Anuradha Sridharan

  This thought flashed in my mind this morning while going for a walk in the terrace "You don't seek happiness. Happiness seeks you. Whether you acknowledge it or not is what defines you"   As I pondered over this thought, three key characteristics of happiness emerged:   (1)  Happiness comes to us in myriad ways. What matters is whether we can identify it, recognize it and acknowledge it Maintaining a  happiness journal  is one of the ways by which we can recognize such happy moments we encounter during our daily lives. Even if we don't have the time or inclination to write down, a few minutes of reflection at the end of the day or week also helps.  As I reflected on the past few days, the following were some of the moments when happiness found me. I have always been wanting to learn to make the mango leaves thoranam that we usually hang on either side of our front door. But during every festival day, I would just buy a bunch of leaves and tie it at t...

  Whenever I open a Youtube video these days, I stumble upon one of these two ads - Zomato - craving for biryani or pasta? and Kissan's "Iss bhaar Italy ghar le aate hain" Since most of us are avoiding restaurants/takeaways, the only way to eat pasta / pizza (which we used to order B.C.) is to make them at home. Some of us might order the store bought pizza and pasta sauce, so we can quickly whip up a bowl of pasta for dinner or to satiate our kid's cravings. Some of us might even take a step further to sanitize the outer pack. Wait a second, do we sanitize the contents inside? We presume that the contents inside such packs are hygienic. But are they healthy? Let's look at the nutrition label of Kissan's pizza and pasta sauce.       The expiry date is nine months from manufacture. How does this pack last for 9 months? Thanks to this permitted Class II Preservative - 211, also called as Sodium Benzoate.  Quoting from this research paper , "As the result of...

 I did a Q&A on Instagram stories a few days back with the question "What are the challenges and obstacles that you are facing concerning health and well-being given the current situation?". 100+ questions came up during the 24 hours. Most of them were related to consistency, habits, sleep routines and exercise motivation. There were also a few questions on specific ailments like migraine, PCOD etc. Many people DMed me that the answers I shared were very helpful. My intention to do this Q&A was to understand if there are any patterns and also share my learnings on keeping up with a schedule during the lock-down situation, being mindful and conscious about the food we eat, our activity, sleep cycles, the information we consume and our emotions. I don't claim to be an expert in any of these topics. I'm a work in progress and I consciously introspect on where I need to improve and implement key practices in my daily life. I strongly believe that our health and we...

   I recently came across an ad for this brand of cooking oil that stresses on the buzzword of 2020 - Immunity. Diya Mirza is the celebrity promoting this brand.   As always, I was curious to know about the ingredients - This brand Emami Smart Balance Oil with Immunity Boosters is a blended oil with refined soyabean oil (75%) and refined ricebran oil (25%).  The ingredients added in addition to these oils are the ones that are linked to immunity - the added vitamins (A, C, E and D). Refined vegetable oils are heavily processed and affects our health in multiple ways, leading to inflammation, obesity, thyroid disorders and diabetes.  Quoting from the book "The magic weight loss pill" by Luke Coutinho (Page 52-53) Soybean oil is found in almost every processed food. It is difficult to visit a restaurant that doesn't use soybean oil or some sort of vegetable oil that contains soybean. Soybean oil is a polyunsaturated oil. This and its products are used to feed liv...

  After a long time, I made aapam and Kerala style veg stew for dinner last night. While cooking, the aroma of the coconut oil, the roasting of whole spices and curry leaves took me to Kerala and rekindled the memories of many beautiful vacations we have had in the past few years. Kerala is our family's most favorite and default travel destination. We usually make at least one trip to some part of Kerala every year. Due to the current situation, we won't be able to travel this year and D is quite disappointed. While making the stew, I was inhaling the aromas a few times on purpose as I just love the smell of coconut oil. Coincidentally a few days back, as I was revisiting an old blog post, I stumbled upon a travelogue from 2005 where I had written that I hated the smell of coconut oil. I couldn't believe it and I was thinking, "wow, there was a time in the past when I didn't like coconut oil! Strange!".  This is just a small example of how we evolve every day,...

  I'm not a bathroom singer but a "paathiram" singer, if I may say so 🙂 Read further to know why. A sink full of dirty dishes was calling me out. I didn't pay heed to its call as I was deliberately looking away from my kitchen. It was 6:45PM already and I knew it was high time I kicked the laziness out and cleared those dishes. I switched on my phone, opened Spotify app and started to play an ARR playlist with the title "Happy birthday Rahman". The next 40 minutes turned out to be so blissful as I was singing on top of my voice while cleaning the dishes. Songs from Roja, Kadhalan and Indira were playing one after the other - yes, the 90s Rahman! No, I don't belong to that category of Rahman fans who believe his 90s albums were his best work. I enjoy his Singapenne as much as his Chinna Chinna Aasai. Every decade, every album and every song of his has some special moments in them.  As the nation celebrates its Independence Day, we Rahmaniacs are also cel...

  In my previous post , I spoke about the two obstacles we face as we pursue digital minimalism. I shared a few thoughts about one of the obstacles - seeking external validation. In this post, let's talk about the second obstacle - "instant gratification".  Instant gratification , in simple terms, is our expectation that we need to get what we want as and when we want it, at that very instant. The "WANTS" are not only materialistic by the way. They could be anything in this connected world - information, entertainment, recognition/appreciation, completion of work etc. An email arrives, we open it immediately. A WhatsApp group message arrives, we check it immediately. We start reading a book, we share about it on social media right away. As we seek more instant gratification, we lose our ability to stay patient and wait for things to happen. We avoid work that requires perseverance and patience. We get stuck in a world of busyness. To give you an example, I have ...

As we pursue our journey towards digital minimalism, we encounter two key obstacles along the way. External validation Instant gratification Both are related to some extent but there are also subtle differences. In this post, let's focus on the first obstacle - external validation. In simple words, external validation is the feeling we experience because of the reaction we get from others. We feel good when others appreciate our words and actions and we feel bad when others don't approve of it or criticize the same.  While growing up, we experienced external validation in the form of tests, exams and competitions in schools and on occasions when we met our relatives during social gatherings where we were appreciated for our good behavior. Such instances didn't occur every day for most of us growing up in the 70s and 80s. As a result, I notice that most of us born in those decades do not associate our self-esteem strongly with external validation. It is only my general, bias...

  Yesterday was Janmashtami but in my family traditions, Krishna Jayanthi is usually celebrated in the Tamil month of Aavani. So we would be celebrating Krishna's birthday on Sept 10th. But since D was hearing about Janmashtami from her teachers, she wanted to celebrate yesterday. Over the past few days, I had been having this seasonal allergy sniffles (sneezing, running nose etc). This has nothing to do with the top news of 2020. I feel a lot better today :-) Till about 3PM yesterday, I didn't plan anything to celebrate the festival. I then had a nice, warm shower and wore a comfortable saree. The festive mood immediately kicked in. I made a small portion of akkaravadisal (a close cousin of the sweet pongal). I cleaned up the Pooja space and brought the silver lamps from the storage cupboard. D noticed what I was doing. She joined in, brought a few smaller silver lamps. She observed how I was placing the kumkum paste on the edges of the lamp. She did the same to her lamps.  I...

We have heard of the popular adage - "A picture is worth a thousand words" but yesterday I realized the corollary makes a lot of sense - " A thousand words is worth more than a picture (or a video) ". 10th Aug 2019 - the day when I checked off one of the items in my bucket list. Yes, the day I attended ARR concert a year ago! Instead of going through the pictures and videos I took that day, I went through the post I had written down. It reminded me of the wonderful memories of that special day. As I shared this post with a few people, the conversation veered into cricket. Memories of Sachin hitting a century in 2001 in Chepauk Stadium came gushing back. It was such a memorable day for me and am glad I jotted down my experience in 2005 in a blog post . As I revisited the post, I could literally feel myself sitting on the stands amidst the crowd, cheering and doing the Mexican wave. Such is the power of words! They transport you to a world of memories. They help you...

  For the past few months, media is constantly abuzz with news about a famous actor's demise - updates, twists, viewpoints by celebrities etc. Many of us are following such updates on a daily basis. The topic trending on Twitter everyday is related to this news. When our minds are deeply focused on this one topic, there is a very high possibility that we might be ignoring other updates and important happenings around the world. Sometimes when I ponder over this, I wonder if this situation is intentionally pre-designed so we would ignore the current situation - how it is being projected, fear-mongering tactics, the unregulated buzz word "immunity" and numerous offerings being launched to boost the same. Our attention is like a river. We can control the flow, the direction, the number of tributaries and the kind of materials it gathers while it flows. This is possible through awareness of our thoughts, our feelings and our emotions. At the same time, external triggers (news...

A few days back, when I had shared my time budgeting post on Instagram, someone had DMed me asking if I could share some tips to wake up early. From my experience, the only tip that will help you to wake up early is to have the right motivation . I wake up by 6-6:15AM on a daily basis even during the present lockdown situation when there is no hurry to pack lunch boxes or get my daughter D ready for school.  There are multiple reasons that motivate me to wake up early: I'm a slow starter. I need some time to awaken my senses. I'm not the person who can just wake up and start checking off the items from my to-do list. I need 10-15 minutes to sip my morning chai in peace. I don't like to talk for atleast an hour in the morning. It might seem weird but this is how I am 🙂 I need that quiet time to just be myself. On days when I wake up late or when D wakes up along with me, I find it incredibly challenging to answer her questions. I get irritated at times when I have to talk b...

This morning, I deactivated both my Twitter and Facebook accounts. I haven't been active on either of these platforms for the last couple of years. It didn't make sense to leave the accounts idle when I'm not using them. Ever since I started taking steps towards conscious content consumption, this task had been on my mind but I was hesitating, thinking I might login if needed. Yes, the same talk we have with ourselves when we don't want to get rid of old stuff at home - "This might come in handy one day. I might use it sometime". Sounds familiar?  FB keeps sending notifications by email that so-and-so has uploaded a pic, posted an update etc. The best part is this message - "So much has happened since you logged onto Facebook". When you login to check, the notifications count will be 4. And all of them will be exactly similar - so-and-so uploaded a pic 🙂 Grateful to both the platforms all these years. FB helped me connect with many of my school and...

I came across this term " Precrastination " in Chris Bailey 's newsletter. We all know about procrastination and its impact on our productivity. But precrastination is something new.  From this article , Originally  coined by David Rosenbaum , a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside, “precrastination” is a little-known productivity trap in which we rush too quickly into tasks. The main intent of the article was to showcase how we rush into tasks, sometime on autopilot mode or the need to get rid of them to clear our mental space. As I was reading this article, a thought struck me about areas where we precrastinate easily without much awareness. For instance, you are working on something. An email pops up. It is a newsletter. You quickly scroll through it and find an interesting article. You click through the link and read it. There is a new article linked to it. You click through that as well and continue reading it. Turns out 15 minutes have go...

After a very long time, I wrote an email to a friend yesterday. Not 1-2 liners but 4 paragraphs 🙂 I felt so happy after sending it in the morning. When I received her detailed reply later in the evening, I felt doubly happy to read it. As you might have realized, I love long form content - both reading and writing. I rarely use new age slang like "hru", "hbd" etc. In the early 90s, my cousin and I used to write a lot of letters to each other through inland letters - yes, the light blue colored ones. We used to stay 30 kms apart and there will be at least 2-3 letters exchanged every month. We had so much to write about - our school, our subjects, our friends circle, movies etc. My aunt (her mom) would tease us that we write in every little empty space in that inland letter 🙂 That reminds me - I should search my cupboard to check for these letters. I might still have a few! Fast forward to 2020, we both have lost touch and I wrote her a short email in March to chec...

This phrase just popped out of my head while practicing Yoga this morning Curiosity often leads to more experience. Knowledge is only a by-product. What is the relevance of this phrase?  Let me first try to share my thoughts on curiosity. Curiosity is a mere interest in someone/something, without any external trigger/recognition/rewards.  I'm curious about music, cats, food, process of learning, brain, human body in general to name a few topics. I would seek out experiences to explore these topics but I may or may not gather knowledge/technical know-how about the same. For example, I enjoy listening to music but I may not know the raagas. Whenever I see a cat on the road, I might stop and admire it but I may not be keen to know which breed it is. We often tend to assume that people who exhibit curiosity in a particular topic has a lot of knowledge on the subject. This is a wrong assumption. People may seek out more experiences on the topic, as a result of which they might com...

Are you a working woman? - this is a question that I often get asked by school friends, college friends and on social media. It is curious that this question is asked mostly by women to other women. I recently got asked this question when I posted about how I budget my time , where all the work I do is clearly listed down. Inspite of this, the question still pops up. If your intention is to ask whether I work for an employer, please change your questions to "Are you working for an employer? Are you earning a monthly paycheck?" In my opinion, all women are working. They work for the well-being of their family members. Child care, elderly care, home management - all these are such important and valuable contribution we do for the society. Yes, these are unpaid labour but they are still WORK . So please, women, let's give enough credit to ourselves for doing this work, even though there is no appraisal, paycheck, yearly hikes or promotions. Let's not judge another woman...

What started off as a slight discomfort in the morning turned into a full blown migraine by the evening. Yes, "migraine", my college buddy used to visit me quite often earlier but thanks to many lifestyle changes, the visits have become sporadic. He still pays his visit once every 2-3 months. Nowadays, whenever he visits me, my first question is to figure out the reason why he has scheduled his visit now. My mind literally walks through a checklist Is it PMS? Both pre-menstrual and post-menstrual days  Have I been drinking too much of tea or coffee? Have I been spending too much time on devices? Have I been having disturbed sleep? Have I been having too many thoughts? Have I been eating too little of fibre? Do I feel acidic? Am I constipated? As I walked through this list of questions, I figured out how he got the invitation - Have I been drinking less water? A big, resounding YES.....The weather in Bangalore has been fluctuating quite a bit - bright and sunny on some days w...