Happy Diwali 2017

Happy Diwali, everyone. Hopefully all of you are having a good time with family and friends, and enjoying the festive season in India.

For me, this year has been eventful so far. It actually seems like it whizzed past by. And less than two months left for 2017 to end.

I joined a new organization, new role, new colleagues, new city, new experiences. Lot of new things on the professional front. And lots of learning as well. Shifting from Mumbai to Kolkata made me feel a bit apprehensive at first, but I am glad that I have (Almost) settled in. Being a native of West Bengal obviously makes things easy for me.

On the personal front, perhaps it wasn’t that positive but at least it made me learn few new things as well. I got into a relationship which did not work out, but made me learn lot of things.

Made few new friends here, unfortunately not enough. Discovered a Board gaming cafe in Kolkata, which was surprising, and also became part of a small Gamers group, which is probably my only social activity in Kolkata so far. Need to expand my circle probably.

I also travelled quite a bit this year, and quite a few places for the first time. I finally managed to make a trip to Rajasthan, which I wanted to for some time, and later also to Uttarakhand, which is another great state, especially for people like me who love the mountains. Ranchi was another city which I went for the first time. Saw MSD’s house as well. Will probably write about my travel experiences in a different post.

Recently, some of you might have noticed the #metoo hash tags being shared widely on social media by many people, most of them being female. That was a trend started to share the fact that the respective person has also been a victim of sexual harassment.

For many men, (at least in the Indian context), it came across as a complete surprise that so many women were saying ‘Me too’. But the depressing reality is that Almost every woman has been a victim of sexual harassment at some point in their lives, and many have witnessed it several times.

This is sad and shameful to say the least, but what makes it even worse is the complete apathy to this situation by many men. While its certainly true that not all men indulge in sexual harassment, it is also true that most of them have not done anything to oppose or stop it, or try to support the respective victim, instead of blaming them for getting harassed in the first place.

So it is upto us, especially men, to try to make the living and working environment women friendly and opposing harassment in every form. That is the only way we can hope to achieve gender equality.

Till next time, keep enjoying.

P.S.- PS4 Gaming is still on. And so is extensive reading.