Life Stories

There are some people who leave an impression on your life without ever becoming a part of it. I've always been someone who enjoys talking to people. Conversations come naturally to me, and over the years I've met countless individuals through work. There was a phase in my career when I was interviewing for different internal projects. Most of those interactions were transactional—an interview, a discussion, and then everyone moved on. Except one. We never became friends. We never worked on the same project. In fact, after that interview, we barely spoke. He eventually settled in Toronto while our lives continued on different paths. A few years later, my first international work trip was finalized—and my destination was Toronto. Like anyone travelling abroad for the first time, I was excited, nervous, and filled with questions. I reached out to people I knew there, trying to understand the city, transportation, weather, and everyday life. In the middle of all those conver...

Today morning, while commuting to office by the office cab, there was a small stretch of road that had gone slippery due to accumulation of mud during heavy rains. The appreciable thing was, there were a few men safe guarding that stretch so that no vehicle could enter that zone while it was being washed clean. Also, those gentlemen were making the two wheelers slow down to avoid any untoward incident. In a country where we aren't concerned about anyone else, it feels like such a beautiful gesture to see people putting efforts to make sure others are safe too. Kudos to those aware citizens who were selflessly helping others 😊🙏

Alright!! We're still in Chhatrapati Shambhaji Nagar and the wedding is done. What next?  Being there, hubby suggested we go visit the Ghrishneshwar Jyotirling. My friend and her family joined in too.  It was a 20-min drive. We reached the jyotirling. Phones aren't allowed inside the shrine so we kept them in the car. It wasn't too crowded and we were able to have the darshan in around 15 mins. We went back to the parking. Aunty suggested we drop them at Ellora caves. Looking at the time, it wouldn't have been enough for them to visit the caves. We were planning to go to Shirdi, offered them to join us and they agreed. We took the Samruddhi expressway which was fairly vacant. We reached the parking by 6:15pm (around 1.5 hours). We again left our phones in the car. We reached near the gate, and got uncle aunty seated on a bench. Husband went to get the darshan pass and in the meanwhile me n my friend went to get some tea for all of us. All of us assembled bac...

When you work for an MNC and sweat it every single day, your company tries to give you some fun time with employee engagement activities. We had a dinner party recently for the entire team covering over 400 employees. Finding a venue, to getting all the permissions in place, finalizing the menu, security, parking, volunteers....a lot of efforts ho into the planning done by an amazing team who ensure every bit is taken care with utmost precision.  This time the venue was "Pivo Garten" in Mundhwa, Pune. It is a beautiful place with indoor seating (on ground and first floor) all over looking the dance floor and a spacious outdoor seating with a big lawn.  We got ready in office, navigated the peak evening traffic to reach the venue. They had a basket valet service available for parking the guest vehicles. Entry was managed by our volunteers and the venue staff which was smooth. We found ourselves an indoor table , had our conversations, rounds of pictures...

CSR(Corporate Social Responsibility) is one of the bigger responsibilities of organisation to give back to the society at large. It aims at helping the less privileged in the society by various means. Our organization conducts many such programs around the year. One such program is STEM - Science Technology Engineering Mathematics. This initiative is specifically targeted for girl students from some of the government schools nearby. These students get a chance to visit our office premises, interact with us, go through various topics across subjects and understand their relevance in our lives. They also get an understanding of how we (corporate employees) work in these huge buildings adding meaning to our careers. There were 2 batches of students covered across 2 weeks where learning was made fun. The students were bright, interactive, curious to know more and wanted to understand using demos. Towards the closure of each batch, we had some enthusiastic students who had a fai...

We try to donate for prasad at Iskcon on the last day of pitr paksha. Following the donation, you are also welcome to serve on your own.  Of the few tens of donors , only a handful usually turn up to serve. Prasad time being between 6 and 8 pm, we reached the temple by 5:30pm. We had a lovely darshan in the temple and then came down to the prasad area. They have a dedicated shed where the entire prasad arrangements are done. From utensils to tables to mats for people to sit, water and soap to wash the utensils after eating prasad to drinking water. Everything is maintained and managed in that dedicated area. We got all the huge utensils filled with prasad - rice , sambhar , khichdi and sweet. They are carried in trolleys as they are very heavy. The utensils were taken out. Everything was arranged properly as the queue had already started building up by 5:45pm. At 6, there was a small prayer for the prasad and then the sevadars started distributing. Long mats were rolled out on the ...

Cakes are an all time requirement for any kind of celebration. If the cake is done right, the happiness of the occasion doubles at least for me. I found my perfect baker in Anuja. Whenever I have to order a cake, she answers to all my queries with lot of patience, listens to my requirements and then provides her suggestions too whenever required. It's been around 2 years now, and all my cakes are being baked only by her. I have also ordered cakes for the birthday celebrations at office and it's really heartening to see everyone enjoy the yummilicious cakes there as well. Whatever flavour, theme, she has been baking all the cakes with lot of love. The cakes look beautiful in presentation and are equally delicious too. Name : Anuja Patil Deals in : cakes Location: pimple Saudagar

I was organising games and events at office and wanted to distribute gifts/prizes for the winners. Provided the quantity, budget and requirement to Renu. She provided me different options keeping all my requirements in mind. I finalised a ganpati wall hanging. She got them nicely packed and I got them picked up from her shop in chinchwad. Amount was paid in cash while picking up the package. Name: Renu Agarwal Deals in : gifts & stationery

We were in the cab and the FM was playing as usual. As rainy season was in progress, commutation had its own cons. One such con was being discussed on the FM channel being played and the RJ was trying to get a pothole filled which was endangering lives of citizens traveling on that route. While the awareness and the mission was at its peak, there was a commercial break and an advertisement was played that said why is everyone moving to this place? What's happening? And by coincidence, the advertisement was referring to the same place where the pothole was targeted to be filled. Someone replied to the question, everyone's going to see the pothole being filled😁 On a serious note, please be cautious of the potholes during rainy season while you drive on the roads.

As the traffic signal turned green, the bike that was stationed just ahead of us started to move with a jerk and the lady riding pillion fell of the bike. It was a short roll on the road where she hurt her body and her head. Though there were external wounds or anything but her head was hurting. Lesson: please hold on tight to the rider or the bike whatever suits and please wear a helmet.