Every year at Rakhi, my sister and I would go visit our Chacha's (Dad's brother) house bright and early in the morning. We would buy 'rakhis', sweets, and hop on to dad's scooter - it was the most exciting day of the entire year.
I have endless childhood memories with Surinder Chacha. He would always take us to this shop, where we could get hot and yummy Chanas-puris. He would also make our cousin (Ankit) pay LOTS of money as a rakhi present. Every year, we followed the same routine - we looked forward to it.
I went to India in April'08 and Chacha gave me money from all the rakhis I had missed so far :)
I never take money from anyone, but as funny as it sounds, taking that rakhi money brought back some great childhood memories.
Unfortunately, Chacha passed away in a sudden and shocking accident last week. Everyone has been in a state of shock. The sadness knows no bound. I am trying to accept the fact that he is no longer going to be around when I visit India next time. I am also trying to tell myself that everything will be okay for our family soon. I have been trying to commnunicate to my cousin that he doesn't need to worry about anything..ever.
I am not very expressive with words when it comes to expressing my love or sorrow.
I realized today that a sense of loss either brings people together, or farther away from each other.
I also realized that life is extremely short and unpredictable - we should try to soothe out any differences we might have with friends or family, because they might be gone by the time you are done being angry with them.
I hope Chacha's soul rests in peace - we will always miss you.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
An Effort to Give Up My Vice (s)
Lately, the financial crisis has taken over my world - school, home, and online life. Every day I hear or read something new at school. I am exposed to new ways to understanding this crisis and making sense out of it.
Yesterday, in the Top Manager's Perspective course, Professor Beatty informed us that the consumer spending (as tracked by VISA and Mastercard) had fallen by 35% as compared to the November statistics last year. Today, I read a couple of articles addressing the ways people can tackle these difficult times - people should be encouraged to spend less, save more, and fight the "holiday spending" season.
I have cut down my expenses drastically ever since I joined the student workforce. Travel is the only bit, where I have not and can not cut things down, because it is the essence of my being.
Today, in the morning, while sipping on a cup of coffee, I realized there are several other things that I have not cut down - things that require spending $ and contribute to my monthly expenses. Additionally, these vices make me unhealthy. For example; chocolate binges, coffee (literally every day), and warehouses sales. Therefore, I have decided to give up some of my vices for a few months and wean myself away from them.
Yesterday, in the Top Manager's Perspective course, Professor Beatty informed us that the consumer spending (as tracked by VISA and Mastercard) had fallen by 35% as compared to the November statistics last year. Today, I read a couple of articles addressing the ways people can tackle these difficult times - people should be encouraged to spend less, save more, and fight the "holiday spending" season.
I have cut down my expenses drastically ever since I joined the student workforce. Travel is the only bit, where I have not and can not cut things down, because it is the essence of my being.
Today, in the morning, while sipping on a cup of coffee, I realized there are several other things that I have not cut down - things that require spending $ and contribute to my monthly expenses. Additionally, these vices make me unhealthy. For example; chocolate binges, coffee (literally every day), and warehouses sales. Therefore, I have decided to give up some of my vices for a few months and wean myself away from them.
- December: Give up Chocolate and Sugar completely - doable unless lured.
- January - February: Give up shopping completely - absolutely buy nothing for 2 months. I have done this successfully last year as well.
- March: Give up morning Coffee - this might be the hardest to work on, since I have a slight bit of caffeine addiction. Ok, well a LOT of caffeine addiction.
- December - April: Give up shoe-shopping - doable to some extent unless I drop by NYC's Nine-West store.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Back of The Napkin
This book is a must read for anyone who wants to:
- Break himself/herself from the power-point-bullet syndrome (funny! I use bullets to negate bullets)
- Develop visual thinking
- Bounce off complex ideas in a clear, concise, and memorable way.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Entrepreneurship: Passion + Persistence
I admire two people for their great entrepreneur spirit:
A) Kiran Sawhney
B) Liza Chawla.
What is the common thread?
Both Liza and Kiran, in spite of their successes are very down to earth and lively people.
Kiran Sawhney:
I have known her for some eleven years now. Some 11 years back, she traveled the world in pursuit of fitness certifications and fitness skills. At that time, she was beginning to explore her passion of exploring the fitness world.
Every time I visit Delhi (after a gap of two-three years), I notice a change in her clientele, her fitness studio, and her fitness approach. About two years back, I went Kiran's fitness studio - I was very impressed. The studio's layout was very energetic, bright, and happy :)
Kiran is a regular on many news/fitness channels in India.
What is so impressive about her?
Well, what has not changed over the years is her observant eye to explore opportunities and turn them into something/anything she is passionate about! Some eleven years back, Kiran recognized that fitness will revolutionize the world.
I read her blog (http://dreamfit.blogspot.com) yesterday and realized that Kiran has come a very impressive way from when she was a fitness novice to when she started giving group fitness lessons to being a personal (and probably the most expensive) fitness trainer to the selected few in Delhi today!
Another interesting thing about Kiran is that she has a great eye for design - she designed my wedding and reception dresses over emails! Both the dresses were very well acclaimed.
I'd be very interested to see the level to which Kiran takes her Design passion in the coming years.
Liza Chawla:
Liza and I have known each other since childhood - our families are close friends.
Liza - a very successful professional quit her very well paying job in California in 2005.
What has Liza been doing since then?
She returned to Chandigarh in India to help the street children of sector 17 get vocational training so that these children would stop begging on the streets. Liza's blog - http://chottisiasha.blogspot.com/ talks about her journey.
Liza's journey reeks of patience, kindness, and acceptance. She took a long time to understand the circumstances, which make these children beg. She spent endless hours with these childen accepting their way of living and trying to get them to kick the habit of begging.
Liza was able to bring these street children to the level where the children want to go to school themselves - they want to undergo vocational training.
What is so impressive about her endeavor?
The street children of sector 17, Chandigarh picked up the vocational training's skills - the children became so good that they designed my wedding cards! Every card was hand made and unique. Each card was made by a child, who instead of begging on the streets spent his/her time utilizing their valuable skill.
Every time I opened one of the wedding cards, I could not help smiling and feeling content.
Liza recognized the opportunity to help man-kind - I bet it took a lot of courage to trust these children to make someone's wedding cards :)
In today's world, we get so engrossed in earning money that we forget to breathe. If we stretched overselves like Liza did, we'd be able to bring a smile to someone else's life the same way Liza did.
Well, this blog entry is a reminder to myself that I am fortunate to have people in my life who make this world a better place to live in: whether they do it by keeping people fit or by taking them off the streets and providing them with training does not matter.
What matters is that these people are doing good.
Thank you Kiran and Liza for your entrepreneur and kind spirit.
A) Kiran Sawhney
B) Liza Chawla.
What is the common thread?
Both Liza and Kiran, in spite of their successes are very down to earth and lively people.
Kiran Sawhney:
I have known her for some eleven years now. Some 11 years back, she traveled the world in pursuit of fitness certifications and fitness skills. At that time, she was beginning to explore her passion of exploring the fitness world.
Every time I visit Delhi (after a gap of two-three years), I notice a change in her clientele, her fitness studio, and her fitness approach. About two years back, I went Kiran's fitness studio - I was very impressed. The studio's layout was very energetic, bright, and happy :)
Kiran is a regular on many news/fitness channels in India.
What is so impressive about her?
Well, what has not changed over the years is her observant eye to explore opportunities and turn them into something/anything she is passionate about! Some eleven years back, Kiran recognized that fitness will revolutionize the world.
I read her blog (http://dreamfit.blogspot.com) yesterday and realized that Kiran has come a very impressive way from when she was a fitness novice to when she started giving group fitness lessons to being a personal (and probably the most expensive) fitness trainer to the selected few in Delhi today!
Another interesting thing about Kiran is that she has a great eye for design - she designed my wedding and reception dresses over emails! Both the dresses were very well acclaimed.
I'd be very interested to see the level to which Kiran takes her Design passion in the coming years.
Liza Chawla:
Liza and I have known each other since childhood - our families are close friends.
Liza - a very successful professional quit her very well paying job in California in 2005.
What has Liza been doing since then?
She returned to Chandigarh in India to help the street children of sector 17 get vocational training so that these children would stop begging on the streets. Liza's blog - http://chottisiasha.blogspot.com/ talks about her journey.
Liza's journey reeks of patience, kindness, and acceptance. She took a long time to understand the circumstances, which make these children beg. She spent endless hours with these childen accepting their way of living and trying to get them to kick the habit of begging.
Liza was able to bring these street children to the level where the children want to go to school themselves - they want to undergo vocational training.
What is so impressive about her endeavor?
The street children of sector 17, Chandigarh picked up the vocational training's skills - the children became so good that they designed my wedding cards! Every card was hand made and unique. Each card was made by a child, who instead of begging on the streets spent his/her time utilizing their valuable skill.
Every time I opened one of the wedding cards, I could not help smiling and feeling content.
Liza recognized the opportunity to help man-kind - I bet it took a lot of courage to trust these children to make someone's wedding cards :)
In today's world, we get so engrossed in earning money that we forget to breathe. If we stretched overselves like Liza did, we'd be able to bring a smile to someone else's life the same way Liza did.
Well, this blog entry is a reminder to myself that I am fortunate to have people in my life who make this world a better place to live in: whether they do it by keeping people fit or by taking them off the streets and providing them with training does not matter.
What matters is that these people are doing good.
Thank you Kiran and Liza for your entrepreneur and kind spirit.
Finally! Success
I have been chasing DesignWorks - Rotman's Innovation Lab initiative for more than a year now.
I wanted to intern with DesignWorks. Somehow I landed myself another job before DesignWorks posted internships at Rotman. Needless to say, I was extremely bummed.
Earlier this week, finally, after a year of expressing and re-expressing my interest many-many times, I was offered to work with them! I am thrilled to be a part of DesignWorks initiative moving forward. I start soon.
Earlier in September, we worked on a exercise in Innovation class, which asked us to take steps to discover and start our journey to the time where we see ourselves happy.
I can happily say that I am starting that discovery in the next week.
I wanted to intern with DesignWorks. Somehow I landed myself another job before DesignWorks posted internships at Rotman. Needless to say, I was extremely bummed.
Earlier this week, finally, after a year of expressing and re-expressing my interest many-many times, I was offered to work with them! I am thrilled to be a part of DesignWorks initiative moving forward. I start soon.
Earlier in September, we worked on a exercise in Innovation class, which asked us to take steps to discover and start our journey to the time where we see ourselves happy.
I can happily say that I am starting that discovery in the next week.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Networking/Donations = 99% Luck
I had a very interesting "networking" conversation with a very resourceful person at school today.
I am heading up Rotman Photography Association (RPA) this year. RPA is in its second-year of running - it is a constant challenge to live up to its members expectations and to diversify the activities/workshops. We have a great team - very artsy people, who are genuinely interested in photography. We had 35 members sign up for the club, which is absolutely awesome!
I have been trying to get my head around different ways I can make this club exciting enough so that the members think - "wow! I am glad I joined this club". The biggest challenge is that being a new club, we have yet to prove ourselves. The second challenge is getting funding for RPA.
A few weeks back, I mentioned to my resource (let's call this person - Windfall) that RPA needs some "aha" factor to engage its members. Windfall promised to do something about it. Today, I ran into Windfall and it was mentioned that Windfall can fly in last year's National Geographic Photography's winner to Rotman (at Windfall's expense) to give a workshop on landscape photography!
WOW! was my response and I could not stop jumping around :)
Then, there were two other options:
Not only does Windfall know this National Geographic person, but Windfall also knows this Rotman alumni whom I have been trying to connect with since last year! I know if Windfall sees a fit, I might get connected to this alumni for a full-time opportunity within the industry I want to work in.
Getting a job, getting a donation, and getting connected to National Discovery people is all about being at the right place at the right time. 99% of times it is about luck, remaining 1% of times it concerns voicing out what and why do you want something :)
I am heading up Rotman Photography Association (RPA) this year. RPA is in its second-year of running - it is a constant challenge to live up to its members expectations and to diversify the activities/workshops. We have a great team - very artsy people, who are genuinely interested in photography. We had 35 members sign up for the club, which is absolutely awesome!
I have been trying to get my head around different ways I can make this club exciting enough so that the members think - "wow! I am glad I joined this club". The biggest challenge is that being a new club, we have yet to prove ourselves. The second challenge is getting funding for RPA.
A few weeks back, I mentioned to my resource (let's call this person - Windfall) that RPA needs some "aha" factor to engage its members. Windfall promised to do something about it. Today, I ran into Windfall and it was mentioned that Windfall can fly in last year's National Geographic Photography's winner to Rotman (at Windfall's expense) to give a workshop on landscape photography!
WOW! was my response and I could not stop jumping around :)
Then, there were two other options:
- Studio Photography from another reputed guest speaker.
- Lighting Techniques from yet another guest speaker.
Not only does Windfall know this National Geographic person, but Windfall also knows this Rotman alumni whom I have been trying to connect with since last year! I know if Windfall sees a fit, I might get connected to this alumni for a full-time opportunity within the industry I want to work in.
Getting a job, getting a donation, and getting connected to National Discovery people is all about being at the right place at the right time. 99% of times it is about luck, remaining 1% of times it concerns voicing out what and why do you want something :)
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Innovation, Foresight, and Business Design
I am taking some very interesting courses in my second-year at Rotman.
Some of the courses are designed to make you think NOT like a business student - they are designed to simply make you think and not download. I find Innovation, Foresight, and Business Design very intersting. The Professor- Alex Manu is from Ontario Colleage of Arts and Design (OCAD), so you can imagine how "un-business" like his teaching style must be.
His power-point presentations are stellar - the slides communicate his ideas, both visually and verbally in two lines! The slides show what a MBA will communicate in two pages can be well-communicated with visual framework. In addition, he brings toys to class, has a great sense of humor, and gives us tools to THINK.
The first question, he asked was,"If you could talk to your toilet, what would you say"?
Weird question - ain't it?
There were numerous hilarious answers, but the key to this question was - what benefit would the question have for us?
Key possible answer - Am I Healthy?
He made us work on another 12-question exercise: we had to ask ourselves a question, which was on our mind at that time and answer 12 questions (2 minute/question) in written. The purpose of the exercise was to realize something new about yourself.
What is the point of this blog entry?
I found out that if I said to Hitesh tomorrow, I want to be a farmer, he would support my decision! Also, I found out that I am a risk-taker. Therefore, worrying about current recruiting at Rotman, worrying because future looks blurry, and worrying because I am unable to let go of my fear is not the way to go.
I felt at a lot more at ease with the decision on Friday. There is a slight question (sub-set of the bigger question) that still needs to be answered though - I am sure it will come to me sometime soon.
Some of the courses are designed to make you think NOT like a business student - they are designed to simply make you think and not download. I find Innovation, Foresight, and Business Design very intersting. The Professor- Alex Manu is from Ontario Colleage of Arts and Design (OCAD), so you can imagine how "un-business" like his teaching style must be.
His power-point presentations are stellar - the slides communicate his ideas, both visually and verbally in two lines! The slides show what a MBA will communicate in two pages can be well-communicated with visual framework. In addition, he brings toys to class, has a great sense of humor, and gives us tools to THINK.
The first question, he asked was,"If you could talk to your toilet, what would you say"?
Weird question - ain't it?
There were numerous hilarious answers, but the key to this question was - what benefit would the question have for us?
Key possible answer - Am I Healthy?
He made us work on another 12-question exercise: we had to ask ourselves a question, which was on our mind at that time and answer 12 questions (2 minute/question) in written. The purpose of the exercise was to realize something new about yourself.
What is the point of this blog entry?
I found out that if I said to Hitesh tomorrow, I want to be a farmer, he would support my decision! Also, I found out that I am a risk-taker. Therefore, worrying about current recruiting at Rotman, worrying because future looks blurry, and worrying because I am unable to let go of my fear is not the way to go.
I felt at a lot more at ease with the decision on Friday. There is a slight question (sub-set of the bigger question) that still needs to be answered though - I am sure it will come to me sometime soon.
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