Welcome  to my site

I am a muddled collection of multiple roles, the predominant ones currently being writer, blogger, and resource person for dementia/ caregiving in India.

I write stories that insist on coming out, even if they get mangled in the process. I write serious stuff and fun stuff as part of my professional work and my volunteer work. I write about personal things that touch me, and things that make me wonder. And when I am puzzled, I write to understand things.

Writing helps.

For well over a decade I was the primary caregiver for my mother, who had dementia; caregiving work, worries, and insights formed a major part of my mind-share and timeshare. Caregiving for dementia is difficult in India because of very poor awareness, and the lack of support and systems for dementia care, and I therefore faced challenges on multiple fronts. I coped alone with these for many years, then got involved enough to start conducting awareness programs and provide caregiver training. I set up websites in English and Hindi aimed specifically at dementia caregivers in India: Dementia Care Notes, an extensive website for caregivers handling dementia patients in India and the Hindi version, Dementia Hindi. While my mother has passed away (relevant blog entry here) I continue to support dementia caregivers in India through multiple means.

I also blog on WordPress about dementia and caregiving and life choices; this includes a blogfest I do every year where I blog every day through January. In addition to this, I have shared some of my overall caregiving experiences and my suggestions for other caregivers on these pages on this site.

Since I have been preparing material that could be useful to other volunteers, I recently decided to share these documents and presentations through a special section on this site at Resources for volunteers helping caregivers.

Speculative fiction fascinates me, and I delve in it whenever I can. Some years ago, I was deeply involved in writing short speculative fiction (and all the fun reading I could justify as “research”). I even managed some sales, including some professional sales. I am an SFWA member, too. Information about my creative work can be found here, part of the section where I have pages on writing fiction and non-fiction. My current involvement in dementia care work currently absorbs most of my energy, but I keep trying to squeeze out slivers of time for this activity. Sometimes, I manage.

As part of my professional work (software consultant, trainer and author), I have, over the years, written books on process and quality, and also published a business novel, Aligning Ferret: How an Organization Meets Extraordinary Challenges. The story uses a crisis in a fictional organization to explore concepts of strategy and performance management systems for organization-wide alignment. What made it fun to write was creating and depicting a very normal ‘hero’ who faces extraordinary challenges at work even as he struggles for that ever-problematic work-and-home-life balance. No stodgy, preachy stuff here. I’m thrilled to see the book getting good reviews.

For other updates, on the small and random parts of my life, I (very) occasionally post on my other blog, Zigzag Musings.

On the personal side, hmmm. I live in Bangalore, India, with my family. My son, Vipul Naik,  is currently enrolled in the graduate studies programme at The University of Chicago. Hubby Rajesh Naik is a consultant, juggles a lot, and also blogs at Alignmentor.

And I love dark chocolate (you mean there are people who don’t?). I also love reading books and taking long walks when time permits. I am at my creative best while finding excuses, I mean reasons, to avoid socializing. My personality type is INFJ, which matches well with hubby (ENFP) and son (INFP).