Meeting Saina Nehwal

Date: August 8th, 2009

Venue: Hotel ITC Kakatiya, Hyderabad
Event: Launch of Saina Nehwal as Brand Ambassador of Deccan Chronicle and Odyssey
Experience: Awesome

I was happy to meet Saina Nehwal, India's top shuttler and ranked No. 6 in the world. She is an enthusiastic, down-to-earth and a sweet youngster. A very determined and dedicated sports person. Deccan Chargers Sporting Ventures Limited have entered into Sports Personality Management and Saina is the first sports personality to be signed by them. Deccan Chargers' first undertaking was to rope Deccan Chronicle and Odyssey as Saina's official sponsors. It was a privilege to meet Saina's distinguished coach, Pullela Gopichand.

Saina was very happy with the support and encouragement provided by DeccanChronicle. Though she was recovering from a bout of chicken pox, she played extremely well in the World Badminton Championships held in Hyderabad last week. Saina became the first Indian woman ever to reach the quarterfinals of a World Badminton Championship. She lost in the quarterfinals, but I am sure she will have more opportunities and more victories definitely await her.

Cheering the Chargers !

Look who's cheering the Chargers...

Adithi was excited about meeting Deccan Chargers Cricketers at the Hyderabad Airport in the early hours of April 9th, 2009. The team left for South Africa to participate in the DLF IPL 2009 tournament. Adithi cheered the Deccan Chargers and took their autographs. She was very impressed with Mohd Shoaib, a new talented bowler of Deccan Chargers and found him very cute.

Adithi with T. Suman & Mohd Shoaib

Taking autograph from Pragyan Ohja

Autograph from Abhinav Kumar

Adithi - the young cricket fan

My Opinion in the Deccan Chronicle

Just sharing my opinion on the topic " Will the UPA Government survive the no-confidence motion? ", which appeared in the Hyderabad Chronicle, Deccan Chronicle, July 20, 2008, Sunday edition.

"I feel the Government will gain enough support to survive. Even though the Left has withdrawan their support, many other parties like the Samajwadi Party are coming forward to lend support to the Congress. Also, I feel that the nuclear deal will benefit the country and the Congress should go ahead with it."


Tomorrow is the trust vote. Do share your views on this national issue.

Bloggers Meet in Hyderabad

On Saturday, March 1, 2008, I had the opportunity to enter the MICROSOFT Campus, Hyderabad at Gachibowli, to attend the Bloggers Meet organised by IndiBlogger.in and sponsored by Microsoft. It was the first time I actually went around Gachibowli, which houses the University of Hyderabad, TCS, WIPRO, INFOSYS, CMC, Indian Business School (IBS), and many more offices. We took a MMTS from Begumpet to Lingampalli and then an auto ride to Microsoft campus and reached the venue on dot, at 4.00 pm. My hubby accompanied me and we were the first attendees. And then our fellow bloggers trickled in at the Hyderabadi Standard Time. But it was a good gathering of over 80 guys.

To begin with I was the only female blogger, other then the Microsoft student partner Ms. Sandhya Rajan and later a female student from IIIT, Hyderabad joined in with a group of nearly 15 student bloggers from the same Institution. Wow! and it was interesting to hear that most of the bloggers started to blog because their friends did it. And I thought, this trend was healthier, better and productive than hearing 'I smoke because my friend does'.

The meet was great fun with the ice breaker "One minute of fame" where each blogger got to introduce one's self and Blog. The IndiBlogger Jig was fun and I got to do one, as a comment from my blog was read out. The Skit by the IndiBlogger team was short and sweet. Microsoft's treat, the Pizazz and introduction to Live Writer was OK. And I got to meet some interesting bloggers which was wonderful. To sum it all, the meet was a huge success! Cheers to the IndiBlogger Team, Balaji (who coordinated this event) and Microsoft. Awaiting the T-Shirt and more such meets !

Our return journey was also fun as we hitch-hiked a car ride till Begumpet from a fellow blogger Sudeep and chatted non-stop. We were joined by two other bloggers Srikanth and Ashwin.

Deccan Chronicle, featured an article about bloggers and the meet in the March 3, 2008, Monday edition of the Hyderabad Chronicle. Excerpts of my interview appeared in it along with a few other bloggers. A good beginning for the Hyderabad Bloggers' community.

I...Me...My Accomplishments

An attempt to feel good about MYSELF!

I always found it very difficult to talk about my accomplishments and talents. I am sure many of you also feel the same. I attribute it to our Indian culture "SAMSKARA" which teaches us not to boast about ourselves. In typical local lingo "SELF DABBA" is not appreciated.

I assume, that most of us want others to talk about our accomplishments. It is music to our ears. but when a person talks about himself/herself , it is noise, isn't it? And we do not appreciate "that behaviour".

Of course, some people overdo it; that makes it very irritable and painful for the listener. We usually refer to them as MAHA SUTTI (Big Hammer). Anyway I leave this topic for some other day.

Since childhood most of us were taught by our parents not to comment or voice opinions when elders were talking or words like "I did this or that" connoted self centered character. But as I grew up and faced the real life challenges in this big, bad and competitive world, I experienced some conflicting emotions with regard to "Speaking about MYSELF", and words like" Is it O.K to do so?", lingered in my mind.

Encountering day to day experiences, some challenging and some drab, I gradually realized the importance of "speaking about one's self", its powerful impact, especially in the world of work.



Being a psychologist and also having been an educational adviser on foreign education, I have the opportunity to interact with people from different countries, namely the Americans, Australians, Canadians and last but not the least, our own Indians here and NRI s settled abroad. The important lessons I learned during my interactions were, that "if you won't talk about yourself, then nobody will". You have to learn to market yourself, to be heard and for your existence to be acknowledged in your field of work. But to do so, you also need to be well acquainted with your subject or area of expertise. And above all, good networking with professionals, right contacts and being in the right place at the right time, matters a lot in one's so called " Success". It also depends on "What Success means to you?". "Is it Money, Fame, Recognition, Job Satisfaction or anything else?

Each one of us have some hidden talent or the other in us which needs to be tapped, and brought to the fore front.

At different stages in my life, I developed fascination for varied and at times weird things (Hobbies). It ranged from collecting coins, stamps, match boxes, marbles, shells, pebbles, mineral deposits; posters of film stars, cricketers, Tennis players; writing to film stars for their autographed snaps; participating in slogan contests (won 50 packets of CHICKLETS, a set of MONTEX pens, a LIRIL T-Shirt ) making greeting cards; collecting and reading books (had a collection of over 200 MILLS & BOONS ) writing some not-so-successful poems and short stories; painting and drawing cartoons. Phew! a long list indeed.
It was a delightful phase wherein I had good fun. And later, a herculean task disposing all the collected stuff and a heartbreak losing my coins collection and silver souvenirs of different countries, during a major theft in my house (March 2005). This episode, to some extent has made me detached to materialistic things.

I am sharing my experience to convey that our innate talents can be used productively with a little added effort and patience. When I started my career as an educational Counsellor in the year 1993, the concept was very new. It was really tough to keep going and not to change my line of profession. I thank my family for their encouragement. And when I decided to be on my own, I received support from my husband and Mr. A.K. Dasgupta (well known and highly respected librarian in India) and Mr. K.J.Rao ( Statistician and computer specialist); both retired professionals, eager to do their bit for our society's youngsters. We started the advising centre called Educational and Career Information Resource Centre (EdCIRC) in the year 2001. We published a book "Where to go from here?"- A comprehensive guide on educational and career opportunities in India; the first edition was sold out in no time. I am keen to publish the second edition, but lack of funds is a big hurdle, as of now. I received requests from the well known newspaper publications (Deccan Chronicle and The Times of India, Hyderabad Edition) to contribute articles on Careers, Educational counselling, and US education. Therefore my unsuccessful attempts as a kid, to publish short stories in "TINKLE" did not go waste.

I continue to dabble in colours to make bright and lively posters of cartoon characters for my daughter , nieces and my little friends. It is a great stress reliever. My creative talents have been put to very good use for my daughter's school projects , fancy dress competitions, decorations for birthdays and festivals.

Hey, do share your talents with me. Be a sport and talk about "Yourselves"!