Change of Clock - Concept of Day Light Saving

In my stay of last 1 year and 8 months in Canada I have realized that few topics are always of interest to people. These can be considered as Ice Breakers which can help in initiating conversations in this multicultural country. One of the common topic during the November and again in March is the day light saving off and on respectively!  People have different views and often share their dislike and are of the opinion that it should be done away it. The reasons could be different. Some think that it is an old concept that does not hold any relevance in the current time, some say it impacts the time clock of their body and sleep cycle and many more versions! In my short stay here so far, I have become fond of this concept.

It is the month of March right now and today the day light saving was put on.

 

What does it mean? 

On the night of 2nd Sunday of March, at 2am the clocks are moved forward by one hour. Technically that Sunday is only 23hours.Again in the month of November, this is reversed and you get an additional hour in the day! So in a year, this is stands at zero-sum!  

Why was this originally started? 

Keeping in view the agricultural nature of the society, it was started  back in 1890s when work was primarily based on the hours of sunlight. The idea was to get the work started an hour early in Summer so that people would end their day and still have daylight after work hours. Basically, why waste the sunshine hours when people are sleeping? 

 

First day of the day light saving

Till yesterday, the dawn was breaking at 6am and sunrise was happening at 6:45am.  In the evening, sunset was happening around 6:25pm and the last bit of light would be around till 6:45pm. 

Today, the sunrise happened at 7:45am, an hour later. And likewise, the sunset happened around 7:25pm. As I am writing this draft at 7:50pm, there is still a little glow in the western sky! 

13 March, 2021 - 6:45AM

14 March, 2021 - 7:45AM

Why I prefer this?

Let's see what would happen if this concept is not in place. As the north end of the Earth tilt more towards the sun and Summer arrives, during the peak time the sunrise would happen at 5am [in Toronto, Canada]. Around the same time sunset would happen at 8:30 pm. 

1. With the daylight saving on today, the evenings have more sunlight than early morning! And I see no one in today's society waking up at 5am to enjoy the sunshine. Even thought I am a morning person, I wake up around 6am and there would be light in the sky by April mid. 

2. Work gets done by 5:30/6pm and it gives enough time to be able to bask in the sunshine. I realized the importance and the happiness of longer days since I moved from India wherein the variation was not that significant. 

3. Change is good. I feel happy on the first day of day light saving when the sun sets at 7:30pm! Physiologically, it feeds that winter is officially over, spring is round the corner and summer is on its way. Everyday from here is going to be longer than yesterday. 

4. In a country like Canada where winter lasts for 4-5 months, it is important to be given an opportunity to make the most of the sunlight in the months that it lasts. If shifting an hour of time can provide these benefits, we can bear a little change in the body clock. Do we complain when we vacation around the world hopping different timezone?

On a side note: This also reinstates that the concept of time is human made. We have defined days, hours, minutes, seconds! In the science world these are called as Earth days, Earth hours etc! It's scary and fascinating at the same time! Is there a different world(s) where the concept of time is completely different?

 

 

 

Year 2020! New way of Life!

Locked inside my house, gazing outside the window, I see the barren park. The place which would be otherwise buzzing with people jogging, kids playing, dogs being walked around and many others enjoying the sunshine. As I turn to look at the other side, I see the almost empty highway which would be otherwise filled with heavy evening traffic when people would be travelling back home at the end of their workday. This is year 2020! 

In my last post [a-nostalgic-visit-to-my-own-place] I was surprised to see how much my life has changed in the last 10 years since I started this blog. But then I realized the change that has happened in my way of life in last 1.5 months is much bigger than the entire 10 years put together. And it is not just for me but for everyone. As pointed out by lot of world leaders, these are unprecedented times. The entire world seems to have come to an absolute halt. As a result our life has come to a standstill. But did we not complaint too often about life running fast? Every time I spoke to my friends and family, everyone had one thing in common

 "I do not know how days and months are going by! Oh, another year is coming to an end!"

 But the last one month did not just fly past! 

I agree that we all have a lot of complaints and how this pandemic has put all our life’s plan on hold! But I am sure once we are over this, we will remember this time of our life and recall how our life had slowed down and we had ample time. So let’s look at some brighter side of this lockdown life. Below are some thoughts on changes in my way of life and the world around. 

1.      I do not recall when I last saw my eyes without kajal.  Not atleast in the last 10 years of corporate life. But now I have been without it for 40+ days.  I like to see the new me in the mirror without any curtains of fakeness and when I look into my eyes, I am seeing the real me.

2.     These days I do not feel the difference between weekdays and weekends. Suddenly the Friday excitement and Monday blues are gone. I still do office work, but there is no travel to office and no requirement of dressing up formally. The moment I close my laptop in the evening, my work day has ended with still a lot of my evening time left. I can read, write, watch TV and spend time with myself and my loved ones. I have been catching up on some of my favorite old movies, some classic movies which I missed watching earlier, reading and re-reading some books from my list.  

If you want my suggestion, you can read:
Sapiens - A brief history of Human Kind by Yuval Noah Harari

3.   The environmentalist inside me is very happy for how the Nature is able to restore the damage we have caused continuously from past so many years. I never imagined there would be a way in which people could be convinced to reduce their carbon footprint on the Planet. But now, it is all happening by itself and all it took was an invisible virus. I like to believe this to be Nature’s way of showing us our real place. If you still don't believe in Climate change, read my post on chasing-ice-documentary-of-lifetime and watch it. 

I am still not very positive if way of life and mindset will have any change once life comes back to normal. History shows us we have always been greedy and never been kind towards Nature! I hope we are proven wrong this time and make some good changes in our life permanent.

Even one less car ride a month, one less addition to the wardrobe or one less bin of garbage will make a difference!

4.       Most often we hear from elderly people how they wished they did things differently and stayed in touch with people from their younger days. I like to consider this to be such a checkpoint for us and it is still not very late. I have been utilizing this time to catch up with my old friends, relive and laugh at old memories, browse through some old pictures and talk to them to check how they are holding up.

As we move forward, we leave lot of things and people behind. As a kid, I would find ways and means of spending time and I thought 24hrs in a day was too long. As I grew up, the equation of time kept on changing and reached a stage where I started thinking why do we have only 24hrs in a day? It was always a race against the value of an activity and the time investment it required. But now I feel that my childhood days are back with an extra shot of technology. So yes, I am trying to make the best use of it.

5.       Cooking has become one favorite hobby everyone around seems to be indulging in. I am no different. This isolated way of life has shown us that we can do well without restaurants and home deliveries. Each one of us has been trying to make food at home and add some healthy ingredients to it. With so much time at hand and ample recipes available online, cooking experiments has become my favorite pastime. Baking is my favorite these days! Previously I did quick cooking to help with the meals but now I have the time to try something new and fancy. If not anything, the next time I order a pizza or buy a pastry, I would know why it carries so many calories and how much cheese and sugar has gone into it 😉

These were my top 5 picks of how the quarantined life has changed my way of living and what I have been doing to make the most of it! In whatever phase of life you are in, I am sure you have your side of story of this new way of life. Do share some in the form of comments.

StayHome & StaySafe 
Follow Social Distancing

Hope to see you all soon…

~ ~ Cheers ~ ~

A nostalgic visit to my own place

I visited my own blog page today after almost 5 years! It seems like a lifetime to me. People say memories stay with you forever, but I beg to differ. I have forgotten about the details of my own life journey so much, that reading my posts from year 2011 left me wondering! 

In my introduction to this blog as a young girl entering her 20s [To the right side - View Profile section] , I had mentioned "Life is all about events one after another. Years pass by, moments are lived and memories are made. I believe in going a step ahead.I take note of all those memories and experiences for myself and my louued ones."  It sounds so mature for my age that time and definitely meaningful. 

Life has changed leaps and bounds in these years. But reading the posts made me realize that I have few good constants in my life. I know these people and they are still very dear to me. But sometimes in this race of life, it is worthwhile to slow down and take some moments to relive those memories that makes the bond special. In a way I realized why after-all those bonds are so special to me. It starts with the hero of my life - my brother, my special girls gang SBG, Khushi ji, Addie,  Surbhi, Shreyansh, Lakshmi and a few more. There has been nothing really special about my writing. But each of your comments on my posts made me so nostalgic and it also reassured how friends can make you feel special. Thanks for being there for me. 

Why am I visiting the blog now? 

I am sure some of you have this question. Why now after so many years? Last week we were playing this game on SBG group as a way to bring some fun during the current way of quarantined life. There was a task in which one had to write the name of 3 bloggers and Dishlu mentioned my name as one of the bloggers! Really??? I wondered myself - Was I really a blogger? 

This morning came the Eureka moment when I was deciding on my To-Do for the day while taking shower. Some things never change :) 
[Ref:best-thoughts-in-bathroom] And guess what? With not much work on my plate, I have been on this nostalgic ride whole of this afternoon. It tickled some of those emotions which were buried deep underneath and overshadowed with recent memories. I am glad I did it. Thanks Dishlu for bringing this back to me. 

Another dear friend recently messaged me a dialog from one of our favorite movie - Yeh jawaani Hai Deewani : 

Yaadein mithai ke dibbe ki tarah hote hai, ek baar khula toh sirf ek tukda nahi kha paoge

Hope to come back soon.....

~ ~ Cheers ~ ~

Early Bird

I am one of those few people whom friends often tease “She’s a school kid. She loves sleeping by 10:30pm”. Yes that’s true, although the interpretation is wrong. I don’t love sleeping at 10:30 pm but I definitely love waking up at 6 am. That is because human body needs on an average 7 hours of sleep to be efficient, fresh and cheerful. So I hit bed by 10:30 pm and wake up at 6 am.

And when I wake up, the peacefulness of early hours makes me feel like my clock is working as per inter-stellar time.  Within an early morning hour, I am able to do so many things which I would otherwise struggle completing in half a day. This efficiency, energy, and spirit is maintained through the day.

Below are the reasons/benefits for which I prefer waking up early:

Winner’s confidence: There is a sense of control acquired when you wake up suppressing your inner voice. When the alarm goes off, there is a voice which tells you that you went late to bed last night or no one around is awake, you also sleep. DON’T LISTEN. If you win the battle here, things start on a high note and get even better during the course of day.

Greeting the Day: I enjoy nature. Walking on silent roads, watching birds chirping and flocking in fascinating patterns, observing the sky getting illuminated with sun rays, and spending time in lush green garden brings a perfect start to my day.

Morning Sky :)

Get Active: Morning is a great time to exercise. Along with bringing in lots of positive energy and enthusiasm, it’s a great stress buster and leaves you calm and focused for the rest of the day.

Fresh air in which I workout!

Quiet time: My idea of personal time includes meditation, reading & writing. I ensure to do at least 2 of these at the start of each day. It helps me to connect with myself. Doing something for myself early in morning energizes me and makes me ready for the day. 

Ways of pursuing passion! 

One step ahead with enhanced productivity: Waking up early helps me be more organized and plan my day well ahead. Instead of waking up from bed and rushing to office, I prefer giving myself the time to list and prioritize the day’s activities. This helps me do things with complete focus and by the time other people begin to work, I would have already completed few important tasks. This gives me psychological comfort and also buffer time for impromptu work.

More time for family: Early start to the day helps me complete my activities on time and leave office without having to worry about connecting back from home. Having done few things of my interest in morning, and completed the day’s work in office, in the evening I feel much more relaxed and satisfied about the way my day was spent. This leaves me with some more time for my family. I cherish sharing the dinner time with dad and chit chatting with mom while watching her favourite soap operas. I look forward to this time each day. 

Time for beautiful sunset from office!

To conclude, waking up early has improved my quality of life in many ways mentioned above. But in the beginning this may be hard. To start with take baby steps like just waking up 15 minutes earlier. Get to bed an hour earlier so that you won’t feel tired. It may take couple of days to adjust and you may not feel the benefits right away, but stick with it. Once you experience the benefits, it will be difficult to let go of this good habit. 

P.S: However I like to stay late on one of either Friday/Saturday. This helps me come out of my routine and feel good about being still able to stay awake beyond regular time :P

Cheers

Morning Bird

Komal

Award - My moment of Fame

Last one week has been extremely generous on me, showering lots of love in personal life and appreciation in professional. While personal end can be put off for the moment, I would like to share my professional achievement here. 

I am just a month short of completing 2 years with Infosys. These 2 years were not exactly like a flash in second, but yes, it doesn't feel like I am going to complete 2 years so soon. I have always enjoyed working here. Employees of Infosys, relatives of employee, media & population at large have lot of things to say about Infosys. Good, Bad, Ugly...! We're the first one to hit media top lines for positive or negative reasons. Personally for me, it has been a journey full of learning, fun & memories. 

For HR team, the awards are given away semi-annually. There is a HR town hall in which people who have contributed significantly &who went the extra mile are rewarded. This time it was scheduled on 10th Sept. When I logged in the morning, my calendar looked packed. I did not plan to attend the townhall and I thought to utilize the time for completing piled up work. At 10:30 am, I thought its late now! And then an email popped in, saying the town hall will now begin at 11 am. So far I was giving myself the reason that it will be a long walk from bldg 4 to bldg 12 [Infoscions will understand this], and its better not to attend than being late. But now I did not find an explanation to convince myself. It's rare that something is done for HR. Else we're busy organizing things for others. With this thought, I took the long walk in pleasant weather and reached the auditorium. 

After 1.5 hour of speeches, discussions & debates on various topics, came the time for awards. A presentation was projected on the Video Conference. And came the first slide. My eyes quickly skimmed through the names & photos and they stopped on one! It was a girl's photo in a blazer, written underneath - "Komal Laddha - HRD Shine Award in recognition of outstanding performance and contribution to HRD 2015-16". Yayyieee. It's me! And people in the room started clapping, SMS started pouring in, People on Lync started to ping to congratulate. My team's email thread was started and team members started writing some good words for me. And this was my moment of fame :) It really feels good when your colleagues come up to you and say "You totally deserved this". That's what matters more than an award. 

I was still cherishing for this award, but it was not over yet! On 11th Sept, we had an internal team meeting. Two members from each team were being recognized for the efforts put in to ensure maximum retention [ya! It's right. That's my job!] From my team it was me & my location colleague who received the appreciation & award from our HR head. And all I could do was smile and say "thank you". 

Recognition for the work done, is one of the biggest motivation. You may be well paid off financially but if you do not enjoy coming to office each day, the journey in the organization is bound to be short lived. And that excitement to go to office comes when you have the confidence that your efforts will be recognized :) 

That's me, posing off with my accomplishment !!!

Signing -off on this note. 

Cheers
Komal

Chasing Ice! Documentary of a lifetime

Climate change is so much  heard of, so much talked about...but I never had a chance to see it this close. Although I was sitting on my couch watching just a documentary. But it was an experience of a lifetime. Hats off to the team of James Balog who put in unimaginable efforts just to convince people that we're going to pay the penalty of our ignorance & harsh treatment we give to our beautiful nature in our very own lifetime. 

To give you a quick brief, James Balog is an acclaimed environmental photographer. He aims to spread awareness in people by showing the real climatic changes through photographs. He believes that one of the best ways to get real picture of global warming is to observe depletion of glaciers. And with this starts his journey of EIS [Extreme Ice Surey]. His team start off by setting up 25  cameras in different places [Greenland, Iceland & Alaska] by placing time-lapse cameras which capture photographs every one hour throughout the daytime. These places are not for human existence. Even technology will also fail to support in such severe & extremely cold conditions. And here is a team which keeps visiting these places periodically over 3 years to ensure the gadgets are working fine.  Although watching it on a TV screen, the calving of ice for continuous 75 minutes, which is witnessed by James & his companion, leaves you in splits. 

I was really moved watching this documentary. They have put in enormous efforts just so that they could let us know with evidence, what is the impact of our actions, on our beloved nature. The least we can do is to watch it. Sharing the breathtaking trailer which will compel you to watch the complete documentary. 

Chasing Ice Documentary trailer

Having watched this I feel I have made some good use of my weekend.

~~ Cheers ~~

Joy of Learning

Hey All [more to myself],

I am back to this place after 1 year 4 months. And it indeed feels nice :) I was waiting for this urge to come in me to get back to this place as writing cannot be imposed.

It's now almost 2 years into my Job and  Sunday is usually marked by some good time with friends, lots of time with family and some time with myself. All this while I resorted to a personal diary to share my thoughts. So what's special about this Sunday? 

Can you recollect the day when for the first time after learning to ride a bicycle you went out on your own? Or the first time after you learnt driving a bike by troubling someone to accompany you always and then a day came when you got the confidence to hit the road all by yourself? Well I had a similar experience today.

Having learnt car driving 2 years back, I never felt the need to make it a part of my regular routine. Thanks to my simple lifestyle & awesome friends who always picked up and dropped me. But off late this was taking a hit on my self confidence. And 6 months back when dad got a second hand car only so that I could learn car driving without having to worry about implications if I went wrong, I decided "this is it" [Bas bahut hua]. Slowly, steadily with support of different people I started honing my skills of car driving. Sometimes I fared well, sometimes I went wrong, Once met with a accident and lots of instances when I felt this was not meant for me....! On one side came a voice from within "Komal, you need not do this. There are umpteen number of people who are living without knowing this". And immediately popped another voice "Komal, in today's world car driving is a must thing. If you let your fear take over you today, you'll never be able to drive".

And today, 9th Aug, finally I gathered courage to take the car out all by myself for a lunch meet with friends. No one in car to guide me, to scare me, to motivate me. Me and my car. It was the same feeling as a child would get while taking his first steps in life [although I have no memory of it :P]Finally I checked all prerequisites mentioned by few experts and slowly took the car out from parking after taking God's name. My car's tire hardly took 2 rounds after the main gate, a black cat crossed from left to right in front of my car. Holy Shit! Whyyy??? Why now? I stopped the car aside. I got a feeling that this is divine hint to say me that I am not ready for this [You know how we are trained for this from childhood]. May be I should simply put the car back in parking and take an auto. I took a few seconds and told myself, "You never believed in these superstitions. Then why today? Why on this occasion. Drive slowly, drive carefully and you'll be fine". I started the car again and took a leap of courage to drive all by my own.

What happened after it is nothing to be elaborated about. I am sitting here and posting this blog after such a long gap. With this, I trust you can imagine how full of adrenaline rush was my experience today from which I emerged victorious.


Signing off with this thought :) Stay tuned.

"To escape fear, you have to go through it, not around" 
                                                                              - Richie Norton