rajchawla

I am 82, of East-Indian origin, a Canadian resident since 1970, and a citizen. After completing my first master's in mathematical statistics from Delhi University, teaching there for a year, and working for another fifteen months at the National Bureau of Applied Economic Research, I left New Delhi in September 1965 on a small scholarship offered by the British Council of Social Sciences for another master's in econometrics and quantitative methods from Manchester University (U.K.). After successfully completing this degree, moved on to Bristol University to pursue further research to get a doctorate and teach statistics to graduate students. I didn't receive the doctorate degree as the examiner wanted some changes made in the unsupervised thesis, for which I had no more time, and neither did I have a supervisor. After a little over three years in Bristol, I won a public competition for a job at the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, now known as Statistics Canada. I came to Ottawa (Canada) on January 16, 1970, and joined the Bureau on January 19th. During my tenure at Statistics Canada, I was engaged in research on the earnings, incomes, wealth, expenditures, and labour market participation of Canadians. Comparing Canadians' situation with those in other countries like the United States was always closer to my heart. The media, researchers, and policymakers in both the public and private sectors including banks and other financial institutions well received the findings of my research, published by Statistics Canada, as part of federal government studies. Over a little over four decades at Statistics Canada, I published about 100 comprehensive reports and analytic papers. Even my last paper, a week before my retirement from Statistics Canada on March 30th, 2012, made quite a wave in the media, including the New York's Dow Jones paper. See the full list of my published and unpublished work on my site and in Appendix III of my book titled "A Writer's Journey Through the Bureaucratic Maze: A True Account". As an analyst, I have good quantitative, and analytic skills, well-versed with social, demographic, and economic issues affecting households. I have a good working knowledge of SAS, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. My special areas of interest/expertise, as reflected by these publications, included employment and earnings by gender, dual-earner families, income/wealth distributions, inequality, savings behaviour in terms of types of assets held and debts owed, consumption expenditure, and public and private pensions. One of the highlights of my career at Statistics Canada has been the opportunity to be a member of the team visiting the World Bank in Washington to present a proposal on conducting income and other surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa - a part of a developmental project partly backed by Canada. After retirement, I changed my interest to writing fiction/non-fiction and also created a blog site with posts on current social, demographic, and economic topics. I keep each post to 1,000 - 1,500 words for short and easy comprehension. I began writing my debut erotic romance fiction on April 25, 2014 and witnessed its release in both digital and print versions by Amazon.com on August 4, 2016. This is a story of a young man searching for a woman as he moved from continent to continent. My second book - non-fiction - titled "A Writer's Journey Through the Bureaucratic Maze: A True Account" was released in June 2017. This is the story of my survival as an introverted researcher/writer in a bureaucracy where street-smartness overrides hard work and personal productivity. My introverted, creative, prodigious but loner personality sunk my career in public service. I released my third book - a fiction - titled "Minimum Payment" in June 2018. This fiction contains a heart-touching tale of families ravaged by rising personal debt on the one hand, and the changes in the job market due to the surging technology and outsourcing of jobs, on the other. I wrote these books under the pen name - 'Paul Shona'. All three books are available in both digital and paper versions on Amazon.com. These are also available at Ottawa Public Library (OPL). One can borrow a book(s) for three weeks at a time; unlimited renewals are allowed. The first two books were quoted in the short write-up in the August 3rd, 2017 issue of Orlean's Community News. Also, in October 2017, I was interviewed on my book "A Writer's Journey Through the Bureaucratic Maze: A True Account." Its transcripts are available at my site www.rajchawla6.com and on my Facebook page 'Quest for Second Sex'. I am working hard on learning about the marketing of books. Many writers are not that good marketers. I am no exception. However, sooner or later, I am going to find my niche. Marketing is not new to me. I ran a mail-order business for almost ten years, selling skill development products on books, audio, and videos. Skills ranged from riding a mountain bike, and use of a sewing machine, to extinguishing fires in oil wells. I sold products from coast-to-coast. This business venture, which taught me a lot about marketing, pricing, and public relations, was eventually closed because of the advent of the Internet - as nobody wanted to pay for something freely available online. I firmly believe in volunteering time to help the community. I have served as chair of the PTA and School Council of schools that my kids attended. Also served as a trustee and chair of the Township of Cumberland's public library; one of the directors of the board overseeing Cumberland's public housing. I also served as a trustee of the Southern Ontario Library Services board. For eight years (2014 - 2022), I was a member of the Ottawa Health Science Network Research Ethics Board (OHSN-REB) of the province of Ontario, overseeing the ethical and methodological issues relating to the clinical trials conducted by hospitals including Ottawa's renowned Heart Institute. Effective September 2016, I was equally involved in Ontario-wide clinical trials (CTO). I found this work quite challenging and mentally stimulating. But my real love of writing continues. I am hoping to write a few more books including the one providing a true account of my beloved wife's valiant struggle with a glioblastoma brain tumour (grade IV). The merciful God relieved her of all the pain and suffering by sheltering her under His own wings on February 11, 2019. I miss her deeply. After losing my dear wife, I have been going through some rough patches. I have been a victim of heart failure twice between October 2020 and January 2021 and fractured my lower spine in October 2021. These illnesses have very much slowed me down as I am living with an implanted pacemaker to keep my heart beating properly and walking with the help of a cane or a walker. Now I write when my body allows me to write and not when I want to. I am persistently pursuing my writing interest. As a writer, I keep writing to preserve my creativity, passion, and serenity. This also makes me get up each morning with the purpose to complete a task left incomplete the day before. I can be reached on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.