The scientist from Masala Lab

It was a crazily busy work day & I grabbed 'something edible for lunch' so if I could get any time, I would run into the kitchen to survive the rest of the evening. I was about to get up and there comes the reminder on my calendar that in 15 minutes the session "Be Inspired with Ashok Krish" starts ! I sat back, finished my pending work so that I could pay full attention in this virtual mode. 

I logged in few mins late and a black & white photo of a little boy was on screen, our senior TCS leader, Global head of Digital workplace, Mr Ashok Krish on screen was talking about Carnatic music & the classes. K TV movies have trained my brain to immediately grab the conversation and I was like, " ohhhh, this is Ashok Krish photooo!!!" zoomed the screen, as there came the next pic of Japanese language graduation pic of the same boy. I got reminded of some past episodes, recently in many TCS SBWS forums, Talent Ocean our ideathon evaluation board, but rewinding few years back, I was in awe about the TCS social media platform Knome & being one amongst to receive star of the quarter badge, a congratulatory email came from Ashok Krish! I also had a friend who worked in his team & we talked about Knome & what kind of cool team it is, its a mini google kinda work culture in the team, creative minds sparkle talent there & 2012ish , I sent my resume to Ashok Krish to join his team (oh yes, with no idea on the role I wanted to just mentioned creativity enthusiast with Business knowledge then). He politely replied, an assertive mail which translates to 'po ma, learn digital technology, thats the future' & when Fresco play in TCS was launched, I jumped pushing myself into learning Artificial intelligence & kept an eye on next-gen tech zones even during my tenure as a leadership faculty. 

Lesson learnt : When we reject a profile with reason and what should the candidate pursue, it guides them instead of demotivating ! 

Back to the session ! The next timeline took us to his pic of TCS TVM, as he spoke about the Tata Employee experience & then onsite experience. That is exactly where my first 'aha' moment as a listener happened and I grabbed my note to write it in Bold capital ! Ashok Krish said, "When I was at onsite and the project was perfect, I played an important role, was getting comfortable, I decided to move out", pushing oneself from the comfort zone is extremely important and he explained about CTO's new project on collaboration platform at TCS. Very valuable tips that Ashok received from CTO which he shared during the session were brilliant & I was delighted to hear the first one because it is something that I strongly follow (& many mock me for having a checklist on personal project plan, when should I binge watch, when should I write my next book, when should I dance with kids, when should I do a long call with mom gossiping lol - I plan a tracker, it might seem like you are everywhere but you can have it under control)

Here is what Ashok shared : 

1. Have a personal project plan not just for work project but also on hobbies, what are you learning, how much are you learning, are you finding the balance, time management is important (Yeaah!!!!)

2. If we all stop TV for one day, we can create one more Wikipedia completely just in a day ! So look at where you lose the track in time (ouch, true #palaar)

3. Pick something that challenges you in your hobby life not an easy one ( #naanthayar mode to self)

4. He spoke about his blogs and scribbler app, having personal target of daily posts (#disciplining self)

5. If there is no competition, there is no accountability (was almost clapping for this line)

6. Visualize where you are becoming obsolete, today, there is an extreme problem of plenty, we have a lesser attention span to our audience - how to embed behavior science and gamified approaches 

And as he spoke about his blogging, music, cooking , he shared how art disciplines one to be creative.. During the session, my husband also walked by and "Ashok krish?!!" - we exchanged the look connecting to 2 highlights of past !  

2012 : I was sitting in front of laptop with my grumpy face after fighting with my husband on some parenting hassle, and as I was ethically sneaking about Ashok Krish profile, I was stunned to see our Digital workplace head having a "summa kizhi" kind of blog page & he had posted an article on expectant father & I read it twice. I smiled and with the smiling face punched my husband. He was confused. I asked him to read the blog and he said, see, this man speaks the voice of many like us.  As a blogger, I also learnt the trick of mixing science with humor in the vocabulary, example - ' to some kind of resonance frequency patting him' ,as he wrote about patting his son to sleep.

2020 : Lockdown days in Bangalore with no maid & cook was the perfect time for all 4 of us in the family to share the load. My husband who used to only make dosa wanted to try cooking but he wanted some inspiration and my pep talks never helped. One day he said, I will mix roti dough today in the proud 'Major SundarRajan' tone. I doubtfully watched as he was taking some measuring cup, spoon, oil, making the whole kitchen snow wheat floor. I screamed "what are you doing" He said, "Ashok Krish has posted different types of making roti dough , so I am gonna try".

I am not at a twitter person, its for people who deliver short messages and lack that competency! My husband then explained me about Ashok Krish's twitter posts and cooking interests, how he explains the science of every cuisine, how he researches on ingredients. I glanced through and gave some expression like watching science fiction,"oh.. hmm.. clearly fiction" ... End of 2020, Kamal said, "hey Ashok Krish has published a book", I asked ,"digital workplace / SBWS related?", Kamal replied , "not fiction paathuko... he has published a book titled Masala lab" & I was in wow.. because I also have more successful kitchen experiments off late from my better half, referring to the recipes from Ashok Krish's tweet... 

As he passionately spoke in the session about how he found algorithm for cooking, understood meta models and science of ingredients , he mentioned, " it truly liberates" ! Kamal nodded his head, as he is already inspired with the scientist from Masala Lab :) 

Wonderful session which triggered series of moments with the inspirational TCS Leader, who loves music, cooking, blogging, new languages, science & a curious lifelong learner !