26 April 2026
Starbucks, Versova
As I start writing this, I dont have any large thoughts. But I do have notes that I want to expand into this post, I do have a track that I want to share with the world, I have my usual list of things that I want to work on, I do have a few things that I want to boast about and I do have many other tricks up my slave. But I dont feel like writing.
And this is strange. Since I can remember Since 2006 at least, writing has been my catharsis. And while there have been periods of ups and downs, I’ve never ever felt like not writing.
But then, we shall prevail. One of the best writing lessons I’ve ever got is this – rather than waiting for inspiration to strike you, make writing your bitch and command it when you want to.
So here we are.
The track of the week is this. I must’ve heard this a 100 times since last week.
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☁️ Highlights, reflections, updates, notes and thoughts from the last week
1/ The Gate of Years
I saw this play titled The Gate of Years by Keneth Desai.
At Rangshila.
And I have to say, it was one of the best I’ve seen ever. And since I was seeing a play after a while, I had high expectations. Needless to say, Kenny delivered. A punch and a performance. So good that I wanted to leave everything and fling myself to the world of theatre.
The play had everything going for it. Based on The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, the story is an exchange between Fuwaad ibn Abbas, a merchant and Bashaarat, a shop owner selling curios from the ancient times. Kenny did a one-person adaption and had me spellbound for almost 90 minutes. I was so moved that I even wrote a Linkedin post about it.
I mentioned on the linkedin post and I want to write here as well.
Of all the inexplicable things in the world, the largest mystery that I am confounded by is the reason why people do theatre. They definitely don’t make money. They are glad if they get audience (for this fabulous piece, Kenny had like 10 people in attendance (and one of the audience members was none other than Naseer Sir)). They are not covered on the front pages of any tabloids. Of all the raison d’êtres that us humans chase, theatre offers none!
Someday, I’d like to ask some theatre folks.
Anyhow.
Lemme talk about Naseer Saab for a bit.
Once upon a time, I was so close to working with him on a film that I could touch the set and feel the air with anticipation. A friends friend pitched the project to Shikha and I. And we latched onto it. We made good progress. We did a few meetings with Naseer Sir (yeah, I’ve been in a 1v1 room with him), spent some money on location scouting (to places like Indore and all that), met the studios (Jio etc), financiers and all that. All in hopes of getting the film. But we couldn’t. There are versions of story on why we couldn’t (and my version is not the most kind), but lets not talk about that.
The point is, if I had run a deliberate life back then, I would probably have had a film with Naseer Sir. If a few years later, I had lived a deliberate life, I would have had a film company. If… would… could… have had… sigh!
Someone needs to slap some sense into me.
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2/ NMG Grant
Thej announced the winners of NMG Grant for the year. He (and friends) granted a total of more than 5.5 lakhs to 10+ people for projects ranging from healthcare to maps to wikipedia to animals to music.
The full list is here.
If you are someone with some capital to spare and want to support young people with microprojects, do consider supporting Thej and NMG.
PS: At a point I wanted to start a grant of my own (see SoG Grant) but I was not able to put attention / focus to it. It has always remained a “someday” project and each time Thej issues the grant, I am inspired to copy it.
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3/ MJO
This past week I re-discovered my love for Saurabh Shukla’s MJO.
I dont know what is it about this series that I love the most. The Indian-ness (more of UP-ness), animation, dialogues, animation, background score or a combination there of. Or maybe how Saurabh Shukla talks about himself in each video.
Do see it.
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4/ Valuation Business vs Cashflow Business
This is one of those questions that needed an answer.
Lemme start with definitions.
Valuation Business is where you are valued at gazillion dollars, irrespective of the revenue or profit. This is largely driven by investments in the business (either by VCs or by other such parties).
Cashflow businesses are the ones where no one wants to invest but you make a lot of money and use that money to scale. Gravity was a cashflow business. A grocery store is a cashflow business. C4E is a cashflow business. The business throws some free cash flow that is available to folks at C4E to use.
So, all my life I wanted to build a business that create a large impact (you know, impacts a billion people) and I thought an easy way to do so is via a valuation business (after all, if you lean on VCs, you get to deliver to a larger set of audience). But with time I am learning that there could be merit in the freedom that you you get when you work for yourself and work on a business that throws free cash-flow at you. And that ladies and gents is the big revelation of the week.
Ofc it may not allow me to build a thing that delivers large impact. But may be, at this time, I need some freedom and some wings?
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4/ Other minor updates
Here are some notes and updates from the week gone by.
- Spoke to a few friends about the idea of being a sparring partner to founders and CEOs. Got some interesting feedback. Will sharpen that.
- Talked to my people at C4E about my attempt at finding something to work on. So far, I am drawing a blank (I do have some ideas but none of them is close to fruition) but I remain hopeful. If nothing else, I will pick up events and get to it.
- Spent time with Rana Sir and learnt about how large businesses take shape. I am realizing that I dont understand a lot about how to run large businesses.
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📸 Photos from the week gone by
Stopped this as few weeks ago. In case you want to get photos from me, DM me.
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📊 Trackers…
Here’s my trackers…
And here’s the mood…
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✅ Action on LARGE objectives for the year
In this section, I will capture my progress on large objectives for the year.
In 2026, I plan to do the following three things…
- Book2
- Human Flag Pole
- Save a million dollars
No action in the last week on any of these goals.
So, no progress and no update.
Plus I hadn’t seen these in a few weeks. So at least am back to tracking these.
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📌 So, what did I get done last few weeks? And what will I do next week?
This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.
So, this year, I want to track the following…
- Health. I will work on sleep, food and movement. Slowly getting back to a sleep routine.
- C4E / Work. I want to shortlist some idea that I want to work on. No answer. I have given myself a hard deadline of 30th April 2026. Either I will find an idea or I will work on whatever my people tell me to. So far, no idea. But I am moving in some direction.
- Brand SG / Distribution. No action on this.
- People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc). No action.
- Book2. I want to start with this. No action.
- Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc). No action.
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🏃🏽♂️Health
I added Health as a key section last year. I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long – sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me. Let’s see what comes out.
No action again.
I mean I didnt track or actively think about it.
I want to keep this live cos this makes me think.
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⏳ Reminders from last few days
This section captures things that I want to not forget. I add those to SG’s Office. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates. I am revisitng htis after a while
A few things.
- Update C4E’s Culture Book. This is still WIP.
- C4E’s website. This is new.
I have a suspicion that this list will grow and will become unmanageable in a few weeks. I will find a solution when I get to it. For the time being, here’s a sheet where I track my actions.
Here are the things that I’ve closed previously…
Start a podcast with C and AK. This remains open and will probably get shut. I dont see the excitement in the three of us.Storytelling presentation for the session on the 7th March. I missed this. And I will do this in March. Maybe on the 28th or the 29th? I missed this again. I dont think am doing this. So closing and moving on.
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🗓️ So, one thing that defines the past week?
Blur. Again.
The other words for this year have been: Whiling, Movement, Blur, Activity, Movement, Regular (again), Regular, Easy, Journey, Downtime.
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Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.
Oh, and this too shall pass!
PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. Previous editions:
PPS: Please do point typos.
PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.
PPPPS: I am not really happy about this update. But I guess we will live with this and aspire to do better in the next one.