Four Eyes and Two Lenses

Till the start of a New Journey Her mother put a full tablespoon of sweetened curd in her mouth. Priyanka thought of rejecting her mother’s wish (and order at the same time) but could not able to or rather was not ready to start a fight (which she never won earlier) on this auspicious morning. “ Beta, Dahi-Chini kha lo, interview accha jaega ”, said her mother. [“ Daughter, have some sweetened curd, your interview will go well ”] Priyanka was appearing for the interview of a reputed management institution for which she was dreaming for the past year. For her, it was never easy to manage the day job with late-night preparation for the management studies, but with her determination and her mother’s support, she was able to crack all the elementary rounds and qualified herself for the last interview round. Gulping down the curd, Priyanka hurried towards the Ola cab driver, who was waiting patiently and was watching all the drama until now. “ Chalo Bhaiya ”, Priyanka asked the dri...

“New Life New Beginnings” – this was the status I put across on my social media profiles when I got placed and started to work at Infosys almost 5 years back (2014). I was thrilled and excited to work in the corporates. Saying goodbye to my college life, I went ahead to create new experiences at Infosys. Mysore welcomed me with a jaw-dropping look on my face and stepped in to enjoy the second golden period of my life. Life at Infosys was very different from what it used to be in college. Apart from learning different programming languages, I learned people management, as in I learned whom to approach, when to approach, and how to approach. Basically, Infosys gave me the training to survive in the corporate world. Being the first employer, Infosys will always remain very close to my heart. Years passed, and it was time for me to say goodbye to Infosys. My colleagues at Infosys flocked together and gave me well wishes for my future and I walked ahead making friends...

A state once called the land of intellectuals, is now the talk of the town and being shamed across the country because few students were caught copying in the examination. It certainly goes into the national newspapers and thus the reputation of the state deteriorates. These incidents not only bring shame to the identity of the individuals of Bihar but also possess a great barrier in the development of the state. Before the NDA government came to power Bihar was led by Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav. Under his governance, the state went into negative development. Corruption, kidnapping, murder, scams, injustice, unemployment, low economic growth were norms. NDA government came to power with a basket full of negligence from the previous government. Although they took several initiatives to curb the slow growth of the state, several factors that are still prevalent today came as a hurdle to the development process. Corruption, poverty, flood, tax collection, lack of infrastructure for co...

“To start an article with a quote looks quite cool” Indeed! The mantra to make a reader stick to the article is to start your article with some catchy phrase and build a story on it. Although this may sound unreal, readers do follow the catchy phrase. This style of practicing your forte is not limited to the field of writing; businesses have used it to make an early impact on the minds of their customers. Athletes use this to get an initial edge over their competitors. Racers use the acceleration of their cars to jump off a little over their competitors. A famous quote also says, “An early impact is half work done”. And after that, it is your vigor that plays the card for you. Enthusiasm and dedication have always been the driving factors to achieve any goal. Reliance Jio started off with their free service. This was their catchy phrase. They made the impact initially and now they are on par with their competitors, leaving behind a few as well. When Jio came into the market...

"Me vs Everyone" While reading one of the articles, I came across this question put up by a student to one of the business leaders. The latter aptly answered the question giving various inputs on introspection, skill-building, and prioritizing one’s goals, to the former. One thing that he said that perfectly summed up the answer was: “It is the fear of being judged and fear of failure that holds one back from trying out new things and going out of the box.” Though the student’s question looks simple in terms of one’s urge to compete in this sharp-edged competitive world, it puts light on the behavioral attitude of the millennials that psychologists term as ‘FOMO’. Fear of missing out or FOMO is a tendency where one constantly compares oneself with others and wants to be everywhere with a fear that he/she might miss something important, and thus make him/her feel left out from the rest. Although this attitude is good to some extent, if kept for long, would neg...

Advancement in AI- a Business Perspective Back in the 1800s, when the industrial revolution happened, many speculated of losing their jobs due to automation, that is, the assembly line. Yes, many lost their jobs but eventually, many more jobs came up. And it certainly gave businesses a chance to flourish under this new bandwagon and so did our society. Fast forward to the 1900s, when the computer revolution happened, people again feared losing their jobs because of the ease of computational work a computer could do . What happened then was we saw a whole new world of opportunities where everyone contributed as per his/her capabilities and thus we see a connected world today. Again businesses, using this shift, helped to better our society. Advancement in AI (Artificial Intelligence), in the present world, has got the similar properties to what the industrial revolution and computer revolution had back then. People have already made a notion that their jobs are under threat due to...

There are tourists and then there are travelers  Conversation of two tourists: Pre-trip Amit : Hey bro, wassup. Devank : Wasssup bro. Long time, huh! Amit : Yeah man. How have you been? Devank : M good dude. How about you? Amit : Same here bro. Listen, I have been planning to go to Kasol in the month of July for a two-day trip. Do you want to catch up? Devank : Yeah sure bud. How many of you are going and are you done up with all the planning, like where to stay and what are the places to go, etc? Amit : We are four in number including you. And I am done with all the prep work and have already listed out few 3 star hotels giving a good deal even in this peak season. I was just waiting for your nod to book the hotels. I think we are going to have a great time over there. Devank : Great man, I am sure we would. I will also google out and make a list of places to visit as we are having only two days and a lot of places to catch up. Amit : Yeah man, ...

A world called 'India' This is not a blog where I will be talking about 17 states I have visited till now, rather I would talk about what I have gained from those trips and what others should look for when they travel. Long before I started this blog, many have asked me one question time and again: "How come you travel so much?". "I love to travel" is what I replied most of the time in the most cliched way. But love for traveling is only one of the many things that push or motivate one to travel in real life. Most people, around us, love to travel but very few succeed in packing their backpacks for a trip. Several reasons and commitments come to the surface when one wants to visit Jaisalmer just to witness the spectacular star constellation at night. In today's fast-paced world, one gets tangled in the web of fierce competition that society creates, and thus adding one more place to the itinerary takes a backseat. Flower Hill at Matheran ...

Aalu Dum - Dahi Bara There is not much hype about Odisha, and thus very few have any interest to visit there. And it applied to me as well before I went there. To start with, my visit to Odisha never really started on a good note. I was all left out from my friends to come hereafter spending quite a good time down in the south. At first, I visualized Odisha as a state where I would get fish and solely fish. On googling, I found out two more things about Odisha, namely, Konark and Puri. I was aghast at the thought of going there. Being an atheist, I was going to get stuck in the city of temples. But as someone said, there lies some positivity even in the negativity. And so I left for Odisha with a little hope to find anything of that sort.  Konark beach I came to Odisha and got tangled in my 'work' but this was always the go-to place for me whenever I needed to get away from my 'work'. The road trip from Bhubaneswar to Konark (roughly around 65 km) had introdu...