Zindagi Rockz

Tomorrow is my mother’s 65 th   birthday.. I lost her on July 1 st   2022.. Nothing and I mean NOTHING can prepare you to face the loss of your mother.. It’s a void no one can fill and that’s an understatement..   Anyway, some dates don’t understand absence.. They just arrive silently, demanding to be acknowledged.. Her birthday is one of them..   December month is actually difficult for me.. While the whole world is celebrating the last month of the year and Christmas vibes are in full swing, I’m silently mourning the fact that my mother’s not here and it’s going to be one more Christmas and birthday without her..   But I’m not bitter.. Death in all its cruelty puts things in perspective and you learn that life is too short to hold on to bitterness and grudges..   So today I would like to celebrate the woman who was my first home, my fiercest protector and my quietest strength – all at once..   My mother is the most consistent person I know.. She woul...

Kochi people take their fitness seriously.. I can vouch for this fact since I have completed a year in Kochi and close to one year of membership at a gym here.. And I've seen the same set of people come to gym everyday consistently for the past year.. Walking into the gym at the same time every morning and going about their workouts with clock work precision.. Their consistency at the gym can put Olympic athletes to shame..  Me? I like to refer to myself as a semi serious athlete.. If you look at me, you can tell I work out.. but you can also tell I  really  like snacks.. And yes, I live by the mantra “fitness is a journey", mostly because I enjoy the scenic route that involves French fries and protein shakes.. I like to stay active most of the time.. although I like to come across as laid back and if you notice my style of walking you'd think I'm the laziest person around and I want people to think that.. that’s part of my strategy.. fool people into thinking I’ve sur...

So this year I had the opportunity to be a part of Onam celebrations in God's own country.. While I do have a lot of Mallu friends and I've celebrated Onam with them at Bangalore, I think it was missing the authentic flavor that the festival has.. Well, this year I got to experience Onam in it's true unadulterated form.. For the uninitiated, Onam is Kerala’s annual festival where everyone, and I mean   everyone  celebrates the homecoming of the legendary King Mahabali.. It’s about prosperity, unity, gratitude, equality and also about flower carpets (pookalam), traditional dances, and eating like there’s no tomorrow (Sadya).  So the difference between celebrating festivals outside Kerala and in Kerala is that the native mallus believe in advance planning.. As so many Insta reels have depicted that it is the HR's role to conduct Rangoli competitions, organize Fun Hours etc in office, hence being the HR head it is also in my purview to ensure that Onam is celebrated with a...

So yesterday, I completed 17 years of professional life. Seems like a  lifetime  ago when I stepped into the training college of my institution for my induction. I can vividly recall my first day when I was so anxious about joining the  job . At that point in time, I never imagined that I would have continued in the same profession for so long. Seventeen years is definitely a long time. Cut to the generation of today — these people have an attention span of 17 minutes (yes, sarcasm!) and I can assure you they will never stay in the same organization for more than 17 months. During the course of my professional life, I’ve had the opportunity to be on several interview panels for recruitment, and all the résumés I looked at had a common factor: those applicants consistently jumped from one job to another. I noticed that, on average, people stick to a job for about 1.5 to 2 years. As I was thinking about what a long time it’s been in this organization, I also thought about w...

Remember those motivational posters from school that said  “Work hard in silence, let success make the noise” ? Yeah.. I hate to break it to you, but in 2025, if you're working hard in silence, the only thing you're going to get is more work.. And probably someone else taking credit for it — loudly, publicly, and with a LinkedIn post that includes 12 hashtags and a candid shot of them “humbly receiving the award..” Welcome to the age of  self-marketing  — where  how you present yourself  often screams louder than  what you actually do .. And if that sounds unfair.. it is.. But when has life  ever  been fair? The Curse of Being “Low-Key” There’s a whole breed of us who were raised to believe that being humble and letting your work speak for itself is the right thing to do.. The problem is,  your work doesn’t have a mic .. And you? You're backstage, quietly being excellent while the mediocre ones are out there doing TED Talks on “The Art of Mul...

S o here’s wishing all of you a very Happy Friendship Day! Actually, scratch that—every day is Friendship Day when you’ve got the right set of friends. You know the kind I’m talking about—the ones who make office life less of a daily endurance test and more of a sitcom with inside jokes, spontaneous chai breaks, and mutual eye-rolls during meetings that should’ve been emails. Then there are the friends outside work—ones you met through common connections, ex-colleagues who’ve moved on to better (or just different) jobs, or people who decided to chuck it all and start something of their own. Friends come in all shapes, sizes, and personalities. (Yes, I know that sounded borderline sleazy—but those who get my humor know exactly what I mean. Lol.) So for today’s post, I thought I’d do something fun—what if our friends were apps on our phones? Scroll through this list and see if you can recognize your own circle in any of these! 1. Instagram / Facebook The group gossip. This one always has...