I made a small video to catch the incessant rain we had in Mumbai today to show D & R. Thought I’d share it here as well.
Mumbai, India
Category: Personal
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Link Forest
I returned from Palakkad last Saturday. It was a heart wrenching experience to be separated, ergo temporarily, from your wife and daughter again. While there, I read a lot on my mobile while the wife and daughter were sleeping. These I bookmarked and am now posting here for my own reference. I have bunched them together under headings as I sort them.
Space
Telescopes of the World: India’s Devasthal Telescope: I had a fascination with observatories and learning more about them to improve articles on Wikipedia. I even planned a tour of all Indian observatories. In the meanwhile, loved reading this description of India’s ARIES Observatory at Nainital by Sandhya Ramesh.
India’s Star Rises Higher with LIGO’s Third Gravitational Wave Detection: I always enjoy reading stuff on astrophysics. But, sometimes don’t have the right mindset. This article actually put me in the right mindset (by mentioning ASTROSAT) before letting me enjoy reading about gravitational waves. This is an excellent piece by Vasudevan Mukunth writing for The Wire. He also wrote a nice overview of science journalism in India over on his personal blog.
Talking Space with Tim Peake: I had never known about Richard Branson’s blog before this piece came online on Twitter. Here he shares about a talk with British astronaut Tim Peake who has just returned after spending 6 months in space. Includes some lovely photos that scaled well even for my mobile device.
Aadhar
The Aadhar is something that I have no clear opinion on and started reading lots of stuff recently to learn more. I still don’t understand the various standpoints. Most of the stuff that I did read ended up being anti-Aadhar.
Both Mozilla and the Electronic Frontier Foundation had blog posts on why having Aadhar in its current form is a bad idea.
I got sidetracked by some interesting detective work by Kiran Jonnalagadda and his description of it here, on the troll’s denial and the afterglow. It is always great to see a troll unmasked. I wish more unmaskings happen. Thejesh GN has a nice summary on his blog as well.
I’ve read nothing really good in the pro-Aadhar camp online. But, in my work in the bank I’ve had a few customers in the bank I work in who were from the country side who say that the direct benefit transfer that was started has been good and worked well for the most part. They had to undergo a few discomforts but they shirk it all off as getting used to a new system. These people support linking Aadhar to other schemes and facilities as well.
Economics
- Stock Market – A Bull on Steroids
- GST – No Panacea
- The Unseen Economics of Jan Dhan Yojana – I have not seen any writing on the Jan Dhan Yojana that explores these particular themes.
Politics
I’ve been quite impressed to read the writing of Meghanad S related to Parliamentary democracy that we practice here in India. One highlights our poor understanding of how the Parliamentary democracy works and our incorrect expectations from it. The other tries to help us understand how the Government has changed the way the central government shares the tax money it earns with the state and the various challenges and changes that throws up.
The other political piece that I read was one trying to understand the Modi Government’s foreign policy stance.
Miscellaneous
Several odds and ends thrown in here.
- Using Toyota’s 5S principles in keeping homes clean and tidy. I read this more to revise the concepts of the 5S principles than with any intention of keeping the home clean.
- A nice review of a newly opened cafe in Sikkim with beautiful pictures and a very inviting cafe. Also, Sikkim would be the place I would run away to.
- Matt Mullenweg shares whats in his bag in 2017.
- I have mixed feelings about farming but have ideas about farming for self-sustenance some day. I was mulling over this stance of mine related to farming when Better India published this nice piece on Zero Based Natural Farming (ZBNF). This also talks of implementing this in the Beed district of Maharashtra.
- Really loved this show & tell edition of the Bullet Journal. Working towards making mine look even better.
That’s all. When I put it all down, doesn’t seem like I read a lot. Probably because I read bits between baby sleep cycles.
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Becoming a Father
I’m in Palakkad right now. I became a father to a baby girl on April 25, 2017. The experience has been overwhelming. Both the mother and daughter are doing fine.
I’m back in Palakkad again after a few days here at the end of April for my daughter’s 28th day ceremony. We’ve named her Rithika.
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B/o Dhanya
On April 25, 2017, Dhanya and Pradeep became proud parents of a baby girl. The delivery was done at the Thangam Hospital of PRC in Palakkad at 5 PM. We had the 28th day celebration of the baby at Praseedha, Palakkad.
Pradeep, Dhanya and B/o Dhanya The hospital refers to the child as B/o Dhanya (Baby of Dhanya).
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What do I do?
Every time I attend any meetup, I find it difficult to explain why I am there. I attended the Kilter pre-conference meetup in Mumbai today and found myself in a similar predicament.
I limit my introductions to the fact that I work in a public sector bank and don’t go beyond that. People who know me from meeting me at different junctures know me for the various interest I had had when they met me. I have moved on mostly. Currently, just working in a bank and my family keeps me occupied enough to prevent me from doing anything else.
No, that’s not entirely true. I have gotten more and more lazy and hence have not found the time for any of my other interests other than reading. I have, hence, been below the radar.
This then confuses the new people that I meet as to why I am there.
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Bullet Journal
I used to keep a Bullet Journal way back in September 2015. By November 2015, I was writing so much work related stuff that I didn’t want to open it again. I abandoned it. I found it while surfing Evernote related help videos, in the YouTube suggested videos for you.
I found inspiration here and here and instructions here to dust off the old bullet journal from my diaries rack and use it again. Have kept it ready for use. Haven’t seen too many guys using it here in India, though. Examples welcome.
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Dave Ramsey and his Baby Steps
In the beginning of 2016, I found myself in debt again. It was a suffocating feeling because small debts had grown large. It had not grown large enough to warrant selling anything to stay afloat but I knew it could get there. I was looking for a way out of debt and was searching online for ways to deal with it. It was during this search that I found Dave Ramsey and his Baby Steps.
Ramsey suggests that the way to stay out of debt (and this includes using your credit card), is a behavioral change. And the person whose behavior is to be changed is yours and not anyone else’s. Understanding and getting behind this idea is critical to permanent change. Ramsey says that getting out of debt and staying on a written budget gets us to a point where we can harness our greatest wealth building tool – our income – and use the money saved to invest and to give.
While his ideas seems to be tailored for US audiences, I think his message is useful to us in India and to me personally.
Ergo I still have to work hard to keep me from using my credit card, I have tremendously improved in knowing that I own the credit card and it will not own me. Ramsey suggests plastic surgery – cutting up your credit cards with scissors and shutting it down.
If you think you’re at that stage in life where you’re feeling overwhelmed and need space to breathe – watch the Dave Ramsey Show on YouTube if you like to watch stuff or read his book, The Total Money Makeover. It is one of the several ways to get back financial peace.
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Desire
There are moments when I wonder if I had done such and such a thing at such and such a time, how my life would have changed. I realize the importance of doing that thing at that time but never actually do it. That is what makes me average. People who know what to do and then who have the gumption to actually do it are the people who are successful.
Where does the gumption to do it come from?
It comes from previous successes.
How does one go about building the gumption?
It comes from small victories.
Where do these small victories come from?
From taking the first step.
What motivates one to take the first step?
Having the desire to achieve the first step.
The world is full of suffering,
The suffering has a cause
The cause of suffering is desire.
Mumbai. January 8, 2016.
Parallel Spirals 