The "new norm"

Covid-19 is not just the talk of the town but its talk of the world now. It has brought in lot more changes and challenges in our life. Its throwing a strong message on us that life is not going to be the same going forward. We are getting into a "new norm". I have been musing about the new norm and felt like noting it down in my blog. 

Lock-down, shelter-in-place or whatever we want to call it, has made us all work from home. I don't have experience leaving my kids in day care as I had my sweet in-laws taking good care of them but now with the prevalent nuclear family, its a mandatory task to drop kids in day care before going to work. A typical working young mom has this tension everyday : wake up kids, get them ready, pack their snacks, pampering them to be good at the day care and bidding a "bye bye" by swallowing both the agony and cry! Is it time for the employers to give a mandatory work from home option for young moms till their kids enter the age of schooling?

While some of the working sector is struggling to adapt to this remote working situation, its actually business-as-usual or smooth ride for the IT sector, I guess. Deliverable and meetings are happening without hiccups, blame or praise the technology supporting it. The huge buildings, tech parks built for IT sector are literally empty now! Is it time for IT giants to stop grabbing lands to build new software parks and give away existing huge buildings to hospitals and shelter for the homeless?

There is a message floating around in social media to show a mountain range that was not visible from roof tops for years together. Air quality improvement has enabled it, thanks to less traffic on land and sky. Animals and birds are roaming around fearlessly. I could hear chirping of birds more than the dashing sound of traffic now. Is it time for us to think about how we can reduce our day-to-day traffic, weekly/monthly/yearly travel?

Covid-19 is making us enjoy home food and appreciate the nutrition available in natural food. We could enjoy it because there is a supply of groceries needed, just saying thanks is not enough for the farmers. I am not an economy person but capable of understanding that its going down. There is a huge cry on the stocks value going down and a deep worry on what's going to happen to our investments. Is it time to invest our money on agriculture instead of putting it in non-essentials?

There is a big talk on the journey that we need to take into self during this challenging time and am also doing it. It is revealing many things to me, the items that I considered as needed or critical before are moving to the category of "not so needed". My urge to shop, to visit places, to eat variety food are actually going down. Is it time for me to reduce my time on enjoyment and focus my energy towards inner self?

Disclaimer : My musings are solely mine and I have just used my freedom of expression. 

Nostalgia on bus travel

Hey my blog!! It is long since I wrote anything for you, last one was in May, 3 months back, pretty long time!! Let me take a resolution that I write something in my own blog very often.

Coming to nostalgia on the bus travel, what a nice recall I got as I travelled in the city bus of "Namma Bangaluru" yesterday. Bus travel is something which should be enjoyed thoroughly, provided you get a window seat as soon as you climb in :-). I enjoyed my bus travel that I had in my school days, my college days and my working days before marriage. School days bus travel includes school bus and city bus. School bus is not an interesting one as I see the same people taking the same seats. City bus travel is an interesting one, you see different people, different levels in communications, "please konjam space" till "hey indha konjam nagaru". It includes the decent fellow travellers and the irritating, annoying indecent fellow travellers. I had often felt like gunning down the teasers who do all sorts of indecent, nasty things in the bus to the eves. I have never felt bad for travelling in a bus though I see my class mates coming in cycle or bike. Those were days when I was not disturbed with the external things, concentration was only on my studies and scores.

College buses, Vow...that is the time I enjoyed bus travel the most. Again here too I had a college bus which I need to board on time, else get the punishment of walking from the bus stop till my Dept. Oh, no that was painful, so took care not to miss the bus. Here the only interesting thing was the chat that I used to have with friends and seniors when no staff travel with us. Otherwise it will be a complete silence in the bus, fear of losing internals!!!

Now comes the best part my bus travel Madurai-Dindigul. I had enjoyed that thoroughly. I take the late evening bus after college timings, it will be half-sunset and half-moonlit. What a spectacular feast that I get enroute. Small hills and I see fire like a line on the hills, I see the moon raising behind the hill and slowly coming to the front, the moon coming with me throughout the travel. And the nap that I get in the travel. The return travel will not be that enjoying as I will be down leaving the house. I had cried many a times that I had to go back to the hostel and have that same food.

Yes bus travel is something which I miss even now. Anyway now it is difficult for me to travel by bus as spending time in the travel and waiting is considered as waste and find an alternate to save time, I have to be an efficient time manager. The security asked me yesterday "ennamma nadandhu vareenga?" my pride is involved, I cannot travel by bus after getting used to the car. Those were days when I had the environment for travel. Let me be happy with what I had and what I have now.

Your seat in the office

Does the seating in the office matters? Yes it does. Want to know how? You have seniors? And the company follows the trend of giving preferences to seniors? Seniors prefer front cabins, cabins facing window, cabins close to the Manager. So this is how the problem starts, you enter as a junior to the team. You see people occupying the most favoured cabins. And the seat that has been allotted to you causes all sorts of problem as you keep eyeing at the most favoured cabins and it ends up in a big "Vaasthu" problem. A flash, so this is how the "Vaasthu" problem starts? Not seeing the benefits in hand but peeping at others and get sick with whatever you have? Put the blame on "Vaasthu".
Whatever it is, a good seat in the office matters for a good performance and let the Managers start looking at it seriously if they really want to get the work done.

Welcome aboard

I welcome myself to my new blog. Though the title says "Latha's Musings", it is not just mine but I would like to see, hear others musings, others "Vows" here. This is a simple step to unite people with similar thoughts or different thoughts and make a collection of the valuable ones. Let this be an exciting blogger journey.

Cheers,
Latha