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The Phone Spell

 Imagine this setting. You have just won back to back Olympic Gold medals. Only three people in history have achieved that feat in your event. You are being anointed as the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) in your field. The whole world is tweeting about your feat, congratulatory messages are flowing from all directions. You also have about two hours in the airport lounge waiting for your next flight. What would you do? Will you relish the accolades, respond to those wishes and calls, read those great articles being written about you? After all, you have spent months and years toiling for this very moment. Or will you just sit still and be with your thoughts? Most of us, by default, will fall in the first category. Unless you are Eliud Kipchoge. After he won the Men's marathon event in the 2021 Olympics at Sapporo (venue was changed from Tokyo because of extreme heat concerns), Kipchoge had to fly back to Tokyo for the medal ceremony. As he was waiting for his flight, a journalist who a...
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SOW Theorem

One long term goal of mine is to qualify for the Boston marathon. BQ is the holy grail for most amateur runners. The  qualifying times  are fairly challenging and will need some dedicated training effort for someone to have any realistic chance of making it.  The most important component of this training schedule is the weekly running mileage. One needs to clock close to 80 - 90Km/week to be marathon ready.  Since running is one dimensional, it is also advisable to incorporate some kind of cross training, like swimming and cycling as well. The third component is super important -  strength training. As one gets older, the musculoskeletal system is no longer in a great shape to take the pounding and needs to be reinforced.  Is that all? Unfortunately no. We also need to do throw in stretching and mobility exercises (like Yoga) into the mix. One might argue that we do not necessarily need to spend the same amount of time across all of these, but we do ne...
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You vs You

Once in a while, I go back and read my previous blog posts. More often that not, I feel good reading them. It gives me a peek into what was some of my "top of mind" thoughts at that time. Ideally, if I have been writing often, at least say once a month, this exercise would have been even more useful. Nevertheless, today was one of those days when I revisited my blog. The one that caught my eye today was one of my recent ones - Creation Vs Consumption . As I read that post, I took a step back to see if I have made any progress at all in this dimension over the last year. Coincidentally, that post was written exactly a year back (So much for this being a recent one). And I have to report that the answer is zero; absolutely no progress. I am still consuming way more than what I am producing. This is even after I include my physical activities and the time that I spend doing seemingly productive things at work (which itself is highly questionable) in the productivity list. Which ...
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When is your habba

 Ours is a fairly close knit family, with similar values, morals and ethics. So, our outlook on most things in life are quite similar and we tend to agree on nearly everything. The operative word is 'nearly'. The one thing that we do not is - "When do we celebrate Krishna Jayanthi?" In my living memory, I do not remember a single instance where all of us, including my uncles and aunts, on even one of paternal or maternal side, have celebrated this festival on the same day. And if you include friends and neighbors, Krishna is born several times over a few days (or even weeks sometimes) in the same year.  One might wonder why all this confusion. As the name clearly indicates, Janmashtami or Gokulashtami, should be celebrated on the Ashtami thithi, no? To be precise, the Krishna Paksha Ashtami in the month of Shravana. But alas, as with most things in life, nothing is as simple as it sounds. This thithi business is confusing. They do not align nicely with midnight or sun...
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Creation vs Consumption

In a given day or even a week, how much time does one spend consuming vs creating? This is a question that has intrigued me for some time now. Before we answer that question, of course, we need to define what creation and consumption are. There are no universally accepted definitions, so I will state mine.  Creation involves making something new or doing something that creates value, ideally for others, but at least for oneself. Writing new code or a new blog post, cooking a dish, milking a cow, sketching that wonderful cartoon, taking that wonderful picture of a bird all make it to this list. I would also like to add things like singing a song, going for a run or working out, meditation to the creation list. Consumption is reading a book or a FB/Instagram/WhatsApp post, watching movies and serials and the ilk. One can of course claim that scrolling social media messages is adding value to themselves as they become more informed. That is why this is a gray area and everyone should ...
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Vicissitudes of life

December 2022 -- Life was as joyous and peaceful as it could be. Work was going well. I had just clocked my personal best for a Half Marathon. If one had peeked through my window, it would not have been out of place to see me humming the merriest of tunes. But then, the dark storm clouds were just around the corner. As PG Wodehouse puts it eloquently,  "it's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping" "it has been well said that it is precisely these moments when we are feeling that ours is the world and everything that's in it that Fate selects for sneaking up on us with the rock in the stocking" First, I got injured while running. My left knee just gave up, putting a full stop to all running. I missed Mumbai Marathon for the first time in 12 years (discounting the Covid years). All the preparation towards getting to a sub 3:30 marathon just vanished in no time. ...
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Music Appreciation

Last week was the annual day in my daughter's dance school. Dance students, of various skill levels and of different ages, performed for over two hours. It was enthralling. I am sure many folks did not understand the nuances and intricacies of Bharatanatyam, but that did not stop them from enjoying the spectacle. There is something in dance and music that captivates people. Albus Dumbledore remarked "Ah, Music, a Magic Beyond All We Do Here!" Einstein had said that he often thinks in Music. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister exclaimed about one of India's finest singers, M.S. Subbulakshmi - "Who am I, a mere Prime Minister before a Queen, a Queen of Music”.  When I was young, music and dance were limited to film songs coming on Radio and the occasional TV. My parents would play Vividh Bharati's (A radio channel of All India Radio)  நேயர் விருப்பம்  (Listeners choice) every weekday from 8AM to 9AM, not necessarily for the songs, but more import...
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