Parallel Spirals

Standing on the shores of space-time…

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  • World TechComm Day 2026 in Pune

    The Society for Technical Communications (STC) India chapter held the World TechComm Day 2026 celebrations simultaneously in Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai on 6 June 2026.

    I went to the venue with Rakesh ettan in his car, Hatchi. We reached on time and met up with some former colleagues. One of my former colleagues was also presenting.

    Building a Strategic AI Roadmap

    The first session that I liked was on Building a Strategic Artificial Intelligence (AI) Roadmap for Technical Communication by Snehal Yerawadekar of Philips. The talk was about implementing AI in a technical communications team within a highly regulated sector – medical devices.

    Snehal began by talking about why AI matters in technical writing. She says that product and content complexity, faster release cycles, localization demands, and higher customer expectations. AI enables TechComm teams to meet this demand.

    She continues that an AI strategy must provide business value (align the AI strategy with the business unit strategy), focus on the key aspects (turn the priorities in the business unit into measurable outcomes), keeping with the trend (anticipate and adapt to the latest trends and review organizational policies and change existing business models to advance the TechComm team), and Collaboration.

    She then spoke about having an AI ready team (with an AI mindset), manage processes with Management, and leveraging technology by using solutions that align with the strategy. She then went ahead about how she used these principles to implement an AI strategy in Philips and the future projects that they are working on.

    Shifting Style Guides to AI Skills

    The second talk I want to talk about is Editing at AI Speed: Shifting Style Guides to AI Skills by Amruta Hungund at Salesforce.

    She begins by saying that human is at the center at Salesforce. It is AI + human. She says that all the style guides that technical writers so adore must be rethought of as a rules engine for AI.

    She says there are two types of checks one does against a style guide. One is deterministic checks (which are yes/no rules) like spell check, grammar rules, punctuation rules, mandatory format requirements etc., AI can fix these easily without needing a human in the loop. For probabilistic checks, like context and meaning, nuanced tone adjustments, logic flow and arguments, etc., it is better to have humans in the loop.

    She says that the Rules Engine does not need conversational essays on brand philosophy, basic grammar remediation, sometimes rules etc. She suggests that rules must have a list of negative constraints, versioning, product names, voice and tone, sentence simplification, etc.

    The style guide must then be optimized for the use as an AI rules engine. This means having conditions like “max_words_per_sentence”: 25 instead of “Avoid overly long sentences to ensure readability and clear flow.” After optimizing the style guide, she suggests using Google Gems (or your stand-in for skills). She defines a Gem as an addition of a prompt to a rules engine.

    She also suggests using a Gem to collect data from the style guide to optimize the Gem.

    She asked what was the job of human in the loop – governance, conflict resolution, and understanding the larger context.

    She suggested a podcast towards the end of her talk – The Culture of Writing podcast. Episode 30, in particular. But, it is a Salesforce channel podcast.

    Quiz

    I was part of a team that won a quiz. Mugdha (who took my interview at my present workplace), Rakesh, and I were in the team.

    We wrote answers in the first round on a piece of a paper as a team. After we submitted the paper, we ended up as one of four teams that was part of an oral round which we topped after breaking a tie-breaker.

    Overall

    We loved the tea and snacks at the venue. This was my first networking event as a technical writer and felt that it was quite well organized and I enjoyed the quality of people and conversations we had. I didn’t take any photographs. Will add them if I get them with due credits. 🙂

    Snehal wrote this nice appreciation post on LinkedIn.

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  • Weekly Notes 27/2026

    I didn’t do a good job with keeping a daily note this week.

    Manuel Moreale who runs a People and Blogs series had an interview with a blogger, Andy Baio whose answers really resonated with me.

    He says, “I wanted a place of my own online, somewhere to experiment and write about weird corners of internet culture, online community, and copyright, as well as a sandbox for new experimental projects of my own.“

    And further: “My frequency of posting has waned over the years, first cannibalized by social media and then by larger life and work stuff. I’ve recently found myself drawn back to it, posting more regularly, trying to wake those atrophied writing muscles. Even if I’ve slowed down, it’s hard to ever imagine stopping entirely.“

    This could easily be me explaining my blog post writing statistics to you.

    I find that people are writing on their own websites again, even if not as a blog per se. I think they want to put out their version of things themselves.

    As Baio writes, “The ability to directly reach the people who care most about your work, outside of the capricious nature of social media algorithms, is essential.“

    I want to invest some time in re-acquainting myself with the Bullet Journal method.

    It has been raining endlessly through the weekend. It has been gloomy and there has been some water logging in the areas where I live.

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  • Weekly Notes 26/2026

    Sun, 22 June 2026

    I had fallen off from using my Bullet Journal since I went to Kerala. I had hoped to revive the practice on this day. I couldn’t.

    I have started thinking again about my usage of social media apps. I am increasingly using Instagram more than X or Mastodon. Many of the people I follow on YouTube have also become more active on Instagram. One of the reasons I remain on X is because most of the space ecosystem hangs out there.

    I am also re-evaluating my software licenses and payments made to them.

    Mon, 23 June 2026

    Kunal Shah announced that he was joining WhatsApp as its Global Head on X. The statement specifically says that Meta will not have access to CRED data (which could include firms under it like Kuvera, an investment app).

    This has me worried about software dependencies which I had been thinking about since Sunday.

    Vivek Raju’s comment also on X was interesting. He spotted something:

    A common trend seen among loss-making tech startups is their founders being to looksmaxx around the time profitability kicks in.

    This sounded like a strategy similar to that Chris Camillo mentioned in an episode of MyFirstMillion podcast. Camillo says that he looks at TikTok and social media for signals about companies to invest in given that financial data does not give everyone enough leverage in picking stocks.

    Talking about investments, Saurabh Mukherjea has a video out promoting Marcellus’ Multi-Asset portfolio, in which he suggests a portfolio that invests 20% each in Nifty 50, S&P 500, Debt, Gold, and Cash.

    I also heard a nice talk by author G Madhusoodanan in Malayalam about living a life when we are surrounded by so many crises around us. He has a book called Life in the Time of Polycrisis that comes out in July 2026.

    Tuesday, 24 June 2026

    Suresh Menon talks about the origin story of Kamla ka Hamla which used to air on 93.5 Red FM.

    I wrote a post with the highlights from a talk that Kunal Shah gave at the Groww Investor’s Festival.

    I realised that other blog posts are also pending and hence I started work on the blog post about the return from Palakkad to Pune.

    Thursday, 26 June 2026

    I mostly worked on getting the details into the blog post and focussed on work.

    I am watching a series called Vikram on Duty along with my family. It releases 4 episodes each Friday. Each episode is just 25 minutes long. The crime investigation episode suggests across 3.5 episodes. The last 0.5 of the episode is the start of the next investigation. Vikram gets all the clues and solves crime single-handedly despite having three sidekicks. Some of the episodes involve some funny scenes like catching an international drug kingpin using nothing other than child lock in the vehicle.

    Friday, 27 June 2026

    I started the day with news that Om Malik had died. I have read Om on and off over the years. I really enjoyed reading his long form pieces that were thought provoking and changed the way I looked at the technology world. I really liked Matt and Arun’s writing on his passing.

    We watched and completed Made in India: A Titan Story which talks of the story of the birth of Titan, the watch brand. Dhanya found it quite inspiring.

    Saturday, 27 June 2026

    I finished writing the post about the return journey from Palakkad to Pune and posted it on the blog.

    These are two series that I enjoyed watching on Instagram:

    One talks about a boy learning from and playing chess with his father.

    Another series that I watched was on architect Laurie Baker. I had read his website in 2007 when it was hosted on Geocities.

    She also talks about a slum rehabilitation project that Baker undertook in Thiruvananthapuram.

    I am really enjoying not just reading but watching about these projects.

    I had finished watching Person of Interest on Sunday. I then went ahead and caught up with the episodes of Vikram on Duty. I have caught up with all episodes released on Friday. We then watched the Titan story on Friday night.

    I watched the Tamil movie Karuppu and did not enjoy it.

    I read 7 Steps to Financial Freedom by Maneesh Taneja. It clarified some of the concepts that were not very clear but I found it an okay book.

    The Pineapple Elaichi Book Club that I am a member of announced a read-along of The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson. I got the Audible copy of the first book The Way of Kings. I will be listening to this on my drives to and from work.

    I still have to figure out how to write these Weekly Notes.

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  • Palakkad to Pune

    The Logan’s clutch plate gave up in one of the many trips we took while visiting relatives in Kerala. We gave the vehicle to the garage to get it fixed and were told that the car would not be ready in time for our return on Saturday.

    This meant that we started our return on Sunday, 31 May 2026.

    We started early in the morning and made our way to Coimbatore. Google Maps pointed us to a road in parallel to L&T Bypass in Coimbatore and we followed that path. Rakesh ettan also confirmed that they were suggested the same route yesterday (30 May).

    We made the breakfast stop at Sree Sarvana Bhavan at 8:30 AM. We’ve stopped here each time we have passed through and have had good food here.

    We had to make more frequent refuelling stops as my fuel gauge was not giving the correct picture. The fuel tank would be full and the gauge would show that it is not. I refuelled every 300 km or so.

    Rakesh ettan told us that they had a huge traffic going into Bengaluru at the Atibele toll. Hence, we decided to have an early lunch when we reach Atibele and do not want to be stuck hungry in the Bengaluru traffic.

    We stopped for lunch at Srinidhi Vaibhav, a little before the toll gate. There was a police vehicle outside the restaurant but the huge contingent was only taking an early lunch break as well.

    We had nearly empty roads through Electronics City as we made our way to NICE road to bypass the city and go towards Tumkur. There were many by-passes as work was in progress on the Highway.

    We made more time in the evening. We were discussing in the car about where to take our stop. I wanted to stop in Hubli again but at the different location other than Hotel Naveen. Rakesh ettan had stopped at the Fortune Park Airport Hotel. We decided to stop at the same spot.

    We stopped at a nice stop called Naivedyam Family Restaurant at Madakaripura and got a few nice pics from outside the restaurant.

    We reached the Fortune Park Airport Hotel at 9 PM. We had called the hotel earlier when we reached Naivedyam. They had told us that the stay for the kids was free. However, when we reached the hotel they charged more for the extra bed that they would need to sleep in than the cost of the room. Do they expect the kids to sleep on the floor?

    I left the point as we were tired after a long drive and paid up. We liked the dinner at night which was a buffet style. There was work in progress in the hotel and so the gym, the swimming pool, and the spa were closed. Hence, we started at 7 am in the morning.

    Google Maps pointed us to a way that took us out to the Highway directly and we were riding in under-construction highway roads which we usually skip when we go to Hotel Naveen.

    We stopped at Hotel Udipi Vaibhav for breakfast around 8 am. We enjoyed the food and had great service there.

    We stopped at Atithi Family Restaurant for an early lunch a little after half past midday, after we crossed over into Maharashtra. We got to fill our stomachs but the food wasn’t the greatest.

    We reached home a little before 5 PM on Monday. I think the fact that it was a Monday hit us only after we reached home. We missed the early evening traffic of office-goers returning home.

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  • Kunal Shah on Wealth in the AI era

    Kunal Shah recently announced on X that he was taking a back seat in CRED to head WhatsApp Global. Meta also invested $900 million into CRED.

    He spoke at the Groww India Investor Festival 2026 in May 2026. This video was posted on their YouTube channel a few days back.

    If you assume that you do not have much control over the environment we are in today, then you should consider these points.

    Below are a few pointers from that talk:

    • Internet made information accessible. AI made intelligence accessible.
    • The largest employer in the world is inefficiency. The pace at which inefficiency is reducing is accelerating.
    • People are worried about job lay-offs. But, people must be equally if not more worried about per capita income not growing.
    • There is a big and increasing difference between people who use technology and who does not use technology. He gives the example of an auto rickshaw driver plying with and without technology. He claims that the driver who uses technology, he earns more.
    • People wait for corporations and governments to teach them about AI.
    • People must learn AI themselves. Everything is available. Bulk of the people use AI for frivolous use case (editing pictures and videos, talking to ChatGPT as a friend while getting rid of real friends, therapy, and astrology).
    • The most valuable wealth you have is time. How one spends the time is becoming more critical now.
    • We do not value time in India. For example, he states that there are no words for productivity and efficiency in Indian languages other than compound words.
    • Time is a post-industrial age concept whose importance India has not understood. Since Indians are not paid in hours, Indians think in months and not hours.
    • Shah claims that Indian internet usage is 35 GB per capita per month. It is extremely easy to waste time.
    • India has two extreme modes – panic or apathy. No modes in the middle.
    • Individuals must create a mission-mindset to think what we need to ride this wave. The time needed to do something or learn something has shrunk.
    • India has not built resilient industries.
    • India must increase participation of women in the workforce to increase the per capita income.
    • Individuals cannot say that they are not good with technology. Individuals must not make excuses. Do not take short cuts to success. Instead, build substance in yourself to become wealthy. Substance requires sacrifice.
    • Indians must become significantly more ambitious, more skilful, and understand things.
    • Notice that pain and struggle preceeds success. Removing that struggle makes success more difficult.
    • Privileged people need to take more risk. For example, if nothing failure as an entrepreneur can make you a great employee.
    • It is now possible to 10x your income.
    • You are the average of the 5 people you hang out with.
    • Protection by regulation will make India less globally competitive.
    • 90% of the code written by AI in CRED. 10% of the people in tech companies are infinitely ahead of 90% of the people because of the use of technology. These are the 10x people.
    • Final words on getting rich in the AI era:
      • Get extraordinary at learning.
      • Think of the people you are surrounded by. Think in terms of XIRR.
      • Think of yourself in terms of XIRR. Increase your XIRR.
      • Think of yourself as an app. Fix your bugs, make your features better, and ship constantly.
      • Learn tech from younger people. Learn values from older people.
      • Be extraordinarily adaptable.
      • Don’t waste your time at events.
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  • Weekly Notes 25/2026

    I have nothing to report this week. The upcoming week is exciting, though.

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  • Weekly Notes 24/2026

    It’s been 20 years since I registered on WordPress.com.

    7 June 2026 Sunday

    I decided to change the way that I write Weekly Notes into these daily paragraphs inspired by reading this. I wrote the Weekly Notes 23/2026 in this format. Let’s see how long I can keep up. Friends came over to see our home.

    8 June 2026 Monday

    Kids were both unwell. We asked the friends who had come over on the day before if they were OK. It helped us to narrow down what could have caused the issue. I Googled 6 7 and learnt about a neat little trick that Google does. I found out Shubha Mudgal has a Substack.

    9 June 2026 Tuesday

    My wife celebrated her birthday. We had a small cake cutting ceremony in the evening. We had an intimate event.

    10 June 2026 Wednesday

    I learnt that Malayalam actor Salim Kumar had passed away. Read this article on his life on X among other tributes. I also read a blog post about the evolution of Marathi. Nidheesh M K wrote about how a video posted on YouTube ripped one year of his hardwork. I also read about face fatigue written by Shephali Bhatt.

    I learnt about the original jugaad.

    11 June 2026 Thursday

    A nice look at @zenrainman’s garden and water management system.

    12 June 2026 Friday

    I went for the periodical medical test sponsored by my workplace. I also made my way through the ശ്രീ ലളിതോപാഖ്യാനം (Sri Lalithopvakhyanam) as told by Sharath A Haridasan.

    13 June 2026 Saturday

    The US Government blocked access to Fable 5 citing national security. Companies and people that were planning their businesses around the access to AI are worried. There still seem to be hackathons in India that support Claude and OpenAI. I don’t understand this. Isn’t it better to contribute to open source foundational models rather than closed foundational models?

    SpaceX IPO went live. Elon Musk became a trillionaire and Gwynne Shotwell became a billionaire.

    I agree with Sandhya Ramesh when she says that the space for humanity era is gone.

    But, true for many other things.

    Many people have pointed to the writing of Shankar Sharma. This video summarizes many of his writings about stock market in India.

    He makes some very interesting arguments – innovation falls as the country gets rich off the stock markets, Indian retail investors are giving exits to foreign equity investors (and so, the money is not getting re-invested in India), retail investors must not be so active in the stock market, and foreign investor exits must not be as easy as it is presently.

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  • Met Thejesh

    I sent an email to Thejesh when I realised that both of us would be in Kerala at the same time, though in different nearby districts.

    After breakfast at 24h Coffee House outside Hotel Indraprastha. Image: Thejesh GN

    We decided to meet at the Palakkad Fort and have breakfast at the restaurant of the Indraprastha Hotel thereafter. He said he would come with family. I only got my wife along.

    I think I first read Thejesh’s blog when he was writing his many Open Source projects and writings. My Weekly Notes were inspired by his Weekly Notes.

    I thought our conversation would be around this. But, our conversation centered around family, travel, work, micro-grants, and history.

    He spoke of how the Weekly Notes helped in conversations with family and friends. They got updates from his Weekly Notes. But, his wife was frustrated because when she would give an update, their family and friends would have read about it already on the blog.

    We could not go inside the Fort as it was a little too early. We walked to the circular coffee shop outside Hotel Indraprastha and had breakfast.

    Both my wife and I enjoyed the company and the conversation. We also got a mention in one of the aforementioned Weekly Notes.

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  • Weekly Notes 23/2026

    My weekly notes have been very weak. I have not been able to keep up with the practice in the last few weeks. My last weekly note was Week 15.

    Sunday 31 May

    We drove back from Palakkad. We started from Palakkad at 5:40 AM in the morning and reached our hotel room in Hubballi in time for dinner. We enjoyed the evening in Chitradurga – it was windy, overcast, and there were windmills. I learnt that hotels makes the kids stay free but does not provide them with a bed for them.

    Tea-break at Chitradurga. Image: Pradeep Mohandas

    Monday 01 June

    We continued our drive from Hubbali and into Maharashtra. We reached home in the evening for a late tea. My arms and legs were paining and hence, we only ate food and went to sleep.

    Tuesday 02 June

    I returned to work. It was nice to catch up with colleagues. Some colleagues were still away on their own summer vacations. In the evening, we realised that we still had to put in new practices for us in the new home.

    Wednesday 03 June

    Saurabh and friends had come over to Pune to meet Aarya and me. His PoV of the visit is here. I had very interesting conversations here .

    Friday 05 June

    The kids got the first chance to decorate the walls with their own colour. We had expected this would happen but not so early after their return.

    Saturday 06 June

    Rakesh ettan and I went for the STC India’s celebrations of World TechComm Day. We were in the team that won the first prize in a quiz competition. Our wives and kids got to spend this time together.

    I got the scooter back from its pre-Monsoon checks. I changed out the wipers on the car and had it ready for the Monsoon as well.

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  • Pune to Palakkad

    We had dropped my wife’s parents at Pune railway station the previous night and it was a little past midnight when we slept. We set the alarm for 4:30 in the morning for our road trip to Palakkad.

    Two weeks earlier, my parents had taken both of our kids to Palakkad for their summer vacation. This meant that it was only the two of us on this journey.

    Routes

    We usually take the Pune – Kolhapur – Davanagere – Chitradurga – Hosur – Salem – Erode – Coimbatore – Palakkad route. On our last road trip, we tried the Sathyamangalam route after Chitradurga, turning at Tumkur. This time, we wanted to try driving down NH 66 (what was the Panvel – Ernakulam Highway and then NH 17).

    I remembered a road trip that I went with my family from Mumbai and this was a scenic sea-side route along the Arabian Sea. That road had gone beside beaches, through towns and cities, and on coastal and ghat roads. I wanted to experience that again.

    I took Google Gemini’s help to decide where to stop on the route we were planning to take. It suggested that we stop somewhere between Murdeshwar and Udupi.

    Rakesh ettan shared notes on the Pune – Sawantwadi – Goa leg of the trip. It was a route they had taken for their vacation in Goa.After taking this route to hop from NH 48 to NH 66, we would follow NH 66 to Palakkad.

    Day 1

    We woke up at 4:30 am and left from home around 5:30 AM. Google Maps guided us through Sinhagad Road to meet NH48.

    We made good time in this early morning leg and stopped at what has become our usual Vithal Kamat stop just before riding up Khambatki Ghat.

    Good progress has been made on the bridge cutting out the Ghat from NH48. It looks like we may not have to traverse the ghat on our next road trip.

    We crossed Satara and around Kolhapur began a series of diversions for construction work on-going on the NH. It was sad to see many of the trees getting cut down for expansion work. Why can’t we move these trees like Singapore does?

    We crossed into Karnataka and after one more diversion at Nipani, we made the turn towards Goa at Hotel Goa Ves. We joined NH 548H at Uttur Phata after going back into Maharashtra at Bahirewadi. We realised a little late that we had taken an earlier turn than intended.

    We returned to the route we had intended towards Amboli Ghat on NH 548H. By the time I had crossed Amboli Ghat, I had already crossed a few smaller ghat roads, and was now beginning to tire.

    Dhanya and I at Amboli Ghat. Image: Pradeep Mohandas

    We really loved the scenes at Amboli Ghat. The trees were different at different heights. The smells were different. The soil seemed different.

    At the exit of Amboli Ghat we got tempted to follow a short cut route into Goa. But, we had to return after a few kilometers as work on the highway had created a traffic snarl. We returned back to NH 548H.

    We then set our sights on Sawantwadi and headed there on the main highway. Sawantwadi town had a Mall Road like the north and still had some colonial vestiges. My wife’s neck pain got severe at this point and she could not turn to look towards my side (which was the side that looked towards the sea).

    NH 548H reached NH 66 at the Insuli RTO checkpost. We crossed the Terekhol river and had a Goan fish based meal at Hotel Anandi at Banda.

    We then took a series of bridges in Goa that took us through but never let us be in Goa. It by-passed the whole state except parts of Madgaon. The bridge had high side-walls which meant that we didn’t even get to see Goa.

    I later realised that they had changed the alignment of the road.

    We got the first sight of the sea at Goa Velha at the New Zuari Bridge. Then, we passed through Karwar Ghat and into the new naval port area. We also saw a lot of signboards for beaches but the disappointment that was the Goa by-pass meant that we just wanted to get to Udupi.

    We entered Karwar around 3:30 PM. Udupi looked unreachable and so we wanted to at least target Murdeshwar to sleep at. At this point, Murdeshwar also felt unreachable.

    It was getting dark by the time we passed Ankola. A bit of a downpour made driving slower. We went past Gokarna, Kumta, and Honnavar after sunset. We pulled into our night stay at the RNS Highway Hotel at Murdeshwar.

    The RNS Highway Hotel has an attached restaurant which is not under the same management as the Hotel. When we went there, the restaurant was busy serving a party of 20 and had only two chefs. We had to wait 30 minutes to be served and the food was not great.

    After a long and tiring first day, we decided to leave at 6 AM on the next day.

    Day 2

    We started at 6 AM as planned. We decided to have breakfast at 8 AM at Udipi. On the way we saw the bit of a beach by the road at Maravanthe and decided to get down on the beach. This strip of road and beach has the Kolluru River on one side and the Arabian Sea on the other side.

    Dhanya had been disappointed that we didn’t get to go down on a beach in Goa. We might have to plan a trip just for that.

    Selfie at Maravanthe Beach.

    She enjoyed her time at this beach and was much more positive start to the drive that day.

    We then went into Udipi to have our breakfast at MTR 1924. We then drove out and made good time before we entered Kerala. The roads in Kerala were also good with elevated highways.

    We were driving at a nice clip in Kerala when the diversions began. There were several diversions which went into the towns as well. We took a diversion into Kannur just before lunch. It was a bit early for lunch and we enjoyed the drive by the beach. But, most of the diversions were onto the service roads with no or closed restaurants.

    We decided to have Thalassery Biriyani at Thalassery for lunch. Dhanya searched online and found Paris Restaurant in Thalassery to have the best Thalassery Biriyani.

    We went off the Highway into Thalassery to have biriyani. After a short drive where we missed the car parking place for Paris Restaurant, we parked. We were diverted to the newer AC restaurant. Another look at Google Maps pointed us to the traditional place.

    The traditional place was a house with a bunch of rooms serving as place to eat. With an efficient seating arrangement consisting of desks and benches with enough room for people to sit and move around. We got a corner seat and had a sumptuous lunch.

    Selfie in front of Paris Restaurant at Thalassery. Image: Pradeep Mohandas

    We then went back to the Highway on the same road that we came to the Restaurant. The roads got much better after we crossed Kozhikode. Dhanya had wanted to try Paragon Biriyani as well but we decided to go there on another trip.

    We turned towards Palakkad at Valanchery. On the road to Palakkad we stopped at a cafe in Cherpulassery for a coffee and snacks.

    We reached our home in Palakkad at 8 PM. It was great to be reunited with the kids after a long gap of 15 days.

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