2020 Auto Expo Notes

Took a Bla Bla car from Dehradun. Volunteered for driving duty around Muzaffarnagar. Nice to have someone correct your while you are driving – was warned of lane violations by the young car owner. Reached Ghaziabad by 2030 hrs. Got dropped off right on the Vaishali Metro station road. Met up with Rakesh, who was … Read more

Top five regrets of the dying

A nurse has recorded the most common regrets of the dying, and among the top ones is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’. What would your biggest regret be if this was your last day of life? A palliative nurse has recorded the top five regrets of the dying. There was no mention of … Read more

Steve Jobs – Learnings from his Life

What defines Apple? 1984 – Macintosh  2003 – Ipod 2008 – Iphone 2010 – Ipad What are its products known for? – Simple to operate, great to look at Why did the Mac have a translucent cover? – Perfectionism Why did Apple not get into dot com? – Focus What made Steve Jobs his first … Read more

Hitting the Reply Button to Emails

It is said that mankind has progressed more in the last two centuries than it has in the last two millenia. And what could be the reason for that? The answer is quite a simple one: Because there are many more of us today compared to the numbers that existed till the 19th century. Is … Read more

Waste Busters

Why do we educate ourselves? The broad answers are all future oriented, with the prime one being that we need to make a living. We live for earning a salary that can be spent on our supermarket binges. And what happens to that shopping a few weeks later – most of it lands up in … Read more

Vegan, Vegetrian, Omnivorion

Am recording a very interesting conversation that happened on the IIM Calcutta Pune Alums group in Sep 2023. Disclaimer – my contribution to this conversation was zero. But I liked it enough to paste all of that together and mark it for future use by putting it in a blog post. Thanks to 15 of … Read more

Understanding Diabetes

Peepal Tree School organised a chai pe charcha on ‘Understanding Diabetes ‘ on 17-Dec-23. The keynote speaker was Dr Subodh Pandit, a surgeon who ran his own hospital in Devlali, Nasik for 30 years. Dr Pandit believes that healthcare’s real role is in prevention, not cure. Vegan breakfast of poha, sprouts, fruits and green tea … Read more

The Nature Curist

Arun Sharma started off as a farmer. His first three years of farming saw three droughts and his crops failing. His next venture was a brick kiln. The years that he ran the kiln, it rained like crazy and his bricks got regularly washed away. To compound matters, there was a strike at cement factories. … Read more

The Lockdown Paradox

Businesses seem to be following a 20:80 rule in the lockdown. It takes a lockdown to realise that my business of education has always been a non-essential service!! Businesses that are essential report a 80% drop in business. The funny thing is that medical services, though declared essential, are not as essential as you thought … Read more

The Cycling Monk

Not many of those who know Sachanand D will associate him with religion. But for many years, in the peak of winter, Sacha takes a 10 day holiday. He travels to the hills of Uttarakhand, sans his laptop and mobile phone. The laptop gets replaced by a kamandal – as Sacha lives the life of … Read more