Vanditaa's blog

Technology has changed so much around us in the past few years, isn’t it? From getting miraculously connected to each other through phones, we have grown multifold since the time mobiles were first introduced. Internet, international connectivity, google search, and social media, we seem to have travelled ahead at the speed of light. While many of us were still adapting to all of this, a big word- artificial intelligence started circulating. Intelligence and artificial, look like two opposite words that have been joined together , is what came to my mind when I first heard about it. Before I could know, this technology, now popular as AI had already infiltrated many apps and websites. Someone asked me if I use ChatGPT, and I got partially shocked to discover what it was. In between all this lately, there was another popular news that mentioned how an MIT graduate had invented a device that could read your mind. He mentioned how it could google questions within your mind and order a p...

A recent Instagram post by a well-known celebrity writer read “They should give away free birth control pills on all airlines as a public service.” I juggled for a long time to understand what it meant, but couldn’t until I saw the only hashtag the writer had used as a caption beneath, #annoyingchildrenonboard. This post came after almost a week of relaxing and luxurious holiday that he had in Thailand. As most of the posts by this writer are relatable, at times funny and witty, it took me a while to comprehend what he had written. How could he post such a thing ? I thought, and scrolled through the comments section. In the comments I saw outpouring negativity for little children and their parents inside airplanes. “It’s so irritating!” one comment read, “I wanted to sleep peacefully on my three-hour flight, but the child behind just couldn’t shut up. Why do people produce when they can’t teach their children basic etiquette!!!” “So relatable,” read another, “an annoying baby was cryin...

One I marvel at the clarity that most young adults have nowadays with respect to their careers. Because well, I was an ever-confused young adult; or wait, maybe not. I belong to a family of more or less medicos. Starting from my paternal and maternal grandparents, to my mom, dad, most maternal and paternal uncles, and aunts, we are a family of a wide array of different medical specialists. From dining table discussions about patients to some doctor-patient talk, which I used to overhear while doing my homework in my mom’s clinic; my subconscious mind had accumulated enough data to evoke the hidden medico in me. Thus, I always knew I wanted to be a doctor, a cardiologist if I can be specific. Opting biology and reading text for the premedical entrance examination thus came naturally to me. Clearing the examination with an average rank, good enough to fetch me a college which could grant me a degree, but not as great so as to get me the top-notch colleges then followed. “...

  I have been thinking of writing this article for the past many weeks, ever since I saw a 16–17-year-old girl who makes Instagram reels in her local language and has gained many followers on that platform, interviewed by the head editor of a newspaper in his office. Does making funny reels, or having followers on social media make us so important, that we get to sit in an editor’s room for an interview? I thought first. If this girl is been made the hero for what she is doing now, how will she sustain to be a hero in the future, is what I thought second? And, does being a hero just need you to sit at home, and post? That is what I thought third. Our society stands on some deep foundations that have been laid down over a long period of years. It has been with the struggle and work of the great things done in the past that we have been able to reach where we are today. Be it technology or medicine, be it literature or art, the roots of all of these have evolved with years of learn...

Apart from what Covid took away from us, there has been a sad rise in deaths of the younger lot because of other health reasons too. It’s no more uncommon to hear about deaths because of heart attack or other medical reasons at a younger age. Be it any profession or any gender such unfortunate loss of lives is not rare anymore. Times have certainly changed. Our lifestyles are not the same anymore and our priorities have changed drastically. We live in a world where everything is possible, there are no limits to anything, and rules or discipline? Well! We have our own set of rules and love to break them too. We have created our own world of disorder. We want to stay the same throughout our lives; because we have stopped believing in aging too. To stay young at heart is a popular saying. Keeping the good part of it, which relates to staying jovial and fun-loving aside, we do have to understand that every cell of our body is aging every single day. Stressing over every single thing, follo...

  You maybe surprised to know that I have named my own self! Not because I didn’t like what my parents named me, but I accidentally uttered Vandita when the principal of the school where I was getting my admission done asked my name. Ever since I have known this, I used to wonder if my life would have been any different if I was rather called Nalini which was the name that was originally given to me by my parents. I have asked myself bizarre questions like, would I have had a different fate? Would I have bonded with different people? And so on and so forth. It was only with passing years that I realized that the only difference that it could have made in my life technically, would have been the position in which I appeared for my regular vivas during exams. My life in general would have been the same otherwise. It wasn’t until recently but, that I had to question the importance of a name in one’s life all over again after I starting calling my son by a not so unique or a rather co...