Seshadri's Musings

We all would have memories of our parents making us go to school and read so that one day we can become the masters of our destiny.  We had been told that once you acquire knowledge, you can have the world at your feet and live like a king!  Alas, nothing like that happens.  The knowledge that you acquire, and how you use that knowledge in your life is what makes your life. Destiny is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.  You might have your interest in other things, but you have to constantly look out for the signs that destiny is showing you.  Of course, you still get to make your own destiny if you can see and act on the things that are happening to you.  If you and your destiny’s path-forward merges and becomes one, you get to lead a comfortable life.  If you do not agree with your destiny and ignore the signs that it is providing you, then get ready for a hell-ride of a life!! One of the best example is of a gentlema...

Men have been taught to hide their emotions since childhood.  And crying was strictly a no-no!!  All the emotions and crying were supposed to be done by girls.  Over a period of time, it has been agreed in society that men don’t have any emotions.  In case they show any signs of emotions, they are termed a sissy and left alone.  All of this have created a small divide over the current husband-wife relationship. We have often seen that men often feel the need to be self-sufficient and don’t share their feelings with their spouses.  Whereas the women openly express their feelings and quickly want the support of their spouse, family and friends, in any order they feel like!!  Just because men don’t show their emotions, it does not mean that they don’t have feelings.  They just don’t show it outside.  Those who have shown it have found it to be counter-productive.  Seeing the men’s emotions, many women have wrongly thought that the...

Ads are something that we sometimes eagerly look forward to, especially if we are seeing them the first time.  Since my childhood, I have been seeing ads at regular intervals, but I haven’t come across a period where I can spot mistakes in multiple ads being run during the same time!!  The other day, I was watching the India-Sri Lanka Test cricket in Star Sport and the ads that I saw were filled with mistakes (in my opinion) which made me sit and write this blog. The first ad was of iPhone-X.  The copyright claims that that it has the highest security in any phone.  The reason for this is that it can be unlocked with Face-ID.  For laymen/laywomen, it means you just show your face to the phone and it opens 😊.  Now imagine a scenario wherein you have been kidnapped.  The kidnapper does not have to bother asking you the password for your iPhone!! He just waves it in front of your face to unlock and use the date.  Ditto for CIA and other agenci...

One of the most difficult things to do is to say NO to someone.  It may either an invitation for a function, or doing some favor or just telling him/her to leave you alone for some time.  Many a times we are forced to say YES to something and repent about it in leisure.  We want to be so good in the eyes of people that we readily say YES without thinking about anything.  If you keep continuing this way, be prepared to do a lot more than you imagined, when you accepted it in the first place!! This NO can be anything ranging from accepting to baby-sit a child, going out on vacation with them, agreeing to car-pool, attending their function and other things that you feel you are burdened with and will not be enjoying.  From our childhood it is ingrained in us to say YES to whatever we were told to do. During that time, since we had no other work than playing and going to school, we always agreed to do the work that was assigned to us.    Mor...

Do what you have to do, to do what you want to do.  These are the words by Denzel Washington, a famous Hollywood actor.  After listening to others and doing what I am supposed to do, as per what others wanted me to do, I have reached the conclusion that you have to do what you want to do.  Nothing else matters.  I have reached this conclusion very late, but not so late in life!! Of course, when you are young, you are supposed to listen to your parents and do whatever they are telling you to do. Once you get married, you sometimes listen to your spouse and sometimes do what you want to do.  As long as you don’t force your spouse to do your bidding, you can do whatever you want to do.  Letting your spouse do the things their own way is good.  That way you will not be responsible for anything going wrong 😊.  Moreover, even if something goes wrong, they will correct it the next time.  As long as you give space to others to do their own...

Worry – this five-letter word creates such a hype in people’s life that it is very difficult to carry on with other regular work.  If it were for genuine reasons, some worry is an accepted norm.  But most of the time, people fall into such a pathetic state due to worry that they end up spoiling their health as well as relationships. There are various kinds of worries –  worry about the job, about the future, about the children, our health, our family, how we look, are we acceptable to others and so many other things that it can even fill a page.  All the worries make sure that the present work that we have taken up is tossed right outside the window and we will worry about that when the current worry is removed. Some important statistics that were taken from the internet.  I have also added my comments after each statistic as to how to overcome it: - 40% of the things that we worry about, never really happen.   When it is not going to happen, ...

This is something most of us are expert at!!  Even though only some of us may know the meaning of this, but everyone does this on an everyday basis regularly!!  Procrastination is defined as the action of delaying or postponing something.  Want to finish the grocery shopping? Ok we will do it during the weekend.  During the weekend, we are feeling lazy after a hectic week at work and want to catch up on some sleep.  Later, we buy some fast foods or order food from outside, till we go to the supermarket and finish the grocery shopping!! There are also people who have mastered this art.  They will do stuff only when they are in dire straits!! Of course, they will never admit to the dire strait.  For them it is “just-in-time” in their language.  As long as work is going on, why bother for the future!!  Once the future comes, they will decide what is to be done and spend their time on doing that rather than doing other enjoyable things!...

Amar Chitra Katha – this was one of the most popular words in my dictionary, while growing up!  For those of you, I assume it can be counted on our fingertips, the people who have not heard of this wonderful series of illustrated books, this series is really a Pandora box of everything that you need to know about India in simple English language!! Later on, I came to know the true meaning of the series name, Amar Chitra Katha – Immortal Picture Story or Immortal Captivating Story.  The entire series run into more than 400 books or titles.  The first publication of Indian stories came from 1969 onwards and was labelled as Issue No 11.  Earlier in 1967, they had reproduced western fairy tales from Issue No 1 to 10.   I am happy to state that I own all the Amar Chitra Katha’s, except 18 titles, which I cannot find even with Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) publishers.  Some issues I paid extra bucks as I purchased them in eBay and Amazon as they are not avai...

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.  Excellent quote by Joseph Addison.  I am somewhat lazy and try to do exercise whenever the laziness allows me.  But I follow the first part of the quote diligently!!  Reading keeps your brain working and ensures that even though your body might not look young (due to not exercising), your brain definitely would be!! I have been an avid reader since my childhood.  Gorging on Amar Chitra Kathas, Tintin, Asterix, Bahadur, Mandrake, Phantom, Chacha Choudhry, Motu-Patlu in comics.  Perry Mason, Agatha Christie’s works, Sherlock Holmes, James Hadley Chase, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Enid Blyton’s 5 in novels.  I even started reading Robert Ludlum when I was in my 8 th standard.  I remember it was The Bourne Identity.  That was the first 300+ page novel that I had ever read!  I completed it non-stop in about 7-8 hours.  That was the first real page-turner book for me.  Over the...

Most of the people in this world who have reached whatever position they are in right now, have reached there due to the hardship, love and affection shown by their parents.  Without these loving parents, it would have been a very difficult journey for them.  Now that the once-upon-a-time kids have become adults, it is imperative that their parents are shown the same courtesy, love and affection that their parents had bestowed upon them. Most of the time the elder parents will not ask what they want.  It is upto the kids to know what they want (or somehow let the parents speak about their wishes) and fulfil their requirements.  The things would feel very small, but the satisfaction that it provides to the parents is enormous.  Taking care of these small things go a long way to ensure that the elder parents don’t feel alone in their old age and feel part of the family at all times. The elder parents have not known any joy other than to ensure that their...

Nowadays people are getting very busy with their lives with the social interaction, in person, reducing to a bare minimum or nil.  The only way such interaction is possible is the arrival of someone’s birthday or an anniversary, which facilitates the setting up of a party to meet and spend some quality time face-to-face.  Most of the times it is due to their kid’s birthday that they are able to meet people at all without talking about work 😊 The planning is usually done on the weekend before the birthday where you decide who all to invite.  Your friends, with or without kids, or only their kids, your kid’s current/past friends, his/her colony friends and school friends.  Once you arrive at a total, then you have to decide on the food.  Whether to prepare in-house or order from outside.  If the total number of eaters is going to be more than 10, it is better to order from outside.  You can either visit the restaurant and pick up the order or have...

Nowadays we are dependent on our mobile phone so much that over a period of time its memory gets filled up.  When we are ready to video record an important function or a program, it suddenly says “memory full, please clear some memory” or other such messages.  Since we have to record the function, we end up deleting some videos or photos which we would have liked to keep!!  Just to ensure that such things do not happen, it is essential that we clean up the phone memory once a month.  This will be once a week for those who keep taking pictures or recording videos regularly!! I will write about the major heads under which the memory gets clogged: - a)     Pictures and Videos – Every month or week, attach your mobile device to your computer and transfer all the photos and videos to the computer.  Ensure that you delete these from your mobile phone after you have confirmed its availability in your computer.  After every six months or so, you...

We all would have faced such a situation at some point of time – either we forgot to buy something for which we went shopping or out of 10 things necessary for buying our grocery necessities, we end up buying one of two items short.  We then again go out for purchasing those and waste our time.  The reason could be something to do with our remembering-capability.  It can also happen that we buy some 3-4 items more as it was offered at a discount!!  To overcome such a scenario, it is essential to prepare a shopping list that has all the stuff that you require.  This was you can constantly check your list to see if all the items in that list have been bought or not.  Preparation of the list can seem to be long-drawn out affair, but if you prepare it in a proper way, it can help you save petrol and can also ensure that you buy only those that are required and you don’t spend on anything extra!!  Take a sheet of paper and start entering the items...

A long long time ago, your memory was so sharp that you could recite different phone numbers, different addresses and even birthdays of your near-relatives, even in your sleep.  But now, with shorter attention spans, remembering the different passwords also seems a gigantic task, what to talk about the above-mentioned!!  With newer cellphones, remembering the phone numbers has become a passé. You can store the address too in your mobile phones.  If you have read my blog on Birthday and Anniversary wishes, you can manage to remember the birthdays and anniversaries too.  Now let me tell you how to take care of different passwords too!! With so many websites that we visit; to so many financial products that we use (banks, credit cards, tax filing etc), it is inevitable that we will have to remember different passwords. With each site having their own guidelines for the password, right from the number of characters to having at least 1 or 2 numbers, with having at ...

Hi Friends, I have been sending an update through the Status option in WhatsApp and through the Google Plus update, every time I upload my new blog.   Some people, whom I have not interacted through WhatsApp, have been asking me as to how they can know if I have published a new blog.  From now onwards, you can get an instant update once I upload a new blog.  Just click on the “Subscribe” button on the top of the page and put your email id to subscribe.  This way you can never miss my blog!! Don’t worry!  I will be blogging only once a week.  So, at most, you will be getting only one mail a week!  Every Monday!! Cheers!! Today’s daffy definition Money Trouble – The trouble caused when too much of the month is left over at the end of money!!

Who doesn’t like shopping?  Almost everyone loves shopping for themselves.  For some, it might be a 2-minute job, while for others it can almost take a day or two to buy stuff!  And if you can get your shopping done with discounts, then nothing beats it!! For all your shopping needs, there are a quite a number of websites offering you discounts ranging from 5% to 50%.  Ensure you visit these sites before starting your shopping spree.  The pain that you get, when you hear that your friend has bought the same item at a cheaper price, is very frustrating!!  The frustration then gets passed on to your family members and your mood takes some time to come to the normal position!! These are some of the websites that offer you coupons that you can use at the shops/websites mentioned.  You can use these coupons on sites like Amazon, Ebay, Flipkart etc too!! www.mydala.com/online-coupons www.couponindia.in    www.grabon.in   www...

Earlier, whenever a vacation was planned, it used to take a lot of time to put the plan into action.  Where to go, how to go, where to stay, food availability there, list of places to see there, how much money to take, weather forecast for that area during your travel, how to travel in that location and so on and so forth. Now, everything can be done sitting in front of your computer and planning your entire trip in a couple of hours.  No need to visit various travel agents to get a good bargain and worrying about your travel right before the actual day of travel.  Sometimes, the worrying extends to the duration of the trip too! For all your travel needs, you can refer to the following websites, wherein you can find bargain deals and also compare rates across various competitors: - Hotels – www.booking.com www.makemytrip.com www.trivago.in www.goibibo.com    Travel – www.makemytrip.com www.via.com Places to see – www.tripadvisor.in www.india...

Even though there are many avenues for investing, I will discuss the benefits of investing in just 2 of them.  Both of them are government sponsored ones – Public Provident Fund (PPF) and Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY).  The SSY is only for those who have a daughter aged below 10 years of age. Let us take the PPF account first.  It can be opened in any post office or some of the nominated banks like SBI and ICICI banks.  The deposit can range from Rs 500 to Rs 1,50,000 per year.  You will have to invest at least Rs 500 in this account so that it does not become dormant.  You cannot close this account before 15 years.  At the end of 15 years, if you still don’t want to withdraw, you can extend it for another period of 5 years and so on.  Current year’s rate of interest is 7.9% compounded annually. Assuming we invest Rs 1,50,000 on 1 st April each year and take 7.9% interest as being constant for the next 15 years, you are looking at a fi...

On special occasions, earlier, people used to go out for food and enjoy outside food.  Nowadays, there are various companies available, who will ensure that the food reaches you at home, rather than you having to bear the traffic, the waiting at the restaurant and the travel before consuming your food!  Welcome to the world of ordering food online!!  There are many companies like Swiggy, Faasos, Foodpanda, Zomato, Getmyfood and their likes, through which you can get sumptuous food delivered at your doorstep, without having to venture out yourselves. All these companies also offer inaugural discounts for using their services.  All you need is a mobile number or get yourself registered on their website.  If you have multiple mobile numbers at your house, you can use each of the mobile to get your first “discounted” order for all the numbers 😊 .  And since there are various companies, you can enjoy your “discounted” food for a longer duration!!...

This blog will tell you of some of the things that I employ while bargaining in a local market buying things.  Bargaining has been in our psyche since a very long time even when we did not have money.  Earlier people used to bargain and barter things with each other.  So when something is so ingrained in our psyche, it will naturally come out from somewhere or the other!! I strengthened my bargaining skills in Delhi where I spent the initial 30 years of my life!!  I used to stay in a place called Karol Bagh. Every Monday, there was a Monday market, wherein the shops on Ajmal Khan Road would be closed and both sides of the road’s footpath would be covered by different vendors spreading out their wares on the footpath and waiting for customers to stop and purchase stuff.  You can buy just about anything in these so-called “shops” and at a bargain price!! A lot of people from other parts of India used to come to Delhi for vacation and this place was a not...