This book came out in March 2013. I purchased it in September 2013 on my Kindle then. I follow the author of this book on Twitter and probably learned about the book from there.
I was in a reading rut after my son was born. I could listen to audiobooks on Audible but couldn’t pay attention when I read any book (physical or digital). I wanted to break this rut. So, I went back to my Kindle device and searched back to the first book I purchased on the Kindle. It turned out to be this book.
Cover of the book, Trackside: A Collection of Railway Stories, by Bharath Moro
I loved some of the descriptions that he uses to describe the trains and railway buildings. He gave me the vocabulary to talk about sights that I see in my travels.
The red and cream locomotive screams into the platform with its assortment of coaches bobbing wildly.
Chapter 1: In Favour of Koraput and Bodinayakannur
Unlike the disjointed feeling one gets after a long flight, the railways allows for a gradual takeover. The landscape keeps changing, the houses seem different after a while, the food on the platform becomes less palatable (or the reverse) and the tea tastes better (or worse). And, by the time you arrive, you haven’t so much arrived as you have assimilated the destination.
Chapter 1: In Favour of Koraput and Bodinayakannur
The quaint old structures that used to house the station master’s office and booking counters have been demolished and replaced by banal, CPWD type boxy buildings, painted in a hideous urine yellow hue.
Chapter 7 : Dispatches from the Cauvery Delta
The book was an absorbing read and got me unstuck from my reading rut.
I have been seriously thinking about the rent vs. own debate. I currently live in a rented house. I visit people who enjoy their rented lives and am happy that I also rent. I also visit people who own their own homes and feel I had the freedom to do the things in my house that they can do at their own home.
One of the reasons that this is a debate is because of the cost of housing.
I read a blog post by Ashish on his blog, Econ for Everybody, called Not Quite As Simple As One Would Like It To Be. He begins by arguing that optimal regulation, although difficult, is the best solution to the problem of regulation. He says:
You’ll meet economists who tell you that housing can only be solved by removing as much regulation as possible. You’ll meet other economists who tell you that public housing is the only solution to the problem. And you’ll get bloggers like me, who will tell you that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
The pandemic created a situation where the people expected an increase in prices as supply chains were disrupted. Weber says that the pandemic created a temporary monopoly, that allowed corporates to raise prices higher than the rise in cost of raw materials, without fear of losing market share. Weber calls this seller’s inflation. She suggests regulation of prices as a way to control this inflation.
One of the places she applied this theory was to regulate the price of natural gas in Germany:
She presented a detailed scheme for regulating the price of natural gas in Germany: households and businesses would be guaranteed a limited supply at an affordable, government-controlled price. Anything they burned in excess of that quota would be subject to the soaring market price. (Producers of natural gas would receive government subsidies to make up for the lost profits.)
Zachary Carter, The New Yorker, What if we’re Thinking about Inflation all Wrong?
I think what we’re seeing in the real estate market in India could be the result of seller’s inflation. Although, too much regulation in India runs into trouble with issues of state capacity and ego-maniacal regulators, I think it could be done to help first time home owners. I am not an economist and would not venture to suggest a detailed policy proposal. I am only suggesting this as a possible solution.
The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana does do part of this by providing a government subsidy to first time home-owners. But, it does not feel like enough because it does not regulate the price of the sold unit, which keeps on soaring.
The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (Audible)
The Bullet Journal Method – Ryder Carroll (Kindle)
I finished listening to Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson and reading Trackside by Bharath Moro. I have updated the books list on the blog, accordingly. I was stuck in a reading rut for a long time. Trackside helped me break out of it.
I have also started reading The Hindu e-paper and Frontline magazine again. I am sharing articles that I like on my Twitter and Mastodon feeds. I might add them here in future editions of the Weekly Notes.
OTT
I watched:
Fubar (English)
High Crime (English)
Kathal (Hindi)
The Mother (English)
Mother’s Day (English)
Ponniyin Selvan 2 (Tamil)
Pachuvum Athbhutha Vilakkum (Malayalam)
Neelavelicham (Malayalam)
Enthadaa Saji (Malayalam)
Pakalum Paathiravum (Malayalam)
Pookkaalam (Malayalam)
Spirals
Spirals are what you would call rabbit holes today. Perhaps they are much more deeper? I hope this section clarifies what I meant by the title of this blog, Parallel Spirals?
Commonplace Books
I have mentioned Megan Rhiannon’s videos in the YouTube section of my previous post. She integrates her planner, commonplace book, etc. into one document. She includes stickers and cut-outs in her commonplace book. This got me interested into commonplace books. I watched many videos on this, but these made sense:
Jared Henderson on Commonplace Books
Ryan Holiday’s method is touched upon here. But he has other videos on this as well.
I discovered another person who used a notebook instead of a phone for a period of time, while searching about commonplace books. The last time this came up on my radar was on Weekly Notes 02/2023.
Religion
I had gone through some reading on Indian philosophical traditions last year. The YouTube algorithm suggested a video about the Kashmir Shaivism’s poet Lal Ded. I enjoyed the videos from the Let’s Talk Religion YouTube channel. Watching Acharya Prashant’s interview had diverted my focus towards Vedanta. Three specific videos on the Let’s Talk Religion spends time on the three schools under Vedanta that caught my attention.
Shankara and Advaita Vedanta
Ramanuja and Vishistadvaita Vedanta
Madhva and Dvaita Vedanta
Nikhil Kamat
I enjoyed watching all episodes of the podcast hosted by Nikhil Kamat. But, I liked this episode the most.
Ep #4 WTF is ChatGPT?
I think Varun Mayya’s explanation (of which there is a clip) of how ChatGPT works may be better than Cal Newport’s explanation.
Antinet/Analog Zettelkasten
I found Scott P. Scheper’s YouTube channel through watching Morgan’s YouTube channel. She has been explaining how to setup a physical Zettelkasten to her mother and mentioned Scott’s YouTube channel as an inspiration.
Morgan explaining her physical Zettelkasten method
I found Scott’s method more thorough. But, before I got there I went through videos by Nicole van der Hooven for more ideas on digital Zettelkastens. Her video on why she personally used Obsidian over Roam, has had me open Obsidian after a very long time:
Obsidian over Roam
I even sampled Tiago Forte’s video on visual note-taking and signed up for Milanote. I might use it to write my first sci-fi novel.
Tiago Forte on Milanote
This brings us back to Scott:
First video on a playlist on how to put together an analog Zettelkasten. I downloaded his free PDF which gave me a better idea than many of his YouTube videos.
Graphene
An editorial written by a former Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar in The Hindu sent me down the materials spiral. I was once (around 2007-08) interested in material sciences. I watched a few videos on NPTEL on material sciences and specifically on graphene and Carbon nanotubes.
NPTEL on Graphene
WordPress
I attended the 20th anniversary celebrations of WordPress in Pune. I had thought that I joined WordPress in November 2006, but it seems that I had actually joined WordPress in June 2006.
I was on Blogger before I was here. I had started blogging around 2005, if memory serves me correctly. But, as you can see above, I could be wrong.
When people used the word blog posts to refer to their Substack posts, I found it difficult to understand why. I thought of each post on Substack as an edition or as an issue. When people pushed back to ask me for the difference between a Substack post and a blog post, I felt that it was fundamentally wrong but could not articulate the reasons for the same. I was reading Venkatesh Rao’s blog, Ribbonfarm, where he has articulated the reasons much better than I have.
I don’t agree with all of his points but these are good points to begin thinking about this.
Blogs are ontic media; newsletters are epistemic media
Blogs encourage you to invent concepts and coin terms; newsletters encourage you to use existing concepts and terms to lay out persuasive arguments
Blogs are portals; newsletters are flags. Blogs encourage you to build seductive worlds to draw people into. Newsletters mark out territory in existing shared worlds.
Blogs encourage true essaysin the original sense of the term — explorations; newsletters encourage explainers, sermons, speeches
Blogs are promiscuously and publicly social; newsletters are clannish and tribal
Blogs are stocks; newsletters are flows
Blogs invite internal and external hyperlinking; newsletters fight both
Blogs are relational; newsletters are transactional
Ranveer Allahbadia did a recent interview with Acharya Prashant in Hindi, titled Forgotten Hinduism. Ranveer tries to talk to Acharya about hot takes and it takes time for him to reach the point about the question of whether the Hinduism we practice today Vedic?
Acharya Prashant says that the Hinduism we practise today is not Vedantic. He says that the Hinduism we practise today involves praying to Puranic Gods following Tantric rituals and methods.
He defines the periods from an average of 2000 B.C.E. He refers to the period from second to eight century CE is the Puranic period.
He says that we no longer pray to Vedic gods (like Indra, Varun etc.). He claims that worship in the Vedic era was mostly the worship of the natural phenomena. He claim that Vedic worship did not have the concept of idol worship and does not involve temple worship.
He suggests that Vedic practice begins with reading a few suggested Upanishads and books by the Adi Shankara.
Atma-bodha by Adi Shankara
Tatva-bodha by Adi Shankara
Niralamba Upanishad
Sarvasara Upanishad
Ishavasya/Isha Upanishad
Kena Upanishad
Katha Upanishad
Ashtavakra Upanishad
After the initial reading on Indian philosophy, this is what I plan to start reading this year. I may not read it all in two months like the Acharya suggests, but I will read through these after I begin with the Mandukya Upanishad.
My daughter and I went for a Tree Walk in Camp, Pune on 26 March 2023. This follows the star party that we went together for.
We travelled to Camp by car and parked opposite Bishop’s school in Camp. We met with the group of about 10 people who had also come there. After a brief round of introductions, we started the walk.
The main thrust of the walk was not to make us overnight experts on all things trees. It was to get us to look at the trees in our surroundings with more curiosity. Learn how they transform through the seasons. How to identify them using the Internet and thereafter, by yourself. Observe how they flower and grow.
I tried to get my daughter to climb one of the trees but she was afraid to go more than a couple of feet off the ground. She collected a lot of fallen flowers, fruits, berries, etc. Being the youngest in the group, she got the attention of many others in the group, who helped her collect these things.
I did not follow all the tree related guidance too closely.
Parallel Spirals 