Anuradha Sridharan

  As I read the letter from the grieving mom of Anna (EY Pune), it feels so sad and devastating that the life of a girl with high ambitions and hard work is all lost due to the toxic work culture. Workplace stress is not only due to long work hours. Toxic work culture shows up in many subtle ways too. It not only pushes the junior-level employees but also expects mid-senior level employees to get work done from the team and meet unrealistic targets. A few incidents from the past left a deep mark and made me question if it was worth the mental anxiety and stress, although I loved my role in product management. When I was asked to push a designer and force a tight deadline on him to get the designs ready When I was questioned as a manager how I granted work-from-home permission for many days to a subordinate recovering from surgery When I remembered the false promises made during hiring - "We are very flexible, our employees are distributed all over the world and we encourage work f...

 Maharishi Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (PYS) dive into the psychology of the human mind. It is one of the most important texts for a Yoga Sadhaka / practitioner. Many have written translations and commentaries on this text. I bought the book " Yoga Sutras Simplified " by Vasudev Murthy in May 2023 (before I signed up for my Yoga instructor course and MSc Yoga), but never got around to reading it.  In the past year, I got the opportunity to learn the essence of Yoga Sutras from various sources. Given that PYS is one of the subjects in my current semester, I picked up this book recently.  The author says in the Introduction - " The Yoga Sutras analyse the fickle mind in extraordinary detail and ought to be required reading for psychologists! ". I couldn't agree more. He has provided the gist of all 4 chapters, covering the key takeaways. The author has approached this book neither as a translation nor a typical commentary. He has given a refreshing take by interwe...

 It's exactly 3 months since I quit Instagram, a platform where I had been an active content creator for nearly 10 years. I also briefly returned to Twitter as a passive content consumer when the election fever in India was at its peak. After the election results, I deactivated the account. So technically, I've been off social media over the last 3 months (not counting WhatsApp and YouTube as social media platforms!). I have already listed down my reasons for quitting Instagram, so I don't intend to repeat them in this post. As I ponder over the last 3 months regarding what has changed, what I missed, and what I'm grateful for, a few thoughts surfaced. What I miss: Interesting and stimulating conversations, chit-chats, and comments from friends I made on Instagram. Though some of them are in touch through WhatsApp, it doesn't quite feel the same. What has changed: I continue to write on my blog whenever inspiration strikes but without the need to customize/edit it ...

  Consider this scenario - while walking on an uneven road, you twisted your right leg all of a sudden and ended up with a ligament tear. For the next few days, you found it difficult to walk as you underwent treatments and took medications. You slowly recover and get back to walking comfortably. It feels so good to keep both your feet firmly on the ground. You feel happy and grateful that you can walk fine without any issues. Strangely, we don't feel the same gratitude when our body functions well and stays healthy. We take it for granted and abuse it in all possible ways - overeating, eating at the wrong time, lack of movement, compromising sleep and binge-watching TV series late in the night, etc. Many of us feel that exercise (in any form) is something we HAVE to do. It is a chore to complete, an item on the to-do list to check first thing in the morning. What is needed is a shift in perspective - being grateful that our body is flexible and has stamina and strength, thanking...

 Movies, web series, podcasts, videos by social media influencers, interviews, books, tweets - any form of mass media of today comes with its motive or agenda. Gone are the times when we watch a movie or a series for the sheer entertainment value. Whenever I see a post of an influencer on social media, I find myself asking - "What is this person's motive? What is the narrative he is trying to convey? Is he part of a  toolkit?" A movement promoting a raw vegan lifestyle in the name of "satvic" has an agenda. Someone who concocts masala in a lab also has an agenda when he says - Without processed foods, human life will perish from the planet. Narratives peddled on social media are deliberately coercing ordinary people to turn their attention toward the direction the peddler(s) want them to.  Which piece of content / news should one read / hear about? How long should it stay in one's mind?  What is the reaction one's mind should have? What is the belief sys...