Aananya's first birthday - an year of motherhood!

I successfully completed a year of motherhood this past August 22nd. It has absolutely been a thrilling experience so far and has also brought tons of maturity in how I handle day to day life activities. This past one year has been full of emotional ups and downs and each day pushed my tolerance and acceptance levels higher. It would have been completely impossible for me to accept the way I am now two years before.

This change could also be due to the fact that I have taken a break from my day job for the past 6 months. Though it makes me irritable to handle repetitive household activities daily but also provides an opportunity to see a kid growing up. It has been an enormous learning phase for me. It encourages me to possibly write a blog on advantages of taking a maternity break.
My observation skills are at its peak. The greatest observation is a kid doesn't shy away from doing anything whereas a grown up would, thinking what would others think of it. There are few must have traits as we grow up but we tend to loose them. No wonder there is a saying "Keep the child within you alive".

There is also a strange behavior that comes along with motherhood to me, FEAR! When I am with the baby and even if there is a slightest risk involved I tend to restrict myself from going ahead. e.g going out when there is slightest of lightning :) I was not like this before, not sure if this feeling is temporary and would go away soon. But at the same time, I sometimes think that mind makes excuses not to do things making baby as the source of excuses.

I would give rest to my pouring emotions now and let pictures convey the celebration. I had decided to give dedicated time to baby for an year before I jump back to my work schedule and that is happily over now!

The other side of 'M' in being a Mother

"Oh, it's hilarious. Her smile makes my day. The sparkle in her eyes brings back the spark in me. Her excitement of learning something new every day makes me excited like never before. The experience of bringing and nurturing a life from zero is thrilling and cannot be shared in words." Whoa!

Well, this would have been nice to share as an status update on FB or sharing experience with not-so-close people. The reality has much more than this. It's like what others see is the glitter part of it.

To give a glimpse, a scene from movie Sex and city comes to mind where the character shuts herself in a room and vents out her helplessness as a mother of two kids until the nanny arrives. She was privileged to have friends with whom she could discuss the hardships of being a mother. The group finally went on a vacation!

I am celebrating Mother's Day as a mother first time today and the mom inside me is not letting me rest until I share the experience. Without doubt this is strictly my personal experience and cannot be generalised.

I would candidly accept that though I have always respected my mom, the respect and love has increased many times after I myself became a mom. In general I have never taken pride in being a woman as much as I do now. Living still in an era and country where education, independence and self-esteem of a woman is questioned I consider myself privileged to act and take decisions on my own. I remember the morning when I woke up with the feeling of severe itching on hands and feet. I had talked about the itching to people before and they said that it was nothing serious and hence did not discuss with the doctor. That morning, I just did not talk to anyone rather searched randomly on internet and found that it could be due to liver functioning problem causing sudden death of the baby without giving an iota of hint. Wow!, that was at the end of eight months of pregnancy. I rushed to the doctor and the LFT (Liver function test) confirmed that I was having the rare problem that happens to 1 in 4 women. The main doctor after a day said that I could not have a normal delivery and the baby had to be taken out at the earliest. The lady's doctor exact words were "You are sitting on a time bomb" followed by words posing risk to baby in a way I would not even like to remember at this point of time. How could it be possible that these doctors on whom we risk our entire lives are so unemphathic? 

I had a preterm delivery and a healthy baby girl was born. I cannot express the feeling when the paediatrician said to me in OT " You are mother of a healthy girl. She is alert and doing good." I saved myself because I acted correctly on developing the itching sensation. Is this not a real case scenario which highlights importance of women having access to Internet? This comes to my mind because the other day I saw a debate on FB on women having access to Internet or something on the same lines.

The most surprising fact after becoming mother is why do people not discuss the pains associated with it. My own mother never highlighted the hard facts before, it's only now that she do accept my feelings and agrees to them. I don't want to sound like a pessimist or negative person but I have to say that pregnancy and delivery procedure has been the most traumatic experience of my life so far. The testimony to my good health is I have never been admitted to a hospital in 29 years.

The cut below my stomach is so deep and prominent that I know the mark is life long. I remember in OT the doctor just before operation said that an injection would be given on my back so that I don't feel the pain also known as anaesthesia. Injections after injection, I have lost count of injections I had to take in that period. Two ladies doctor were performing actions on the area I have the cut mark now and then after few minutes another doctor literally jumped to action to push the baby who must have been visible by then and then the next sound I heard was "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa". That's it, any pain I had suffered before was a thing of past. The future looked different and smooth. 

My body had to be transferred from OT to intensive care unit for an hour as that was the procedure followed by the hospital. I don't know if I can say the transfer experience to be funny. I was completely helpless to move any part of my body and could only see nurses doing the work. In ICU though I was aware of the surroundings I was just a body lying on the bed. I could hear another lady moaning in pain  with sounds like "aaaah". I did not open my eyes and to remain optimistic thought of the word - progressive pain, meaning I would not suffer the same pains in future and any new pain would only be in the way of me getting better and back to normal life.

I cannot forget the moment when my body had to be moved from ICU to hospital room when one of the nurses asked me to lift my body. I am not sure if I said anything or they themselves figured out that I was still under the effect of anaesthesia and was not feeling every part of my body. A bottle and a bag were temporarily attached to my body. The hospital room was going to be my home for the next 7 days! For someone who completely hates hospital and has never been admitted there before, 7 days were really not easy.

I could not get up from the bed without assistance, could not even go to toilet without assistance. I really don't know if everyone faces this or it was just me! My body was completely messed up. For two to three days I had to take bath with the help of a nurse. I did not know something like this would happen with me in the process of becoming a mom. No one ever discussed these things with me. For the first few days I could not even manage to have the baby with me. 

Well this is just one part of a big process. The ailing body has to become ready for the next big thing called lactation. I have seen close to a dozen mothers feeding their babies in my own surrounding but never knew that to get started with it takes real effort. I along with other moms were given a class by paediatrician in the hospital on lactation. It was said that the mother's milk that comes out after a day or two from delivery is essential for the baby because it protects the baby from diseases in long term. At that time I was difficulty managing my own body, lactation was a distant act all together. I would restrict from writing all the painful experiences I had during the early days but would share the experience of last day in the hospital. The doctor had suggested medicines for greater production of milk without explaining that the milk produced had to be given to baby regularly else could lead to other problems. I faced those other problems!

On the last day the doctor suggested ice pack treatment to break the accumulated milk and make the organ back to normal to enable lactation. That evening I really couldn't control my emotions and when the doctor came to check and started giving suggestions, I broke and emptied few buckets from the ocean of water under my eyes. I had never felt more helpless than at that moment.

After getting discharged from the hospital I had the excitement of starting a different life. Babies are really not easy to handle in the first few months. It was a very strange time when I really did not know how were the days passing by. Proper guidance really helps in the initial days and importance of family is realised to the best. I have to thank Internet and people as for most of the information that I have got so far regarding babies have proved to be really true. The best part of motherhood is, it gets better, smoother and enjoyable with time. 

The experiences are like collection of short stories. It did not come naturally to me to understand and accept that a baby comes to world by actually knowing nothing actually NOTHING. They learn as they grow. Doesn't this fact adds more responsibility and pressure on parents? Per me it certainly does. After reading close to century of perspectives on success my personal take is, family background also plays a crucial role. 

 The first three months were really hard. Nights were day and days had to be night to be in sync with baby. Babies cry a lot in the initial months as per my experience. Now, it's her ninth month and she does not cry even 100th part of that in initial months. I have to keep myself stable and controlled at all times without becoming impatient at any moment. The expectations from women have really become tremendous in modern times.

 I remember the night when she was just a month old and started crying all of a sudden. Not knowing what to do, I just placed my palm on her head and was surprised to see her becoming calm real quick. That was the first time I felt importance of mother's touch.

All the dedicated efforts and time that I have spent on her gets rewarded with her activities giving encouragement and motivation to the mother inside me. At this time, she is on her way to learn words and talk but in the meantime eyes convey a lot. One day her dad tried real hard to make her sleep and failed and the moment I took her in my hands, the expression on her face changed so expressively that remembering the moment could make me sleep even in most troubled time.

The responsibilities of a mother are really too much and cannot be compromised. The fact is I as a mother will not be satisfied and happy until my daughter is. So anything I do as a mother is first to make me satisfied and happy. There are times when I really need time for myself and have to figure out ways to find that. Motherhood has induced several good things in me including tolerance, patience, greater pride in being a woman and greater respect and love for all other women. It adds new dimensions to life and gives an added purpose to live happily. 

To end this blog I would say motherhood is not easy and hence goes with the saying "No gain without pain". It has many more sides to it than I thought few years ago. Some aspects are real hard to accept while others are enjoyable. No one has ever made me feel more important and needed than my nine months old daughter, Aananya. 

Happy Mother's Day!

What's with the last name?

I did not know that our society is obsessed with last names or surnames, until recently. It's said, you are known by your company but few mind sets cannot be changed even if people are sent to Mars! It so happened that I have married a guy with a different surname. Thanks to some much needed modernisation in the society that I was not forced to change my surname or other ways getting the surname changed in all the educational documents and passport would have costed a lot of effort and time and hence my identity was left intact. Then, I became mother of a beautiful daughter and whoa!, I couldn't get much examples where surname of mother is preferred in kids' name, in case parents have different surnames.

Let me tell that at least in India, one cannot delay much in selecting name for the new born as making the birth certificate could unnecessarily become tedious. Now, the name cannot be pre-decided as the gender of the baby is not revealed. I started looking for names and finally got settled with Aananya. Now that's the first name. How about last name? To remove any conflict I could have gone with just first name but that's not good in long run. Ok, I am not obsessed with last names and went easily by adding the last name of my husband to her name. I had still not communicated the name for the birth certificate. I will not pretend here and disclose that I had a feeling of discomfort suppressed within me that why is the baby named after dad's surname and the mothers' identity is lost completely?

One day, with no specific intention, I tried googling how common is the name of my daughter. Alas! little did I know that googling could land me into long term problems! I landed a site which predicted the future of babies based on first and last names. First name of the baby predicted a wonderful future but with the addition of last name, it predicted few health related problems.

People who knows me would understand that I just don't take these things seriously. But somehow, this time, mindset of a silly first time mother won over the general thought process. Let me add that my baby is a pre-matured born baby. 

I couldn't stand my decision of the name given to baby and looked for options of changing the first name. I couldn't take much time as birth certificate had to be made. No better first name than Aananya  could be found, of course per my opinion. So, the option was only the last name. Thank goodness that my husband did not express any hard opinions when I expressed my concerns over the name of baby.

I also talked to one of my college mates who too married a guy with a different surname. :)

I asked her if she too felt discomfort while keeping the name of baby and I was happy to know that I am not alone there but she said she would not want to put herself in any adverse situation, so she went with the flow. Well, I was also going with the flow until I fell into the future predicting site and failure to ignore it.
The name got finalized with the last name of mother and the same got printed in the birth certificate.
Then came the step for making her passport.
We live in very strange society. On one side the entire nation and media goes gaga over the fact that Obama's guard of honor was a lady but on the other side nothing much really happens when it comes to practical stuff. I remember seeing the news of guard of honor on every possible social media and big words like women empowerment, nari Shakti (power of a lady) being used repeatedly.
Guess what, while filling the details of baby for passport, I noticed that the "Name of mother" field was marked optional while father's name was mandatory. I can still not find rationale behind that.

My husband is currently outside India and in one of the most developed nations of World. It must have happened that he showed copy of baby's passport to his friend who out of everything else noticed that the surname was of mother and pointed that it's not usual. I agree it's not usual but is it that difficult to accept?

Could someone please help me understand as to why mother's surname cannot be preferred for kid's name? What difference does that make? Why does our society make it look so complicated?
Do I really owe an explanation to everyone on the surname of my own blood?



 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

I caught this tweet which has already gained much attention on twitter:

#Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka: Indians don't speak up, just follow orders ow.ly/FqXv1 

Before I go deep into the article I would like to know how many of you think that our environment ( I am trying not to use the word culture here) support "speaking up", asking questions like "Why". I can't answer for the best possible cases but by now I have experience of working in both, an Indian based company and a non-Indian based company and my answer will be a big resounding No. The culture pushes us to follow the hierarchy and act accordingly. Talk based on your position. 

I would try to share some experiences which might not be exactly relevant in this case but would at least show the consequences of speaking up and not following hierarchies. In my first project as an SAP consultant, I was not supposed to talk directly to the customers. I had to take instructions from my immediate boss who would many times not understand the requirements clearly. This caused unnecessary iterations. When I tried to speak up, there was no solution found rather my appraisals were screwed up inspite of getting many good recommendations from the customer. I was not aware of the consequences of not being in good books of my boss which only means do-as-you-are-asked-to do. Don't question. Not just appraisals but there were other opportunities which never came my way because of it.

It is a very different feeling when your peers are treated differently in the same team because they follow the flow and not try to disrupt anything. The biggest shock was when I saw the 360 degree review going for a toss.The fact is, in most of the cases people at a certain hierarchical level always try to please the immediate next hierarchical level. So there is no confidence that giving the negative feedback would actually correct anything rather bounce back on the employee's career at the organization.

Fast forward to some of most recent happenings. Few clients would prefer documentation for any activity that happens in the project and managers would pride themselves of knowing the clients standards and guidelines. I faced one such manager who said I am not being right by transporting deleted entries in a transport request. He wanted me to directly delete entries in production because he had done that in some past case. In case of such horrific scenarios, I usually would be too shocked to  discuss anything. He would not encourage a discussion at any point of time, rather " do as I say because I am your manager" attitude. In most of the cases when I would have asked "Why" I received reply like " Because I want you to do this " or because his manager wants it to be done that ways. Because of my "speaking up" nature he would not miss a chance to demean me. I feel extremely disturbed when I see many blindly following instructions and never questioning them. But then it is this attitude which fetches gains, at least in the short term. 

The next time I faced this was when I participated in a community event. There was a template for everything and one had to follow that and not one's own style. I pulled myself out of the event without any argumentation.

But then there are good people too but I don't know which one dominates the culture.

These scenarios are at a very low level but then they distinctly illustrate the point that speaking up is not encouraged in most of the cases. You never know when you end up offending someone.

So in short creativity and boldness is not yet completely accepted and encouraged in our environment. So may be if one fine day, someone will ask me to give creative ideas, I will not be able to do that because I was never encouraged to do so.

I would not like to end the blog on a negative note, hence would add that following my own style is must as society would "Damned if I do and damned if I don't , so it's better that I do".

P.S. - Damned if you do and damned if you don't is a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt and I have used it as a blog title and also while ending the blog. ( http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/eleanorroo109473.html)

All that glitters is not gold!

I am writing this blog at the age of 29 years and am not sure if I myself am matured enough to write a concluding blog like this but then sharing experience is something I must do.

I married at the age of 28, late enough not to wait to have the first kid. Moreover if one is lucky enough to have caring elders, they would be kind enough to give suggestions regarding priorities after marriage. It was sweet November of 2013 that I got married and then excitedly found in February 2014 that I am pregnant. The news was happily received by both of us. I had done absolutely no planning for coming nine months. I am usually spontaneous and learn after doing the the things, so far my experiences have not been bitter to discourage me from being spontaneous. 

All of a sudden I had started to feel weak, a low feeling in the mornings making me uncomfortable to get up from bed. Sometimes, while taking bath I had a puking feeling and only water came out. It all made sense when the pregnancy detector showed positive results. So what's next, I started talking to people who had the experience in near past. A lot of different and versatile experiences came to my exposure majority being good. It was just two ( me and my husband) of us in a two BHK fully furnished house, completely oblivious to the necessities of running a home. Both of us worked in the same organization and account which obviously had its own side effects along with a set of advantages. Before marriage, I never had the chance or need to take responsibilities where I had to act as mistress of a home. I always had the comfort to only take care of myself and my work. Rest of the things were happily outsourced. So it was  just few months ago I realized that I was not able to switch to a homely life, which is something I am learning gradually and of course am better than I was five months ago. So switching to a married life and pregnancy occurred in tandem to me. 

The first trimester was more like a perplexed set of situations wherein you don't understand what's happening. I remember after coming back from work in the evening I was a dead horse not even able to get up from couch, leave alone cooking. In this early stage there is no visible change that happens to body but everything else gets impacted at mind front. Feeling restless, irritable, uncomfortable at any time of the day becomes part of the routine. Eating becomes experimental, eat it next time only when it doesn't come out the first time. Added to this discomfort, is the fact that the pregnancy is usually not disclosed to people at this early stage. So, if you feel restless in the mid of a workday, make your mostly men managers convinced that you need to go. I remember my first trimester fell in a phase very critical to the project I was handling solely. This was with added fact that I had developed a repulsive feeling towards my immediate manager and was not sure if I was really enjoying my work. But then when you work for SIs, work gets allotted in a way that you have absolutely no say over what gets assigned to you. 

Finally, both of us decided we needed support from our parents and got it from my in-laws. I read long ago in some article, " Girls, be nice to you mom-in-law, husbands can't take care of kids". I would not have better realized that when you marry, you just don't marry a guy but also his family. In India, I few cultures we have a process called "kanyadaan", meaning the biological dad puts the hands of daughter in the hands of the guy with mantras signifying, dads' turn of taking his daughters' care is over and now it's completely the responsibility of the guy to take care of the girl. A caring, understanding partner becomes necessity in these times and of course a supportive family. But we live in real world and not a fairy land, hence sometimes something somewhere falls short of expectations and the best way is to accept the reality and sail through it. Keeping expectations low too would help. 

The most challenging thing that happens is visiting maternity hospitals and that too regularly. I remember the first visit made both me and my partner restless and worried as to how would we make it every few weeks with our work schedules. 

I must say that I have been lucky with most of our decisions in life. My workplace and hospital are both at walking distance from my residence. This removed many other nuisances which could have been. 

Visiting hospital gradually gets added to the routine and you get well accustomed to it even before noticing that. 

I came to know from my elder sister that usually mom-in-law provides needed guidance and safety tips to sail through nine months. My sister was guided well by her mom-in-law. Well, not all mom-in-law falls into this category.

One of the most common facts that I was ignorant about was I am not supposed to get up straight as I used to, rather turn to my side and then get up. I came to know this when at the end of three months I had started bleeding heavily and had considered that to be the abrupt end of my first pregnancy. 

I remember that morning, when I went to the nearby park for meditation and felt the bleeding making me rush back to home, called up my sister who said to visit the doctor immediately. Went to the hospital in an auto and was immediately taken to doctors' attention. That morning the required nurse was late and doctor did not have equipments to examine me immediately. I was bleeding nonstop. I was taken to another room and after examination she said the foetus was all right and was sent for next scan. In the next scan, the doctor declared I was having a low lying placenta causing bleeding. Really? If you would google about low lying placenta you would understand that it could lead to severe consequences at times. Also if it doesn't move up on its own, expecting mother has to be on bed rest for entire nine months! Could anyone in this situation enjoy pregnancy or not treat pregnancy as a disease?  I was admitted in the hospital for two days, another interesting fact, in the hospital a lady attendant was required else I had to shift to some other less privileged room. Those two days turned out to be most tortuous for me. I was given injection to stop bleeding thrice a day on my hip. One was at midnight. My back was poked so much that it had almost become like a bread with visible pores. Fortunately, at the end of two days bleeding was controlled and I was permitted to return back home. I remember, the doctor, an above middle aged lady saw my reports, noticed low lying placenta and said, "it's low lying placenta, so placenta has to go up, nothing can be done from our side but injections, so better don't get annoyed or irritated with injections". Alas!, didn't someone teach her that patients look towards the doctor very optimistically and also expect some moral boost from them, their rudeness impacts the patients for sure! 

I frankly do not accept that I had a low lying placenta. The first three months of pregnancy needs to be handled very carefully. Relying too much on information shared on the net could be misleading. Moreover in India, even doctors don't say it openly that having bed pleasures is not recommended during pregnancy, leave alone couple asking them the same. In fact why don't the doctors coach us the safety measures themselves rather rely on us to ask them everything. That too I am going to a very reputed and highly expensive hospital. Sudden jerks or movements are best avoided. The fact that our body doesn't change in the first trimester deceiving us to act the way we did before conceiving. In the next visit to doctor, a very pleasant lady, soothed me by saying she too had bleeding problem but that doesn't stay longer. She later also confirmed that my placenta had moved up in a tone that made me feel that I never had a low lying placenta.

Oh, how can I not talk about the work front! I was asked to take at least two weeks bed-rest after bleeding but I could work. This was more than just ridiculous. How could I keep lying down and code? I was given WFH for two weeks after revealing both my pregnancy and the emergency. I was able to work as being completely workless would have made me more sick. In a girls life these are testing times, with a tug of war between staying strong or quitting it all. Thanks to increasing financial demands, the other side always looks weaker. After two weeks, I made up my mind to go to work and I did. I could never have cursed the government and public more for roads and not following traffic rules respectively.

Arrival of second trimester gives the same feeling as the first rain after a dry summer. The baby hump becomes clearly visible. The irritable nature subsides. It is the best time to really enjoy pregnancy considering the other surrounding factors are good. I remember talking to friend who now has a year old kid had said, she enjoyed second trimester by outsourcing homely work like cooking and staying just with her partner. I remember her saying, it is good you stay just with your partner in this time and be prepared to receive a lot of love from him in this time. Two things, first we girls inherently are not comfortable with in-laws <lol>, second, with financial indepence, we depend more on our partners for emotional support and love. In these times, Indian men need to be really careful as most of them do not have it in their genes to treat girls with love, respect and dignity. 

Pregnancy doesn't come alone, right from the beginning the increased expenses prepare us for the future indicating that expenses are going to shoot up in near future. So, if one wants to live in above-middle class fashion, even two salaries might not be able to keep you away from financial worries. But mind you, you are not supposed to take any kind of tension or stress during pregnancy. I very well know that such requirements are more than just impossible to achieve. 

Second trimester is the time when short distance travel are allowed and of course conditions along with doctor recommendations apply. Any kind of shopping or outdoor work should be considered in this phase. I am not a big fan of online shopping and think I should have done more of shopping in the second trimester. Shopping to me is a great way to vent out my anger, irritation or any unwanted feeling for that matter. Higher the amount spent, greater is the complacency. This was the first time, I bought dresses of size L, earlier it was rare that I bought any other size than S. The body looks filled from every possible part, so in case anyone had complained of not having a perfect figure due to some part being small, will make up for that. <chuckle>. 

Going back to day job's front, you would be able to work better. It's better to surround yourself with positive people and it almost becomes mandatory during pregnancy. I am not sure if there are specific policies in different organizations to give special attention to pregnant women but of course the situation demands that. I remember when I used to sit continuously for hours I had ugly back pain. Working on something that required lot of thought process, made me feel irritated at nights. Comparing it with normal days, I am used to work for long hours.

Usually, seniors who are dads would stop by my seat and give me suggestions and also different pregnancy situations depending on their mood. 

Any weight that was lost due to vomittings would be gained surplus. This is also the time when craving for eating different things would start. I remember myself in different locations ranging from KFC to sweet shops. Basically, any dislike towards food gets overly compensated. It's strange that I was forced more to eat in first trimester compared to the next two. This could be due to the reason I started over eating myself in the later trimesters. 

Let me touch another sensitive topic now. Indian society even this apparent advanced era is happy to see women in traditional wear. Any slight expose of hideous parts puts the lady in a bad category. But 

what happens to the woman's body during check ups. Oh my God, I remember the first scanning done to confirm the pregnancy and foetus heart beat. Thereafter, any scanning done reminded me of the saying from Srimad bhagvat Geeta that human body is of no significance, it's the soul which is eternal. This actually made me accept the ways in which my body was treated while scanning and check ups. And then again, I am not sure how would some orthodox society accept if the doctor in the scanning room happens to be a male. In Ramayana, goddess Sita refused to fly on back of Hanuman as she did not voluntarily want herself to get touched by any man other than Sri Ram. With current circumstances, can we women even think of slightly being like Sita? 

As pregnancy advances and approaches the due date, I don't know the pattern in which the emotions and thoughts change. I remember having good moods to incessant crying. But if I have to put in simple terms, I would say this pregnancy has brought some very tough situations and feelings for me to be conquered. But as is said in the movie, The best exotic marigold hotel, if difficulties faced are accepted one would sail through and reach the other end whereas if one tries to complaint about them or knock them off, survival would be impossible. 

 

Moving to last trimester experience, it was only at the starting of mid seventh month that I have started feeling frequent foetus movements. This reminds me that at sixth or fifth month my mom had said that the baby must be moving a lot inside (as if I had provided a playground within) but on saying that was not the case, she exclaimed, "Oh, is the baby not strong enough?". I have got the feedback from many of my friends too that all comments and suggestions should not be taken seriously. 

Sleeping at nights becomes a challenge. You would not know when would some joint start paining. Having someone who could massage when required is no less than a boon. Continuous sleep becomes a distant dream. Sleeping on sides becomes mandatory, even to change sides, I have to get up, orient myself and then switch to other side. I must add that practising pre-natal yoga has really helped me to a significant extent. 

Going back to work life, at the end of seventh month, I was very clear that the last two months would not surround around 9 to 5 routine or any kind of stuff I don't like to see in my surroundings. So even if that called for lot of discussions and exchanging emails, at last I am currently out of any deadlines or people I don't like to see. This gives me the freedom to choose the routine I am comfortable with, practising yoga at flexible timings, reading books, sleeping in afternoons or in short complete relaxation. I know of many ladies who take pride in reporting to work till the last day before delivery but I did not feel the necessity of being the same. I don't know if people decisions are fear driven but currently I am enjoying bench period before taking maternity leave in a couple of weeks and I don't mind if my current organization kicks me out for asking bench period. I completely understand financial stability point of view before taking such decisions.

I have closely seen pregnancy and delivery only in case of a pet cow, my dad had some years ago, when I was in school. I remember, she was given some extra nutritious food as the delivery was near. I don't exactly remember if she was given oil massage too at times. But one thing I remember clearly is the difficulty she had while getting up or lying on ground. It took a while for her to calm down and restore her normal breathing. We humans are blessed with the capability to speak but how would a cow say if she was feeling hungry untimely or she needed to eat something different. I don't know why but I have developed a great sense of respect for cows now. I remember at the moment of delivery i was asked not to be around her and leave her. As soon as the calf was out, I saw her licking the baby and removing the sticky material all over its skin. Within hours the baby got up on its own feet and the mother was more than just happy to feed it with her milk. 

Currently, my only aim is not to overthink what lies in future rather just sail through it, though I tend to over analyse every time. Before I end, I would say this experience has made me to conclude that a woman needs to be respected just because she is a woman. She already has a bulk of responsibilities levied upon her naturally. 

Meeting Dr. Abraham Verghese - Director of National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Insects

Yesterday was a very unique day as it was completely unplanned meet but turned out to be one of the best so far. How does a software developer get to meet head of NBAII? Well, it all started when I had proposed in front of few big shots (ahem) of my organization that we should present ourselves in demojam held at TechEd Bangalore. It was a big and sometimes heated discussion. I don't know what clicked but after several rounds of discussion the team agreed that we could not focus entirely on marketability of idea at the moment. At my current position, I sometimes am not able to understand why people much up the hierarchy focus on sellability of whatever we do. That makes sense to an extent but it make things delayed to get started at first place. I remember I had to write that we could first focus on doing and then remodeling what we do to meet their expectations. This itself is a huge topic of discussion under 'Different People' category but since that's not the intention of this blog I'd not discuss that here.

 Things moved and process moved from 'why' to 'what'. There were many brainstorming sessions held with different ideas. Many got rejected as they were too sophisticated to get implemented with resources at hand. One of the team members has little exposure to agricultural concept because of close family relationships working in that area. Thoughts were diverted in that direction and after few meetings it was finalized that demo would be done in that area. Finally the team found few other team members whose close family members are in that area to better identify problems there. Things moved and to get a clear exposure to the concept and clarify our doubts, a meeting was organized with Dr. Abraham Verghese. Appointment was from 3:30 pm to 4:00pm.

We went there well before time and had to wait for close to 40 mins. The team was greeted well inside the big room of Dr. Verghese. I was a little surprised to see Dr. Verghese's humbled behaviour by holding the door until we all entered, though he had his assistant! We were seated and the discussion started. He had a completely calm and composed attitude. This was one such meeting wherein I just wanted to listen, listen and listen more! Each of his sentences had a heavy weight. He said that no farmer in India is poor because of production issues, it is all because of storage and distribution problems. He suggested that if we could do something for storage and distribution of perishable food products, that would be good. He was talking about the network set up of the transportation and storage of crops among different locations.
He said that the crop production capability of India has increased more than 6 times post independence. There is appropriate food produced for everyone in this country. But since there are gaps between production, distribution and reachability to the masses, the lack appears.

He also mentioned that there are middle men involved who helps farmers to get their production from farms to markets. In older times, these middle people were viewed with little skepticism but are now treated as facilitators. He has done many researches which are being used around the world. He highligted few examples where his deparment has helped solve bio-terrorism. In some year, there was an insect imported from another country which caused papayas to rot and hence causing huge damage to the many farmers many of whose income depends entirely on papaya production. They had to analyse the insect causing the damage, identify the country it was imported from and then propose the solution. The solution was interesting. No spray could help solve the problem. They had to import natural agents to destroy the insects from the same country. This process had to be quick and not take much time. His other example was that of mangoes which too were getting destroyed because of imported insects. He had done research and proposed the solution which is now being used at many countries around the world.

There was a similar example with eucalyptus which if damaged would cause paperless India. Thereby he also emphasized the need of  evolution in 'quarantine' process. Few of his other examples highlighting areas of improvement in India couldn't stop me from laughing.

All in all I had a great experience meeting him. I have also started to conclude that all amazing people have one quality in common - power of listening. He listened to all of us as if we all made great sense to him but I could make out very well that he was much beyond and above us. Seeing his calm behaviour I couldn't resist thinking about my own dad who is just the same. I was not much surprised when even calm people like him end up cracking jokes on me. While leaving us till door, he asked me where am I from and then said that he visits my state frequently and I would not have an iota of knowledge about the agricultural importance of my place. I said that if both of us are there at the same time I would certainly meet him again.

Things have moved good so far. I don't know if we would be able to submit our entry in the time required but trying causes no harm. I always feel that while doing any such extra work apart from regular day job, someone in the team has to be hyperactive to keep things moving. I did that in the last Innojam I participated. I would like to do that again but time management becomes little difficult when you are at the age of handling additional personal responsibilities.

If "Empathy" becomes part of work culture!

I read this great blog by slim this past week and commented saying 'Developers need to be empathic as they deal with lot of different teams in their daily work schedules and hence have to deal with lot of different people'. I also said that I have felt that there are instances wherein much of delay is caused by misunderstanding between people. In case you are wondering why developers need to talk to so many people let me give you an example:
'I (developer) write a code that sends external e-mails and I find the ports are not configured. I have to contact the basis administrator to get that done as in a typical scenario I would not have authorization to do that. I would work based on a functional specification given to me. I would like to know how does the transaction work and business case it solves, before I would do any custom coding. For that I would contact the functional consultant. Let's say while I analyze the specification I find that there are unclear requirements, I would have to contact the requirements gathering team (could be my customer).'

Slim wanted to know kind of delays happening due to misunderstanding between teams. Even before I proceed to answer his question I would like you to imagine a workplace like this: 'People understand you the way you want them to. Your words are perceived the way they were said. People don't try to draw conclusions based only on the words spoken but also by what was not spoken. They try to understand not only what is being said but also the background information which lead to the words that were spoken'. Well, when I imagined this kind of workplace I had a feeling like 'Wow'. There would be no conflicts if everyone becomes like this. Now when I say this, I don't mean that no one of this kind exists now, certainly there are people with such admirable characteristics but I have come across very few of them. At the same time, when I expect people around to be part of that ideal workplace, I would expect myself to scale up and improve my understanding/listening skills too.

Back to answering Slim's question, there is one experience that comes rushing to my mind. I was new to a team and obviously unaware of mindset of people and work culture. A fresh piece of development was handed over to me with a Functional specification (FS). As I mentioned earlier, after going through the FS, I went to the functional consultant to understand the transaction and to verify the understanding of object to be developed. She [I am addressing people involved as 'she' and does not actually mean that the person was a she] explained me well but she said that the 'Smartform' [object to be developed] would be triggered at 'Delivery level'. I came back and reread the FS and was pretty sure that 'Smartform' had to be triggered at 'Handling Unit' (HU) level and the 'Output type' had to be configured at HU level and not at the header level. I made an attempt to make her understand. She refused to accept that and she gave numerous examples of objects developed previously where print was at the header level. She was so confident of her assumption that she might have overlooked what was not-so-explicitly mentioned in the specification. This is clearly an example of people resistant to change and assume that anything new would be done just the same way, it has been done in past. 
I was in a strange situation as certainly the 'Importing parameters' of the code depended on the level at which the 'Output type' was configured. With the deadline within which the object had to be completed, I could not spare much time in convincing her 'What she needed to do' and hence rather decided to complete the coding with the understanding I had. My role was to code the object and hand it over to her for the final testing.[Was I being selfish, but how could anyone help a person who is resistant to change?] 
At the same time I kept discussing the issue with some other consultants who might have developed something similar and kept investigating as to how 'Output type' could be configured at HU level. Anything when started newly takes more time and seems more trickier. Finally, days moved and the coding was complete, needless to mention that the delivery date of object too was very near. With my numerous attempts to convince her, she actually at a pretty later stage made an attempt to contact another person from the concerned team to verify if the print had to be triggered at HU level and how could output type be configured at HU level. Finally, things were sort out and she accepted that it was at HU level.

Test plan had to be prepared and the object had to be thoroughly tested before it was delivered. After she understood, she did the configuration and then I had to finish the developer testing. Did it cause a delay? My answer would be a certain Yes. I had to work on a weekend to meet the delivery date. Apart from that, there were unnecessary last minute communication sent to different teams to get the configuration done as not all authorizations were given to her. There were high chances of missing the due date, had those last moment communication not acknowledged urgently. So, certainly it was not smooth. So if I give this whole episode a summarized look it could be like:

The specification was not documented very explicitly w.r.t level of output. The concerned team might have assumed it to be 'implicitly' clear.
Functional person 'assumed' it to be what she had been doing previously.
Poor developer could not easily convince her functional of what was right.

Now let me introduce the element I am talking about, 'Empathy'. It was certainly lost in this whole episode. Who had to be empathic here? The functional consultant, the specification writer or the developer or everyone of them?
Let me concentrate on the developer. Had developer tried finding out as to why the functional was so confident of her understanding, developer would have pulled out specification of those objects and tried making a comparison among them and could have found differences to prove her point. There was a high chance that specification did not give developer enough clue, she would have tried to respect the fact that functional was resistant to change and would have approached her with a more polite or well researched opinion helping her with ways of configuration rather than thinking 'It's her job'. Developer could have respected the fact that functional was highly experienced person and hence was deriving conclusion based on past experiences and thought of an appropriate approach to correct her.

This experience actually taught me a lot and I have made it a point to get things straight, right at the first place rather than at later stage of development.

Slim has also commented saying, often people think that they understood what the word used by another person means. Let me relate to another experience. When a specification comes to a developer's desk to be verified and estimated, the explicitly unclear cases are easily identified and asked but how about some of the tricky ones which in most of the cases get assumed by the developer and causes problem at a later stage. Most of these arise because the same words are perceived in different ways by different peoople. One such occassion was when one of the developers was going on leave and I had to take over her work. I read the specification and concentrated on what needed to be done by that interface. [object to be developed] I found a statement saying 'Some update would be done by this "transaction"'. The interface was handling couple of big scenarios and the update highlighted above might not have been much emphasized or highlighted in previous discussions. I asked her about that and I could clearly understand that it was assumed by her that it would be done as part of some other process and not part of the same interface being developed, just because in specification it was written ''transaction" and not very explicitly that the update would be part of the same interface. I later had a discussion with the concerned team and found that they used the word "transaction" for any scenario handled via that interface and hence did not necessarily feel the need to highlight that in the specification. Did this cause a delay? Certainly yes as that called for additional calls and time before it was estimated.

I could give more examples of confusions arising due to misunderstanding but I think the point is clear. I can't expect eveyone around me to be empathic but I am very sure if I keep making a conscious effort to be empathic in dealings with people, that would make my life easier and peaceful.