Bio-Data

Trusha Desai grew up in Mumbai, India. She landed multitudinous awards in Public Speaking while she studied for her Bachelor's degree. After marriage in Tanzania, she took on the challenge of a high profile primate behavioural research project. Her degree in Math, along with Statistics and Economics was the reason she embarked on intricate statistical analyses. After eight years spent primarily on the shores of the Indian Ocean, amidst swaying palms and casuarina trees, she immigrated to Canada with her family. They selected Vancouver as their destination of choice after the Consul convinced them that the benign climate would suit their spicy palate. Having lived and assimilated in Vancouver for nineteen years, Trusha is not trapped within the dichotomy of cultural opposites. She is an accountant, where her forays with the Certified General Accountant's Program assist her. The divorced mother of two children has not lost her focus amidst all that she does.

Trusha has four blogs to her credit, to announce her causes and passionate beliefs to the world: focussing on peace, creativity, education and career. She has penned a memoir of sorts awaiting publication ~ A Convoluted Life: around the world, zooming in on the three countries that she has called home at different points of time in her life, India, Tanzania and Canada. A novel, Family Affairs is in the wings. The multi-lingual, multi-faceted woman is a closet poet too, composing Life-isms. Meanwhile, she is compiling Swaying Palms by the Indian Ocean, a collection of short stories.

Using the right side of her brain to the penultimate, she has dabbled in art for the past nine years. She tries her hand at acrylics (on canvas and paper), oil pastels, water colours and multi-media.

People manage

I chatted briefly with a school friend the other day. We haven't met in years, and barring the odd e-mail, we haven't communicated. A fifteen minute telephone conversation, after a who's who and what're you upto, transformed into inquiring about all the others from those bygone days ~ the ones whom we yet met.

I was asked, as only a school friend can ask ... "However do you manage to do so much?" It's not that I am in the habit of gathering moss for the sake of it. It's just that I believe that the more I do, the more I can do. Perhaps the fact that I have done the odd seven careers in a lifetime bit has enabled me to acquire international variegated experience, and go on.

People work

In a recession (more so than in an upward swerving economy), we need to ensure that our jobs and our projects are protected, so that we are not turfed. If we are homemakers, we need to ensure that we make smart choices. If we are parents, we need to teach our children and teenagers to do research before they hit the malls, so that hard earned money is spent wisely.

However do you keep your job? As per the Indian culture, you tuck your head down, ostrich-like and work until your knuckles bleed. No talk backs, just work. If you are seen as a worker and not a shirker, you will be held onto. However, if you are on a contract, ensure that you don't collapse your output into minimal time, that is, don't work rapidly. Not at a snail's pace, but work is not a triathlon, either. You don't have to hit the four minute mile every day. (I do, as I write, since I work for myself, and the more I do, the better the output).

John Challenger of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outsourcing firm in Chicago, gives advice on how to recession-proof your job. Seek assignments on core projects. Find a way to be part of long-term projects that are core to the company and more likely to survive a downturn. Job security will be strongest for those who demonstrate expertise, particularly on projects where there are few experts. The company will consider you essential to an area of the business that is mission-critical. In other words, the company cannot afford to lose you. ~ Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

People feed

It's a marvellously sunny, gorgeous day. I wish I could go for a walk during my "lunch hour". But, strange as it may seem, I have not had a lunch "hour" for ever so long. It's usually been half an hour or less, quite often taken at my desk. Now I do move away from my desk during my lunch "break". I know it's not the right thing to do. But when there's a lot to be done, one has to encapsulate one's activities within the given time frame. Each day, the priorities change, I juggle them around, and per my short-term goals, something anew comes atop.

Keeping in my mind my resolution to check my calories, carbs and cholesterol, I do spend more time in the fruits and veggies section of the grocery store rather than the deli. I check the trans fat of my favourite brand of chips, and I have cut back even on microwave popcorn. I wonder though, whether removing the trans fat adds some other hidden component that we may not be aware of, and we may not even know the result of this latest fad until we won't be around to see the results. Well, there was this box of croutons that I bought for my son ~ cholesterol, zippo, trans fat, zero too, what could possibly be wrong with that? But if something that was innate in the croutons was removed, what has replaced those nutrients? I could of course, search for a crouton recipe on line and make healthy croutons (ingredients? what could be healthier than a baguette, olive oil, salt ~ not too much, mind your heart, pepper and dried oregano / basil) from scratch. O! when will this stop? The more I watch the food channel, the more disgruntled I feel when I use the can opener and open my freezer.

After all that, I guess that we do eat to live.

People shape up

As part of the gazilion New Years' resolutions, we plan on cutting back on calories, carbs and cholesterol, perhaps even plunging into an exercise routine. But even the most zealous and venturesome, give up. The point remains how long do we stick with the routine. It is the arduous and challenging mile after mile or the treadmill and lifting of weights that does the trick, and yes, it is the stick-to-it-iveness.

With reference to our goals, perhaps we incorporated some or all of them in our New Years' resolutions. If that was indeed the case, now is the time (eighteen days into the New Year, no less), and give them a fresh look. Perhaps the goal was to embark into a long-term relationship. That long-term goal must be integrated into a short-term goal of seeking a date(s), who then perhaps becomes a friend after some (candle lit?) dinners and movies or perhaps some grocery shops too. For these are no longer the days of चट मंगनी पट शादी, we don't jump into a marital relationship when divorce rates can almost equal the rates of marriage. How you go about getting a date (or how a date gets you) ~ is totally upto you, and thenceforth you are on your own!

People score goals

When we sets goals for ourselves, it is always a good idea to separate the long-term and short-term goals from one another. This way, we can use different foci. The short-term goals inevitably have to be reviewed on a regular basis, perhaps daily. The long-term on an intermittent basis, and during this review process, perhaps amended, edited or increased.

For example, if I have a goal (long-term) to convert this blog into a book one day, separating the labels into chapters or perhaps different books, I might feel frustrated at some point if I feel that it will be a long drawn out process, and I may not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Including this blog, I will have 135 blogs altogether written over a span of 10.5 months. I can set short-term goals of 150 blogs, 200 blogs, 250 blogs and so on. These will be easier to achieve, and I will derive a feeling of satisfaction that I have done something tangible over a spell of a year. For we all do things. The point remains, what do we classify as achievement, and what is dribbling.

If I have another mammoth philanthropic long-term goal that requires a lot of pulling together, such as building a school, I need to plan firstly who will help me achieve this goal. For without a committee, this is one goal that I certainly cannot attain on my own. I also need to delegate responsibilities to trustworthy individuals, and then I know that I will be on a roll. Breaking this long-term goal into little blocks requires prioritization and planning.

It is entirely possible that I have a whack of other goals (long as well as short-term), and I zoom in on them at different moments, so that I can juggle them all simultaneously without dropping any or being overwhelmed.

The important thing is to strive towards a goal which is not immediately visible. That goal is not the concern of the mind, but of the spirit. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942, translated from French by Lewis Galantière

And thus, we motivate ourselves, and on occasion, pat ourselves on our back if the goal is one we set for ourselves. If along the way we find that we need gas (support), rather than dropping into panic syndrome, we have to reach out so that we can get to where we have set our aim. If the goal is a corporate goal, perhaps we have employers and peers who ferry us along sometimes. But along with corporate goals, we must always have personal goals, so that it's not just a Darwinian struggle but a case of getting the most out of what nature gave us, and what nurture instilled into us.

People achieve

Sometimes we tend to forget that achievement, like Isaac Newton's apple, doesn't fall into our lap just so. We have to struggle on occasion, burn the midnight oil, google endlessly on the internet, search in archives, sift through gazillion library books, take in endless practices, and perhaps strive and strive again until we can sight our goal. That's when we do get an A, because we didn't succumb to being a loser, but kept on going.

The heights by great men, reached and kept,

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upwards in the night.

~ Henry W. Longfellow (American poet, educator, linguist, 1807-1882)