Moving to Substack

 After 17 years of writing silly stuff here, I have finally bit the bullet and I have decided to write silly stuff on Substack. I have been struggling with managing and updating my blog on blogger for a while, so I decided to move to something new and shiny and continue there.

I may not post here for the foreseable future, so if you wish to continue to subscribe to me on RSS, please follow my feed there.

I was trying to end this on a dramatic note, but well life goes on. Nothing dramatic about it. Thank you blogger for all the love and hosting me for free for so long!

The kulfi inflation index

India has had crazy amount of inflation over the last 10 years. Every time I visit, I see prices going up everywhere and things getting more expensive.

I have a friendly neighbourhood kulfi vendor who is my perfect gauge for inflation in India. That's mainly because every time I visit,  I make sure to visit his place and order a stick of kulfi. And every time without fail, his price has increased as compared to the previous year. Just for reference, his kulfi costed Rs. 5 in 2007, and as of now in 2022 it costs Rs. 50. That's a CAGR of approx. 16.59 % It is unbelievable!

The Mask un-mandate

 Long term readers of my blog know that I loved to wear masks even before wearing them was a thing (read - pre-COVID). So I sort of did not feel bad wearing masks for the last 2+ years. Besides all the other benefits of masking up, one big benefit is - I can hide my face and be fairly anonymous in a crowd.

Anyway, now most outdoor places in my vicinity are sort of asking people not to mask up anymore. This has become highly uncomfortable for social recluses like me! I hope mask wearing becomes a fashionable thing just like how we wear shoes, and people who want to wear masks are allowed to do so forever.

Change ain't easy

So I changed jobs like 7+ months ago. And if you have noticed, I totally disappeared off this blog. Not that I did not want to write, but I was lost, stressed and couldn't get a grip on all the new things I had to learn.

Not only did I change my industry, but the entire technology stack has been totally new for me. So I have been studying hard most nights and weekends to catch-up - first on the business / industry aspect of my new job, and then on the technology stack. Learning is infinite! I am still stuck in the wonder world and every new topic I read or learn takes me down a rabbit hole that I take a few days to climb out of. I have read 3 books on my industry till now, and I still feel like a total imbecile.

 

I hope you all have been doing great and enjoying the ride that is 2022. I hope to write more often in the coming months :) !!

Another year goes by ...

And just like that 2021 is over! Another year has gone by ... I had a relatively busy and not-so-disciplined last quarter of the year. That is reflected in the absence of any blog posts past October this year.

As we look forward to 2022, I am hoping we can return to at least some form of normalcy in this year (or get used to whatever the "new normal" is going to be). I hope to continue to learn, read new books, and continue on my path to a healthier lifestyle.

I wish you all a very happy new year!

Mac for the win!

 After having used Windows for all my working life, my new company forced me to switch to a Mac. I was terrified, unhappy and was not sure I would be able to cope with the switch. The first week was a nightmare, cause I had to unlearn all my shortcuts.

For starters, Mac has no backspace, no Windows Key, no Home, no End, no Page-up and no Page-down. Function keys are in the fancy touch bar and there is this key called "Command" which does most of the work. The mouse scrolls in the opposite direction, the concept of Desktops is different and there is no start menu.

Anyway, I have now been using the Mac for almost 3 weeks now, and I think I am surviving. I am confused with a lot of my shortcuts, but slowly and steadily I am getting my speed and efficiency back. The best part of learning to use Mac was to just Google search things like "How to Page Down in Mac" and you would get the right answer to your question almost always.

The interesting part though is - I hardly use any desktop tools anymore. Almost all my work is done in the Google Workspace suite. Though I am very familiar with the Office 365 suite of products, I am lucky to have also used Google Workspace extensively before.

My preliminary impression of Mac is not that extraordinarily different than Windows. Build-qualitywise Macbook pro looks definitely "cooler" than my trusty old Thinkpad X1. But that may have not been a big reason for me to change (ever).

I have almost found equivalent alternatives for all software that I used on Windows. The only problem now is that when I go back to my Windows Laptop, I mistype my shortcuts!

Email Subscriptions and RSS Feeds

Google has done it again. They have killed one more of their properties just like that. It is Feedburner this time and it affects everyone who subscribes to this blog either via email or through RSS feeds.

I have manually migrated my RSS Feeds and my Email subscribers to follow.it. However just like all IT migrations I am sure there are glitches. So if for some reason you stop getting emails or RSS Feeds from my blog, or better yet, you take the effort to re-subscribe now (by clicking here) that would save me a lot of heartache!

Thank you for patiently reading my rants all this while and I hope you continue to do so 😊

Jumping off

Every once in a while I take crazy-ass decisions in my life. Yesterday happens to be one of them. Without going into the specifics. Here is a gist of what has happened - 

• I got promoted (sorta) and I quit my current job
• I will be taking up a new job with:
• Reduced scope of work
• Lower title
• Reduced geographical coverage
• Different business model
• New Technology
• New Industry
  

So basically, I am sort of restarting my career after 16+ years of doing more or less the same stuff (pre and post MBA). I am excited (the kind of excitement when you are standing on the ledge of a 40 floored building and looking down at the street).

Coming from an eastern religious mindset (Hinduism/ Buddhism), I believe I have several lifetimes to correct the mess. If my life was a Hollywood movie, this is the time when the protagonist does something absolutely crazy. My favorite scene for this would be Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr, doing the "Show me the money bit" in Jerry Maguire (Disclaimer - I no way think that I am Tom Cruise, nor do I think I am taking the kind of risk that Jerry Maguire was taking in the movie at this point).

However, aren't we all the main characters/ protagonists/ heroes of our own life stories? So associating with Tom is fine at this time!

 

 

And why do I want to blog about this? Well, this blog is turning out to be my life story and some milestones are best left documented.

Race, Nationality and Religion

My nationality, race and religion has always been at the forefront of my "classification" within the society at home and abroad. With social media increasingly fueling people to be overly religious, xenophobic and racist, I feel that it is time to talk about these topics from a pseudo-scientific perspective without going down a slippery slope. So my dear readers, please try to read this blog post without any bias.

Nationality - By far, I think this is the easiest to identify and categorize human beings on. All you have to do is ask for their passport. But if it were that simple, then life would be easy. There are certain nations in the world that allow dual-citizenship. In that case you can have 2 nationalities (e.g. Swedish-French, American-Italian etc.). You are legally carrying 2 passports and both countries recognize you as their citizens. 

Then there are people who change their nationalities during their lifetime. For e.g. an Indian citizen can renounce their citizenship of India and become a citizen of USA etc. In that case, you have had one nationality for a few years of your life and you changed your nationality for the next few years of your life and so on.

Now, according to the very broad definition of xenophobia, it is the fear or hatred of foreigners (which would mean foreign nationals). If you decide to become a xenophobic and spew your hatred on someone, you have to make sure that they are really of a different nationality. For e.g. Anyone in the world can become an American or an Australian or a Canadian as long as they follow their immigration processes. I believe that's what the nations have been founded on. So you can't just look at a person and call them a "foreigner" and marginalize them.

This xenophobia gets even worst when people of the same nation discriminate amongst each other based on their "place of origin" in the same nation. (e.g. in India - discrimination based on the state that you "domiciled" in)

Religion - Coming from India, this is a very contentious topic. But I guess, again, religion is quite easy to understand and categorize. You follow a faith and you abide by the principles of that faith. So you could be a Catholic, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist etc. Your religious identity is very distinct from your nationality. While statistically speaking there is a higher probability of having someone from some religion coming from some nationality it is just a statistic. I mean, theoretically an entire population can decide to change their religion overnight and still maintain their nationality (in almost all countries). I do understand that some countries are formed on the basis of religion, and you are not allowed to "freely" practice another religion if you do not follow the state religion.

Race - This has been the most difficult to comprehend classification for me. As far as I have researched there is no solid-scientific basis on which to classify people into races. While we continue to desperately classify populations of people into races - this classification is inherently flawed and very difficult to prove. If you think I am wrong, I request you to comment and redirect me to credible sources on race. This classification  has caused innumerable conflicts, wars and genocides and we continue to fight amongst us on a classification that has no clear scientific basis.

The general arguments I see online sounds something like this - My ancestors came here before your ancestors, so this land belongs to me and you go "back". This argument only holds for "Nationalities". For e.g. An Indian passport holder can only live in the USA for the duration of the time that her "Visa" permits her to stay in that country. There is no argument there. And for any reason if the "relevant" authorities (The people in the immigration who determine if you are fit to stay in their country or not) decide that you have to pack your bags and go "back" (to your country of citizenship) - you have to.

Any other reason given for this argument is - xenophobic and/or racist. You can't discriminate people based on how they look, how they speak or how they dress. Human beings have existed on this planet for 150,000 years. I can confidently say that none of our 100K+ years of ancestors stayed in the same place as we stay now. You can potentially only trace back your ancestors to a few hundred years? Same goes with race. Whatever physical features of a person you see have come after 100K years of intermingling between homo-sapiens coming from around the world and evolution. Some blood-lines have had distinct features that have propagated to their off-springs, but that's about it (I am talking about skin color, eye color, shape of eyes, type of hair, height etc.)

It is time (I know this sounds so cliched) we keep these differences away and work together towards the greater good of humanity and the planet!

Minimalist Athleisure Clothing

As we continue to work from home for more than a year now, casual clothing in client meetings has now become acceptable (sort of) in my industry. I guess the tropical climate of Singapore has a part to play, as well as the fact that these days most customers also seem to be wearing t-shirts for most meetings that I video dial into.

Over the last year, I ended up converting my entire work wardrobe to athleisure clothes only. So almost all days now I wear a t-shirt and shorts for work. I am loving this comfort and as Singapore gets hotter in the next few months, I cant be more blissful.

Long term readers of my blog know that I have been generally a big fan of Uniqlo. However, recently I discovered these amazing t-shirts from H&M and I love them. So, I guess, I need to introduce them to you.

So before you judge me, I have to explain. Since I became a minimalist, I don't like to wear t-shirts with designs or witty slogans or messages. I love my t-shirts to be super plain and if possible in solid colors. The second thing about t-shirts is that - they should be able to absorb sweat (yeah tropical country - remember?). So the Sports top Muscle fit H&M t-shirts fit my description perfectly. Same fit, 7 colors, fast-drying! What else would a pseudo-minimalist ask for?

And if you are also interested in my recommendation for bottoms, then I swear by the Decathlon Trek 500 shorts. Again, they are fast-drying, very comfortable and have pockets! Most exercise shorts seem to miss pockets and I can't live without them (keys, phone, wallet)! Unfortunately, the shorts are available in only 2 colors.

So there it is - my definition of a perfect wardrobe from working to workout and everything in between. So next time if you see me in these, don't judge me, I already told you why.

Resilience

 As the COVID-19 pandemic rages in most parts of the world even after the positive news of the availability of a vaccine; it got me thinking about the resilience of our species. We have been around for at least 150,000 years (and there is a lot of evidence that we have been around for a lot more). We have had pandemics often, but we have adapted and survived.

While we wait for the medical community to come up with solutions, I am positive we will adapt and survive. That's what we have been doing all these years. So while future seems bleak, we will find a way around this as long as we remain patient and do our part.

However, I also think that we should take the COVID-19 pandemic as a wake-up call for our species to get serious about saving the planet and working towards averting climate change. This is going to be the existential challenge of the future generations, and unlike a pandemic, our species have not really seen a climate disaster of the magnitude that we are going towards.

The 500th post

This post marks a significant milestone in this insignificant blog written by a nobody.

This is my 500th post.

Wow! Never expected to be on this journey so long! While I am a procrastinator, I realize I can also be unimaginably persistent. You my dear readers have now dwindled to probably a single digit number since I started writing here more than 14 years ago. I sincerely thank you for indulging in my egocentric rants here and patiently reading whatever I have to say.

If you have been reading me for the last few years, I think these are the 4 most important ideas that have impacted me (in no particular sequence) and I believe they more or less keep repeating in one form or another in my blog posts. (A summary of sorts):

1. Minimalism
2. Fitness
   
3. Building Habits
   
4. Meditation and Mindfulness

So, 14 years, 500 posts and I hope this relationship continues - either till death (or Google) does us apart.

 

Game of Life

So I am approaching a very significant age milestone in my life. Naturally I have been ruminating about age and life in general for the past few weeks. My current understanding of the journey called "life" is a bit more gamified than before. At this stage of my life I equate it to a game.

Why do I think of life as a game now? Well, we spend first 2 decades of our life learning skills (tooling) to survive the rest of it. If we survive the first 2 decades, then we "apply" these skills and get better at it (experience). As you progress through life you collect coins (salary). The world brings obstacles in our path and based on our "knowledge" (our weapon of choice) of how to overcome the obstacle, we "solve" and move on. There is nothing truly "right" or "wrong". Whatever you do is based on your understanding of approaching life at that point in time.

As you grow older hopefully you develop more skills and/or gain more experience increase your risk appetite and the game continues. Of course there is always that probability that you do something stupid or something happens and you are terminated. The game of course only gives you 1 life (unless you believe in rebirth then you re-enter the game in a new body and start all over again - Life does not give you the possibility to save your progress mid-way unfortunately).

So if you wish to be good at this game called "Life", you need to be continuously learning and evolving. Your only weapon to survive this game is your ability (skills) to manage obstacles. The last and most important aspect is - the journey itself is the entertainment, there is nothing at the end other than the "credits" (a euphemism for game-over) which you are not really looking forward to.

The new year lull

 Wow! Feb 2021 felt like it just zoomed past. There we were celebrating the lunar new year, and here we are at the end of the month already! Working in Singapore for the last few years, I have realized - corporate business activities tend to slow down starting last week of December and then they do not pick up much momentum till after the lunar new year. Right after the lunar new year break, businesses wake up like "Oh no, Q1 is half way through (or more!) now let's race". Work tends to get crazy busy all the way till March end. So this is now "that time" of the year.

It's been almost a year since we all started working from home. Now it has become a routine, this is the new normal (yeah sounds so cliche!) but we are stuck in this now. I was a bit more disciplined with my personal schedule in the first 6-7 months of the pandemic, but now I have more or less fallen back to my old procrastinating and lazy ways.

Motivation vs. Habit

 As I grow older, I realize that motivation is difficult to sustain and if you plan to do things because you are motivated, you generally are setting yourself up for failure. Of course, there are few awesome people out there in the world who do things out of motivation and passion, but for the rest of us a lazy weekend or a bout of Netflix is enough to kill that motivation. And then being the self-proclaimed "God of procrastination" doesn't really help me much in that aspect as well.

Over the last few years, I have realized the easiest way to work towards a goal is by forming a habit. I know I have written about habits before, but I realize I understand them better; only now. If I had discovered this trick a few decades ago, I would have been a better person. Just to give you context, I will provide two examples from my life:

My company gives me access to LinkedIn Learning. It is a treasure trove of amazing videos to learn about almost anything under the sun. Now if I set a goal like "I want to get certified in xyz", it is too far-fetched and insurmountable because of the number of lessons required to be taken and the discipline/ motivation required to study through them. However, if I set a habit like - I will listen to 15 minutes of LinkedIn Learning lessons everyday, then in a matter of 1 month, I can do almost 7.5 hours of lessons - a respectable amount of time to study a lot of things (most courses are less than 12 hours).

Another example would be my resolution to read more books. Like everyone else, I am distracted, I binge watch and then I surf aimlessly. Reading books is a boring task that requires motivation and will-power. Now how about this - at the beginning of the year make a list of books you want to read. Arrange them in this order - Jan - Book 1, Feb - Book 2 etc. Then see the number of pages in Book 1 (e.g. 300). Resolve to read 10 pages a day. Viola, you can read a book in a month.

I think forming habits is the lazy man's way towards a resolution.

Me-day

 Since the start of the pandemic, one thing that is sourly missing is - vacations. Its been a very long time since we have taken any vacations. What this also means is that we have been working from home all the time every day in and out. I ended up forfeiting quite a bit of my leave at the end of 2020 (because my organization does not allow me to carry forward leaves). That's a tonne of rest and rejuvenation gone down the drain.

I decided that in 2021 I will take these one off, random personal time offs (PTOs). Relax and rejuvenate in the middle of the week just so that - I get some "me" time and I do not end up wasting my entitled leaves this year again. Vacations still seem to be a very distant dream.

I call such PTOs "Me-days". These are my days where I do what I want. It could be reading a book, going out for exercise or just go window shopping. The aim is to disconnect and not work and not do your household chores. I already managed to take 2 till now and lets see how this goes.

I feel like Me-days make me happy and help me recharge!

Thank you people

As 2020 comes to an end, I can say that this has been the most unique year of my life so far. Things have been difficult mentally and physically.

The silver lining of this year has been, I met (virtually) a lot of amazing people.

Complete strangers, long lost friends, neighbors, doctors and good samaritans went out of their way to help me when I felt helpless. Never have I ever realized before that we all are a part of an co-dependent ecosystem and humans are helping by nature. While social media is making us divisive and angry over trivial pursuits, deep down most people are fundamentally nice.

I just wish to end this year by sincerely thanking everyone who made a difference to me this year.

Thank you!

The Magical Chair

So I served a 14-day quarantine order in a hotel in Singapore for doing a crazy airline trip to India and back in the pandemic. While, I do not have much to say other than the fact that I am pleasantly surprised by the chain of events I had to go through. I am "glass half-full" kind of guy. I felt that the 14 days in a hotel room were my most productive days ever. I went in with a mission to not waste my time in there, and I feel like I accomplished it.

I was not allowed to step out the hotel room, and there was nothing else I could really do. I just want to highlight that in my quarantine I found this magical chair that was kept outside my door that auto-magically had breakfast, lunch and dinner 3 times a day at exactly 08:00 AM, 12:00 PM and 6:00 PM without me doing anything about it. All I had to do was open the door, and the food would magically appear on the seat. I wanted to bring it home, but unfortunately, the hotel did not allow. So I wish to salute the chair on my blog for eternity.

The chair was mostly very health conscious, so I got healthy food (tasty was a hit or miss - but I generally have no expectations from the food I eat). I have put a photo of one of the tasty foods I received from the chair once.

Chicken Rice

Another interesting aspect of the chair was, every lunch it would give me a small pastry that I would then ruminate over around 4 PM with a coffee to complement it.

The quest for a red shirt

Christmas is coming. While nothing has really changed with the COVID and WFH situation, my organization has decided to celebrate Christmas virtually. One of the "asks" is to wear something red to suit the occasion. Christmas's and Santa's association with the red color is the work of art of the Coca-cola marketing department. Brilliant indeed. However, we talk about it some other time.

After browsing through my big wardrobe (or even before browsing through it), I realized that I only carry shades of black (Black, Blacker and Blackest) for informal t-shirts and shades of blue for my formals. Thinking hard now, it has dawned on me that if you are a man living in Singapore, you need to have at least 1 red t-shirt in your closet. Hold your horses to read why.

The 3 biggest occasions that are celebrated en-masse in Singapore are - Christmas, Lunar New Year and the Singapore National Day. Tradition demands that you wear red on all these occasions (Coca-cola is not responsible for the association of red with the Lunar New Year by the way - they just got lucky there!).

So after years of refraining from buying bright colors, I have succumbed to the idea that I need a red. So you shall see me in red hopefully at least 3 times in the year going forward.

The irony of hindsight

 So 17/Nov/2020 we quietly celebrated the first anniversary of the discovery of COVID-19 on WhatsApp. I think that date is disputed and based on this article by SCMP. WHO declared its existence to the world only on 31/Dec/2019. As I look back, I find it ironic that I took a day off on 31st December of 2019 to celebrate the end of a decade and the start of a new one! We had no clue of how bad this pandemic is going to be all the way till Feb 2020!

As we prepare to look forward to the last month of 2020, I do not see hope in things improving any faster. Outbreaks continue, lock-downs are common place and travel, tourism and a host of other related activities are a distant memory. While we all await the vaccine with bated breath, my pessimistic mind says, it ain't gonna happen so soon. And then distributing the vaccines across the globe is going to be another "unprecedented" logistics nightmare!

I remember reading articles and thinking about "Vision 2020" and "How will the world be in 2020" a few decades ago. No where did we talk about locking ourselves in our homes, wearing masks, avoiding people and working our a$$ off from home. But here we are in 2020 now, and that is the new normal.