The week started at a low. I read this blog post by Arun which picked me up. This is the second in a four-part blog post about his family trip to Kanazawa in Japan. I would call it a photoblog. The descriptions below the image are not about the image but the camera sittings he used to take the picture.
I was trying to do a project at work but did not get around to doing it till the end of this week. I got a lot of work done, though.
Rest of the week was consumed by recovering from the cold and cough last week and the intrigues surrounding my daughter and her friends.
This was a really weird week. I had a really bad case of bronchitis which the first line of medicines did not work well against. It required a second round of medicines to bring the issue under control including nebulisation.
Cough medications made me really sleepy whereas the resultant cough did not let me sleep for a few nights this week.
In this weird state, I read and shared a lot on my link blog. I now have some place public to share but the question is why not share this here? I don’t know.
I have been sharing loads on Instagram stories and in WhatsApp status. This has seen more engagement than anything on my socials and on this blog.
So, all I remember from this week is – coughing and not being able to sleep.
There is only a short introduction today. After our son had a Sports Day, I slept off most of the day today after having cold syrups. This Weekly Notes is a quickly put-together production to make sure that I don’t miss two Weekly Notes on a trot.
My reading and watching has become slower and deeper. I am no longer trying to cover everything. I tried to go down many lists-inspired reading and ended up reading very little overall. I am now focussing and sharing stories with family.
Reading
Saints of Maharashtra by Savitribai Khanolkar (pg 51 of 179)
We’re well past half of January. We’re past Makar Sankranti. The days are getting warmer in Pune. Dhanya is loving her Neorah Accomplish Weekly Planner which I gave her in the start of the year.
I got a lot of work on the scooter done this week. It was difficult to find space to get it serviced. I got the scooter serviced, the annual maintenance contract renewed, and refuelled it. It’s a much more better driving experience now.
The week started with the disappointing news about the failure of the PSLV-C62 mission. I want to write about this but I want to be careful as the speculation around this mission has become crazy.
I did not write the space newsletter for the second consecutive week. I might drop the idea of writing a newsletter altogether and write here instead. I am still thinking about it.
Reading
On the banks of the Mayyazhi – M Mukundan (Transl. Gita Krishnankutty), I’ve just started with reading this.
The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron, I’m reading this but do not yet have much to say. I am reading this while writing the Morning Pages, an exercise that the book recommends. This is based on the recommendation of Tim Ferriss and the presence of an accountability WhatsApp group around this practice.
“In his 1974 book, Labor and Monopoly Capital, the influential Marxist political economist Harry Braverman argued that the expanding “science-technical revolution” was being exploited by companies to increasingly “deskill” workers; to leave them in “ignorance, incapacity, and thus in fitness for machine servitude.” The more employees outsource skilled activity to machines, the more controllable they become.”
“The only group that would unambiguously benefit from deskilling developers would be the technology companies themselves, which could minimize one of their biggest expenses: their employees.”
“Today, open YouTube and every single thumbnail looks the same. Shocked faces, specific color contrasts, carefully positioned text overlays. Same voice. Same cadence and energy level. And videos have roughly the same lengths. The algorithm rewards these patterns with distribution and punishes deviation with obscurity.”
“My carefully curated list of creators has devolved into sameness. Whether pen reviewers, photographers, music bloggers, history tellers, or science bloggers—it is clear they are praying at the feet of the gods of algorithms.”
Dan presents the theory on how to change your life and then presents practical way to do it by asking yourselves a few questions. A great insight into how asking good questions makes your life better even if does not change it.
The X algorithm now promotes more longer content that it calls Articles. I noticed more people that I follow posting longer form content.
Watching
This Malayalam video starts with how Nizar Iltutmish started his journey running away from his Class XII board exams for 108 days. Some of the things he witnesses shapes his interests. He has written 4 books and talks about 2 of them in this video. What he describes are two terrifying practices practiced till this day in Tamil Nadu. This is his talk given at the recently held Kerala Legislature International Book Festival 2026.
The game of your financial life is a lot like Monopoly. Alok Jain of Weekend Investing explains well drawing on the parallels between the board game and your financial life. I really liked this video and gave me a new framework to think about my financial life.
If you don’t watch the full video, watch the parts about his morning and evening routine. He discusses how his morning routine is personal and designed to maximize creativity.
Matt D’Avella convinces you with his cinematic video to ask you to take responsibility for things that are in your control.
Writing
I wrote one blog post about our visit to Katraj Zoo. I have to write about the PSLV-C62 mission failure and about our visit to the Siddhivinayak Temple at Siddhatek this Saturday.
My daughter was bugging me to go somewhere, anywhere. I told her that we would meet her brother and her relatives on Saturday (10 January 2026) after her Parent Teacher Meeting.
My son likes to play with animal toys and seem to enjoy watching birds.
We had driven through Katraj (via the ghat) when returning from Kerala in September and it got me curious what it was like inside.
These were three data points I used to decide that we should visit the zoo.
Collage of photos of my family and me at the zoo during one of our breaks. Image Credit: Pradeep Mohandas, Collage created with Collage on Google Photos.
For the drive to Katraj, Google Maps took us right past Shaniwar wada and Dagadhushet Ganapati Temple. It took us past Swargate and on the road to Katraj. There was public parking available outside the zoo. We parked there and walked to the zoo through the dilipated platform of the bus stand.
The road outside is full of hawkers selling fast food, finger foods, and fruits.
Once inside we took a ticket to enter the zoo and entered at half past twelve in the afternoon. My daughter was still expecting her relatives to join us. We went past a sea of school kids who were either having lunch or running to the bathrooms to go to the bathrooms ourselves.
After our bathroom break, we wanted to take the tour of the zoo in one of the four battery operated vehicles but after the fourth vehicle left their bay, we were informed that the vehicle that just left was the last one over the next hour. Instead of cooling our heals while waiting for the bus, we decided to walk it.
We went through the snake park with my daughter finding the turtles cute. Most animals were on their afternoon siesta here, a pattern that would repeat throughout the visit.
We then went on a long trek with boards pointing to animals but no signs of the animal themselves. My 3 year old son walked the distance. We walked past dears, antelopes, etc. but that did not seem to enthuse my son. A bear walking across its enclosure to probably eat food or drink water got my son’s attention. We were back to walking again.
We saw the elephants and then took a snack break. We used the opportunity to fill our water bottles as well. It was well-advised that we carry our own snacks. We carried makhana and broken-idli-pieces (this is specifically for our son).
I tried to tell my daughter that when we told her that we are going to visit her relatives, we meant the animals in the zoo. She did not believe me and still expected human relatives to meet us here. As we walked back and she realized that what I said was true, she expressed her anger and did not talk to me for a while.
The session after this was more interesting with a white tiger, tigers, cheetah, etc. Most animals were enjoying an afternoon siesta after their lunch (probably). Many of the visitors were joking that Indian animals would anyway be lazy like the rest of us.
We tried various methods to keep the children enthused on the return. We pushed and walked more than on the way back with fewer rests.
Much of the zoo was in various stages of repair. They are probably getting ready for their summer peak.
We ate pav bhaji and misal pav from one of the hawkers from the pavement outside. There was also a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a softie machine.
The family all fell asleep on the way back. I drove in silence with only my playlist playing providing ambient music. The way back was through Camp and Bund Garden. Although, we have been in Pune for almost 7 years now, we haven’t explored many of the places around Pune.
I was happy that I had taken my daughter somewhere. But, she meant going to the mall and wasn’t happy that we wandered in the zoo under the afternoon Sun.
Things slowed down in the second week of 2026. I was tired after the trip to the Mayureshwar Temple and took it easy for the first few days of the week. This translated to missing the 68th edition of Pradeep’s Space Newsletter and things running slow till Thursday.
We moved our workplace at work and settling down took time. The good news is that the coffee machine is farther but so are the good bathrooms.
I completed the YearCompass last week where I was asked to pick a word to symbolise and define the year ahead. I picked Balance. This is the first year of this exercise for me.
I also picked three areas of focus – family, technical writing, and space. So, you will see more of these in my blog posts this coming year.
I completed listening to Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks on Audible. I did not read any of the other books I mentioned last week.
My family and I drove to Morgaon on 4 January 2026. It was the first long drive I undertook after the operation in the second week of December. It was a two-hour drive one-way.
The drive to the temple was on mostly good roads except for a stretch between Hadapsar and a little beyond Phursungi. After that the roads were good and mostly empty. We made a stop at Kamat’s at Khalad on NH 965 for tea and our bathroom break.
We didn’t make any stops on the way back. We stopped after we crossed Magarpatta to snack on some makhana.
I first heard about Mayureshwar Temple associated with the Ashtavinayak pilgrimage circuit. It is the starting and ending temple to visit on that circuit. There are some fascinating myths associated with the temple.
The temple was really well planned. It had good parking space, not too many heckling commercial establishments, and really well kept temple surroundings. We had a good darshan after a small waiting time. I found it hard to pray though the darshan was relaxed.
I did not notice too much on this journey because I was really focussed on driving and my own driving comfort.
Addendum: 16 January 2026
I watched this post on Instagram that gives the story of Khandoba at Jejuri. This is near Mayureshwar. While standing in line, we saw several people who seemed bathed in turmeric and we were curious to learn more.
Wishing you a Happy New Year! I got a lot of recommendations and book gifts (mentioned below in the Reading section).
Reading
The Great Indian Retreat – Reading this is a more tangible form of saying what the Indus Valley Report reports in terms of India and Bharat and the disintermediation happening between them. There are also people like me who seem to be on the faultline moving between them not fully of one or the other.
Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks – I’m listening to this on Audible. I’m 79% through this book.
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron – I’m doing the exercise given in The Artist’s Way along with a group of people who are in the Clear Writing Community. I’m 12% through this book.
On the Banks of Mayyazhi by M Mukundan, Translated by Gita Krishnakutty – I’m reading this as a part of The Purple Pencil Project Book Club.
The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF – This book was gifted to me by Diljeet Singh Narwal of Pineapple Elaichi Book Club as a Secret Santa gift for me even though I couldn’t participate in their Secret Santa. Thank you, Diljeet and PEBC!
When Privilege Pretends to be Economics by Vivek Kaul on newslaundry – Zomato and Blinkit gig workers went on strike on 31 December 2025. Deepinder Goyal of Eternal wrote a post on X. There were many counter-arguments of what Goyal wrote but this is what I thought was one of the best counter-arguments I read, as on date.
The TIFR website has information about the Kalyan Radio Telescope including pictures. The site was near the now-abandoned Kalyan airstrip.https://t.co/Sumr9UJ8uyhttps://t.co/yHncODy8zL
I spent the hours leading up to the New Year’s watching eko which dropped on Netflix. We watched together as a family. I really enjoyed watching this finale of the Animal trilogy.
The story telling with a twist in the tale reminiscent of Jeffrey Archer who wrote a book of short stories with that name. Doing that with three stories on television/theatre is difficult.
Eko serves as the third and final instalment of Bahul Ramesh’s Animal Trilogy, following Kishkindha Kaandam (2024) and Kerala Crime Files 2 (2025).
I recently needed to read about movies to understand the story better after just one viewing. I didn’t have the energy to watch them again to discover these hidden layers. I even overlooked some details when reading about them. That’s when I found the explanations on The Pirate Explains YouTube channel helpful.
The first video from the channel is about the questions you may have had you watched the movie only once. I would warn you against watching this video unless you have watched the movie at least once.
The same channel had another video that fixes the timeline in the movie for you, but I didn’t think that was that much of a value add.
Sometimes protection and restriction, both look the same. This is the thought with which Bahul Ramesh wrote eko. I enjoyed learning about his intuitive writing of the first draft in this interview with Baradwaj Rangan.
He has a really unique storywriting process. Dialogue, Screenplay, and Story.
But, eventually, this means that I can’t post a review immediately after watching it.
Parallel Spirals 