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Showing posts from 2019

The Happiness Place

I boarded a taxi from Kathgodam to Nainital. The hilly road is a perfect candy for eyes. My eyes could breath the trees and mountain en route. The plan was to visit Jim Corbett national park from nainital. After 3 hours of drive, I reached Nainital. A small town of about 5000 people. As I got down from the taxi and headed to tallital, where I had booked my hotel I saw on my left  the grand Naini lake. At around 7000 ft above sea level, the lake is a mystery. I couldn't believe the beauty nature has bestowed on this place. Calm, serene and infinite, the lake was so placid and cool, I just got lost in the study water of the lake. I was actually tired, was travelling the night before from Haridwar (10 hrs journey). But, the placid lake and the cool weather of Nainintal just stripped off my tiredness, I was bubbling with energy and had decided will do boating in the lake for sure. I reached my hotel, got freshened up and headed back to market. I was actually hungry an...

Writing is not a Talent to be coveted, It is a Skill to be cultivated.

‘Writing is not a Talent to be coveted, It is a Skill to be cultivated.’ Dr Adam grant Yesterday I read an interesting book written by Meghana pant on, ‘ How to get Published in India .’ The book is really informative and is useful to a new writer like me. On writing, Meghana is clear, writer should be disciplined and persevering. By disciplined she meant, the writer should fix a certain number of words (say 1000) which she will be writing in a day, no matter what. With great disciplined the writer, will write her pre determined number of words on that day, on next day, a day after and after, for everyday. That’s the kind of discipline required if you want to be a writer. Writing is an arduous job. It requires lots of perseverance . Meaning, no matter what, you should sit down in front of your computer and start typing. You should follow this routine of writing 1000 words daily with Grit . Each day 1000 words, no matter what. So, if you follow this 1000 words a day routine,...

Lessons Learned in Teaching Gen Z ( part I)

By profession I am a professor. A professor of Pharmacy. And I have the privilege to teach the most advanced and recent generation, the Gen Z . I teach in a metro city, probably New York of India, in Mumbai . And I am fortunate enough to teach in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) field. I love teaching my subject Pharmaceutical Chemistry or Medicinal chemistry. It deals with the science and art of medicines as molecules. drug molecules are chemicals which treats the diseases. This sounds cool, but when it comes to teaching the science of drug molecules to students it's not less than climbing Mt. Everest. Teaching chemistry of drugs is an arduous task and demands lots of patience. The same is implied for learning the chemistry of drugs, it requires lots of hard work from students point of view. It's being estimated that for each hour attended in institute of chemistry lecture, minimum 3 hours of work is required at home. I teach medicinal ch...

As strong as it gets. Kahaani is a true success story! 100cr club

So, here I am writing after a long time. It's dussera in India and we are worshiping goddess Durga. The form of energy or shakti. We have holiday for this magnificent festival in India. I was at home and practically free for the entire day. We Gujaratis celebrate dussera by eating Fafda and Jalebi. So, yes we did feasted on this special occasion and had mouth watering jalebis. In the evening I watched a wonderful movie called ' Kahaani ', acted by Vidhya Balan and directed by Sujoy Ghosh, Written by Sujoy Ghosh and Advaita Kala. A quick Wikipedia search revels that it's production cost was just Rs. 8 Cr. It's surprising that the movie was produced in such a low budget. Wiki also says it earned more than Rs. 100 Cr. Now, that's an astonishing achievement for team Kahaani. The movie is all about a female protagonist who is in search of her missing husband. It's a story of courage and strength and it revels the never say die attitude of us human. It...

8 books in 4 weeks, achievable? Let's find out..

Recently I have been reading interesting books. One of such book I read is, 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck' by Mark Manson. In his book he said he read 50 self help books in 50 days. That was the determination he had at the age of 18 or so. Now that's a stellar book reading performance. 50 damn books in just 50 days! Awesome. I generally read a 300 pages non-fiction book in 10 hours. Certainly it's not a one stretch 10 hours I need a break of 10 mins after every 100 mins or so. I am wondering if Mark can read 50 nonfiction books in damn 50 days, why can't I? I am really super excited with this thought and am planning to work on it. However, I have a full time job of 9 to 5 and I reach home at 6.00 in evening. 5 days a week. So in all I have 40 hours of free time at home. 20 hours on weekdays (Monday to Friday) and 20 hours on weekend, so total 40 Hrs/week. If I can utilise this time (40 hrs/wk) productively I can read 4 non fiction books in a week...