Author: Pradeep

  • Weekly Notes 50/2025

    I started this week with a plan to get a lot of things done. Life, had other plans. It dropped me in the Hospital for the third time this year. I was discharged on Friday.

    Unlike my other Hospital stays this year, this one was marked by an absence of phones and a lot of time spent staring at ceilings. I thought I would read some books but I got nothing done.

    It’s good to be back home and able to write, even on a mobile device. Not yet back to 100%.

    I missed many events in Pune that I had hoped to attend. I wanted to take my daughter to see and meet the Pune urban sketchers community and also see some of the stationary they had on offer.

    I have been thinking of using mostly Instagram, Facebook, Substack and Mastodon through most of next year. I am not thinking of it as a rule.

  • The front yard of a house

    This is the house in front of the place where I bring my son to the doctor.

    I used to think earlier about how they can survive in this mess in their front yard. I now appreciate the way nature has overgrown here.

    It’s filled with trees, birds, and numerous invisible creatures that may be calling this home.

  • Weekly Notes 48/2025

    I got a lot of work done in the past two weeks. But, I had recurrent health scares that kept me away from writing. This weekend I was really busy with several home improvement works. Hence, the delayed post here. But, better late than never, as had been the case in the last few weeks.

    I am currently reading Oh, Life Relax Please by Swami Sukhabodhananda and listening to Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks. I went to the library after a long time. I donated Jatan Mehta’s book Seven uni verses among several other books to the public library here. There are many more books that I plan to give away.

    I also attended my first in-person event in a long time. The talk was on geology of the Himalayas by Suvrat Kher. I have been reading his blog, Rapid Uplift for a really long time. His latest blog post, Landscapes: PIndari Glacier Trail formed a part of the talk. I also had the chance to meet some of my friends there, whom I had missed meeting because of the surgeries.

    I started reading blog posts on Readwise again. I have also removed X, Mastodon, and Instagram apps on the phone.

  • Kantha

    We used to listen to Kantha soon after our marriage. It was on our playlist. We used to also listen to this song along with Aalayal Thara Venam also by Masala Coffee.

    The song went off our playlist for a while as the kinds of songs we heard changed over the years. The Hindi-speaking world was introduced to this song in 2021 through the Dice media series, Little Things in Season 4.

    The recent resurgence of the song on Instagram was with a viral dance video nicely choreogragraphed by Alexander Noel. There are various spin-off versions of the dance steps you would have seen on your Instagram feed (if you’re addicted).

    This spurned some interesting videos that went beyond the dance moves and into the meaning of the song like the one you see below.

    It’s always great when things that you enjoyed listening to surfaces again and gains something of a cult status.

  • National Novel Writing Month 2025

    I have been unhappy with 2025 and want to make the most of the year. I’m planning to rewrite a novel I drafted last year for NaNoWriMo. I envision it as a solarpunk story. You can find the previous version of Chapter 1 here. I have changed the storyline based on feedback from last year.

    I will link to each chapter in this blog post.

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

  • Week 43/2025

    I used to write my Weekly Notes in a structured way, tracking my reading and writing progress. This time, I want to write it in a more free-form style, similar to how I did for Week 42.

    My parents visited and took the kids to Mumbai during the Diwali holidays. It was our first time home alone. You might expect us to get a lot done without the kids, but we mostly just relaxed and did nothing special.

    We watched three movies – Coolie (Tamil), Ronth (Malayalam), and Greater Kalesh (Hindi) on OTT. I started reading Kurashi at Home by Marie Kondo (which I could not find in her publications list on Wikipedia) and Make Epic Money by Ankur Warikoo. I listened to The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel and I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi. I did not finish any of the books I started and left them all unfinished. I am spending my time recovering from surgery watching Countdown and Lazarus.

    I am disappointed with my recent book choices. I didn’t read Between Worlds, which I wanted to. I read more on my mobile than anywhere else. Between Worlds is just sitting on my shelf after I read the first two chapters.

    I have been following several accounts on X that focus on manufacturing in India. While there are traditional manufacturing companies, these new-age creators showcase impressive manufacturing processes through engaging videos. We imagined these processes in our heads. I will share a few videos in another blog post.

    It was interesting to see how India’s manufacturing limits its space program and how ISRO built up its capabilities, helping the program grow. This serves as a useful model for other sectors in India. For instance, the Semi Conductor Laboratory (SCL) in Chandigarh could apply this approach to build the capability of the Indian semiconductor industry, leveraging SCL’s experience being an ISRO Center.

  • I think IDFC First Bank has done well with AI related search engine optimization. All chat-based AI tools suggested IDFC First Bank and its banking products during my various interactions with AI.

  • Indranil Roy replied on X to my blog post suggesting that I watch this talk given by Dr P V Venkitakrishnan to IIT Madras in 2020 to understand India’s manufacturing capability and limitations.

    As usual, the ISRO sub-Reddit has a good cliff notes version but it is worth watching that whole interview in full.

  • I wanted to share this Instagram post from the_blueboat. This is about a 3 hour journey between the districts of Kottayam an Alapuzha through the Vembanad Lake.

    The first service is at 6:45 am, that the_blueboat recommends for a comfortable ride through hidden villages not usually covered by houseboats and shikaras. The service is run by the Kerala Government’s State Water Transport Department.

  • Bigger diameter for LMLV

    I had shared Anshuman’s post on X here in an earlier post.

    I saw a reply from Indranil Roy about why the increase in diameter from 5 m to 6.5 m is a big deal. This is because we were not able to manufacture rocket casings of the diameter in India.

    Here’s his thread on X:

    I looked up who was making rocket casings in India and found out that Walchandnagar Industries makes them. They have the capability to make 5 m diameter rocket casings according to their website.

    But, their brochure which seems to be more updated shows this capability to machine with wider diameters. So, the news about the 6.5 m diameter is a bigger deal than just an improvement in diameter. It is a deep improvement in capacity.

    Gareeb Scientist had interviewed former ISRO Chairman, Dr. S Somanath, where he also spoke about this limitation. You can find it around the 6 min 30 sec to the 7 min mark.

    There was also an episode of the NewSpace India podcast with Walchandnagar’s Chirag Doshi with insights on working with ISRO as an industrial partner right from the sounding rocket days.