What's on my Mind

Category: Experience

  • What went on in that School Assembly

    I had a crazy dream last night. I was delayed to the school assembly. I was running to the entrance gate but they shut it on my face. I had nothing to do and nowhere to go but wait for an eternity, till it finally got over.


    That episode reminded me of this whole affair – “the morning assembly” & the hilarity of events that followed with it (side effects).

    Chapter 1 : The Assembly line – It was meant to measure your worth (height) everyday

    If I think of it now, I might have not discovered that I was short, had it not been the school assembly. That tradition of ordering the queue by your relative height made me envious of other fellas. I was glad, I was not the shortest. But, I was disappointed when someone ahead of me, grew an inch taller to take away “my original spot”. 😥
    That assembly line was a fierce competition, to stay behind, as farthest as possible from the dais and the teachers. (You didn’t want ’em to notice you, in case you were bored to death.)

    Chapter 2 : It challenged you to stay awake.


    Assembly was the first thing in the morning , a mix of prayers with some over practiced speeches (mostly by children). It lasted for one full hour and sucked away that day start energy. Needless to say, everyone was yawning, constantly. Which is why, they decided to turn it into a full fledged TV.
    Dance choreography was introduced along with the prayer songs. That meant we had to jump and sway to match the lyrics. (as we sang) 😳
    It was a damn pretty sight to see from a distance except that it disturbed our sleeping momentum 😡

    Chapter 3 : Some even fainted!

    In summers, the temperature soared easily from 35 to 40 degree Celsius.
    We were all used to the heat of course (being from an equatorial country) but that didn’t mean we championed an hour long survival.
    It was not unusual to witness someone fainting in the middle of the assembly. That didn’t halt the assembly. We watched, while they carried the casualty inside the building.
    We danced to the prayers while a few more weaklings fainted.
    That taught us a key lesson – Survival of the fittest 😛

    Chapter 4: An exception was your birthday

    Birthdays meant special attention in morning assembly.
    For starters, you were allowed to wear casuals on that special day. So you could dress like a celebrity & grab some eye balls.
    To top this up, you didn’t have to join the queue. You were promoted straight to the podium. So, while everybody sang the birthday song, you could just relax & watch ’em from a distance. 😎 Those crazy fellas even choreographed the birthday song.

    Chapter 5 : And then it was abruptly dismissed


    Believe it or not, that morning assembly was a deadly place! (especially for those who played the band). That one time, there was this guy playing drums alongside the pianist. We were all singing the prayer in chorus when we heard a sudden “thud”. A glass pane fell from the top floor and landed straight onto his head. The glass shattered into pieces and this guy dropped unconscious, drenched in his blood.
    The drumming stopped and so did the morning assembly (suddenly dismissed)

    That shit happened twice. So they barred the patch of the ground below windows. (forever!).
    Turns out, some kids (while playing) scraped off the clay from windows. That (clay) was meant to hold the glass together. Of course they didn’t know it then and hell broke loose in the morning assembly.

    Insanely true!

    All the things that went on in that school assembly, makes me chuckle even today. No wonder why I can still recall it in my dreams!

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • A little (Over)weight

    I’d always been a chubby kid. I don’t reckon a skinny version of myself. (except for maybe a short span in my twenties, when I stayed in a dorm. Food was plenty but inedible). I don’t recollect ever being tensed about gaining a few pounds here or there. I was rather carefree, adjusting my wardrobe instead. 😛 That went perfectly fine as long as I stayed in India. ( they ain’t all perfectly carved out models there!). Moving to Netherlands however, changed my perspective. Suddenly, I was surrounded by fitness freaks! 😳

    Surprise.. Surprise!

    It all started with those evening walks outside my home. That’s when the first signs of frustration started brewing in. I walked like a sightseeing tourist, while men & women surpassed me, running ahead in shorts & sneakers.Then there were those on cycles, wearing suits and ties, commuting miles to and fro for work. To top this up, people played heavy duty sports after a long day at work, flaunting their “celebrity” like bodies, while I sat there, questioning my life time choices. 🙄

    I was an oddity. (The chubby one) and I didn’t even know how much of it was an “extra me”. So, I decided to tread on the path of self discovery. Mustering little courage I had, I jumped onto the weighting machine.

    Not all surprises are good. This was deeply disturbing. I had gained quite a few pounds here and there, surpassing my “acceptable” limit. 😥

    Time for new resolutions

    The problem solver in me was awake that night. I couldn’t dwell into getting depressed for long. So, I came up with a personal goal list and stuck it on the wall across my hall.
    It was concise and clear. (just like my conscience 😎 ).

    I saw it every morning before leaving the house. I saw it every evening before going to the bed. That constant reinforcement made me believe I was on top of solving this issue for once and for all. It was under “my” control.

    The First timers complex

    Soon, I decided to join a gym. I’ve been to a gym before but my definition of workout did not go beyond a few cardio exercises. So when the trainer asked me to try those gazillion other equipment, I was stumped. 😯 I had no clue of how any of it worked.


    I fiddled with the weights clumsily, while the trainer felt nervous about me breaking the instruments. 😆 He stayed calm (on the outside) and patiently demoed the basics to me. I felt embarrassed around all those professionals.

    It took me a week to tame my anxious self.

    Thank God it’s Sunday

    Soon, the weekend arrived. I wasn’t particularly pleased with my tough regime of diet and exercise. It sucked my energy. (& my soul). So, I planned a dinner with my spouse to a fancy restaurant, thinking it might as well help me relax.

    My spouse ordered beer and some more beer while I tried to fit in my new role as a “fitness freak”.
    My salad arrived with some sparkling water and I chewed like a cow, realizing this evening couldn’t have been duller indeed. 🙄

    Darkness is the evil

    We came back home with a full stomach but I had trouble falling asleep. 🙁 I couldn’t help but think about the delicious cuisines, I might have eaten instead. My craving grew as the hours passed and all my will power finally gave in.

    For the sake of sleep and the work next day, I decided to eat a “little” something.

    I strolled through the kitchen and took a good long look at all our collectibles. I handpicked a few of my favourites, just to start with.

    Definitely not in “my” control

    My guilt turned off as I switched on TV. And as I ate, I felt more hungry.
    Turns out, that night, I ate for the whole week.

    The Aftermath

    I woke up next morning feeling ashamed.
    I saw my goal list and felt so guilty.

    Clearly something had to change, either me or the goal list.

    And that’s when I did this little something. 😎

    #stillchubby

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • Shark Bite(s)

    This probably is the weirdest thing I’ve ever tried. Fermented shark. (still recovering from its memory).

    Back in 2019, on our trip to Iceland, (me & my spouse) discovered this local specialty in Reykjavik. I remember being super excited when we saw this in the menu of a cafe in city centre. We ordered it right away. The waiter seemed thrilled with our request. He came back in a few minutes with a miniature bowl of shark bites. (My first thought – too expensive for its size!). People sitting around us (both sides) started staring at our table.Their eyes were fixated on us. I wondered why this was such a big deal.

    Then, I put that first nibble in my mouth and an explosion of ammonia filled my senses. I was overwhelmed with that strong, pungent taste. I kept struggling to keep chewing. My eyes rolled every time I bit a piece. I heard the laughter of our neighbours from both sides .They seemed to be enjoying the show. I realized then, why they’ve been staring all along. They expected this to happen. (what else do you think, a decomposed fish would taste like?)

    The Greenland shark is fermented for close to six months under the sand, where it rots in its own ammonia & uric acid. It is then dried and chopped into small pieces. (ready to eat). All this effort, so one can eat a shark!(which otherwise would be too toxic to eat)

    Alas! I swallowed that bite with a shot of liquor.(I was grateful that they served it along.) My taste buds were numb for the rest of the day. I was glad it was over. Never been thankful after a meal before.

    I wonder how the Vikings cherished it! (Either the food was scarce or their taste buds were seriously destroyed) 🙄

    © myhandwrites.com. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • In the name of God

    Disclaimer : This post neither preaches nor condemns any religion or the existence of god. It merely tells my own short story, in my own words. So, don’t leave hateful comments. I am a very sensitive. (Just gulp it down on a lighter note!) 😛

    When I was eight years old, I remember going to a pilgrimage, high in the mountains. I remember hiking 13 kms (one way) on my own feet and how terribly drained I was. My lovely fellas overestimated my abilities. I wasn’t a sporty kid and that long walk took a toll on my baby muscles. I kept halting every five minutes while they motivated me to chant the name of god. So, I sang along and crawled for another five minutes until I came to the next halt. I kept wondering why reciting the name of god doesn’t work for me. It clearly did wonders for all others on that pilgrimage. 🙄

    And then, after a day long hike, when we were just a kilometre away from the holy shrine, I threw a revolt, demanding to sleep. It was peak of the night and everybody knew what this would mean -they would miss the opportunity to see the shrine with an EMPTY QUEUE.

    They gave up. Not b’coz they were scared of my rebellion but because they couldn’t carry me on their shoulders. 😆

    And we slept in an ashram nearby. For seven whole hours. It seemed like a minute. I was so exhausted! Next morning, we woke up to find a kilometre long queue to the shrine. I remember my fellas being unhappy as they kept moaning – if only I could have walked that one last km. I wasn’t guilty. I was rebellious. I decided to skip walking entirely during the return trip downhill. 😎 They paid someone to carry me on his shoulders, while they all walked along, singing the name of god. That was the first time I questioned my faith in almighty. Does he really exist? Why do we have to go through this pain to see him? Does he even care?

    Fast forward two decades. And here I am – An atheist. (agnostic would sound better, more diplomatic. but I like to be honest with myself). I can’t justify my belief or how I ended up being so, but I think atheism is also a faith (in non existence of super power) , just like any other faith you may have. I often wonder about all the things we do in the name of god. Maybe we believe in his existence, maybe we don’t. But, maybe we should question the things we do in his name.

    Why do we pump billions into building churches & temples & all those gigantic holy monuments? Do we have such surplus that we can afford the luxury? Why do we politicize religion? Why do we propagate religious riots? Why do we practice rituals that clearly don’t sound logical?Why do we cultivate superstitions that we can’t prove ourselves? Why do we boycott those who question them?And most important, why do all the things that we do in the name of god, go unchallenged?

    Do we base our morals & ethics on humanity? Or do they exist to please the gods? Perhaps we induce fear of non compliance under his name? (Is that why we curse about going to hell.). Should we not justify our actions based on how they impact other humans? Or do we want our gods to own our actions? (Gawd! he must be really brave to take responsibility of our holy deeds!)

    Things we do in his name!

    P.S – I just realized that I am writing this post on the day, when the foundation stone of Hindu temple (Ram Mandir) is being laid. It is a historic moment as this happens almost three decades after the Babri masjid (mosque) was demolished from this exact site (a reason for riots in 1992).

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • Why I don’t want to go to Eiffel (anymore)

    When I moved to Europe, travelling to Paris was on top of my check list and Eiffel tower was a “Must See”. I’d seen umpteen classics with Eiffel tower set in the background, a beautiful sunset and a surprising proposal that completed a romantic setting. I was in awe of the awe created around Eiffel.


    Bonjour Paris

    So a few years back, when I was in Paris for the first time, seeing the Eiffel tower from a distance brought up a great deal of excitement.

    As the hop on hop off bus took circles around the city, I turned my head 360 degrees to get a glimpse of the tower from every angle

    Outside the Eiffel

    As soon as I got off the bus, I was surrounded by desperate roadside mongers. They saw me looking at those tiny Eiffel miniatures and pounced at once with their discount offers.

    I ended up buying three Eiffels, one for each corner of my home. (at least that’s what I think now, I bought them for).

    Satisfied with my haggling skills, I headed towards the actual Eiffel.

    Is everyone in Paris, standing here?

    At first sight, it was not the Eiffel that grabbed my attention but rather that two km long queue to the Eiffel. I couldn’t believe that all those people were lined up to see the tower. It was peak of the summer and all angry, tired and sweaty tourists were lined up in a day-long queue.

    Soon, I became one of them.

    After three gruesome hours

    By the time, it was my turn to enter the Eiffel, I was almost on my knees

    I was exhausted from standing three hours straight and I remember shifting my weight over each leg every few minutes. Every time someone left the queue, I jumped on my feet to quickly move ahead. A single miss and four new people would squeeze in the queue. 😡

    I was glad, I had an empty bladder before starting the Eiffel marathon. 😎

    Finally, On top of the Eiffel tower

    At the Eiffel, they offered two options to climb the tower – either stairs or elevator. I chose the latter as I simply couldn’t imagine climbing 600+ stairs to the top. 😯

    From the top of the Eiffel, Paris looked like a Lego city.

    If you’ve been on the top of any tower, you probably know what the city looks like from a distance. Eiffel was no different in that sense. Except that it consumed every ounce of my energy to get to the top of this tower. So, in the end I just felt proud of my brave victory.

    I remember every corner of the tower was occupied with someone taking a selfie. I too, squeezed in between to have a picture, classically titled “On the top of the Eiffel”.

    At last, It was over

    After spending close to five hours in this overhaul, it was time to sit back and relax. I took an hour long river cruise over Seine (which was easy to get into) for sight seeing the city. The Eiffel was lit beautifully and I could see a picture perfect Eiffel even from a distance.

    And just then the Eiffel started twinkling in the night. Mesmerized by this view, I couldn’t stop thinking why I went through all that trouble of climbing the Eiffel. 🙄

    For what it’s worth – Let me announce the visit

    It didn’t make sense to visit the Eiffel if no one around me knew about that “wonderful” visit.

    As someone had to be the torch bearer of maintaining the awe of Eiffel, I went ahead to announce my Eiffel visit 😛

    Side effects

    Looking at those wonderful pictures, my friends and family decided to put Eiffel in their wish list. So when they came over to visit me last year, I ended up going to Eiffel two more times. 😥

    I survived.

    And since then I stopped promoting Eiffel.

    I’ve been there. Done that. I don’t wanna be there any more.

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • How was my First experience of seeing the Northern Lights

    (Original photo – Sep 2019)

    In September 2019, my dream to see the Northern lights was fulfilled while I was in Iceland for a nine day trip.

    For those who do not know, the Northern lights (or aurora) is a “rare” phenomenon caused by electronically charged particles, that upon striking the atmosphere, release light. Unless, you are staying somewhere near the poles, it is highly unlikely that you can spot the Northern lights. There are in fact, some camping expeditions that take you for a week long trip (heavy on pockets) to witness this phenomenon.

    So, back in Sep when we were in Iceland, I felt really lucky to see these on just the second day of our trip. Since, it was such an event in my life, I will tell you what went behind the scenes of my first experience to see the Northern Lights.

    Before it happened, we needed a Camera

    Until the day we planned a trip to Iceland, we relied on our iPhone cameras for our trip photos. It was a handy way to take good pictures that always sufficed for our family albums. But this had to change. If there was even a slightest possibility to see auroras in our trip, we needed a camera that could capture this event.

    Our phone camera wasn’t smart enough to capture light movements in the sky. So, after reading umpteen blogs about what camera suits our need, we ended up buying Sony A6000 (that wasn’t cheap!).

    I remember the first day, I handled this camera with its tripod stand and how stupid I felt. I couldn’t capture anything better than what my iPhone already did and I wondered if I was even worthy of buying a professional camera. So, I spent the whole next week trying to learn how to operate the camera, what is meant by shutter speed, what is the aperture, etc etc- basically all that was needed to understand the required setting for capturing the Northern Lights.

    Just a day before our trip, I figured it all out. I read a wonderful post on how to capture aurora and saved those exact settings on my camera. I put it on my favourites list.

    We were finally camera ready for our trip.

    On the Night of the Main Event

    Since, Northern lights is a scarce occurrence, you have to track them like you track weather. We downloaded a few apps that gave this forecast information. There was even an index associated with the probability of viewing aurora. It ranged on a scale of 0 to 9, with 9 being the highest possibility of the event.

    That night, the index was close to 7 and the predicted time of occasion was 12:30 am.

    I remember being super sleepy after the day long trek. I thought 7 being less than 9, nothing might happen. So, I went to the bed in my cozy pyjama. My spouse of course was much more hopeful and he stayed awake.

    At 12:15 am that night, he shook me up. He shrieked excitedly, asked me to wake up and come outside. He explained that he saw some weird activity in the sky. It was a whitish moving wave. I couldn’t believe it was really happening. My first thought was – “what a pity it would be, if I were to miss the northern lights coz I am sleeping”. And with that fear in my mind, I woke up instantaneously.

    I was quick on my feet. Ready in a minute, in my pyjamas & cold jacket, I ran outside the cottage. My spouse carried the camera & tripod in his hand. We stood and watched the sky together. Northern lights were about to happen.

    Take the photos before it goes away

    What seemed like white waves in the sky, slowly turned greenish. What started as a small patch turned to spread across the sky. We saw gently moving greenish waves in the sky and all the stars shined through it. The sky was filled with shades of green and it was so beautiful. I bent down with the tripod and camera and clicked the first picture. Strangely, it turned out great. My saved setting was a savior.

    A couple stood next to us trying to fixate their camera. They seemed like experts to me because of their camera (which was much heavier than ours) and a full length tripod. We were very surprised when they asked us to share our settings. They were struggling to capture northern lights on their own and were very impressed by our first picture. Reluctantly, I shared a few of our settings and left out a tip – the aperture position. A moment later, another couple approached us for our settings and I quickly mumbled something, feeling guilty at the same time.

    Eventually, they both figured out the whole thing as they sat next to each other and started their own photo clicking spree. 😀 In hindsight, I can see now, how childish my attempt was to preserve the knowledge I gained from one week of my camera struggle. 😛 I swear, I am not that person anymore.

    The aurora lasted for around 30 mins and I kept thinking – This is the best thing I would ever see in my life. It indeed was! We clicked many photos, all capturing our silhouettes. Coz, yeah! you can’t capture your face when your camera is set for Northern lights. (technically speaking)

    I really wish I can see the aurora once more in this lifetime. Next time, with the index of 9. I hope we can plan another trip to Iceland, maybe in winter – when every night has the Northern lights.

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • My First Experience of IKEA

    Welcome to the world of IKEA

    The first time I visited IKEA, I remember spending the whole of my Saturday in the IKEA store. Those beautiful preset designs for each room filled my head with so many ideas that I felt like throwing out all our existing furniture.

    It was hard to resist the temptation and looking at our wallets, we decided to buy only a few items.

    The IKEA DELIVERY

    The delivery arrived in small boxes and I was puzzled to see how a bed and sofa could fit in that tiny space. In the box, came a manual, a tool box and some spare parts.

    The holy grail detailed a long list of steps to set up the furniture ourselves. First on the list was our bed.

    The IKEA Test Of Relationship

    I always knew that IKEA had a smart furniture concept and we had to assemble it ourselves. What I didn’t know was that assembling was not a five-finger exercise.

    The list of instructions overwhelmed me and I fiddled clumsily with nuts and bolts. Within an hour, I started feeling tired as I kept thinking about the steps ahead.

    I vent out my anger over my spouse who wasn’t a piece of cake either as he happily passed over all work on my plate!  😡

     

    It felt like IKEA was testing our relationship and so we decided to flee the moment and take a break! 😛

    Beer can make it alright

    Whosoever invented beer should be awarded with a Nobel peace prize. I found no other effective tranquilizer till this date.

    Out in the Cafe, we spent some time eating & drinking while we got our future furniture plans sorted out! 😎

    After this small detour, it was time to get back to work.

    You can do it!

    We came back sharp and started again in full spree. I realized, we weren’t actually doing that bad a job.

    My spouse found content in HIS side of story – of how he has been doing it all right. And I found peace with MY side of story – of how this was not possible without my brilliant tips! 😉

    Next in line -The Sofa!

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • One Month of Blog Promotion Misery

    the Beginning OF SOMETHING

    The day my blog went live, I remember being super excited, wide awake in the night. The idea of this new venture, that was my very own occupied my mind completely. I imagined myself as a writer, a blogger and a budding author! My mind raced through monthly, quarterly and annual plans. And then feeling content with the exhaustive planning, I dozed off to sleep.

    My first blog was live and whatever the heck I wrote, was out in open.

    WEEK 1 : Welcome to my BLOG

    Facebook, here I come!

    The first week after my blog went live was a “hello world” moment for me and I was excited about people reading my blog. I turned to one stop for all audience – Facebook.

    I joined umpteen communities in a day, all dedicated to writing, reading and blogging. Naive and hopeful, I shared my first blog post with all the groups at once

    Within minutes, my phone started buzzing with numerous notifications. Excited to see what the members thought, I jumped to see notifications. What I saw next was completely crazy!.

    The starving members of the groups saw my post as an opportunity to advertise their own blogs. Nobody cared what my post was about and everybody instead shared their links, requesting me to visit them. I was so frustrated that I thought I was probably better off without Facebook. I gave it a try a few more times only to discover no new outcomes.

    Tired, I decided to give up my brief stint on Facebook.

    Twitter, here I come!

    Disappointed but still determined, I tried another hot spot – the Twitter. I chose my best post and crafted a catchy punchline. Meticulously, I selected the most trending hashtags and sent out my first blogging tweet.

    Within seconds, came a pile of new tweets on top of mine and mine literally vanished from the screen. I scrolled through the window endlessly but could not find my own tweet. It garnered no likes and no comments and shamefully brought zero blog visits.

    Discouraged, I dozed off to sleep that night.

    WEEK 2 : HELLO WORLD – take two!

    Instagram for beginners

    I imagined week two as another start and decided to explore Instagram.

    Few clicks here & there and my Insta account was setup in minutes. I gathered modest following within a day, mostly including my friends & relatives. I followed people who were deemed “Influencers” & dedicated their profiles to food, travel or Art. And soon, my Insta feed was filled with images of clumsy dishes to child like paintings to amateur travel videos.

    Realizing all content garners engagement on Insta, I became optimistic. I drafted my first post – a photo from my blog with a smart caption & link next to it. And there it went live – My first Instagram post!

    To my surprise, Insta didn’t recognize links. It was only tailored for pictures and videos. I felt dumb for not knowing this before and I tried a quick fix by re-posting link in comments. And, when it still landed as text again, I simply deleted my first Insta post.

    I mourned for some days until the week finally ended. Week two was a take two and yet another failed attempt in promoting my blog.

    WEEK 3 : I’m going NUTS

    Did you try Reddit?

    I was tired after two weeks of this rigorous regime that got me no where with my blog’s visibility. All popular channels, I knew, were already explored, used and discarded. My blog visits remained stagnant and I wondered if I had any more options.

    It was then, I read about Reddit. It seemed to be a discussion forum where many communities existed & surprisingly, they all showcased two way communication. I strolled through some interesting communities and joined all of them. I drafted my first Reddit post and pushed the submit button.

    I was shocked to see when nothing appeared on the community pages. A message popped open, saying “I did not meet the karma requirements”.

    I wondered what Karma meant and who invented these strange terminologies. In gruelling anger, I deleted Reddit from my phone.

    Let’s not forget LinkedIn

    Two days passed in fury and resentment and then it dawned on me that I did not try LinkedIn. Now, I was fairly active on professional networks and wondered where I could share my blogging posts.

    I scrolled through pages of relevant groups and quickly dropped in a join request.

    But many of those groups already had thousands of members and no longer accepted any new members. So, I was left stranded on their waiting list.

    WEEK 4 : Back to Square One

    What everybody says on Word Press?

    Exhausted from my previous attempts, I finally looked up – what Word Press had to offer. I was amazed to see thousands of posts about blog promotions. Many boasted about using plugins and I thought – Maybe this could be it!

    To my dismay, all plugins came with paid plans and the price of those made me anxious. I wasn’t thrifty but I wasn’t a spender either. So, three weeks of my agony couldn’t push me into buying anything. Instead, it pushed me to stop looking before I go nuts!

    So, in a bid to remain sane, I decided to stop thinking about blog promotion anymore.

    Let’s start Writing.

    By the end of the week , normalcy started kicking in and I started regaining my focus again.

    I felt unburdened and somehow relieved by not having to think about viewership.

    And then, I started writing again – writing with the sole purpose of writing.

    Month Two begins!

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • I’ve been to the House of Dracula

    Growing up, I watched umpteen horror shows, each portraying a different flavor of Dracula.
    Sometimes they were blood sucking bats,
    Sometimes Vampires and
    Some times just monstrous undead.
    I always wondered – “How we came to believe in the existence of Dracula?”

    Last winter, I visited the city of Brasov in Romania. It was then, when I heard about the Bran Castle, also known as -“The Dracula Castle”. Curious to uncover the mystery of Dracula, I visited this castle.

    According to a legend, “The Original Dracula” stayed here in the 15th Century. He was a notorious prince named ‘Vlad Tepes’, who had a brutal reputation of a murderer. He took over the name ” The Son of the Dracul” – dracul meaning a dragon, in Romania.

    In 19th Century, the first novel on Dracula was published. (by Bram Stoker). Deemed to be inspired from this prince, the novel set its background in this castle.

    The climb to the castle was a bit mountainous and it had plenty of wind from all directions. I visited this in a cold winter and it seemed pretty dark and daunting then. The outside of the castle was old and more like an ancient fort. When, I went inside, I was surprised by its cozy interior.

    It looked very modern with wooden furnishings in every room. I understood later, that the castle was renovated in 19th Century by the last residing queen of Romania – Queen Marie.

    The castle held an exhibit in a room called “The torture chamber”. It demonstrated several tools of torment used in earlier centuries.

    The gory stories of the past reminded me of the “Original Dracula” – Prince Vlad, as he employed several methods of torture and mutilation to his enemies

    A story goes that he did not shy away from boiling or skinning his victims alive but preferred to drive a wooden stake through their bodies, leaving them to die of exposure. Some particularly gruesome accounts also claim that he liked to dine among these impaled bodies and would dip his bread into their blood.

    Yuckk! I felt glad, having not witnessed that century. No wonder why the Dracula still invokes fear.

    Some walls in the castle also shared the tales of Dracula. They set a vibe of this historical connection.

    After strolling through the castle for around an hour, I discovered from a guide that there is in fact, an entirely different side to this story. It could be – that this is no Dracula Castle at all.

    Some evidences suggest that Prince Vlad never set a foot in this castle. Bram Stoker, in his novel – Dracula, wrote about a castle but also, never set his foot in this castle. A lot of people, therefore doubt if this indeed is the house of Dracula.

    For what is still interesting to know, is the fact that Dracula captures its essence from prince Vlad (the son of Dracul) who lived in a castle in Romania. And this is perhaps the only place that fits all descriptions of that Castle.

    So, I like to believe that I’ve been to the house of dracula.

    Dracula Castle – checked!

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • My Tale of Productivity

    HOW I FOUND OUT “MY PRODUCTIVITY” ?

    One morning, I woke up to my iphone notification. A screen popped open and I saw a report of my week long productivity. It displayed my screen time and categorized my usage neatly. On an average , each day, it declared, I was fruitful for barely a few minutes. And shamefully, that number was lower than the previous week.

    I was surprised and anxious with this new discovery. I wondered what it meant and if I needed to improve my “productivity”? I turned to google to solve my worry. The search returned a gazillion results and I was amazed that the topic garnered such popularity.

    AND THEN I DISCOVERED THE CHASE OF PRODUCTIVITY

    Over the next few days, I received Linkedin feeds with tips to increase daily productivity. Good reads recommended self help books and Youtube suggested “Efficiency tips for all activities”. I felt chased by this whole new industry that was thriving out there and feeding on my worry. The need to be productive was packaged and marketed with several success stories. It was hard to question this need when everyone offered a solution already.

    SO, I SEARCHED THE ROOT OF PRODUCTIVITY

    I looked up further and discovered the history. The origin of productivity went back to 18th century. When agriculture couldn’t produce enough surplus, we devised the term -“land productivity”. It measured the yield of crops per hectare land and served an indicator of agricutural output. The idea was simple and implied improving material efficiency.

    Then came the industrial evolution and productivity became an indicator of profitability. It measured the units of output produced per input cost. Labour was a cost. And in our bid to increase productivity (& thereby profitability), we started focusing on labour efficiency.

    AND HOW IT EVOLVED TO HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY

    The need for labour efficiency gave birth to the concept of human productivity. We became result centric and measured all activities in terms of productivity.

    Our desperation to be fruitful, narrowed our choices. We pursued all actions that guaranteed an outcome and spent little time in self discovery.

    Productivity equals success equals self worth became the idea and we tuned our minds to this assembly line thinking.

    AND THEN I STOPPED WORRYING ABOUT PRODUCTIVITY

    I decided, I no longer needed to be reminded of my productivity. I couldn’t let an industry thrive on my vulnerability.

    I snoozed my iphone reports so my mind wandered free. I felt unburdened and suddenly relieved.

    That’s when I started writing my two cents on productivity.

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.