Infinite thoughts

I recently got started on Notion, primarily as part of my new project. I had seen the Notion used by one of my earlier customers but wasn't impressed by what I had seen. However, I had been hearing quite a few things about this on Twitter. And it constantly intrigued me as to why people are so ga ga over it.  I had been dabbling between Google Docs and MS OneNote for quite some time. Used docs when I had to write structured content, such as an idea, feature or some strategy. And when there was time to simply jot down some points or take notes from meetings or while reading books, I resorted to MS OneNote for its ability to create unstructured and structured content both. However, I was still feeling handicapped. The "organized" person in me was wanting more. So finally decided to learn more about "Notion". I took a different route this time. Instead of simply registering and starting using the app, I went through a couple of YouTube videos. And that was the best...

Songs have a huge role in our life. In childhood, the primary source of songs was Radio. It slowly expanded to TV, then dedicated music channels. Somewhere in between or in parallel to Radio and Television, there existed the parallel world of Cassettes (and then later CDs) which served the audience. Since then, we have evolved to on-demand, yet unlimited songs. Each of these phases has/had some peculiarities of its own.  When I was a regular listener of the radio, there was only a handful of channels - probably two or three. One channel was primarily for music where Hindi songs were dominant and the other was for general. I think they were named “ विविधभारती ”, “आकाशवाणी अ” and  “आकाशवाणी ब” etc. The beauty of the songs on the radio channel was the surprise element - you could get to listen to a song of your liking which would lift your mood automatically.  The television channels, specifically those dedicated to music stole the limelight that radio was enjoying. However,...

I am not that person who doesn’t believe in celebrating these days. I appreciate the fact that the western culture has carved out days to celebrate these special relations. In routine life, we forget about the power of gratitude; we forget to dedicate time to nurture the relationship; we may tend to start taking things for granted. Such days allow you to rethink your acts, give some time to that relation and overall improve the happiness quotient of people around you and people who matter to you.  I feel fortunate to be part of the internet revolution, specially last 10 years or so. I was part of Giftease for a good part of last decade, where it was our job to find out ways to coax the customers to send out gifts. This was the time when I really started following the “gifting calendar” per se. I was introduced to numerous occasions including women’s day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, entire valentine’s week, sibling day, daughter’s day and what not. I, automatically, started sending ...

And the boredom is kicking in. Mrunmay's exams are about to get over and there's only so much he can do on his own. Meghana and I are on call almost through the working hours and hence can't spend time with him. And the post lunch he starts getting bored. Today he said - "I am hating this WFH". I am not surprised. There were very few days when either of us were WFH and he was also home. So he is not used to see us around but not spend time with us. He is finding some ways on his own to keep himself occupied - reading and TV is common. Now he ia also spending time with his Robotics kit, some Python programming, some synth etc. Hope he will find more ways as days go by. Another day has passed without stepping out. Routine is somewhat settled, but will change again as Mrunmay's exams will get over on this Friday. Hopefully I can start working early and finish early so that I can give him some time.  I was talking to one of the team members generally che...

The boredom is kicking in. Today morning, I wasn't feeling like working from home and was craving to meet my team in person. Somehow managed to survive initial couple hours and then I got into the work mode.  It is not a first time I am working from home. I have done that when I was waiting for good opportunity after mSauda and then after Giftease days. Even in those days, I would follow the WFH guidelines I listed earlier . But never got this bored. The difference was - I knew I would be working alone. This time I have a team and I interact with them through the day. I miss those small interaction with them while walking past them. Some intense discussions and white boarding on some design piece. Filling up the walls of my cabin with various data points and discussing them with the team. Some jokes and pulling legs of others! I miss that a lot. To recover from the boredom, I happened to post something on Facebook and while scrolling down the feed noticed that there were ...

The milk supply is still in mess. BBDaily is not able to deliver the milk. But there's another fellow in our locality who is delivering cow milk and has resumed his operations. So milk is sorted out and I don't have to go out for that.  Now that more than a week has gone by, we were going low on veggies and was planning to make a trip tomorrow (Sunday). But thankfully got it almost home delivered. A tempo with veggies came by to the society gate and I got some stock for next 4-5 days and that too at reasonable rate. And the veggies were fresh and of good quality! For the first time we all three sat together to process the veggies!! It was a fun to do chit chat while processing veggies. While listening to song "ये रे घना, ये रे घना" i recalled the revised version i had made "ये मेघना, ये मेघना" and that triggered some nostalgic memories of our courtship. Mrunmay got curious about what all romantic things we had done. Looks like a "candle...

On way to his Robotics class, Mrunmay and I were waiting on a signal to turn green. And as usual, there were several vehicles breaking the signal and rushing ahead. This 12 yo had this question, again - "Baba, why are these people breaking the signal?" Most of the time, I have answered - "I don't know. They shouldn't". But today was different. I answered - "Maybe their parents didn't teach them to follow the civic rules.." I have been raised by parents who inculcated the habit of following the civic rules along with making me understand the "why" part of it. Even today, I don't jump the signals, I don't park in the no-parking zone, I do not enter from the wrong side. From day 1 of my car driving, I have been wearing the seat belt and from day 1 of my two-wheeler driving, I have been wearing a helmet. This was long before both these rules came into existence.  And Mrunmay has seen me doing it all along. Even he doesn...

Ten Years - may be a short period or may be a long period. It depends. It does not depend on whether those years were full of joy or full of tears. It depends if you enjoyed those days irrespective of joy or tears. It depends on the memories that you created for yourself.  And if I add another dimension to consider - a partner? It still remains the same. You would feel the time was short if you enjoyed every moment you were together, if you cherish every joy and every tear. And I am still wondering how fast last ten years have gone by!! Yes, today, Meghana and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary. It has been a roller-coaster ride. Lot of ups and downs. Lot of smiles and few tears too.  The story had started almost twelve to thirteen years back. It obviously was a one way traffic initially, which took more than 2 years to become a two way road and another year or so make it a highway :)  When I look back, I am very happy to have made a right decision. Meg...

I got a bit nostalgic when my friend Arun posted this link on Facebook - Winamp to say goodbye on 20-Dec!! For the uninitiated ones, winamp was THE media player in our 20's era. Windows Media Player was nowhere to be seen, forget about iTunes and everything else. A thin desktop client, with loads of feature and support for almost every audio format. And yes, we could put various skins as well to suit the mood of the day. This was fun, luxury and convenience. As we grew up, slowly winamp was taken over by Windows Media Player (only to a certain extent) and then primarily by Jukeboxes of the world and then iTunes. WinAmp slowly faded away. I don't remember exactly when, but probably around 7-8 years back I stopped using it.  The one important feature - from my perspective - that I'll always remember - was the remote control. By running a tiny server, it used to allow remote clients to connect to the server and could listen to remote playlist. And you can guess the u...