When Your Clock Suddenly Runs Slow!

My God! My mind was longing for “a daybreak”  this Monday as I felt I have been running continuously up and down both in college and at home. I never knew that mind vibrations are this powerful 😊. This global Corona issue peeped into Tamil Nadu and suddenly my clock started running very slow. I just wanted to skip my yoga today and do some writing. Happiness generators are given priorities always 😊 With lot of panic indeed, thought to let it go for a while and immerse here and get that refreshing dip in this ever flowing river stream! Mind, government can only put orders for the body to avoid going for a trip and never can do the same  for the mind 😊 So mind can be on a holiday, wherever it wants to and I chose to be  here 😊

Obviously, I don’t have anything particular to write but I just wanted to write today!. According to me, translating the language of my neurons to English is one of the jolliest jobs for me😊. Last week I had gone to give a talk in Valliammai Engineering College on “Tamil Computing”.  Nothing comes to it when you just have to walk for few minutes  from your Institution to the invited institution. Yes! The Valliammai college is  in our campus ! The head of the Computer Science department seemed to have like- mind with me and we were discussing about  teaching as well as parenting 😊 Speaking to a like mind is one of the ways of making your time valuable 😊. Yeah, I am coming to the point. We were talking about the students feedback to teachers .  Previously it was only numerical scores given by the students to us now along with that they have included written comments also. I was telling her that a person cannot lie while writing his/her thoughts. She said yes it is true 😊 So don’t get upset with me and that was the point I was trying to make here 😊. The reason why I like writing is that it prevents me speaking lies and its true that which most of my friends would know that I don’t speak lies. May be, I reveal less details for good 😊 , Yes believe me😊 ( try reading believe me in Vadivelu slang, you will attach a smile to your face 😊 did you ? wow 😊 . thanks! you believed in me 😊 )

OK I started this post so I have to continue and I have to end it without irritating the reader. So, yes, what can happen to you  when your clock suddenly runs slow. Will you feel that jerk you get when a sudden brake is applied on a car or you take It cool and grab the positivity? Think about it and plan your thoughts . Anyways, here are my thoughts and plans 😊. Foremost!  spending more time with family😊 Which was totally  missing ! Monday to Friday, I  would only have the time to say that hurry-bye to my two loved ones at home while they both would have just got up to gear up their day 😊 Saturday and Sunday  also seemed so busy for the past few months . That’s why Selva would get irritated with me when I accept to work  on Saturday/Sunday. He just don’t like me leaving home on weekends as he is already worried of me, getting less sleep which is 6 hours accurate on week days!.  I feel that’s enough for me but still, he feels that way 😊 . Now this can be alleviated spending time with them 😊 Me and my daughter have few movies, songs and activities to be watched/ done together.

Ans yes, my independent research was left aloof and its still hanging on the air ! I will continue with that. Hoping so 😊 and yes that Youtube channel which I did not care much this semester can be given more care 😊.Also, I need to plan videos for the not- taught portions for my  students as they are going to straight away take up the final semester exams  😊 I have been thinking of writing some Tamil stuff for long time but postponing as my time zone did not permit my mind zone in! 😊 will do it 😊. Many more plans are flashing on my head but my neurons are hiding from me as of now, may be they will be revealed and I will get clarity on that soon 😊

Along being so cautious, and hoping that all my family members , friends, students are safe, also would want to cross  this hazy cloud  with smiles 😊

Good luck to you and Good luck to me 😊.

Thanks for reading 😊

Subalalitha

What Growth Costs :)

Its been a quite long time, since I visited this  spot of mine 😊 Today did not actually wanted to blog but felt like writing and I thought of attempting a Tamil poem but squeezing my lil brain which is already damn tired, din feel like a good idea! So took up this mind freshening task. I exactly have 45 mins for my daughter to return home from her dance class, so will rush up  my flow of thoughts .Few days back, I wrote about my National Engineering College NLP workshop experiences but I felt It was too much of emotions exhibited which might not be captivating, so unpublished the post 😊 Yes I am grown up and I should now know what to express and what not to 😊.  At sometimes, that is becoming so tough too. Always having the mind  and speech under strong control and behaving like a matured person in front of students and  peers (ofcourse one or two exceptions exist 😊) is so traumatic !. At the end of the day, things have to be executed the way the  life demands ☹  

Sometimes, I curse myself for growing old. No No, not trying to spread negativity 😊  Ofcourse I am enjoying motherhood and yeah wifehood, sisterhood, daughterhood, daughter-in-law hood , sister-in law hood etc etc.of which,  the first two hoods are my favorite! Why because those two hoods don’t need me to control my mind or speech. I can blabber anything to both of my loved ones at home and they understand  me perfectly😊 Yes blessed me 😊. I am only minding the external world  which demands a heavy mind and speech control which becomes so difficult and at times, develops a lot of head ache. To be precise, what I feel is that I rarely see the fun part of the external world these days.  This is the cost , that is thrown while climbing up the ladder in career as you grow older.

I rarely see myself laughing out of control these days outside home. I mean, I miss my  purest form of laughter. I surely  miss TACOLA  friends sometimes. Recently, I noticed that my Tacola friend Balaji who  used to call monthly once started  calling me  weekly once.  Even if I don’t pick up and forget to call back, he will call the next day and speak during his lunch hours. Later, I realised, this is happening only after he became the research head in his office. I started listening to him and allocated time for him  after that. Sometimes you don’t realize until u undergo 😊.The ground truth is that as u elevate in your career, you will not have true friends around and  even if you have, they won’t match your real personality.

Its also true that expressing you as you to all wont work (Yes I am grown up 😊).  It disappoints when sometimes people who are nice to you don’t seem to be nice to their juniors at workplace. The reliability  scales down on them and definitely u cant make friendship with them.  May be that is how life is and has to be accepted the way it is. The fun part shrinks at workplace as and when u grow old and yeah as and when  u get that thickening neurons as well 😊. I do have friends may be one or two to whom I am expressing “the real I am “  at workplace 😊 again blessed me 😊

Any darker side do have a brighter side and that ray of hope do exist and visible always :). What I have gained is that I have become cool and I am able to solve my problems on my own. My unconditional policies have strengthened like anything these days. I rarely mind  the attitude of others. No matter they are right or wrong, I am moving forward and taking decisions which are mostly justified ones. Yeah, I am able to take decisions in which I was weaker previously.

My time is up and I hope this post is not showing up  negativity. I love my life always however it feels like. I will grab the maximum positivity possible and find happiness in all possible niche of it:) Yes  of course, I will keep  spreading love and happiness 😊

Thanks for reading

Subalalitha

Story Teaching Experience -Part 2

Actual plan of today was not to blog but to code my independent research. After publishing my Kurunthogai in a SCI indexed journal as a single author, I developed the desire of writing single author paper every year. It gives much confidence and independence. Yeah, independence gives confidence 😊 Ok I need to tell now why I came here. Two reasons I have . Today is the last day of my winter vacation and mostly I choose to write on my last day of vacation and yes, I have to write about my Story Teaching experiences that I had this week. It wont come fresh if I delay that as my my neurons have become weak in retaining things 😊. Last day of vacation always induces a mixed thought into arteries and neurons. Wanting to extend this vacation and also  not wanting to !. Actually my daughter was having school during my holidays so she liked me waving her bye  and receiving her with hot snacks each day. I have already told this here. I used to ask the same question in different forms, yeah its none other than , “you are happy  when I am on a holiday  so shall I quit job?” She always replies, “No. You don’t need to. I am happy at day care too 😊”. She is the energy behind us. Though sometimes she calls me to come home soon but that is only a momentary thing. Earlier, I used to rush home not waiting for the college bus. I thought I am making her happy by picking up early . She once said, you are not giving me time to play with my friends because the moment she reaches from school, I am there to pick up her from day care 😊 I feel she is more matured than me. Selva will be happy reading this as he always says this. She gives a lot of clarity  to many things for which I get confused easily. Kids when they are independent may be gaining a lot of clarity 😊  Of course, she messes up  most of the time, as she is also a kid 😊 We will be done with our  life if I and Selva raise her  as a responsible and a good human being. Already she is 😊 but still 😊 That will be the greatest contribution to this society as the parenting is the culprit most of the times ☹ Yeah done with my long long first para ever 😊 sorry for this 😊

Vented my mixed thoughts and I am convinced to go to college tomorrow😊. So here I should start about my story telling experience. There is a Pre-School named, Crayons which has right from play-school till UKG. And it is near my home.  It also has day care, dance classes, Karate classes etc. .Ms. Priya, the director of Crayons is an M.Tech , Computer Engineering graduate,  who quit  her teaching job as she could not find a good day care for her kid and started this and has grown this well as a school today 😊  That’s the great thought out of a woman 😊. That is helping out many working women including me   😊.  She is a Bharath Natyam Dancer and she is the guru of my daughter as well 😊 . Being a mom of 2 very small kids the way she is running the school is inspiring!  And yeah she gives job to those who cant have a career due to family situations. Many Ex- Software engineers work there as teachers. Also my flat friend, Savithri, who used to act with me in dramas at our apartment is also working there. Savithri  actually wanted to go for job but her husband wanted her to be with kids. So this job from 10 am to 1 pm is giving her super satisfaction 😊  Ms. Priya is enlightening many women’s life . Positive Women always empower women 😊 .Last year, I told her my idea of story spinning and  here it is  http://subalalitha.blogspot.com/2018/08/story-spinning-experiences-with-kids.html She supported that and had a session in her school on a Sunday.

With Ms. Priya 

              Last week when my daughter did not go to day care and  Ms. Priya came to know that I am on vacation so she called me if I could teach stories to her Pre-KG, LKG kids during school timings. I readily said yes. This time she wanted me  to teach some moral stories to kids . I just picked up some 5 to 6 six stories online. I was  tensed 😊. Standing before college students  never gave me any fear but this one gave 😊 .  It is not so easy to make them even sit for a while. I started the session . A kid went near the  big mirror which was placed on the wall and started dancing 😊 Many started lying on the carpet on the floor. It took much time to even make them settle but as soon as they started listening, they were keenly doing that.I  wanted to ensure if they have understood. SO I repeated many times and we asked questions to them. Savithri said, let us give chocolates to the students who answer correctly, Many answered correctly but four to five could not get chocolates. Savithri was strictly saying not to give when they are not answering. I did feel they all need to be given but they have to answer also correctly . Teachers helped me. They gave multiple answers and many could strike a chocolate. Still few were left and Savithri don’t seem to relax her policy. She is my friend and I can convince her easily 😊. I asked silly questions like, “what is the colour of my dress”, “what is the name of this teacher” when nothing worked, I even asked, “what is your name?”. Yes finally gave chocolates to everyone 😊 . Kids are awesome. Yeah I cant let down my college students also . They are also kids to me 😊 a bit grown up kids 😊. Getting a true smile, true love and true words have become so costly these days outside home ! You can get all these with 100 % accuracy from kids. That makes them special 😊 That gives back the happiness to the arteries and the everlasting joy ! Had a satisfying day and I really thank Ms. Priya for the invite and giving the opportunity for the second time 😊 I am posting photographs  to add some more memories 😊

Eager to answer my question

Helping him to get a Chocolate :)

Savithri is helping the kid to narrate back the story taught :)

With the School Team 

True Smiles and True Love :)

Thanks for reading !  Have a great day ahead 😊

Subalalitha

Unconditionality- My all time favorite Policy!

Yet another Noisy-neurons day. It is one of the toughest situations, you put yourself into when your sleep gets disturbed at 12.30 AM for unknown reasons and you constantly fail resuming it. Usually music helps to put me back to sleep, but it couldn’t help today. Accepting the failure is better sometimes and so I did come here to my own space. Writing is one of the mind massaging tasks to me 😊 It just helps me to introspect and have a better clarity on anything! Oh yeah, I had to tell what this  post is about. As usual, visiting blog with sleep-disturbed-neurons means, I din have anything predetermined to write. Though my neurons are so tired but are  flashing back some light to me and of course they will only help me with a day-old scenario.  I said they are tired right 😊 otherwise too, my memory is becoming weaker these days and I am unable to remember ppl faces and their names, may be too much of training instances are difficult to handle 😊  Lets lock the topic before I start meandering again. It is one of my favourite policies, “unconditionality”!

A faculty came to my cabin yesterday, he is a young doctorate and a friend of my research scholar and also my co-faculty, Srini. He was fretting and fuming about going unrecognized despite doing hard work and helping all the professors with the funded project proposals. Before he got so serious, I just told him, “Most of the people talk to us with many calculations in mind and they may or may not repay”. He asked, “If I collaborate with you or help you, won’t you give me a small recognition at least”. I said, “yes, I will”. He said, “then why not them?”. I told him, “How can I give guarantee for someone else whose control is not with me”. He said, “No I am not able to accept”. I started smiling and asked his age, “he said he is 30” and I said, “I am 36 and you will get my point clear when you reach 36”. He also started smiling and said, “may be”. It was a very short conversation and I had to leave for a meeting soon after this but then I was like thinking how people get frustrated when they have some expectations that go unfulfilled 😊

Long back until I reached 30+ even I had expectations with people.  Have tied to please people in the family and friends but yes may failures and disappointments mould you as a better person. What I learnt was people don’t fulfil your expectations and it is wiser to have zero expectations towards anyone. This unconditional policy has given a lot of peace and yeah happiness and have changed my perception towards life. When you treat people with zero bias (machine learning terminology? 😊) they will gradually understand and maybe they will start treating you the same way you did. Zero bias also induce  reduced complexity in your behaviour. You don’t need to change your behaviour  person to person and you see it is so difficult to remember all the calculations connected with a person like  “what they will repay ,when they will repay and how much they will repay?” It is all utter non sense and Karma of course takes care 😊  Most of the times, I have got help from unknown persons. Many times this has happened and I am sure they did not have any calculations with me so its fair enough to reflect the same.

Yes, you get abundant peace. I seriously these days laugh like anything (of course yes to myself 😊) when people get boiled for silly reasons and yeah these days, I am not able to boil up my blood though I feel like I should. It is okay . Anyways people don’t change for us and It is mere waste of time and energy boiling our blood. The point I am trying to make is simple. It is purely our choice to treat people the way we want or the way they deserve but treating them with predictions for future benefits will surely fail 😊  

Yes, you get abundant love. This is very important. An unconditional love given pays back in huge not in terms of money or any business benefits 😊, I am pointing on the positivity that is generated around us. May be the more positivity enters, the less negativity prevails, may be this can even weaken the negativity if at all it is existing around still.

Yes, it does change people’s behaviour  towards you, the same way you  expected initially. I have personally experienced this . When you keep treating people better than they do to you, they will never ever have a choice than changing for you and this is a real victory but this takes a huge time .

I think I should stop her and I need a small nap to gear up for the day and 3 hrs exam invigilation duty awaiting in the afternoon and  my reduced sleep will surely have an impact. Let us see how it goes. Have a fantastic day ahead 😊

And yes, thanks for reading

Subalalitha

How Motherhood Transforms You?

Wow! I am frequently visiting my place 😊 I have a reason today. Though I felt the urge of writing this post, I had determined to finish preparing the material for DBSCAN algorithm which I have planned to record tomorrow morning as soon as I go to college , for my machine learning YouTube channel,. I enter my room at 7.30 AM. I finish breakfast by 7.40 AM. That’s the perfect time to record videos . I have ruined the whole day if I decide to record post 9 AM. I have even taken 20 to 30 attempts . I think that Hierarchical Agglomerative clustering drove me almost mad. I started by 9 AM and I was able to finish only 2 PM because of continuous interruptions! So fingers crossed for tomorrow morning video recording 😊 Now coming to the title 😊 Actually today marks my completion of 8 years of motherhood so thought of writing how this dimension has contributed to my life !

I have written so many times about my motherhood and about my gal. I think https://subalalitha.blogspot.com/2012/05/paradigm-shifts.html is the first post about my motherhood. Let me try if I can avoid repetitions. Yes, motherhood is surely one of the dimensions which supplies the maximum positivity to anyone. Yeah fatherhood is also not be missed. “Parenting”, the comfortable term I can use which gives a lot of positive energy and aligns ones  life path automatically.  I never ever have thought of cooking on the third day of fever before marriage, but the stamina automatically comes from within as your kid’s food is the top priority. Of course, Selva cooks when I am ill 😊 but I will feel guilty to continue him cooking after I am OK so will get back to kitchen usually.  

Yeah the patience, before marriage, I have so many times yelled at my mom when I am hungry . Now I have developed the patience of holding on with my hunger till I am done giving  dinner to my kid and Selva . Yeah this happens only If am preparing dosas as I always prefer serving them hot! otherwise we will all have together. Yeah I know what  you are thinking? So, where comes patience here. That’s your question right ? Hmm This is only one instance. I am not able to cite a better example. Believe me ! I have  developed patience at least relatively compared to my spinster life 😊

Leave that silly thing please 😊 My parenthood is contributing much to my teaching job. That empathy to see the students from their parents’ point of view is only possible due to my parenthood. Teachers who are spinsters and bachelors don’t  get offended please. Maybe you  empathize better than me but this is only my perspective and my own experience. Once in my machine learning class this semester, I was asking students feedback face-to-face. Yeah, that is one of the dangerous situations you could put yourself into 😊. That day the student’s strength was very less and I finished teaching the topic so early so thought of taking this risk. One student told me that “I don’t express my feelings to others”.  The word, “feelings” was misinterpreted by the other students and they started laughing. They felt he should have used a better word but as a teacher, I can’t laugh for that. I told him. “Have you ever expressed your feelings to your mom?”. He said, “NO”. I said, “you should have expressed to her right?”. Then he started expressing his thoughts about our class and he was able to speak for 3 to 5 minutes. I said “you expressed well”. He smiled  😊. I think the parent in me was able to tackle this kind of situation well. Also, when I talk to parents of my students, I could very well feel the parent in me talking better than the teacher in me.  

Yeah , the kid in me was brought out only because of my motherhood. As my daughter is a single child, I decided to be her sibling/friend more than being a mother. She calls me “Suba” most of the times. Sometimes I remind her that I am her mom whenever there is a deviation and give her that yell which is much needed to align her 😊 . We use to play like anything. I like playing tennis with her. We play word games. We sing together. We chat with each other like friends. I share my day at college to her. She shares her day at school. The only villain is that “doremon” and “shinchan”. She gets immersed while watching that and never bothers about me and I have to get immersed in kitchen during that time ☹

My sleep-hours- reduction came as a by product of attaining motherhood. I love sleeping before becoming mom but after becoming mom that too when you do PhD along with your motherhood, you get a worst sleep pattern and will literally become an owl. This has anyways contributed many positive things. I was able to focus on my passions, hobbies and do research and have an extended day 😊. So I am ok with 6 to 7 hours of sleep 😊

Yeah I think I should gear up for the day of my gal today ! So will end here. Yeah people who resist marriage should reconsider as marriage is mainly about parenting which is the most beautiful part of life, seeing yourself again in another soul aligning yourself on to the right path. That’s my perspective but again opinion will always differ 😊

Thanks for reading 😊

Subalalitha

Unspoken Words!

Again, back to my space! Looks like I am frequently visiting these days!  May be writing has taken the first place in refreshing my arteries and neurons. For some reason our Diwali sorry Deepavali (That’s how I am told to use by one of my friends 😊) was celebrated on 26/10/19. So, felt relatively free today morning and I did not feel like studying Machine Learning due to my inconveniences in my health condition. Feel I am not taking proper care of my health and I just need to put it in the first place . Yeah I know I have been meandering without coming even closer to the Title! Recently, happened to watch a short film named, “Kooraa Vaarthaigal” .Found the title so captivating but unfortunately the content was not ! But the title kept hitting my neurons and spitted some thoughts consistently so thought its time to update my blog and I am here.

First I thought, for a chatterbox like me, there could rarely be scenarios where words go unspoken! I was just trying to think in what situations words go unspoken. Hmmm, ok me being a person a who have the inability to verbally hurt people will have much words that are unspoken and keeps hurting us back all the time. Few days back, my friend Dr.Umarani mam from IIITDM invited me and my team to her Institute to give Natural Language Processing ideas to her B.Tech student who wants to explore this domain and Uma mam is an Image processing expert. I was then telling her my inability of aligning my Phd Scholars towards the right path as they always keep research as the last option. Only 2 of my 6 PhD scholars match my wavelength and rest make me feel as a failed Phd Supervisor.  I realised it is just the inability of me to vent my anger on them which could drag them on to the right path. Unspoken words Scenario #1. I have quit anger (like people quit smoking 😊) in the recent years as I find, peace is always the best choice!

Scenario #2 would be my inability to express my thoughts verbally due to my policies! I have been facing few setbacks due to not opening to claim my rights. This has been happening at college. Most of the time, the opportunities are missed just because I hesitate to ask for myself, I know people in this world will rarely watch what we want and they are keen only in what they want from us. Of course, we can’t blame them too when they don’t have a clue of what we need, what we missed out though we deserve, and it is not easy to keep track of everyone in such a big institution. Selva Keeps telling me that I can only get certain things only if I ask but my rigid policies make me tight lipped and many words go unspoken.  I still believe things happened for a reason and if I am doing my job with love and passion it will pay me back for sure may be with some delays. Of course, there is a lot of positive things that has been constantly happening to me at SRM and I am happy for that 😊

Due to my absence of mind sometimes, I don’t fill in the words in the right place that are supposed to have spoken. This happens when I am so busy and if somebody calls, I skip those words and later I feel I should have spoken more.  I guess most of my friends would have faced this and I know that they all know about me. I have been lucky to have people who would read my current state of mind from my words .  My M.tech friends and Tamil Computing lab friends face this much. Anitha (my M.Tech friend) and Balaji (my Tamil computing lab friend)  are  the victims most of the time. I  many times send them  sorry messages for not speaking well and They  always understand and this has never stopped them  to call me.   I feel this component is the bond. The ppl  who can understand your unspoken words, are not to be  missed  out 😊 and yes this holds good only for friends and not for those who stick around with conditions 😊 wow I have grown up and can understand people better. Yeah I forgot Selva, my husband  who also happens to me my M.tech friend (LOL) is the greatest victim ever to all my inconsistencies. He is the best  after my mom who can translate my mind when I have lil or no words to speak 😊. Of course, when he being the man of few words and when I am able to understand his unspoken words no wonder he should also understand mine 😊. Scenario #3 is done !

Scenario #4 would be the words which are not expressed fearing which may not fit. This happens with very very few may be one or two people, but you see the geographical distance does play a vital role. But I am taking things positively, Sometimes, a beautiful friendship exists stronger even when there is a long communication gap. Unspoken words do not have a great impact.  I believe when without any communications, if the friendship exists it inherits the best  purity in it . Yes, I value people more, I cant afford to miss good people as they are the treasures and they lead me in the right path no matter they are in touch or not. Their positive vibes do have a great impact on me. Though they are missed much and sometimes feel why even this gap exists when the world is too small😊. Anyways, dwelling in people’s mind is always a good thing !

I think I am done. There are many other scenarios where words go unspoken, These four scenarios  came to my mind this morning. Words are always a beautiful tool. They can make even a worst situation more beautiful and can bring in peace. I believe in expressing thoughts by words, I believe being open , right or wrong and that’s how good people stay for long despite many mismatches but unspoken words are also sometimes beautiful . They can also bring in peace, words skipped in anger, for instance  and they can also create bond when  the minds are in perfect sync 😊  

I hope I did not spoil your Deepavali . Anyways, wishing you a very happy Deepavali. Have fun and Go-ahead 😊 thanks for reading

Subalalitha

A Random Thought on Women Researchers

         Again, I am here in my place 😊 It is one of the worst practices to trip sleep at 1.30 AM but sometimes it happens.  This Root canal treatment for my tooth makes me feel so drowsy and sleepy all the time with those pain killers.  I hate taking them and so I skipped yesterday which eventually woke me up in the middle of the night. When neurons get noisy it is just not possible to calm them down and put them to sleep mode. So, I thought instead of fighting with them, its better to give them the work they like, and I am here 😊

           It’s becoming a practice with me landing here without having some topic in my mind. Even if I am prepared with a theme, I would only translate my neuron’s language to English while typing any post. Oh yeah, what is the  language of my neurons ? Is it my mother tongue, Tamil or English? This question was raised by our gurus Dr.T.V.Geetha mam and Dr.Ranjani Parthasarathi long long ago when I was working as  Junior Research Fellow in Tamil Computing Lab, Anna University. They asked us while thinking of a research problem, in which language do we think? Valid question right? I forgot what I answered but now listening to what my neurons are telling me. It looks like, mostly it is Tamil and rarely it is English!

         It is time to talk, sorry its time write on something 😊 Yeah, I have the content about my yesterday’s experience of being the panelist in discussing about “Women Researchers in India: Their roles and Future Directions”.  I got this invite from our Electronics and Communication Department,SRM and this panel discussion was part of some Faculty Development Program.  I got this invite for one single reason. It was on a Sunday and nobody said ok and one of the Professors of our department suggested my name it seems 😊. I sometime can’t say no to people. This is one of the greatest inability with me and as an optimist, I get convinced, compromise and later somehow I will like it 😊 . People who are reading this and who are my friends, please don’t confuse my Okays as compromises. It does not happen always with me 😊 (A word of caution!)

     Coming back to the panel discussion, I first doubted why only women researches, Everywhere this talk on women upliftment sometime gets boring. It should be for humans and not for a single gender and both genders have their own struggles. Then later after the discussion, I was somehow convinced about the theme (I am an optimist right 😊) . It seems in the whole IITs only 10 percent are only female faculties. I accept this fact strongly. A woman’s career path will never ever have a linearly raising curve. It will be a bell-shaped curve having many ups and downs. It can’t be avoided as this life is multi -dimensional forcing all of us including men to be multi-faceted to balance their career, family and friends. As far as research is concerned, why most women don’t opt to pursue PhD is that it is so life demanding. Every time, I think how I struggled to strike a balance my Phd, marriage and my first baby, feels like surviving a natural disaster. Of course, It also gives a satisfactory feeling of having done with it once for all!

      May be many women opt to go-ahead with a composed family life than opting to travel on a jumpy-bumpy road. I would not say they are wrong, and it is absolutely, an individual’s choice to live their life the way they would want to! The panel discussion was also about many Phds who don’t opt any career for family reasons. Again, it is an individual’s choice to make that decision but what I felt was they could contribute something to the society and  Government does have many women scientist schemes mainly for the PhDs who have breaks in their career. Many Women Phds get exhausted especially when they opt to do their PhD in their  20s (like I did 😊) and want to enjoy life at least in their 30s . I have a friend of mine who did B.E with me. She also finished her M.E and PhD along my timeline but now happily taking care of her two children 😊 You can’t say she is wrong.

           What I felt so good after the panel discussion is that every men who took part in the discussion was talking about the day-to -day struggles a woman has to undergo when she opts both career and family, right from getting up early, cooking, looking after kids, doing households and also struggles they face at the work place. It is just awesome to hear that from men. I felt satisfied coz I am used to all these daily chores, I don’t call them struggles anymore . Ofcourse,  Selva takes care of getting my daughter ready in the morning and yeah also, at workplace too, I have friends+co-faculties  providing a lot of positive vibes . And yes, students, who feed  you the current generation’s  way of thing and  that gives the ability to empathize their needs in a different dimension!

         Feel, the post is getting lengthier so, will conclude. What I felt was, if a woman who feels she can strike a balance between family and her PhD or Career after PhD should try that. She needs to get convinced first, may be self-motivation and developing a passion helps! Otherwise, its purely an individual choice 😊

I like these two photos so posting them :)

Thanks for your time  :)

Subalalitha