Catharsis

Dec 2018 One of my fondest memories of food is Ma leafing through recipe clippings painstakingly collected from newspapers & magazines; and whipping up mouth watering delicacies. Sunday lunches were a much awaited affair, with varying degrees of contribution from all of us - home grown vegetables from Dad's garden, me sitting on the kitchen table and regaling everyone with entertaining stories, and Aaru lending a supporting hand ;) While I would love to say that I was the most well behaved kid (ahem!), looking back I must accept that I was actually one of the fussiest eaters around. If the food had something green, was not deep fried, didn't have potatoes as one of the components, my first answer would be naaaahhhhh! It's amazing that my mom found solutions for all my food tantrums and full credits to her on making mealtimes something to look forward to. Moving away from home and staying alone in Chennai made me realise that I was definitely not a fan of ...

October 2016 (Source: Google) All of us have pet phrases - phrases that captivate us so much that we end up using them innumerable times across myriad occasions. One such favorite phrase of mine is 'Freedom to Operate'. Freedom to Operate, abbreviated FTO, is a term in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) - simply put, FTO is determining whether a particular action, such as testing or commercialising a product, can be done without infringing valid intellectual property rights of others. Under the guise of poetic license, I like using this phrase (or rather stretching its usage), in the larger canvas of life. My sole yardstick for measuring all life choices, personal as well as professional, is an affirmative response to the question "If I decide to travel on this path, will I still retain my Freedom to Operate - the freedom to explore my potential in the Learning Zone without compromising on the values I stand for"? Presenting my fi...