Corporate ladder vs Woman

This post is the reflection of my introspection  over every woman who envisions to grow in corporate ladder. Interviews what we hear about Sheryl Sandberg, Indra Nooyi ,Kiran mazumdar shah still belongs to that 10% of woman at top management. If there would have been a gradient shift in this percentage , then their interviews will not be about the hardships they have faced all through the journey.

Every year we have heard about policies unfolding at corporate offices when women's day comes round the corner. Smell of rose bouquets , vibrant colored balloons and over flooding wishes in all our gadgets and social networking sites. Surface level compliments tries to give a good aura for the particular day and it vanishes in a whimsical way. Now I have seen both metros and cosmopolitan life. Hence my agony made me to jot the experiences I had in  my six years of corporate journey at multiple organizations.

What Wedding bell means  in Woman employees life?
When I got married , I can sense the skeptical view  in my lady boss face and she threw a question "why am I overwhelmed about married life?". If anyone is not overwhelmed I guess they dwell in the last stage of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Why don't people acknowledge beautiful changes in life.
That was the time I was shunting between two different states for my work with few days in Bangalore and few days in NCR . She has forgotten the point of uncontrollable x factors involved in relocation though they can give a jazzy name with the term "Work from Home" without setting clear infrastructure in place. I tested and experimented this model for couple of months and it pinched me to the heights when my immediate lady manager checked about the periodicity of my menstruation cycle as soon as I said unwell. I have faced these point blank questions from lady bosses consecutively who are in the age group of 40-50.
 I feel we Indians should really work upon work-life balance and so called leaders should really work upon leading a team without just managing it. They should know to inspire a person more than poking into micro transactions. Moreover  we should experiment  divide and conquer theory at our homes irrespective of gender difference. Divorces and attritions still majorly come from the same rootcause, uneven load distribution.

Work from Home or Work for Home:
 The next jazzy term is work from Home. Many non ITians believe work from home as the great luxury which IT folks exclusively enjoy. Within the IT group, male folks sarcastically bounce a joke over female collegues "Is it work from Home or work for Home". Unless a culture is brought in to appreciate the work more than the mode and way of working ,it will backfire the morale of team. I have seen folks who have not promoted in their career as they work in "work from Home mode"

Maternity vs Political tornado
 Iam happy to announce   we are so excited to welcome a new kiddo in our family. Happily Iam involved in  a challenging project in this tenure ,nevertheless I have come across another stunning head who can vent out her incapabilities in the name of review and who is eagerly waiting for my maternity break. Maternity is any woman's right and when senior management tries to ride on that energy there comes a flaw in the system. We are not in the generation to hide baby bump with a coat ,its not a shy thing to attend business meetings and to crack a deal or to provide a continuous lecture for 4 hours for the joy of work.

But political tornado when it sweeps in just to corner a woman employee with maternity reason ,that's intolerable. All the three reasons are something which any woman employee would have faced directly or indirectly. If not that's an ecosystem we should wish for.

Organisations should really work on eliminating the perennial roots if they want to question their statistical numbers in regard to gender inclusiveness.

Post Script: Sooner planning to work on a book in this theme.




 

Love for NCR

All good beginning unfolds at Nation's capital for me.Let it be my first career,  life after wedding with Nambi,lean journey etc.. This is one ancient city which has become so romantic with me how much ever I hate it. In 2010 I disliked it and in 2016 my hatred for this city grew more due to climatic reasons, nevertheless NCR's love for me has become deeper with thick roots. I have become more inclusive with lot more Indianism in me and loving back NCR as an Indian and not as a south Indian,though I hear few regional demarcation statements wherever I go in North because of my Brown skin.
In fact I have got three great mentors for life at NCR, its my husband Nambi and my professional mentor cum Manager Minakshi and the city "NCR" by itself. It took sometime to consider NCR as my mentor but finally city won and I embrace it. I have learnt about true companionship in both good and bad times,beauty of patience  from Nambi who can dissect any problems to look into the possibility with 360 degree view, whenever I get entangled. I was a person who hardly believed in marriage once but it has truly changed the perspective now and I agree upon the point "Everyone needs a co-pilot" to make a journey of contentment.    

Unexpected gifts from Mentor NCR:

We  were able to meet my favorite author William Darlymple , the author of "City of Djinns"  who  has narrated about the great depth of India's landscape  in his book " Nine lives" at Delhi. Its an overwhelming moment when we see the favorite author who shared his glimpse about India.

We were able to witness the Jaipur literature festival 2016  with outstanding speech by Shashi Tharoor and many other young contemporary writers.So much in the store at Jaipur lit fest if anyone welcomes fresh perspective into their world of knowledge.

We were able to witness the slam poetry stage show by Sarah and Phil Kay though I made a huge hole in my pocket . Its worth it as their poem gets life in the stage

Last but not the least, I had a joyful professional journey to bring in lean momentum all because of my mentor Minakshi who taught me stakeholder management while handling people from multiple teams with its various intrinsic nuances and she is one such person who helped me to uncover the real passion of  mine "coach ,teach and experiment" with process and trainings.

Delhi is always something close to my heart in its own way.
 

The shadow face "thoughtsbeyonddots"

Nice to come back from  bloggers break and its always nicer to hear about "thoughtsbeyonddots" blog which stands as a shadow for me. My friend who lives miles away called me yesterday after a year for a casual conversation as my blog is not being currently active.I have got another face by this "thoughtsbeyonddots", which is a way of conversation. There is lot more to pour down regarding my journey in one complete year where lot of dreams came true.I was quite packed with living a contentful year rather than imaginative writing .But its time to put it in words.
 At the end of the day if writing soothes or touches any reader and if they wait for the next post to read in a blog that's the great gift given by a reader to a blogger.

 

Peace begins at Bhutan

I have recently read about Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner.Such an interesting book where the author goes in search of happiness quotient at different countries.One is the land of Gross National happiness,Bhutan.Even I got a chance to pack my bag to Bhutan recently.Though I have read about this country in Eric's book,Bhutan was in my bucket list for long time with so much research.I am excited to share about experience in Druk Airlines,where were able to spot Mt.Everest,Kanchanjanga,Mt.Makalu and many more moutains so close by.The landing is quite tricky as the runway is between two mountains.Thats a great experience to say.
   I liked people's self content life with meditation,chanting , prayers .Its so nice to see when a religion has all the power to bring in zero crime rate in a country.97% of the country follows Buddhism.We visited magnificent Buddha Point at Thimphu,a serene place to start with.We have got a Local college goer Tanzin as our one day friend who was happy enough to narrate their country's history.She actually was able to say the reality of a country without much polish.Must visit places are stamp museum,Textile Museum,Memorial chorten,Buddha Point and Thimphu Dzong.Food is spicy enough for Indian tongue.Then comes Paro where we trekked to Tiger's Nest.Its a place of extreme human engineering.Iam astonished by the building more than Guru Rinpoche's lonely meditation at the top of cliff.There is so much to write about Bhutan,so blog wont be a sufficient placeholder.So here goes few pics from our trip.I personally felt Bhutan is a place to find peace but not happiness.Afterall ,Happiness is always a subjective thing to discuss.More than 4 days Its not easy to stay at Bhutan as I have miles to go and things to finish

Ganeshpooja 2016

Festival season has started now.India has lovely celebrations to add happiness to souls sinked in daily routine.I have woken up the happy kid in me to bring in the rituals at my new home.As ganapathi statue was not available in the streets of Noida,we tried to manage with chota ganpath at home.

I tried out fried mothak which is a maharashtian receipe along with moong sundal.There is a happiness quotient when we offer for our neighbors.That's a cool joy of giving.

Parshar lake trek

We were able to finally complete our long waited parshar lake trek at Himachal Pradesh.I should convey my thanks to Indiahikes trek leads as well as trek members who made the trek less difficult one.we started our trek from Bagging village which is at 4000 ft high from Mandi.The ascend was moderate with steep routes in 4-5 spots.It would be better to go with trekkung shoes as it's mandatory in slippery grounds.After 6 hours of trek,we reached the view point at an altitude of 7000 ft.Vow! Such an insane beauty.

   As the weather was helping us,we were able to complete the trek without any injury.There comes a hidden history to parshar lake.Parshar rishi ,guru of pandavas while they were in Himalayas for self realization and the son of vyasar meditates here and so the temple.There is an grassy island in the center of lake which keeps moving in the lake through out the year and the depth of lake remains unknown till this date.

  We learnt to make tent and we could witness rain followed by stars. 

 When I asked about trekking experience with trek members each had their own experience to say.As such trek won't give us a cup of joy ,but accomplishment raises our bar to face tough situations in a carefree style.

Here goes few pictures from parshar 

Geography of bliss

Been a longtime I sat with a gripping book.I recently got this book recommendation"Geography of bliss" by my friend.I have to say it as a gripping book as it involves factual data,realtime experiences and author's experiment on happiness quotient at different geographical locations of the world.Eric, the author has tried motley colored experiences starting from country of pleasure"Netherlands" to country of misery "Moldova" .This book in short is a research on happiness,but a lovable research fits for every human in the world.I liked the word he coined for each blissful country he visited.Its a not a book which speaks about superficial happiness but touches the depth to it and as a reader we can realise it when he traveled to county of sadness "Moldova".Again happiness is a subjective thing always to talk about.

As a whole it's worth a read.Great job by Eric.