Mandira Kala

Leadership Coach | building | because better humans make better leaders | my lived experience as former Head of Research @prslegislative

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

Leaders deal with loneliness trying to meet expectations. Experiencing an overwhelming sense of stuckness, while doing her best.

Unknowingly, humans fall victim to the brain’s ideas, constructs, & rules of who you are, what you are capable of – justifying your assumptions.

[Darab Farooqui @darab_farooqui]

I have to say this, @_YogendraYadav, in this clip, has Bruce Lee'd Chuck Rahul Kanwal Norris in the brutal "way of the dragon"

[Pistol 5.0 @payoshnis]

I never ever want to read another hit job on Rahul Gandhi or calling him names like Pappu. His Bharat Jodo yatra clearly jodo-ed something in broken Bharat and his ever media appearance has been authentic and reassuring.

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

So much heart in this post...

what it means to be human and make choices on what matters based on that...

not wearing the identity we wear in society and letting it override who we are at the Core - just humans who know how to love and when that's the only thing that matters.

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

This is a beautiful letter from Fiona Apple explaining to her fans why she must postpone a concert date.

I am impressed at the way she was instantly able to make the decision to choose love over her career. Indeed, the world needs more of this.

Enjoy the story...

“It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog, Janet, and she's been ill for about 2 years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now. I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then — an adult, officially — and she was my kid.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight, or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We've lived in numerous houses, and joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me, all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks, every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it more dangerous for her to travel, since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is my best friend, and my mother, and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying.

Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.
Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship.

I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable and comforted and safe and important.

I need to do my damnedest, to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and I am revelling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing.
I'll be seeing you.

Love,
Fiona”

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

@surerao @payoshnis Hey - would love to connect - my email is [email protected]

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

@payoshnis @surerao you are too kind, Payo!

[How India Lives @Howindialives]

The first part of the Data Journalism Accelerator Program conducted by @Howindialives with support from @GoogleNewsInit ended last Saturday. We had 20 journalists from as many publications and 13 locations took part. (1/5)

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

@EmergingRoy ❤️💪

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

@Shrabonti if you've seen Anupam Kher as Rabindranath Tagore, you've seen everything, right?

[Yamini Aiyar @AiyarYamini]

A statement

[John Reed @JohnReedwrites]

Climate graphic of the week: Asia’s prolonged April heatwave concerns scientists https://t.co/D7g27dDnd6

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

@Shrabonti Lol. I remember the day this happened. How blissfully unaware your friend was of the blue tick and eons of effort it took to get there. Another era..

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

@Shrabonti @BengaliByTheBay please note.

[menaka doshi @menakadoshi]

This is the risk we run in reporting court arguments like a sport.

Conversations meant to distill points of law become headlines.

Judges should feel free to ask all kinds of questions, discuss all points.

If that gets inhibited...

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

@monikamanchanda Oh gosh - this looks so yum and comforting on this cloudy dreary day. Add a papad and chilli pickle and you are in heaven. Ufff why does comforting food have carb caution written all over it! 😢😢

[Anuradha SenGupta @anuradhasays]

Don’t understand why these incidents of passengers urinating on other passengers or their seats is being treated as an issue between two passengers. Doesn’t the airline in this case @airindiain care that passengers are urinating at will in their aeroplanes? What an I missing?

[SBS News @SBSNews]

Watch NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pick apart this reporter's question during a joint press conference with Finnish PM Sanna Marin. He asked the pair 'are you two meeting because you're similar in age and got a lot of common stuff there?'
Read more: https://t.co/eTtJEqJoFZ

[ravish kumar @ravish_journo]

माननीय जनता,

मेरे होने में आप सभी शामिल हैं। आपका प्यार ही मेरी दौलत है। आप दर्शकों से एकतरफ़ा और लंबा संवाद किया है। अपने यू- ट्यूब चैनल पर। यही मेरा नया पता है। सभी को गोदी मीडिया की ग़ुलामी से लड़ना है।

आपका
रवीश कुमार

https://t.co/39BKNJdoro

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

@asurendranath @P39A_nlud Congratulations Anup - this is such an incredible recognition of years of belief led hard work! Congratulations to the team as well.

[Mandira Kala @MandiraKala]

@atiyabose @mackenziescott @Aangan_Trust Congratulations to you and the team, Atiya! This is such wonderful news.