Anuradha Sridharan

The recent trend of burgeoning mobile apps has piqued my interest in the last few weeks. Though I'm late into the smartphone segment as a consumer, it's quite interesting to observe the market dynamics, especially in India. First, a few statistics that might be of interest:    * 70% of India's population has mobile phones    * According to the latest Mary Meeker's Internet trends report , the smartphones user base is just around 4% of overall mobile phone users. In China, the smartphone user base is around 24% and globally, this segment is around 17%.    * Though the previous data point may not be encouraging, the smartphone subscriber base in India has grown by 52% in 2012 as compared to 2011    * Only 12% of India's population are Internet users    * Mobile Internet usage has surpassed desktop Internet usage in May 2012 From a demand perspective, the smartphone user base is growing and as a result, the need for innovative a...

The last decade has seen a tremendous shift in the way we learn, just about anything. I remember vividly during my Engineering days (not so long ago) when learning meant picking up a text book or a reference book, sit down with a pencil/marker and read. There wasn't much collaboration, interaction or discussion during or after class hours. It was a one-way source of communication from the lecturer to the student. Internet was still at a nascent stage and neither accessible nor affordable (browsing centers were few and used to charge anywhere between 30-50 Rs per hour). As I look at the way things have changed for the better, I feel inspired, excited and at the same time, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff one can learn in a lifetime. Being in the technology sector, I spent the initial years of my career, googling for tutorials and learning programming languages along with the skills needed at my workplace related to databases and data warehousing. It was still mostly text ba...

2012 was a special year to me, primarily because I saw my daughter grow from a tiny, innocent infant to a naughty, active toddler. She rolled over in Feb, started crawling in July, standing in Aug and cruising in Sept. I was there at home to witness all these special first steps. We are waiting for the moments when she starts to walk on her own and run around the apartment. We are already chasing her everywhere as she crawls at high speeds. At the beginning of 2012, I didn't know a thing about what to feed my daughter once she is ready for solids. When the introduction of solids phase started, it was scary. Thank God to the power of Internet, I learnt so much on what to feed babies as they explore the sense of taste. As I decided to be at home to take care of her, I took the time to prepare home-cooked food, noted down her food log and introduced new foods gradually. Though a scary phase to begin with, it actually became quite interesting and challenging. I definitely would want...

I've been meaning to write this post for quite a while and it has taken me a year to put down those wonderful memories into words. Memories to be cherished for a lifetime! Memories to be revisited whenever I want to gather some strength in life when I can proudly say "I did it!" Experiencing labor pains and the transformation into a new mother - something that every woman goes through in her life which is very, very special. Around this time last year, I was having severe contractions and was immediately rushed to hospital. My husband was driving the car while I was holding my brother's hands tight. I never thought a speed breaker bump can be so painful when in labor. We reached Cloudnine hospital around midnight. The gynecologist confirmed that my labor had started and I was 4 cm dilated.  Since we had booked our room earlier, I immediately got settled. With each passing minute, the intensity of the pain was increasing. A glass of mosambi juice gave some temporary r...

Before you proceed any further, read this blogpost of mine to get some context. Now, the third time was indeed a charm. After the disaster that happened three years ago, I made proper kozhukkattais this time for Ganesh Chaturthi. I'm so happy that they were edible. The shapes could have been better. I planned quite well in terms of risk mitigation. Less quantity of raw materials to begin with so I don't waste them if at all it didn't turn out well. I also prepared a backup offering for Lord Ganesha in the form of moong dhal payasam. After the kozhukkattais came out well, I felt I could have made more of them. The sweet tooth was asking for a couple more pieces. Unlike me and hubby, our little daughter is not into sweets yet. I just gave her a small piece and her facial expression indicated that she didn't like it. I said to myself, "her reaction might be different next year". Hope so!!

What better way to dust my blog than to talk about one of the not-so-famous gems of Rahman's music! I fell in love with this song around the same time when I fell in love with my soul-mate (my hubby). It's the title track of "En Swaasa Kaatre". I used to listen to this song continuously while working and waiting for my hubby to come to office (We both worked in the same office and he used to work in evening shifts). Now after many years, my 10 month old daughter loves this song and it's her favorite lullaby. As I rock her in my arms gently swaying, she goes to sleep peacefully, with this song repeating in my iPod. Very few musical instruments, a gentle beat, the mellifluous Veena interludes and the soul-soothing raaga, all blended together with Chitra's amazing ah-hmm-la-la-s flowing like a stream in a serene forest. She takes this beautiful song to greater heights. Though I felt the essence of this melody could have been captured better in the picturization,...

Before I get into the "how" part of learning Python, let me first list down the reasons on why I am learning Python:   1. First and foremost, my resolution for 2012 was to focus more on Create rather than Consume. Learning a new programming language was one of the list of action items I had listed earlier   2. Being a stay-at-home mum, the thinking time periods are more these days, during the times I feed my daughter or rock her to sleep. Random ideas pop up now and then, and I want to be able to quickly create something. Of course, the time to focus on such ideas and spend some quality time on execution is really rare, given the circumstances   3. I want my brain cells to remain active. Working full-time in a job alone shouldn't become the sole reason for my brain cells to get exercised   4. My prior programming experience was mainly on PL/SQL and SQL in the databases world. Though I had learnt Java long time ago, I'm in no mood to go back and upgrade. I want to e...