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.
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.
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
This post is usually meant for weekly posts. However, as we move towards the end of the year, there is an itch to talk about the whole year as well. I hope I can keep the itch aside after one sentence.
2025 was a very inconsistent year for me. Week 52 was not so. I got a lot of writing done at work.
Social Media consumption
I have increased my time spent on Substack, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and X. I wanted to reduce my time spend on X, but most of my space reading and breaking news happens here. This is important to me because I plan to start writing Pradeep’s Space Newsletter again.
Substack is getting better. But, I only see Venkatesh Rao use all of Substack features (Notes, Chat, besides the newsletter) fully. This is what I am aspiring to do. I tried to do that this week but quite unsuccessfully.
I have started getting tired of YouTube.
I want to try doing something like what Winnie Lim suggests here:
The influence social media had on me was not overt – it was not as if I felt compelled to scroll something or I would feel twitchy, but rather it gave me an easy way out whenever I was bored and wanted to be engaged. It just felt shallow, and I seem to be at a point of my life when I wanted something more out of myself. I don’t really know what is that something I am searching for.
I too am at a point in my life when I want something more out of myself.
Writing
I have seen Doc Searls get back to writing blog posts like he does since Wordland launched. He writes about this here:
My original blog was a mix of both. But my writing streams branched when I started blogging here using WordPress in 2007. Social media was taking off, and writers began using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and the rest for publishing short stuff. In the midst, tweet became a verb. So my long stuff stayed here, while the short stuff went out on platforms.
What I’m doing now with Wordland is shifting my short-burst bloggings from social media platforms that are not mine to this blog, which is mine: going from dependence to independence. Dave, father of Wordland and much else, is leading that shift, and I advise paying attention to what he’s writing and doing.
I want to try doing that here.
Rohini writes on social media (mostly, Mastodon) and she compiles them on her blog. That is another approach that I find appealing.
Reading
Kathleen Gough and Kerala: Maddy writes about anthropologist Kathleen Gough who studied in Kerala around the 1950s and wrote about Nair kinship and matrilineal families.
Black Gold, Green Future: Abhed Manocha writes this wonderful Substack post on the Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Amendment Act, 2025. He explains how this changes India’s focus from a licensing mindset to a focus on strategic energy security and Ease of Doing Business mindset. [My LinkedIn post on the same.]
The writer Vinod Kumar Shukla and actor Sreenivasan passed away this week. I read many of their obituaries (one in the Indian Express and one in the newsminute). I also consumed many of them on Instagram.
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Andrew Taggart: A look at karma yoga at a time when karma mostly has just mundane tasks. It is a short book with a lot of wisdom packed in its pages. It can be read easily but its a really hard re-think and do.
Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks: I am listening to this on Audible. I am about 57% done in the book. I am reading it again after reading them while still in school.
Watching
These three videos from India in Pictures talk about the three of the four Vedas, their practical application and how the geographical setup in which they were written.
I started listening to the sermons of Sharath A Haridasan in Malayalam after my first hospitalization of 2025. I had dropped listening to it after my second hospitalization. I picked it up again after the third hospitalization. This one talks about kavu and kshetrams and the difference between the two. He also talks about how the practices of worship are getting standardized.
This is a very good podcast interview talking about contrarian investing in India. He says, “The detachment to money helps you to make money.” He says that the issue he has is selling too early. He says he overcame this with the idea of substitution. He doesn’t sell something until he has a better opportunity that he wants to buy before he sells.
India replaced 29 labour codes into 4 labour codes. This video in Hindi talks about how it impacts you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Mariner 4 used Canopus, a bright star in the constellation Carina, as an attitude reference, its star tracker camera locking onto the star after its Sun sensor had locked onto the Sun. This was the first time a star had been used to provide second axis stabilization, its brightness (second brightest star in the sky) and its position well off the ecliptic making it an ideal referent.”
“…we’ve also just had a first in terms of autonomous navigation through the work of the New Horizons team. Without using radio tracking from Earth, the spacecraft has determined its distance and direction by examining images of star fields and the observed parallax effects. Wonderfully, the two stars that the team chose for this calculation were Wolf 359 and Proxima Centauri, two nearby red dwarfs of considerable interest.”
“That its consumers are also its customers is a huge advantage over commercial over-the-air broadcasting, which entirely serves the advertising market.”
Mukherjea suggests investing 50% in Indian stock market and 50% in the US market for the equity portion of your portfolio which I found interesting.
New songs dropped from Agam this week.
Dharmesh Shah mentions many interesting technical notes on ChatGPT.
Thinking of buying a new car. So, started listening to this on financial rules for buying a new car.
My son watches this and has caught on many Malayalam words from this one. He has also picked up counting in Malayalam from 1 to 10, saying left and right in Malayalam etc.
I realized I was not listening to podcasts that I usually would. I have downloaded PocketCasts to fix that. I have also downloaded the X and Tusky app for Android to access X and Mastodon. Thus ends my social media detox.
Matt D’Avella is someone I started following when I was into minimalism. Good to see that he is still trying to hang in there.
I have been trying to explore solarpunk and lunarpunk themes in my story writing. I haven’t written much this year. That’s something I hope to fix at this year’s NaNoWriMo.
I’m seeing many finance YouTubers and podcast hosts talk about cryptocurrency again in India. Most of the stuff that I have watched had been sponsored by the cryptocurrency exchange, CoinDCX. Another cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, which had decided to not comply with India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) guidelines for cryptocurrency exchanges and had left India is also returning with a India Blockchain Yatra.
Mukesh Bansal’s solocast on fasting.
Madhu Kela, knowingly or unknowingly says in this podcast, “China is an autocracy, India is a bureaucracy”, although he corrects it to democracy before he completes.
Parallel Spirals 