Life Stories

Wedding season brings with it a different kind of excitement. Families get busy with shopping, decorations, guest lists, and countless last-minute arrangements. One of my teammates was right in the middle of all this as his sister's wedding preparations were in full swing. One day, while we were on a work call, he mentioned that he wanted to hand me the wedding invitation personally in the office. It was a thoughtful gesture, and we continued discussing work as usual. Like many conversations with him, the discussion soon drifted beyond the agenda. He was at the beginning of his career—curious, energetic, and never short of questions or unusual ideas. That day, he came up with one that I had never heard before. "Ma'am," he said, "I want your name to appear on the invitation as Special Appearance." For a moment, I wasn't sure if I had heard him correctly. I laughed and explained, "That's something you usually see when celebrities or famous persona...

It was an ordinary evening commute. The same roads, the same traffic, and the same rush to get home. Then, in an instant, something caught my attention. A young man suddenly darted onto the busy road, desperately trying to pick up something lying just ahead of an oncoming car. Before he could reach it, the vehicle rolled over it, crushing it beneath its tyres. He quickly stepped back, narrowly avoiding what could have been a tragic accident. Curious, I looked closer. The object he had risked his life for was a tiny, single-use plastic water bottle—perhaps just 200 ml. That moment stayed with me. For many of us, an empty plastic bottle is nothing more than waste. We toss it aside without a second thought. But for someone else, it can mean a few rupees, a meal, or simply another day of survival. It was a stark reminder of two realities sharing the same road—one where we discard without thinking, and another where people risk their lives collecting what we throw away. Sometimes, the most ...

Campus recruitment days are usually predictable. A long line of enthusiastic graduates. Back-to-back interviews. Endless introductions that begin with names, branches, and aspirations. By lunchtime that day, I had completed all the interviews assigned to my panel and joined the rest of the recruitment team for a quick break. Just as lunch was wrapping up, one of the organizers approached me. "There's one more candidate left. Would you mind interviewing him after lunch?" I agreed and returned to my interview room. A few minutes passed. The organizers informed me they couldn't reach the candidate on his phone. We decided to wait a little longer, assuming he had stepped away for lunch. Barely two or three minutes later... Bang! The door flew open. A young man walked in without knocking. Behind him was a college coordinator, slightly out of breath, asking if I needed the candidate's résumé. I nodded, accepted the CV, and the coordinator quietly left the room. The cand...

Guru Arjan Devji was the 5th sikh Guru. On their shaheedi diwas( Martyr's Day) which was observed on 18th June 2026 this year, the Sikh community sets up chabeels at various locations. A public place distributing free water/sweet drinks to the passers by as a sewa is called a chabeel. I recently interacted with a Sikh colleague and had our contacts exchanged. They put up a WhatsApp status for the chabeel and I happened to notice it. I checked with them and was warmly onboarded. I wanted to contribute and was also invited to join the sewa. Considering various factors I confirmed to join. Having been born and raised in northern part of India, this was a part of the memories while growing up. However, since I moved to Pune, had missed these events. When I saw this opportunity, I wanted to grab it with both my hands   I reached the location of the chabeel in the morning, the sewa was already on. I joined the group. The chabeel was at a round about with an auto riksha stand, a bus ...

Quite at the initial stage of my career, I was working with an amazing team. A geographically diverse but a very well bonded team. We used to brainstorm and work together through the day on voip calls and screen sharing through office communicator. Working on a product, it needed a lot of collaboration and thinking out of the box to make it a world class product. We were making something to overcome the challenges of an already established industry standard tool. The initial product was already there before I joined. However, it still needed a lot of work based on the user experience. Everyday we came in with a new challenge, understand what our users had challenges with and tried to resolve them one after the other. After a couple of months which spanned a few years, we had taken it to a level where it had not only overcome the challenges of the existing industry tool but had also come out better. The extra ordinary implementations we did were appreciated far and wide on various inter...

My Driving license was due for renewal. The earlier license was from Delhi and now I have been living in Pune so it needed an address change too. I searched the net and found the renewal could be done online through the parivahan site.  I filled the form online, uploaded the required documents - current licence and address proof in this case. The fees was also calculated by the same site and paid online. Next was the appointment booking again from the parivahan site. The appointment slots are from Monday to Friday only.  I booked the slot for 10am monday morning. The RTO office is in sector 6, Moshi. It was a 25-min drive from my place and I reached the RTO office at 10am. On the ground floor is a reception where no one sits. If you look at that you will probably keep waiting as rest of the activities happen on the floors above. First floor is dedicated to all the driving licence work. When I reached there the first time, the counters were all deserted. People were waiting in ...

After the pickleball tournament, next up was the Innovation Marathon 2.0 on emerging technology. I was one of the jury members. This was a part of the CSR that our organization conducts. The initial process started around 7 months back with over 600 teams registering for the Marathon. With internal evaluations 85 teams got to the mentoring phase where they got dedicated mentors to help them progress further on their journeys. 50 of those 85 teams made it to the final round where these teams presented their projects to a panel of jury members who would then evaluate each team based on defined parameters. This exercise went on for a few hours in different rooms and finally the students were relieved of the anxiety that was being built up for the past few months. Post the evaluation all of us went for lunch. There were chit chats , discussions and some laughter during the lunch time. We went back to the main hall for some vote of thanks, experiences shared by the jury , by the...

An e-mail popped up in my work mail to register for women's pickleball tournament. It specifically asked for a certain grade of employees. Given the eligibility I jumped in to register bearing in mind I knew nothing about the game. When it was time for actual teams to be formed, it was time to face the truth. Only 2 ladies had registered from entire service comprising of over 1000 employees. We needed 5 ladies to be able to compete. We started gathering eligible candidates from all over the service to complete the team. Then came the practice part or I would better say getting acquainted to the game. I had been away for 2 weeks for my brother's wedding when the phase of getting acquainted started. When I got back I could get 2 sessions for acquaintance/practice before the actual tournament which helped get a fair idea of the game , rules, etc.  On the day of the tournament, we reached well in time. There were total 4 women's teams playing. We won all 3 sets in the semi fina...

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 😊🙏

We were in Kodaikanal during our year end vacation. After a long day(due to unexpected traffic and long traffic jams), we were returning back to our hotel. The route seemed un-familiar. We were on a secluded street and a sharp left turn had to be manoeuvred. On such long routes, he drives & I direct 😀 While turning, I felt the car couldn't turn through in one go and needs to be reversed for a full turn. He had his own judgement and thought the car could turn through. As he tried harder, there was a big dug up hole in the front covered with leaves. The front right tyre got lodged in the pit and now the tyre was in the air. At the same time, 2 men on a 2-wheeler happened to be passing by. They stopped and we requested for help. While they started to analyze the situation, another car stopped by. The driver came out to help. Everyone analyzed the situation from their perspectives. After thorough inspection, a large stone was searched and kept under the floating tyre to support it...