting that no 1) above. 1) Now, my younger kid, Anya also plays the piano (quite well at that) and she does play mostly western classical; stuff like Beethoven’s Fur elise, other older stuff I don’t know names of, more recent...Read More

Building the Orchard

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:03:32 GMT

While planning the orchard, we decided we wanted a nice big one, with hundreds of fruit trees, with our creative workshop studio overlooking it. We planted some trees in 2007, but most of them died during the harsh winter that year. We planted more the next year and put on some protective gear on them in 2008, and thankfully most of them survived. Last year we thought the entire patch of the orchard (roughly an acre) was too large and needed some walkways within it for us to be able to stroll through it at leisure. We decided to create some sort of meandering paths and amoeba type shapes...Read More

COLORAMA!

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:42:08 GMT

Tarak and Vardhini came by the other day, with little Ruhaan, their camera, and most important, Lunch Vardhini had a blast going crazy over the millions of flowers that are blooming at Aura, mostly in the orchard area and some in others. She sent me 107 odd pictures of flower photographs captured beautifully with this message: “Thanks to your mind blowing valley of flowers, i’ll now have a new background on my screen everyday…for the next 100 days!!! ” Thanks Vardhini, you did an awesome...Read More

Ramp, drive, park

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:09:55 GMT

We’re about 10ft below road level, therefore a ramp leads down to the plot and further leads down the drive all the way to the house. The front parking is on the left as you drive into the property. This is a Jan 2009 picture, so is fairly recent and I don’t have anything older than this. Notice that the boundary wall is missing and the trees are kind of sparse. This one is a more recent picture, Feb 2010. All the material trucks going in and out have taken a toll on the poor ramp. We’ll most likely have to replace all of this by the end of construction. I love how the trees have...Read More

Aura - Our Dream Project

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:24:30 GMT

About 4 years back we bought a three acre piece of farm land about 15 km outside of Chandigarh, in Punjab. We still cant recall why we bought it, or what we intended to do with it, but we’re glad we did. It was an obsession that possessed Atul and he did not rest till he managed to buy this plot. The picture below is one of the earliest I have, however, this is not an image of what the land looked like when we first got possession. It was a messy, undulated landscape and this view is one after lots of labor to just convert it into flat ground and plant grass. Anyhow, as we went along and...Read More

Conservatory

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:38:47 GMT

Currently our field office and the nursery for “yet to be planted” foliage, this is where we plan to build our conservatory in the coming months. The nursery has served us well, what from hooking up our computers here, preserving all the delicate plants from a really harsh winter this year, relaxing in the hammock, putting out themanjis for afternoon naps, as well as using them to organize all our various architectural files and prints. Endless discussions, lunches, arguments, briefings, get-togethers, beers, teas and smokes have taken place in this structure. Am sure we’ll miss it when...Read More

Cover Girl.... that's me!

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:24:46 GMT

India Today decided to put me on the cover for the March issue of Simply Punjabi! This was a bolt out of the blue but completely thrilling… here are the pictures and the writeup… AT THE forefront Three of Punjab’s top start-ups have something in common: they are all helmed by women. Compelling businesswomen all, they stand testimony to the grit one needs to reach the upper echelons of the business world. SIMPLY PUNJABI meets these trailblazers for a quick look into their work, and personal lives. ANUJA LATH, 41REDALKEMI RedAlkemi is a funky name, and the company, predictably, packs quite a...Read More

Chandigarh Marathon

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:30:36 GMT

Participated in my first marathon on the 31st of Jan, although did only the 5km run. This was Chandigarh’s first marathon ever and there was a huge turn out. About 3000 odd people ran the 5km section and the spirit was huge. The run was great… I managed to run continuously, which was a big high. I was always worried about not managing to run at a steady pace without getting out of breath. The couple of times I tried slowing down, my legs felt kind of wobbly, so it seemed more comfortable to keep running at a slow pace. It was a bright sunny day, with a lot of people standing on the...Read More

WISE at Dell

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:07:07 GMT

Dell worldwide started a new initiative called WISE… short for Women In Search of Excellence. A couple of days back I was invited to give a brief talk to Dell Women Managers (at their Mohali facility) and share my work/home/ life experiences and balancing acts with them. The brief was to speak about principles I consider good to follow in the workplace and in general. Essentially a bit about myself accompanied by a motivational talk. Well, the talk went off well and I was later told “You made quite an impact on the audience”. I’d consolidated my thoughts that evening in the form of brief...Read More

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