From the Editor’s Desk

5 December 2021

Happy Diwali (belatedly) to one and all. Hope this Diwali brought a little cheer to everyone’s life.

Kashmiris have always been known as a community of career-orientated and ambitious people. Over the decades, post our exodus from Kashmir, we have continued to grow professionally and some of us have even ventured away from the traditional, tried and trusted, ‘safe’ professions of medicine, engineering, or civil services. In this issue of ISBUND, we showcase some of these professional journeys and kickstart a series of issues sharing our stories and expertise and focusing on our youth, so they can choose to learn a little more about what we do and we, in turn, can mentor them to support their growth. As expected, we have a plethora of professional journeys and stories to cover, ranging from success stories within conventional areas to those that have chosen the path less travelled and yet achieved heights of excellence. 

We will open this with the illustrious and much celebrated journey of Dr Mohan Kaul and then present stories of diverse paths some of us have chosen.We would like to emphasise that these accomplishments are presented in no particular order- they are simply presented on the basis of the timing we received verbal or written input. There are many more interesting stories in our pipeline that you can read in our upcoming issues so do await all with bated breath! What does come through in this issue (albeit completely unintentionally) is how many women we have to celebrate. We can all be proud of our Kashmiri heritage, where women never came second.

In our last issue of ISBUND, we introduced the AUGUST MILLION STEPS CHALLENGE. We had such enormous positive participation that our initial target was knocked off in a few days and the revised target was exceeded. Needless to say, the challenge has ever since been rolled over each month with new fun bits added and enthusiasm has anything but waned. Collectively so far, we have amassed more than 24 million steps and we are still going strong. Some of us have regularly clocked over 30,000 steps a day and sometimes even a whopping 50,000 steps a day. Physical and mental well-being is such an important aspect of our life and we could not be any prouder to have achieved this massive feat of encouraging and motivating our friends and family to keep going, even if the weather Gods have not always been on our side. SO WELL DONE ALL !!.

Continuous improvement has always been our motto for life and ISBUND is no exception. We will be introducing some changes to how we communicate with the community and implement this in our media platforms too. Please watch this space in 2022 to see how this is rolled out. We are trying to not make everyone wait a quarter for the next issue. DIGITAL is the way forward and we are trying to embrace it as well which we are sure you will agree with. Needless to say, if you prefer your copy to be delivered to you in a different way, please let us know and we will always aim to cater to your requirements. 

That takes me to our next big announcement. For us to embrace this digital journey we will need someone who leads the path for us and bring new ideas to the table. Shivani and I are happy to announce that Anjan Raina will be part of Team ISBUND and help us navigate this complex matrix. You can read more about Anjan in his own words in this issue.

Finally, it’s that time of the year again!!! Time to spend with friends and families, to rejoice and rejuvenate, to introspect on what has been, to devour all things heavenly, and to bid adieu to the year that was so much better than the last but not our best yet. 

Here’s wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year!

Best wishes

Sheetal, Shivani, Anjan

(Team ISBUND)

Read the full issue here.