All of us work. Today work is strongly coupled with any activity which derives an economic benefit. Work is just a means to live for many and for few others it is an expression of creativity, passion and inner calling. Then we do a lot of work to sustain and…

Half way into the 40s, life beckons still! More than half of life gone, assuming a natural life progression and death, what should I reckon from four+ decades which went past? A collection of experiences, encounters and happenings of 45 years behind me— what to make of the future? Death “Death…

A rustic, dilapidated ashram in Rishikesh that once housed The Beatles, is open now to the public. Amidst lush green thickets, the ramshackle ashram provides glimpses to its glorious past — “Songwriting came easy” — wrote Mike Love George Harrison felt that both the meditation and the Maharishi made an impact on his life. “The meditation buzz is incredible” Harrison continues “I get higher than I ever did with drugs. It’s simple … and it’s my way of connecting with God.”

Drawing inspiration from nature, how I could find my feet and start writing on Medium — In the film industry, they have a test called The Bechdel test, which is a measure of representation of women in the movie. Now if I apply a modified Bechdel test to my writing, I would pass it for the representation of nature through my words. …

March Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Movement” — Movement is ubiquitous, stillness is virtue. The city never sleeps. Beating the darkness, the city lurches forward, always on the move. It has been ingrained in us to move. We are always prodded to move. Move up the career ladder Move the needle Move out of your comfort zone Now if you don’t move, they say…

How a mundane nature walk transformed into a fascinating journey of exploration, learning, and appreciation toward everything in nature — A nature walk is always a mesmerizing and rejuvenating experience for the senses. Sounds of leaves rustling, birds cooing, fresh air blowing on your face, and smells of trees and flowers all make it a worthy jaunt. But recently I was accompanied by a naturalist and she took us for…

Maha Shivaratri is the night of Shiva — the longest night of the year where devotees spend the night awake doing Jaagran, Meditation, Prayers. Though an important festival in India, it is not declared a holiday by the Government and frankly I have never done anything special for Maha Shivaratri…

Elasticsearch is used to search and retrieve data faster. We will see how we sync data from our primary database MongoDB to Elasticsearch. — The primary database which we use in Reputation platform is MongoDB. MongoDB supports flexible document schemas and horizontal scaling. When it comes to text search and faster retrieval many of the services in the platform rely on Elasticsearch which is primed for search use-cases thanks to the Lucene engine on…

January Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Hometown Pride” — When the kings ruled as slaves. The photo above is of Lord Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple, Trivandrum, the capital city of Kerala State in India. In July 2011, the temple shot to fame. Hidden vaults and treasures were discovered in one of the cellars in the temple. …