Jul 28, 2025, Monday, 8 AM I am not in the best of health but I have to write. Am trying to be consistent. And since I couldnt write yesterday, it had to be done. Also, if I dont write now, I will not be able to and that means I will have to skip. And that’s not happening.
So, lets go.
As always, some sections that I will talk within.
Oh, and listening to this. On loop.
.
💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week
PS: As always, these are not in any order.
.
a/ Anshika + the muscle to ship. Read this. See this. And I wish I could show you a 100 things that AK shipped in the last few days. I need that energy around me. The kid has been so good with juggling all balls the last two weeks. It’s incredible. She’s eating healthy, going to the gym, showing up and all that.
That’s it. Nothing more to say.
.
b/ Session at IIM Mumbai Took a session for some folks at IIM Mumbai. These folks are from some MSME board and this was a continuation learning program for them. I didnt really enjoy taking the session but I think it was interesting for them. I could see that they were engaged. Just that it was tough to get folks to open up and talk.
Also, I realised that I love teaching. And for more than anything else, the questions that come my way are the ones that I cherish more than anything else. This slide from Vishal Khandelwal on Dr Feynman defines the why and how…
.
I need to find more opportunities to teach. But then I dont want to not work either. So, the conundrum. Sigh.
But I would love to teach nonetheless. Come on, universe.
.
c/ Chatter on longevity Since I got myself a FOXO membership, I’ve been reading and thinking about longevity. Plus I read this long piece on Bryan Johnosn. And this online chatter on twitter. See twotweets.
It’s incredible that all it took was one person to literally spawn so much chatter. It’s probably these unreasonable people that move moutains and push us forward.
I need to learn how to become unreasonable like that. Any clues anyone?
.
d/ Poker Have put about 2000 bucks on online poker the last few days.
More than anything, I find it insanely enjoyable. If there was no chase of largeness or greatness, I would just do this! I’ve played micro stakes cash games and some micro stakes tourneys. I continue to suck at cash games. In tourneys, I’ve got to ITM a few times.
Oh, I also trained a chat on chatGPT into becoming my poker coach. No, its not helping. Cos I’ve lost most of the 2K I had put in : D
.
e/ Events Wrote this on Twitter. Reproducing it here with minor edits.
.
Overshare coming. I’ve had one of the most transcendental moments of my life.
Last time I felt like that, it was in 2021 and I was en route to the Everest Base Camp. The sight of the sun rising from behind the clouds, mountains, early in the morning left me awe struck.
Coming back.
I normally dont cry. I escape. If I have to, I walk in the rain.
But today, since I woke up, I’ve cried twice. Both to the music of ARR. I dont know if it’s caused it or it was the last straw on the camel’s back. You know, causation or correlation. A lot’s been happening lately, and just say whatever is happening is not routine for me, and I know a lot is bubbled inside of me.
So, this happened as I stepped out of the shower. I had put on some music. And the algorithm of YT played ARR’s Berklee piece. And it played Kun Faya Kun.
.
The first time, I was listening to the aalap about Ali (see from 6:28 for about a minute). The aalap is followed by one of the greatest lines ever written about spirituality, bhakti, devotion, submission, ask, request or whatever you want call it.
It goes, “mujh pe karam sarkar tera, araz tujhe, karde mujhe, mujh se hi riha”
This “mujh se hi riha” is like the epitome of self-actualisation. I dont know if I will ever be there. But in those few seconds I didn’t have pain, didn’t have a want, dint have a worry, dint even probably have a self. I was probably what they call “the one”. I will never know.
The second time was when YT played Vande Mataram after a bit. And this happened around the lines, “tu hi zindagi hai, tu hi meri mohabbat hai, tere hi pairo me jannat hai, tu hi dil, tu hi jaa” etc.
This time, the lines were not important. Important was the way the two performers looked at ARR.
See this first.
.
These ladies looked at him not once, but probably for all the time they shared the stage.
In their eyes and body language, and the entire being, I saw awe, devotion, respect, want, love, submission and everything else that you can imagine. All for ARR.
When I was growing up, I’ve always wanted to have that North Star to submit to. To guide me home. Or a large super nova to suck me towards it (astronomy nerds, please tell me what is the strongest force that pulls you? Black holes? Supernovas?). Never found one.
Rather, I took comfort in many many stars, all shining bright, and I navigated through those. I still do. I am glad and grateful that I have many folks who’ve agreed to be my guiding lights. You know, shoulders of giants. I am nothing without them. I would have never seen what I’ve seen if I didnt have their shoulders to stand on.
And as I grow up and start to think about the meaning of life and the universe and my life of potential (jiska aachar bhi nahi dal raha) etc etc, I realised that I have this insane need to help others see the light.
I dont know why. I dont know if I am capable. I dont know if I am good. I dont know what it even means.
But that. Phew. Glad I wrote.
Oh, and no I dont think I let out 100%. I will need more such sessions. I dont know when it would happen next time. The last one was almost 4 years ago when I was in a different funk (life’s much better now and I am thankful for that). But I know I need at least one more such outpouring.
And yes, I am ok. 100% there. I haven’t lost it. I still want to make a billion dollars (should upgrade to trillion) and impact the lives of a billion people. And I still want chaand taare and all that (thanks, SRK, Abhijeet and others).
.
f/ long term games C read TNKS and reminded me about the thank you page.
And it stuck me that the page dates back to 2013 or 2012 or something. And even though it’s been 10+ years, I am still in touch with a lot of those folks that I’ve credited in the book! Talk about long-term games. Naval would be proud of me.
.
g/ Gravity Crew. Mrs Mohan. Anna and others. Recently, Anna’s son got married. And the team from Gravity went to attend the wedding. While I was aware of it and had seen some pics, I was amazed to see a pic of Mrs Mohan and Anna on Roshan Abbas’ insta!
I have nothig but fond memories of the kindness of Mrs Mohan while I was there. She operated with grace, took care of the entire mad house and was one of the glues that kept the “greatest force known to mankind” ticking.
.
h/ what ChatGPT / Claude thinks about me. The other day, I asked some LLMs what they thought about me. Here’s what they had to say. Here – Claude. Perplexity.
I am embedding a few things…
.
.
.
i/ the second screen So, I use a second screen at home. And I think, the additional monitor is game changer. To a point that I am thinking that I will get another monitor (so, two extra screens).
But then, I dont work from home. Or may be I will start to work from home? Actually, the thing is, more than work or home or screens, I dont want to be tethered. I dont want my things to end up owning me. So, I want to take a hard look and rethink. The easy answer is to avoid attachment in case I have to leave. But the investment and the thinking that goes alongside.
I would like to post the following photo on the blog. This is the homepage of a website. 100% marks for the copy. Thanks to Nimchan for letting me know about this. I love that my community tells me about things that I need to know about.
.
🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by?
Book 2 – no action. I will not drop this. I know I am gonna be busy I think I love the feeling of writing things. So that.
PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago. This is after probably 10 years that I dont have an yearly plan!
.
☑️ What did I get done last 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.
Health
Meru
C4E
Brand SG
People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
Book2
Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)
Health. No action. I will give myself a -1 on this. I am starting a new regimen from today. Let’s see how is the next week.
Meru. Was busy. But I dont think I moved the needle as much as I would have liked to. -1.
C4E. No action from my side. 0.
Brand SG. No action. And no action does not mean 0. It means a -1.
People. No action on this. I’d say 0.
Book 2. Lol! -1
Shauk. I started with poker. So a step in the direction. But a 0.
So the overall score is -4 yet again for this week.
.
📊 The tracker from the last week
I did not fill this in this week. So, no updates here. Not even sharing the blank one.
About Bryan Johnson and pursuit of immortality. Here. Oh, I want to do such long-form, deep-dive interviews. May be on The Optimist’s Manifesto?
This from DHH on life and death. Here. A quote from in it, “That life is long enough if you spend it well, but spending it well requires embracing life’s shortness.”
This from Jason. Here. On craft. On fulfillment. On meaning.
This is not a read per se but I see this video often.
This tweet from Erik. Here. I love this line, “My favorite relationship advice is to do whatever it takes to become more secure and positive-sum.”
.
🧠 Reminders from last week
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.
So, I’ve been skipping this for the last few weeks. I am skipping this week as well. Havent had the time TBH to work on this. Again, this week is tough but I will get to it soon.
.
🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?
??.
This went past by too fast. There was a lot of work and very very long days at Meru. Need to find a way to streamline those.
Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… Blur, Fast, Uncool, Disappeared, Experience, Grind, Busy for Nothing, Regular, Getting back to action, Slack, Busyness, Action, Survive, Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.
.
— 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. The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed), 25, 26, 27, 28, 29
PPS: Please do point typos. Grammarly is not working well and I don’t have energy to cut paste edit this in some other spell check thing.
PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.
A longish post about thoughts on a car, events, friends, relationships and alcohol. Read on.
8:04 AM.
Hello, World! I have a lot to say. I hope I get the words. Though I am tired (physically) and exhausted (mentally), I want to try and pour things that are clouding my head. Most of these would be recurring themes and ideas – this text would be an exercise in finding arguments for and against that narrative. I have often done these brain dumps in the past to let the load off my head and they’ve been helpful. What comes out is more of a blog than anything else, but it is immensely helpful!
Here we go. As always, in no order.
A. I couldn’t publish morning pages yesterday. I knew I wouldn’t be able to. I had a lot happening. But I knew that I could easily write a couple of paras and upload those. But then I couldn’t even do that. I mean I wrote a para and I thought I had published but I realized late last night that I did not hit the publish button. The streak of I don’t know how many days (well over 60 easily) was broken 🙁 Damn!
B. At Spotlight, the monthly start-up pitch event at The Podium, for the Feb edition, we hosted Roshan Abbas to give feedback to some start-ups. This was the second in the series of such events and the interactions have been so so good. Listening to a brain like Roshan Sir give inputs on startups from relationships, ed-tech was such a learning experience. He said a lot of things that I intuitively knew were right. And he said a lot of things that I think I don’t agree with. Irrespective, I think it was time spent well. Need to somehow scale it and take it to bigger scale.
More than just advice, he was VERY very candid and offered these startups introductions to other angels, HNIs and even people who could work with these startups! This in itself is worth the time spent!
I also must mention that at some level, Roshan Sir is the next step in evolution for me. I mean he is from a communication, events, and marketing background. He has set up multiple companies and has run those parallelly. He has had an exit. He is an angel investor and enabling people to do more with access to capital and connections. He continues to work harder than most of his peers and continues to push himself. Sounds EXACTLY like how I want to live my life! Reminds me of that Kabir couplet…
C. Event. Last two days, I helped a friend manage a wedding event in Goa. While weddings is new to me and I have only done a handful of these, I realized, I love being on the ground lot more than making presentations. I mean given an option, I would be on the ground, in shorts and tees rather than being in a boardroom with a jacket on.
Since this was one of those events where I was detached from, a few things struck me as an epiphany. Lemme try and talk about those.
1/ This was an intimate wedding with just a handful of guests in the audience, each a friend or family. I loved the joy on their faces and general happiness all around. For once I felt human and I thought maybe a wedding is worth an ordeal only to make your family happy. The other thing is the realization that I’ve never had and will probably never have a group of close-knit friends that I saw yesterday. I’ve always been an outcast, dark-horse, odd-one out. The one that is ignored conveniently and forgotten easily. Even in the romantic relationships I’ve had, I’ve not been the person that got attention. Which is ok. Just that when I see such gangs, I pine for my own. And I don’t know how to fix this. I have done almost everything it takes to be able to make friends but I dont seem to have any left.
Of course I do have people that I can lean on. And have leaned on when the going was tough. It still is. And I continue to lean. But I feel most of my friendship and interactions are transaction-based. More on this some other time.
This tweet by Ajeet Sir caught my eye and I realised that maybe lockdown has made me a tad more detached from people!
I think the lockdown, and resultant absence of in-person meetings has lowered people's sense of loyalty, commitment, and even friendship. I have just too many observation points to ignore reaching this conclusion.
Do I want to fix it? Yes! I would love to have people that care for me as an individual and not as a designation. I need people to empathize with what I am going thru and not just label me as someone that doesn’t return calls. I need to feel loved and not left out of conversations and not taken for granted.
And yes, these expectations are not unfounded. I believe in long-term thinking and reciprocity. I do all these for my people. And in exchange, I don’t expect them to go out of their way to accommodate me. Just a simple, respectful, non-judgemental conversation would do. But I hardly get even that.
And yet…
I think I should title this post ‘rant about unrequited love and friendship of a lonely 38-year old man’.
2/ The entire events industry runs on a very simple sub-contracting model. The end-user of service hires a professional. The professional contracts things to multiple partners, each a specialist into certain trade. The partners further sub-contract it to the service providers. These service providers then use temp staff to get things done. More often than not, the dreams of the client are fulfilled by people that they don’t even know exist. Imagine a mason making a five-star hotel and that very mason being denied entry into the hotel. Imagine a carpenter making the grandest facade for your wedding and he is stopped from even taking a picture of what he created.
From a dream that the client has conjured in their head to the execution that happens on the ground, there’s this well-defined food-chain. And at each step, the respect that that person gets and the money that person makes goes down. To give you perspective, if you are spending 10,000 bucks on an event, the guy who actually puts the flower on the wedding mandap gets paid 10 paisas. Paisa. Not Rupees. From a kitty of 10000 bucks. Of course, there are multiple layers, and the value added at each layer is immense but the guy at the bottom gets paid shit. And worse, gets treated like shit. That level of people are so degraded that they themselves stop believing that they deserve more. If not more, then respect.
The sad part is that the entire industry operates like that. Lower you are on the value chain, worse you are treated. Even by the ones that are just a notch above you.
When you do events and meet people who come from as far as Bihar and Assam and more to work on events in Goa and are paid minimum wages and are treated like shit, your heart goes out and you question things. Of course, you can question all you want to, the answers are non-existent.
3/ Oh, this was one of those rare events where I did not have Diet Coke or Red Bull or even Coffee. What am I becoming?
D. Now that I am talking of vices, lemme talk of alcohol. Yesterday, I saw yet again how alcohol fucks your capability to think. It, of course, makes you lose your inhibitions and makes you do things that un-do-s all that you have worked for. I mean imagine a full-grown man making a fool of himself, in the middle of a party, just because he is drunk!
What’s the point of such “losing inhibition” and “letting your hair down”? I have always struggled to find an answer to this question. To a point that I have sort of given up. I just know that making a fool out of myself, because I am drunk is not for me. I am happy to be a fool in the way I think, the way I operate, the way I work etc. Those foolhardy things allow me to go beyond what I am doing right now. They help me grow as a person. They polish me, you know.
But being unable to walk, puking all over yourself and then “blaming” it on alcohol is not my thing.
I know, I know. I am being super judgemental here. I mean it’s their life and they can do whatever they want to. I get that. I also get that some people may want to feel free. I know that most people do not operate in their natural state on a day-to-day basis and this casual alcoholism helps them find an escape. But then the escape has to be a thing that makes you better. You know, how about you hit a gym if you want to feel the change? Write something? If you want a communal experience, how about you go dance? Join a volunteering organization? I hope you get the drift.
Anyhow. So after the incident last night, I promise that I will not have alcohol ever again. Even if its a very very special occasion. I am trying to stay away from coffee and coke. I shall stick to lime water and coconut water and other such things. Just need to figure out what I would have at a Starbucks ;P
E. For the last couple of days, I rented a car to get around Goa. I had to. You cant manage an event and not have a car that doubles up as your shelter when you are tired, your dumping ground when you have to lug things, your companion where you pile your anguish out. And since this was one of the most unorganized events that I’ve been a part of, I was running around a lot. I would have spent a large part of the day in the car yesterday.
But then, that’s not the point.
The point is a car. I realized my love for cars and roads and navigating and driving and seeing new places. I have to have to have to get one. I have had this dream that the first car I buy would be a Merc. I know I am very far from that with what’s happening at work. But I will make things happen and get to a car this year. #note2self #lifeGoal.
F. Fitness. Lol. I start smiling every time I use this F word. I mean really. Fitness. Lol. I have this note that I wrote to myself in 2012 (almost 10 years ago) where I promised that I will be 30″ by end of that year. I am nowhere close. I want to climb Mt. Everest. And I have a hard time walking 12 steps.
Sigh.
Ok, by mistake I linked to this video from Men of Honor. I am going down that Rabbit Hole where I want to make movies and inspire others. Wait. One thing is clear. Each action I take has to leave others inspired. The realization that Silver lining 😀
Ok, that’s it for the day, I think. Good to have poured out.
Quickie piece. Woke up late. Running behind deadlines. Hoping to catch the pending todos.
10:09 AM. Yeah 10 AM.
I dont even know if I can call this morning pages. Its like afternoon. But then I just woke up (I slept at 5). So this is technically the first thing that I am doing. So, lets give ourselves some benefit of doubt and consider this is morning pages. But because its 10, there are a million people screaming to seek my attention for things that I need to do for them. Will keep this cute and short and all that.
Yesterday was mad. MAD. The day just didnt end. There was so much on the plate and there is still so much on the plate. This busyness is a good thing. I hope there is some revenue opportunity on the other side. Because the day was so long, I had some 20 cups of coffee. Which is ok, if you ask me. Most Americans are like that. But I realize that I was putting in way too much coffee in my system and its making me lose sleep and get more jittery. I need to fix it. Its not a good thing. Wow, look at me talking like an adult!
So, I made myself a big promise. That. I will quite coffee. I will still goto Starbucks and probably have two bottle of sparkling water (which cost as much as a coffee does). So, in my head, I would have paid for using their services and yet I would have not got coffee.
That’s settled. Let’s see how many days I last. Especially with an event coming up. Oh yeah! I am finally managing an event. The last one I was part of was on the 5th of March in 2020, at Lucknow. Since then, I have done some house gigs and all but this one is a full-blown wedding. Of about 80 guests if I am not wrong. So we are still following the regulations (in Goa, you can have a gathering of 100 I think) and yet it has all the paraphernalia. Yay to that!
What else? Damn the minds so blank that I could very well be in a meditative state. Lol. Kuch bhi!
Oh yeah, I am getting to meet Roshan Abbas (virtually) this weekend. He’s the grand-dad of all event professionals. I’ve always wanted to meet him since I was with Suvi. After all these years, in a different context, it’s happening! This is via Podium’s Spotlight. In case you need more details let me know.
Still tripping on Lootera’s music. I spoke about it a few days ago. Need to get to a point where I do such things!
I think this is about I have. I need to go wash some clothes, get my head shaven (yeah!) and then get about the day. Lol, aur bano nomad 😉
And no, no #book2. Let’s see when I get to it. May be in March. Fuck, time flies!
PS: I know this is not technically morning pages. But I started the day with a piece and that’s what matters. The streak has to remain unbroken!
PS: The mood seems to be better. No? I think so! May be its the coffee and if I quit, the mood will go back to being sucky…
