Tag: The Hyphen

  • Weekly Notes 32/2026

    I wanted to write a daily summary of my day this week. Specifically, because August 8 was BuJo Day. I learnt about Bullet Journal and the practice in September 2015.

    This does not mean that I have a neat pile of notebooks from September 2015 till today. I have written and then abandoned Bullet Journals. I have a few partially written Bullet Journals lying around. I have not been consistent in the last two years. I have not written the whole of last week until yesterday.

    Since then I have added a pocket 3.5″ x 5.5″ notebook to the writing practice. Both practices have evolved.

    I did not read much this week because it was not the first thing that I did. It slipped through the cracks. The only progress I made in reading was in The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings (35%).

    I wrote a lot this week for Blaugust 2026 (almost a post per week) including a short story.

    2 Aug 2026, Sunday

    I was listening to Sharath A Haridasan’s talk on the worship of the various forms of Devis in Kerala. He says that worshipping the Godess (whichever be her form) must be similar to worship of the child to her/his mother. Children do not think about philosophy before calling their mother. They share with their mother both the good and the bad.

    He also shared many stories of people’s experiences praying to their Godesses and I have no explanation for why they left me crying.

    03 Aug 2026, Monday

    Dhanya and I watched the two Malayalam movies, Bharatnatyam and Mohiniattam.

    04 Aug 2026, Tuesday

    We met the surgeon who advised the recovery protocol. The hospital visit was completed quite quickly. I returned to work. Dhanya had a busy day managing the two kids’ various assignments. The rain did not help.

    05 Aug 2026, Wednesday

    I re-discovered Mark Manson on YouTube where he has been creating really long videos and videos of intermediate length. Once you admit to yourself that you are getting old, then this video is really useful.

    Dhanya and I spent the evening watching the Malayalam movie Anomie. We followed up by watching The Pirate Explains video of the same.

    07 Aug 2026, Friday

    I got a notification saying that 08 August was Bullet Journal Day. I visited Hiran’s digital garden again to see if he had changed the way he writes his notebook, and found that he had.

    As I browsed through his Notes, I found this line which really resonated with me:

    This is why systems emerge through use, you can’t design a system around what you haven’t measured yet.

    I spent quite some time reviewing my use of Bullet Journal. I have moved to a two notebook setup. I use the smaller notebook as a rough notebook.

    I also got a copy of the first copy of The Hyphen. The book came in a slightly wet envelope that seemed to carry the memories of the Monsoon. I am not so sure that I will hand over this book to the public library, though. It is so well done.

    Dhanya and I watched Governor about the 1991 incident of India pledging its gold for assistance from the International Monetary Fund.

    I read this in James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter:

    Clarity isn’t about knowing what you want to do with your life. It’s about knowing what you want to do this week.

    09 Aug 2026, Saturday

    I spent the day lazing around. I didn’t do much at all. I was mostly horizontal on this day.

  • Reading The Hyphen

    I heard that Vivek Shanbhag had launched a literary magazine with translations into English of stories from various regional languages. I think this is a great way to access works in Indian languages.

    I saw the announcement on X while I was trying to follow the news of the Starship towing.

    I then read the Scroll interview with Shanbhag where he talks about the story behind the name:

    Hyphen takes its inspiration from the poet, scholar, and translator AK Ramanujan, who once described himself as the “hyphen” in Indo-American. This striking metaphor aptly conveys the idea of connection and serves as a guiding principle for bringing diverse literatures and cultures into dialogue.

    I visited the website and found that if I logged in with your email id, I could read one story. I read Benyamin’s The Postman.

    Benyamin is a Malayalam writer I want to read in the original Malayalam one day. Manjaveyil Marangal is of interest to me. But, his most known work is Adujeevitam, which was made into The Goat Life.

    The Hyphen carried his The Postman. This story was translated to English by J Devika. The story is about a postman who is otherwise very particular about following the rules of postal delivery but who does not delivers certain letters because he believes it could affect their lives. I would love to read this in the original Malayalam.

    You can either read The Postman or see who else has written in this edition of The Hyphen. The best case would be to read someone you know of who has written in your mother tongue. After you read it in The Hyphen in English, try to read it in your mother tongue as well.

    I subscribed to both the print and digital edition of The Hyphen which is available in India, but they do not ship it internationally yet. I plan to read the physical copy of the magazine and then donate it to the public circulating library that I am a member of. There is also a page on The Hyphen’s website that has a list of places where you can buy the magazine.

    After The Postman, I am reading Indulkar, written by Kiran Gurav and translated from Marathi by Shanta Gokhale.