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Book 24 – My Life in Full – Indra Nooyi

This was the 2nd book I read in 2022.

Man, what a great book it has been. The most amazing thing that I found while reading this book was how relatable I found it with my life. After reading this book, I do have a stronger belief that anyone is destined for great things in life, if they put hard work and focus to the current task, and once that task is delivered, move to the next more challenging task.

The beginning
I was in awe of Indra Nooyi, former President and CEO of Pepsico, when I read about her humble beginnings. Here again, I found so much similarities between our stories. Indra had been brought up in a traditional multi-generational household, where men worked outside to earn money and women took care of the house and make sure children and elderly are fed.
The one thing that stuck with me throughout the entire section which talks about Indra’s childhood days is the support system that one gets when they live in a multi-generational household. If you consider the financial aspect of this scenario, you end up saving a lot of money as you don’t have to pay mortgage or rent to live in a multi-generational household. The emotional aspect of this setting is that whenever one person in the family falls sick or have an emergency, there is always another member of the family who swoops in to take care of the children and elderly and make sure that the house runs smoothly. I could relate it to so much that I got goosebumps while reading about it through Indra’s eyes.

Indra’s beginnings is filled with so many cool stories, which makes her a rockstar truly and the fact that she was part of the band during the 1970’s in India makes her a rockstar literally. This book buttressed my choice of reading so many biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs as it is my favorite genre of books.

The Strong Family Support
I had and have always been a “Family Guy”. I love spending time with my parents and sisters and can’t seem to get enough of it. I loved how well the family support has been portrayed throughout Indra’s life.
I am falling short of words to express my love and respect for her husband – Raj. Indra has put such nice description of Raj’s support to her and family when they were starting a family and Indra was figuring out her future in the Corporate America. It was Raj who made sure that Indra got what she wanted both personally and professionally. The moment I read all the sacrifices and the ups and downs that they went through their lives as a couple, I realized how much it coincides with the lovely couple I know – Anupam & Monika. I couldn’t shake this feeling that both of their stories is so similar to Indra and Raj’s. I felt so lucky to have known Anupam and Monika this closely and I have learnt a lot after spending so much time with them.
Apart from Raj, it was her mother who spent most of her time with Indra and Raj in the US when Indra birthed their two daughters. The great Indian support system came to her rescue when she needed it the most, which, unfortunately, most of the American family lack when a newborn is welcomed into the family.

Corporate America
The weirdest thing that amazed me when I read Indra’s journey through Corporate America was that she never discussed or negotiated her salary. In today’s age, it is hard to comprehend someone working for a company without actually negotiating their offer. That was really a surprising thing for me.
There is one more thing which we cannot deny that happens in Corporate America and that is the “Gender Pay Gap”, which roughly translates to women getting paid less than men for doing the same job. It is the harsh reality, and Indra was also a victim of this. But, she didn’t play the victim card and just focused on doing her work with more passion.
The best thing that happened to Indra during her time consulting for multiple industries is that she got the best boss and mentor and friend for life. Reading her story and their discussions, it felt how important it is to have someone who will guide you without their selfish agenda in their sight.

I found the book is so well written and is relatable by countless NRIs and their struggle stories, it felt like she really represented each one of us and our own struggles.
I will recommend everyone to read it, just so you know what kind of struggles an immigrant goes through in the unknown land.

See you at the next book review!

December 04, 2018 – Ford Team Holiday Lunch, Dearborn, MI, USA

Hello! Hello! Welcome to the last month of 2018 and it couldn’t have started in a better way.

It has been more than a year for me at Ford now and I love working here and hang out with my teammates. My boss’ boss has a yearly tradition to take us out for a team lunch. This time, we decided to head to Buddy’s Pizza just across the street from our building. This place had been on my bucket list for a long time and I was glad to try the food here.

I was accompanied by 20+ team members. The place looked small from the outside, but there was enough space to accomate our big team. We just had to split in two tables. After deciding who is going to sit where, we became comfortable and kicked off our “office gossips”. Whenever I go out on team lunches or outings, I make sure that I make a small talk with everyone so that I feel connected with my team members.

The name of the place had “pizza” in it, so we had to order a pizza and it being my favorite food, I was happy. My boss’ boss made sure he ordered enough pizza for everyone and that everyone get a slice of their choice. We had many vegetarian team members, so he had to order a special vegetarian pizza for such team members. Pepperoni being my favorite type of pizza, I made sure I get at least one slice of Pepperoni. My close second favorite type is cheese, which became my second slice of pizza.

The team had so much fun eating their favorite slice of pizza and talking things over that we didn’t even realize that we were out for a couple hours. It felt so refreshing to spend some time out of office with the colleagues. Some of us (yours truly) were too stuffed with pizza, so we decided to spend a few more minutes in the nearby coffee shop to get a coffee to go. It was an awesome afternoon spent with the lovely people at work.

Next stop: Ford Rouge Factory Tour, Detroit, MI, USA

Week 50 (December 05 – December 11) – MJ’s Running in 2021

Week 49 was as chilled out as it can be during this time of the year in Michigan. I haven’t run in a long time, and I am not sure if that is going to change for the foreseeable future.

In my personal life, the only productive thing that I did was to replace the existing grill on my F-150 with the Raptor Style Ford grill. I am very happy the way it turned out and how cool it looks on my truck.

As far as running goes, I couldn’t run a single time and the total miles covered for the year remain 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this story changes before the end of the year!

See you next week!

Week 49 (November 28 – December 04) – MJ’s Running in 2021

Week 48 was busy and so was this one. I couldn’t run a single mile during the whole week.

In my personal life, finally, I got the delivery of my not-so-new 2005 Ford F-150 and I couldn’t believe it was really happening. On one of the days, the weather was a little warm enough that I got to put up some lightning feature on the front side of my house. It turned out to be better than I expected.

The rest of the week was busy in CrossFit and enjoying life. The 55F temperature helped me go out to Kensington Metro Park, and enjoyed reading a few pages of my current book, sipping coffee in between pages. I loved spending time there.

As far as running goes, I couldn’t run a single time and the total miles covered for the year remain 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this story changes before the end of the year!

See you next week!

Book 23 – Fear No Evil – James Patterson

This was the 1st book I read in 2022.

Mr. Patterson has been my second favorite author and I really enjoy the “Alex Cross” novels written by Mr. Patterson, so I had to try my hands at this one to see how the story continues.

I liked this book as a whole. The storyline of this book is so gripping, you don’t feel like keeping the book down even after finishing a couple chapters. The writing of this book is exceptional, just like all “Alex Croos” novels written by Mr. Patterson.

The story goes through some ups and many downs. I know this is just a fictionary novel, but, the writing is so good that you do feel bad for characters who “fall” as the story progresses.

The key factor of this book is the way suspense is built throughout the book until the very end. I mean, you start reading the book, thinking what’s going to happen next and more often than not, the opposite of what we think happen.
The book is filled with blood stained stories and the description is pretty graphic, so, if you don’t like reading stories like this, better stay away from this book.

I would encourage reading this book if you like reading some thrilling stories and have an appetite to grow some liking for a fictional character of “Alex Cross”.

See you at the next book review!

Week 48 (November 21 – November 27) – MJ’s Running in 2021

Week 47 came and went without a single run. This week wasn’t different as far as running is concerned.

In my personal life, this week was full of busy events. I took the truck to the mechanic to test whether everything okay before I purchase it. I was happy to know apart from small fixes, everything else was in a good shape given that the truck had more than 200,000 miles on it.
My youngest sister, Dikshu Tai, visited me for the Thanksgiving break, so that was fun. She experienced her first snow and we clicked many pictures.
We were invited at Monika’s for Thanksgiving dinner, per the tradition.

The last thing we did during this week was the Black Friday shopping, which turned out to be a lot of fun than I expected. After the shopping, it was time to have some Thai food at Frankenmuth, which was the first time I was dining in since March 2020, the start of the pandemic.

As far as running goes, I couldn’t run a single time and the total miles covered for the year remain 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this story changes before the end of the year!

See you next week!

November 24, 2018 – Gatlinburg, TN, USA

We spent the first day at Pigeon Forge and the second day at Gatlinburg of this long weekend/Thanksgiving trip. The third day was also about exploring more parts of Gatlinburg, TN.

The day started really well with a belly full of delicious breakfast. Our hotel had given us coupons to have breakfast at the next restaurant, which I initially thought was weird. All my doubts completely vanished when I saw the rush inside and the delicious food that was being served to already sitting guests. The wait was at least 20 minutes long but it was worth every minute. The food was delicious and the lovely company couldn’t have been better. We made sure to fill up ourselves as we had a busy day before us.

After the breakfast, we headed towards a hiking spot. The parking and the hiking trail that we chose didn’t seem that popular as there was hardly anyone apart from us. I was scared because I had heard that the Smokey Mountains area had a lot of bears and being the paranoid person that I am, I was holding on to my dear life when we started that hike (& partyly because we had kids with us). I made sure that I don’t tell anyone 😀

Fortunately, the hike was pretty uneventful and everyone made it back in one piece. The next stop on our list was Gatliburg Downtown. The area came across as a buzzing place. Parking was easier to find than we expected and the moment we parked our cars, the large building of “Believe it or not” was staring us in our faces. The building lived up to its hype, but we refrained ourselves from going inside as we wanted to explore the local attraction. The first order of business was food. We were lucky and happy to find Indian snacks stall and devouvered on Indian snacks like Samosa, Panipuri, and Dosa.

It was a sweet surprise for us and after that, it was time to head to the “Gatlinburg Skylift”. It wasn’t something that I expected to find in the Smokey Mountains area. This little adventure turned out to be the best thing we did as a group. Monika sat with Arnav, Manju sat with Bhaskar and Aryan. I sat with Anupam ji. It was really fun to shout names at each other when we were in different carts, with people giving us the “looks”. When Anupam ji inadvertently shouted “I love you” at Monika, there was someone else from the other cart who shouted “I love you too”. It was a fun sight to witness.

The afternoon stop was at some picturesque place, which Monika told us reminded her of Switzerland. It was really beautiful and the pictures indeed came out really good.

The last stop for the day was again in the Gatliburg Downtown area as we explored different flavors of whiskeys at the world famous “Ole Smokey Moonshine”. I must say the place lived upto its expectations and I felt overjoyed after visiting this place. Bhaskar and I deciced to purchase 6 different bottles of the whiskeys and divided into equal parts. Before buying the liquor though, we paid for the whiskey tasting and thoroughly loved it. The bartender was both fun and cool, helping us choose the right flavors for our palette.

The last affair of the day was Manju and I recording a “Thank You” message to Monika as it was her idea of visiting Gatlinburg during the Thanksgiving holidays. It was fun, but the trip indeed turned out to be better than we thought.

And just like that, the trip was over and we headed home the next day, to start our usual grind. It was a fun way to spend Thanksgiving with the lovely people.

Next stop: Ford Team Holiday Lunch at Dearborn, MI, USA

Week 47 (November 14 – November 20) – MJ’s Running in 2021

Week 46 was without a single run, which is the case with this and quite a few weeks before too.

This week has been a busy with the Black Friday shopping and experience the first snow with my youngest sister.

As far as running goes, I couldn’t run a single time and the total miles covered for the year remain 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this story changes before the end of the year!

See you next week!

Week 46 (November 07 – November 13) – MJ’s Running in 2021

Week 45 was the one without any miles under my belt.

This week has been all about Diwali celebrations and winterproofing my place. My entire family has been in India and they were busy throughout this week celebrating Diwali as this was the last Diwali for one of my sisters who is getting married in January. You can imagine the rush of relatives and all the preparations that go with the Indian wedding. Hush!

As far as the miles are concerned, nothing is changed as I ran 0 miles this week, totalling the number of miles in 2021 to 556.6 miles.

See you next week!

November 23, 2018 – Gatlinburg, TN, USA

After spending the first day of the Thanksgiving trip at Pigeon Forge, it was time to explore the Gatlinburg area and the mighty Smokey Mountains.

The day kicked off for me earlier than the rest of the gang. I have the habit of getting up early in the morning irrespective of the fact whether I am working or not. Today was no different. As I got up early, I grabbed my book and headed outside to explore some early morning scenes of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. I was so impressed with the upside down house at Pigeon Forge known as the WonderWorks house that I knew I had to show it to my family back in India, so, as soon as I reached the spot, which was entirely empty at 7 in the morning, I showed them the place and they were also surprised to see how realistic everything was. The real grandeur of the place can be conceived only when you see this place in person.
After showing the place to my family, I headed back to a nearby Starbucks and spent a good 30-40 minutes reading a book. It felt nice, serene, and peaceful to just spend time reading the book and sipping my favorite coffee – Pike Place Medium Roast.

After I got back from my little “stroll”, it was time to get back together with the group and start the official trip.

The first order of business was to head to the breakfast place, which was right next to our hotel. The arrangement seemed quite odd to me, but I made sure I had enough food as we had a long and busy day before us.

After the breakfast, it was time to head to the first stop of the day – exploring “Laurel Falls” which was one of the waterfalls in the Smokey Mountains. Laurel Falls was different than most waterfalls as we had to hike a little bit to get to the falls, plus, it was a paved falls, which meant that we didn’t have to go through strenuous efforts to get to the falls. Once we reached the falls, though, we had to deal with the crowd as it was flocked with so many tourists like ourselves, but, we got good view and shots at this place.

The second place to visit was the spot that I wasn’t expecting to strike a chord with me. Before visiting this place, I had just seen the documentary about it and how grand this trail was. I am talking about the “APPALACHIAN TRAIL“. When we parked our vehicles and started exploring different things that the place had to offer, little did I know that I would stumble upon the holy grail of all the trails here in the US. The history behind the Appalachian Trail is rich and filled with so many stories, but, when I saw the sign showing the path which leads to the actual trail, I didn’t have words to explain the feeling. I was feeling all the emotions at once, and it was just surreal and so unreal. All the articles that I had read about this trail and the documentary that I had watched earlier came rushing towards me and I couldn’t resist but imagining myself hiking through this trail in future. However, we did walk a few paces on the trail, but it was too cold for us to continue for a long time.
If you are in Tennessee or Smokey Mountain area, this is the spot I would highly recommend visiting.

And that brings us to the last stop of the day and that was the Downtown Gatlinburg. By the evening, we all were hungry, so the downtown area turned out to be a good place to have some delicious food after a long day of exploration. Plus, the Christmas and Holiday decoration and spirits were in full swing at this place, which buttressed our festive feelings, and it truly felt like we were vacationing in the beautiful city, surrounded by lovely people.

Next stop: Second day of exploring Gatlinburg, TN, USA