Experiences

About my life experiences and learning

Living in duality

Can you live simultaneously the reality of your greatness and smallness? All your achievements and brilliance is true. And so are all the things you don’t know and your insecurities and imperfections. Can you accept both realities and constantly work with them? Neither one is true without the other. The truth is that they both …

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Pain and purpose

What you searched for outside of you, was all this while within you. What you wanted to run away from was always meant to be your refuge. The you, you wanted to abandon was always your home. You’ve been gone a long while. Go home now, take refuge and search within. In your pain lies …

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The writing dilemma

Writing has become such an integral part of my life since my college days. Between journalling and blogs, I’ve learned to articulate my thoughts and emotions well and they’ve really helped me get clarity for myself and be of help to a few others. But then… I stopped writing. When I initially started writing, I …

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My walkman remake

One of few things that gave me the most joy recently is remaking my walkman playlist. I was gifted a Sony walkman in 2007. Back then I used to download songs to our computer and then transfer it to my walkman and listen to it endlessly. I grew up being extremely fond of music – …

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End of the Master’s

Today I finally wrap up my Master’s commitments. After gruelling 4 months of work, I’ve finally turned in my dissertation. When I look back, I see a year of resilience. It was an incredibly difficult year with challenges one after the other and I’m not even talking about my course! But a few people have …

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Running

You can run from the whole world. You can hide behind facades. And you can actually fool everyone else. But none of these will heal you or help you. None of these will transform your life for the better. None of this will make you lighter. Even when you are running, you are carrying your …

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Ambition vs Aspiration

“According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, ambition is defined as an ardent desire for rank, fame or power, while aspiration is defined as a strong desire to achieve something high or great.” I have forever used these words interchangeably. Wanting to achieve something great does not always have to do with rising in rank, fame or power. …

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One love

Today is the pride march in London. The streets are full of people who are owning their own selves and are celebrating love. Because I live in my own cocoon, I had no idea I was stepping out into a pride march. I was initially taken aback by the crowd, but soon, I started smiling …

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Some random thoughts

You are your responsibility. No one owes you anything. No one has to come running to take care of you. You are enough and you are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. But human beings thrive on social connection. So it is important to have friends and family, but without the expectation that it …

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Vishu away from home

As much as I’m wondering what the significance of all these traditions of seeing the vishu kani are, I’m equally excited to have seen them today atleast on video call. Perhaps it’s the familiarity and a sense of community / belonging that makes me feel so good about celebrating vishu. Today though, I hope to …

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Great Love

Real love is selfless. It is secure and gives you a sense of stability and safety. Great love makes you a better person. It makes you WANT to be a better person. The right partner will double your happiness and reduce your problems by half. With the right person, things will be easy. There won’t …

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Being unbreakable

I realised that people or circumstances break me because I give them the opportunity to. The real loophole is in my self-esteem, self-belief and capability. All that poor circumstances and assholes do is amplify the insecurities that already live within me. Some of these insecurities are very weak, but some of them are very very …

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The baggage

There are days when you become cognizant of the weight you’re carrying. When you can feel the heaviness in your heart and brain and you feel you cannot keep walking with this. To willfully ignore how you’re feeling is then easier than to sit with your thoughts and come to terms with all that you’re …

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Vision boards work

I came across the idea of vision boards in some random youtube video. Back in 2020, right after my depression phase, I created a board for myself. And then again early in 2021, I created another one… most of those materialised! I think what is important is being super honest with yourself. That you think …

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I’m 25!

Contrary to popular belief, I’m sharing my age upfront. 25 years already! Feels like I was 20 yesterday. Last year has been nothing short of transformational for me. It was much about regaining confidence and answering some tough questions. I picked up a new job, quit it, started working remotely, started learning ukulele, invested in …

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Om mani padme hum

From the book: Ikigai Om mani padme hum – A mantra in Buddhism on controlling negative emotions om – the generosity that purifies the ego ma – the ethics that purify jealousy ni – the patience that purifies passion pad – the precision that purifies bias me – the surrender that purifies greed hum – …

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Inhibitions

Why do we hold ourselves back? I was always told that I sing well. When I was 12, I had a music teacher come home to take classes for me. I was doing alright. In fact, the music teacher at school wanted me to join the prayer group. I did not find that exciting enough …

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Trash Life

I think after a point everyone realizes how important your sleep and health are. But almost inevitably there a time in life where you live like trash. All you care about is the pleasures of a busy life. We think then that not having a second to breathe means we’re productive. Slowly you deteriorate mentally, …

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Period Leaves

Many call this a progressive move and I’m sure it will help bash the stigma a bit. BUT, I feel this will introduce more biases and challenges for women. People hardly take women seriously. Now add to that them knowing you are on your period – I’m sure they may brush off your comments as …

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Failure Resume

I came across Ankur Warikoo’s video where he talks about his failures. A bit more of my research pulled up a pdf version of the failure resume he shared in 2016. Like he says in the video as well, it is easy to look at someone’s trajectory and think that they’ve only had successes in …

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Do what you can with what you have

The hack to un-stuck yourself is this: Cheatsheet (1) Look at your goals(2) Look at the people and resources you have now(3) Do what you can with what you have(4) In the process, acquire more people and resources Repeat steps 1 – 4

20% Projects

Second Learning Club discussion was around 20% projects. What are 20% projects? Why do them? How to do them right? What we did Read a bunch of blogs around 20% projects The Radical Notion of Not Letting Work Define You 7 Reasons To Treat Your Career as an Experiment 20% projects – What they are …

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US Visit 2019: Attending class @ Stanford, Partnership meetings and getting a reply from Sheryl Sandberg

The title summarises my last US trip. It was May 2019 and the end of my fellowship. Rethink and Sijo were kind enough to sponsor a US travel for me. The objective of the trip was to explore the mallu network in the US and also meet with potential partners. Another hidden agenda of mine …

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2 years @R

On May 26, 2017, just about week after graduating from college, I started working full time at Rethink. Today marks my second work anniversary. This is more of a reflection post that summarises what I’ve been attempting to do in the last two years. The problem / The purpose There are tonnes of scholarship opportunities for …

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We wrapped up cohort 2 of our WIT program this week and the feedback coming in has been great…

We wrapped up cohort 2 of our WIT program this week and the feedback coming in has been great validation. This time, we attempted to get the learners to start thinking about their goals — long term and short term. This exercise was going by the idea that if you have a goal and write it down, …

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What I loved about NTU

This is about things I found amusing/interesting/useful form NTU. To know more about my visit to NTU, read here: Lessons to adopt from Universities in Singapore They don’t have to go to classes. They can instead learn by watching recordings of classes! But if they do wish to take classes, they have to pre-book them. Flipped …

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WITx Program Plan

In the 2weeks of engagement with our WITx Learning Program, we have some real huge things in mind. Let me walk you through our program plan. Program Design Before talking about the Program Plan, let me share some perspectives about how we went about designing the program. Feeling we wish to leave you with I can …

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Introducing Bubbles

Last week, the WIT cohort 1 girls had a call which went great and Bubbles is a fictional character that took birth during that call. During the first activity that gave our WIT Cohort — to create an intro video, Adheetha wrote t me and said, “I’m not too comfortable speaking in English”. She somehow felt that …

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On writing better emails!

This article has 2 segments: Professional email behaviours On drafting good emails Professional Email Behaviours Stay on top of your email Being regular with checking your emails is important. Since emails are the primary means of communicating reliably with you online, almost all opportunities and organisations stick to email for their communication purposes. Checking your inbox …

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Fixing a few common errors when publishing your Google Assistant App

When publishing your Google Assistant App, there is a possibility that the app will be rejected if it does not comply with the general policies associated with developing the app. https://bingewith.com/article/::_Generate_Audio Let’s look at some common errors and solutions to fixing these errors. Invalid Privacy Policy Invalid Invocation Name App leaves Mic Open Invalid Privacy Policy This …

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CCRRA’s workshop on Sexual Harassment at Workplace: Issues and Challenges

July 14, 2018 | Riviera Suites, Thevara Being aware of our laws and systems to protect women and other minorities from sexual harassment as a whole and specifically at workplace is crucial. As it stands now, a vast majority of women are unaware of what ‘sexual harassment’ really means and what they can do if they …

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Pehia’s Opportunity Hackathon:One #Deckless talk

Today I spoke at PEHIA’s Opportunity Hackathon. The event provided students more insights into applying for GHCI and Venkat Scholarships. By the time I got there, the students were all charged from their previous sessions with the winners of the respective programs. Ansu Joseph, Pritika Merryl and Felix Josemon shared their experiences. I started out …

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Can you call/WhatsApp me?

We often receive requests to communicate to our audience through calls/Whatsapp. But our preference rests with emails. Here’s our reasoning: Emails are a professional communication medium. The professional world runs on it and conversing over emails with the students will help them get used to it. We want all our communication to be on record. …

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Learning how to learn: Notes

https://medium.com/learn-love-code/learnings-from-learning-how-to-learn-19d149920dc4 Take breaks, meditate, think about other things, and give yourself plenty of time in both modes. One way of making sure you’re taking regular breaks is to follow the Pomodoro technique. This is where you program for 25 minutes, then take a break for 5 minutes. ChunkingThis is the idea of breaking what you …

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Notes on Abuse — Part 2

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/ — Their information and support segment is resourceful. One of the first steps to preventing abuse is to know that you are being abused. They seem to have included a quick pop-quiz to help women realise this. Although the quiz is specific to domestic abuse, it is quite useful. I’m worried about someone else segment — https://www.womensaid.org.uk/the-survivors-handbook/im-worried-about-someone-else/ Your …

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Notes on Abuse

Psychological abuse (also referred to as psychological violence, emotional abuse, or mental abuse) is a form of abuse, characterized by a person subjecting, or exposing, another person to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder. It is often associated with situations of power imbalance in abusive relationships …

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Annie speaks :)

[facebook url=”https://www.facebook.com/rethinkcollect/videos/1016329885187967/” /] Where you naturally stand apart is where you have inherent strength or interest. Find those areas and learn deeper. Get a certification. Every time there is a higher bar you are trying to breach, there will be self-doubt. But courage is clamping down your fear and moving ahead. Don’t go for half-baked …

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#validation

The WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholarship applications recently closed. In 2015, we did a focussed outreach effort to ensure that maximum girls know about the opportunity and apply towards it. As a result of that, 16 of the 18 scholars across India were from Kerala. This time around, we tried to do the outreach efforts online …

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Thank you GEC Sreekrishnapuram!

Today I spoke at GEC SKP on Opportunity Project and it was a phenomenal event. The students, faculty and the principal were very warm 🙂 Thank you for having me! And that is some nice feedback 🙂 Means much! Sijo also went live and the audience at GEC SKP watched him live. https://www.instagram.com/p/BaIzp2vg6Pt/?taken-by=aryacmurali Some of my observations: There …

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Tribe

A tribe is a group of people connected by a shared interest, connected to a leader or an idea. It takes only 2 things to turn a group into a tribe: A shared interest A way to communicate A leader can help increase the effectiveness of the tribe and it’s members by: Transferring the shared …

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FB Live Resources

Compilation of resources we use to get FB lives done A handbook on how we organise FB live sessions at Rethink. Organising Rethink Talks FB Live — Tutorial Handbook that you can share with your speakers FB Live Tutorial Best practices to conduct FB lives FB Live tips

Build Alliances

Last night, Sijo, his mummy, Saleeh and I were playing Catan. At the start of the game, mummy and I were doing fairly well while Sijo and Saleeh were at a disadvantage. Soon, Sijo and Saleeh teamed up and started helping out each other. They started reaping the benefits and tag teamed to rob us …

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Do it.

Do it for the story you’ll be telling for the next sixty years. Do it to inflame passion in every new person you meet. Do it to inspire the ones holding back from their true selves. Do it, so someday you are an example they cite to their own story. Do it, for you, every …

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10 Tips to run a successful Crowd Funding Campaign

My recent CF campaign #AruforJY has been well-received. I managed to attain my target amount, INR 62000 in 5 days with 52 backers! Campaign link: #AruforJY More on the campaign here: #AruforJY — Thanks for believing in me!, Campaign Overview. Here’s my two cents on running a successful CF campaign! 1.Tell a compelling story Make sure you …

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#SVAlumnitalk : Learning enginnering by building real products with #StartinCollege

So, this happened to me an year back, when I was in my pre-final year of engineering — It was unexpected, yet exciting. It was hard, yet rewarding. It was emotionally draining, yet one of the most beautiful things that happened to me. Oh no! I’m not talking about love. It’s about my startup journey! Packing our …

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