Eyes With Fire Will See Light Everywhere

2017 has been a eventful year for me both personally and professionally. Each month in 2017 has something to offer. In January : I had a conflict with one of my ex-bosses and moved to another team to build integrations for our Business Intelligence tool. In retrospect, that is one of the best learning experiences of my career. It helped me to understand how important it is to have metrics while building a product. In February : I got engaged to my wife. In March : I received training in Product Marketing. Again one of the best trainings I ever had. The training showed the blind spots and helped me increase my knowledge about the product management. In April : I got the permanent residence for Canada and completed one of the complex projects at work. In May : I got married. In June : My wife moved to the states and she got her permanent residency as well. In July : We travelled a little in the states and started preparations for moving to Canada. My wife took the ...

After meeting 19 girls, dating 3 girls and after 4 years of thinking about marriage, I tied knot with Srilatha alias Siri. I don't call our marriage as made in heaven marriage. We both knew what we are getting into and what we like or don't like about each other. I tag our marriage as "LOVE-HATE" marriage. I said yes to the marriage considering things I hate and could not find them in Siri. My wife said yes to the marriage considering things that she love and find them in me. We are two different persons. That's Needless to say... I know. We have our own differences: I like reading, Siri likes the feel of reading and not actually reading, She like someone to take as many pics of herself, I hate taking some else pics, I like eating different cuisine food except Indian, She likes eating only Indian food. She likes traditions and perfection I am more liberal and unconventional and we have our own similarities: We both love dancing, outdoors, teasing each othe...

I like the simple things that life offers. I am curious to learn what others consider simple in their lives. So, this curiousness always ignite the discussions with the random people I travel with. The recent interaction with one of the Uber cab drivers has left me tears. Tracey and her husband moved to Phoenix 25 years ago. They love each other. They did not have kids. They travelled across the world, camped at different national parks, worked at corporate offices, read the books  and watched the movies. Life was spectacular. However, she lost her husband 6 months back and her world has a deep void. She did not make friends in the neighborhood. Her parents were far from her. She has no one to share her life with it. That's when she find Uber. Uber to her is not for making money. Uber to her is a getaway to express, talk and share her stories to the world. In short, Tracey is looking for a companionship in her life. Uber is helping her. She wakes up every morning with a drive ...

Every generation chooses an actor and will get associated with the actor and his movies all along their life irrespective of how good or bad the actor movies are. My father associated with Hero Krishna's movies. I got associated with Ranbir Kapoor's movies. I got hooked up from Rockstar movie and got stoked after watching his performance in Burfi. Cheers to his movies in my lifetime.

I had my share of ups and downs in life. I learned some lessons by paying significant costs which are not at all commendable in the information over-loaded world. We don't need to re-invent the wheel again and again. So, sharing my lessons: Always have a plan B. If possible Plan C. Don't get emotionally attached to your plan A. Never trust your beliefs and super beliefs when the probabilities say something different. Example: Super Belief : I always win the second time irrespective of odds. I won't fail the third time. Life is a journey not a destination. Don't plan to do things only after reaching the destination. You will miss a lot of interesting experiences. Don't always resist people if you want to make a connection or build a relationship with them. Quality of the life is dependent on what you give not what you withhold. It's ok to be vulnerable. There is no Perfection . It's only PROGRESS. Spend at least 10 minutes a day to think about or...

Branding represents a process of communicating to the world on what does a company stand for and more importantly what doesn't a company does not stand for. Branding is a self-imposed restriction that defines an organization. My kickboxing coach finishes every session by yelling the phrase : Don't forget who you are and what you stand for. I have a problem with the later part of his statement: What do I stand for ? I spent a lot of months thinking about it. Expect the part that I stand on my legs, I could not able to get a concrete answer on what do I stand for.Like any unanswerable question, it bothered me. What you stand for showcases who you are on a fundamental level. Examples:     1. I met a Coca-cola executive for breakfast. When he came to know that the restaurant only serves Pepsi, he said to me: Chakri we have to leave this restaurant and go to some place else. I asked him why he said he won't drink Pepsi. This is a very typical of any executive. ...

Warning # Emotional vomit ahead. 3 months ago # I started noticing that my interactions with my father as well as strangers were coming down. I could not able to engage them more than 10 min. The disengaging habit even got spread to the interactions with the girls I took on dates and to the interactions at the generic social gatherings. It's a horrible thing to happen.I was startled. I don't know why I was getting disengaged all of a sudden. May be I did not notice it. I started doing research and reading books about engagement in interactions. I put all the symptoms in order and found that I was having issues with vulnerability. It existed since my childhood. It turned out to be shame and guilt. I did not realize it affected me in every possible way. It stopped me from expressing myself, to build better relationships, to let go and to be confident. Before I elaborate more on that, I want to define Vulnerability: Its a state of being afraid of being judged when we exp...

Are you in a good relationship with your ex-boss who fired you ? Are you in talking terms with the girl who left you ? Are you maintaining rapport with the guy who sold you a high premium gym membership when compared to your friend ? Are you maintaining the healthy sprite with your competitor(s)? Are you maintaining camaraderie with the person who is always denying your ideas or giving free advise ? We always judge people based on their actions and not on their intent.Separating a person from his/her behavior is the most difficult thing to do. We need courage and compassion to do that. Compassion not for others but compassion for oneself.Owning one's story and loving oneself through that process is the bravest thing that one will ever do. The more one is emotional involved, the more courage he/she needs. Glad that I went through the breakdown  spiritual awakening process. Not that I mastered the art but holding the relationships one at a time by gaining an ounce of cou...

I am scared of my past. Not that I do not have any good memories. Thinking about my past makes me vulnerable. I agree that Who we are today is the outcome of our past. But I do not like to peak into it every now and then since It has become new and different. It's not the part that belongs to me anymore. It left me.

Rockstar and Tamasha are two of my favorite movies. These two movies are very close to my heart. My life has transformed during the time frame between the releases of these films. I blogged about my life after the release of Rockstar here . From that day on life was never the same. A journey worth the time and effort. It had all the ingredients: frustrations, insecurities, fear, love, inabilities,craziness, kindness,obsessions, poetry, moving out of comfort zone, peace, hard kills, soft kills, exhaustion, bravery, confidence and confrontations. I thought of writing a detailed post on the entire experience but realized that some things are beautiful when unsaid. I want to conclude the post by sharing this: You will come to see suffering that will break your heart. When this happens and it will, don't turn away from it, turn towards it. This is the moment when transformation is born.

I wrote in the MBA admission essays that one day I want to become a social entrepreneur, helping people realize their dreams thus improving their economics. There are couple of strong reasons behind that: 1. I have seen my friends especially girls, who are still working full time in the Kitchen irrespective of their intelligence just because their parents cannot afford to pay for their education. 2. I used to wait for my father at his work place. He works for a micro lending bank. People used to come for loans for smaller amounts to just start small business and he would always send them back. I did not like the disappointment look in their faces. Economics and education are two things that will eliminate poverty in the long run. Finally I got a chance to help people realize their dreams. I am working with Mentors.org to help small businesses. My goal for 2016 is to help 12 small businesses in a country in Central America. I am privileged to be received so many things in life....

After completing MBA and starting my career in the field I love, I finally checked off all the items in the bucket list. With contentment and happiness, I teared off the bucket list sheet. It felt so good. Even if I die today, I have no major regrets in my life. After tearing the bucket list, I decided not to have any bucket list, I wanted to go with the flow of the life and take life as it comes. The initial 3-4 months were really good.It's like first phase of retirement: simple, less burdensome, nothing to lose and happy phase, and then slowly vacuum started entering into the life. One Sunday morning, I was just sitting on my bed with nothing to do.I sat motionless, directionless and aimless.I felt alone and lonely. Questions like what to do with life ? what's in store for me ? popped up again and again. I did not pay attention to them. I don't want to prepare and work on another bucket list. I am afraid of pursuing another bucket list as it takes huge emotional str...

People always attribute things that they cannot do are tough and things they can do are very easy and anyone can do it. Two weeks back, I called one of my friends in India.He was surprised that I called him from USA to just say "Hi". At the end of the conversation, he also mentioned that "It's so nice of me to not forget him, even though I went to US, became highly sophisticated and started giving me power and in turn he became powerless." This guy was much smarter than me during school days and was (is) very humble and always try to help others as much as he can. Being seen him powerless,I felt sad. I grew up in a place where there was continuous drought for many years. So, every day, when I go home after tuition class, my mother would be ready with two water cans to get drinking water. I tie the two cans and put them on the bicycle, bike to the near by water supply station, stand in the queue for my turn to get water. There was a girl in my class,much...

Read the following poem somewhere. Intriguing lines.Totally different perspective.Kudos to the person who wrote it. There is so much talk  of being left but it is hard to be the one  who does the leaving. It is not nothing to pack a suitcase. It is not nothing  to see good love wasted, or waiting, and believe it belongs to you.

My Indian friends always ask me why do I hike? So, I thought about the answer. I am excited about it at any given day. When I questioned myself, why am I excited ? The only answer I get is "Sense of Accomplishment." Every time, I hike and look back at the mountain, I cherish that moment. I get this feeling "Whoa!!!! I did that.Its awesome.Its huge." When I see the tangible results of what I do, its brings tremendous sense of accomplishment and my confidence rises. That's one of the primary reasons I started learning pottery too.I can see things that are built with my own hands irrespective of how awkward or beautiful they are. Creating and hiking are beautiful experiences. They improve acceptance, empathy, patience and confidence levels. On contrary, my international friends never ask me why I go for hike? Instead they ask me where did I go ? If I say I hiked at Zion, they just say isn't it cool? :) PS: People always has this notion that the ones that...

In the closing lines of the story "What we talk about when we talk about love"  Raymond Carver  says: I  could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark. When we read the book, its about finding that heart beating.It has been long time, I felt like that after reading a book : deeply connected, tears after reading it, completely satisfied, joy in the face, feeling human again. The other day, I felt similar emotion after watching the movie "Begin again". Best songs I have heard in recent times, best music, best performances, best screenplay. Thanks   John Carney for making me cry and writing/directing such a subtle story. PS: After watching the movie, I felt like going to Newyork again. (The movie is completely shot at NY downtown)

I worked with lot of competent and courageous people (most of them were my bosses).They have great things to talk about me. It's hard for me to see those qualities with my own senses. I have been like that not sure of what I can or what I can't. Most of the people are like that. When you enter a B-school, the first thing they do is to make you run across different tools and algorithms and categorize(restrict) your strengths and weakness into different bucket based on 150-200 questions and then the career coaches try to make believe them. The end goal is to turn you from uncertainty to  certainty even if there is chance of going wrong. Why do they do that ? Simple, if you are certain in the direction you wanted to go then nurturing that wouldn't be difficult. You cannot get a man to a place where he don't know where to go.I used the output of those tools in my resume but never completely believed in them. My philosophy is that given right conditions and support anybod...

Trying to maintain control in this life is like trying to maintain control on a roller coaster ride. The ride has its own logic and is going to go its own way, regardless of how tightly you grip the bar. There is a thrill and joy in simply surrendering to the ride and fully feeling the ups and downs of it rather than fighting them. When you fight the ride, resisting what’s happening at every turn, your whole being becomes tense and anxiety. When you go with the ride, accepting what you cannot control, freedom and joy will inevitably arise. As with so many seemingly simple things in life, it is not always easy to let go, even of the things we know we can’t control. Most of us feel a great discomfort with the givens of this life, one of which is the fact that much of the time we have no control over what happens. Sometimes this awareness comes only when we have a stark encounter with this fact, and all our attempts to be in control are revealed to be unnecessary burdens.  W...

Most men and boys love driving either bikes or cars, somehow since my childhood I was afraid of driving. I was sacred to death. Not that I was afraid of death but afraid of living artificially. Somehow deep down in my head I always thought I could not handle speeds. The idea that I would be in a uncontrollable situation drove me crazy. I love to seat in the front seats of a F-1 car or with someone who drives at 140 miles/hour however my mind does not think in speeds while I am driving. It took me 12 years to ride a bicycle. I still cannot drive manually controlled bikes or cars. For me, driving a bike or car in India is not at all possible. In US,the speeds on the freeways get the shit out of me. I went to a driving school and the trainers did not leave a single day without cursing me in their minds and shouting literally while I was driving on the roads. They are not so good teachers. They did not understood me. I read lot of articles to study the phobia of driving. I felt normal w...

When we shared a vehicle I waited for you to come and pick me up every time, practicing the same questions over and over. Where do we go? What do you want? A wild thing? A companion? A husband? I will give it. I will be that. Anything. For you. Such is the way you only taught me love in the absence of it. In the end, begging. PS: Everyone else isn't you. It turns out that's a huge problem for me.