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Own Your Success

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      Transcript of my talk at March 8th, 2019 Women's Day celebration: Own your success Good morning folks. I am excited to be here and talk to you on Women's Day. Let me begin with saying that we are lucky. Our mothers and grandmothers did not have the kind of career choices that we have today. However despite all the progress, there are many real challenges that women face today in a professional setting. Now, in no way am I suggesting that the onus of overcoming these challenges lies solely with the women. No, it is a corporate responsibility. Rubrik has to ensure that we can attract the best talent from a diverse set of people and provide an environment where they can deliver their best. But that is a discussion for another day. Today, I want to focus on how we can own and drive our own success. The first thing I will say is that as women we need to step up and claim our spot . Each and everyone of us here has been hired here because we are good at what we do. You

A Very Herself

Was trying to get the little one in the car to run some errands, but she just wanted to curl with her books and goldfish. "Just leave me home and you go do your work!". So I tried to explain that she was too young for me to leave her home alone, and she had to be at least 10 years old for that. Very angry, she retorts, "Its not my fault that the earth is going so slowly!" So the other day, she was telling me, "You know, many years back, people used to think that spanking is the way to get kids to do the right thing. Now they learnt that it is not correct." "So how do kids do the right thing now a days?", I asked. "Oh, you just have to scold them". She is absolutely convinced that we live inside  the Earth and not on its surface. And keeps giving us reasons to prove it. One of the biggest reasons is, "If we were on the outside, we would have all fallen off as the earth moved." The second is that "If we weren

Of Karwa Chauth

Over an year ago, me and hubby were discussing Karwa Chauth. Hubby has banned Karwa Chauth since declaiming it as misogynist. I think, however, that banning Karwa Chauth is just addressing the symptom, not the cause. The basic premise of Karwa Chauth is that the husband's life is very important for a woman. The wife will fast for her husband's long life. This is also the premise of the standard Hindi movie blessing of "sada suhagan raho". Now, folks ask, why do we not see any reciprocal traditions coming from the husband? Is the wife's life not equally important? Does he not love her as much?  I think this is not a question of love. It is a question of economics. Without a husband, the Indian woman is fairly dispossessed. Without a wife, the husband is inconvenienced. To begin with, under Indian inheritance laws, the father's wealth is divided among his sons.Until an amendment in 2005, the daughters did not have an equal claim to the wealth division. Soc

Dude, why?

Watched Terminator2 over the weekend with kiddo. So, yesterday in car: "Mom, if the leader of the men was alive in future, then obviously the robot didn't kill him back when he was a baby. And if the boy had been killed in the past then there would have been no need in the future to send a robot back in time because there would have been no leader. I don't get this." I hate saying, "I have no clue", but.... 

Geeky-ness galore

So, kiddo was absorbed in his book and dear dad was trying to strike up a conversation.  So, dad asks, "K, who do you think is the most beautiful woman in the world?"  K: "I think its Mommy." D: "What about the little one?" K: "I think she is 3 billionth, 499 millionth, 999 thousandth, 998th ugliest girl in the world. Get that? That means she is second most beautiful. Umm, actually that might be tough to say because there aren't exactly 7 billion people in the world, and I also read that there are more women than men in the world. Its tough to get all that correct." He goes back to reading his book. Meanwhile, I am basking in the joy of being proclaimed as the most beautiful till, Dad wonders, "K, why do you think Mommy is the most beautiful woman in the whole world?" Without looking up from the book he is reading, K responds, "That was just a hypothesis."

Experiments

Little one ill and I tell her "If you lie down, your fever will get better". Naturally, she spends the whole day running about, doing everything else besides lying down while giving me periodic updates "See mommy, running didn't get me bukhar", "Jumping didn't get me bukhar" "I was playing in the yard but I am no bukhar" etc... Till she exhausts herself and lies down on the bed. I go to her and say, "Look you have more fever now". So, "I think mommy, sleeping on bed gives me bukhar".  Need to tell her experiments must be designed very carefully.  -------------  Being a nice mom, I decide to offer her warm drinks while she is ill. She enjoys the first sips of warm lemonade with "This feels really nice, I love you mommy" and then gets distracted with something else. By the time she returns to her lemonade, its cooled off. Come evening, I give her another glass of warm water to drink. She takes i

Time Together

I want to remember this in my heart, always. The other day, kiddo was missing his Dadi. So he was looking at her picture. Being the geek he is, K: So, will you be with me for only 27 more years?  M: No. You cannot really say when a person will die. It could be shorter than that or much more than that. Like Nana lived for so long. So Ajoba had his Dad with him till Ajoba turned 62. So lets hope we will have very long time together. At least long enough for you to grow up and become a big person. K: So you mean we could have like 50-60 more years together? M: Yup, maybe. Kiddo seems happy. But some thought ensues and... K: Hmm... that's a very long time. If you look at it like this, it is a very long time. But I think that when we are on our last day, we will feel like we have hardly had enough time together.