Weekly Notes 35/2025

My physiotherapy has shifted to strength training, and it’s going good. I’m also monitoring my diet and making a few changes. I’ve restarted breakfast with just eggs and coffee. Otherwise, I still have two meals a day, with a smaller dinner. I am also trying to use Origin Nutrition once a day. I will have to see how it goes.

• I am trying to walk to the park and other neighborhood places with Uma. Bengaluru’s footpaths are obstacle courses, making it impossible for both the elderly and the young to walk. And this is in an area with supposedly ‘decent’ footpaths. In most places, they don’t exist at all or are completely occupied by parked vehicles, garbage, or construction debris.
• Uma’s cousins were here during the weekend. It was a busy but lots of fun weekend.
• During the week, Appa developed a fever. We initially thought it was due to the weather. But it now appears to be viral. Everyone seems to get virals at the end of the monsoon. After a day, we visited the doctor and started him on medication. Hopefully it’s nothing major.
• I was able to assist friends at The Hindu in speeding up the SIR data parsing process as part of DataMeet. Dask makes it very easy to utilize all the horsepower your laptop or computer has to offer. I have not written about Dask here. I have a couple of drafts, and I will publish them in the coming week.
• It was a good idea to ask for recommendations for blogs. I got a few. I have subscribed to them and added some to BlogRing, including one sent by Mihir called Sīmātīta/ಸೀಮಾತೀತ, by Seema, who also writes weekly notes that I generally love reading. I think you can learn a lot about people by observing what they do on a regular day, which is essentially what Weekly Notes are, or at least that’s how I see it. Anyway, now I might have to go herping. I have started listing Uma’s favorite books here. I will also add a similar list for her favorite toys and other things, along with comments. If you are a parent, it may be helpful.
• The story of Ekalavya always haunted me. The world’s most excellent archer, according to the Mahabharata, is a story of class, caste, and above all, the ability to learn. So, as a kid ( and even now), I couldn’t comprehend that after losing his right thumb, he would sit idle and do nothing. If he could be the world’s most excellent archer without any real guru, he could do the same with his left hand, I thought. This thought would often come to me. At some point, I even thought about writing a short story; maybe I will write it one day. In the meantime, I read TP Kailwasam’s take on Ekalavya, Purpose and Fulfillment this week. So updated my reading tracker after a long time.
• It an excellent news, Banu Mushtaq will be inaugurating Nada Habba – Mysore Dasara this year. I am delighted with this news. There will be a lot of opposition from the hindutva wing, but I don’t think we need to worry about it; we are ಸರ್ವ ಜನಾಂಗದ ಶಾಂತಿಯ ತೋಟ.
• Why do fascists target schools, libraries, museums, theaters, movies, books, writers, and art? Whether it’s India, the US, or Nazi Germany, it’s an important question to ask for us Indians. For me, who specifically chose to live in India, I think it’s a big question. Of course, I would like to keep myself away from politics as much as possible. One, it’s not productive; two, it’s a fight of the lowest form, especially when you consider any social media platform, from WhatsApp to Twitter. But I think if we keep our voices down during times like this, we will be put along with the supporters of fascism. However small, in whatever corner of the internet or physical world, I will have to raise my voice, even if it’s the weakest voice in that room. I don’t need to win every argument, but I do need to register my opposition every time it arises. How do you handle this?