Excursions

We had a nice unplanned walk around the neighbourhood last night. Some charm in the usualities at night.

Movie night with family - Zootopia 2 at IMAX 🍿

It’s long past midnight and I am still unable to go to sleep. There’s a lot of noise outside and within. I have got nice sleep music playing in my ears, but when has that helped to cut the noise within? This is rare, but I hate when this happens.

Last week, I was on a work trip to Chennai. I have been to this town before, but never spent any meaningful time here. It was either during a packed schedule or during a layover en route to places like Pondicherry.

The schedule this time was different – I had a free workday, which I wanted to make full use of. So I decided to take an auto to Elliot’s Beach and walk down Elliot’s Promenade.

It had rained throughout the day, and the weather had cleared slightly as the evening dawned. I had forgotten my AirPods at my hotel – and I could not have been happier. I got to enjoy the place in its most natural form—the wind, the sounds, the absence of the hustle and bustle that comes with a beach in India.

I spent a good couple of hours roaming around the empty street, drank a couple of filter coffees. Walked down a wooden walkway straight to the crashing waves – I couldn’t have been happier to see that, given that I didn’t carry any extra shoes with me.

It’s a place I would love to spend every evening at. At the same time, Chennai is not a city I can ever settle in. So the evening was a one-off, but I carried back many memories with me.

Speed watched: Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai for n’th time🍿

I like to remind myself how cheesy Bollywoodish the 2000s were. And how crazy in love I was with the phase.

Sometimes the test posts are not to test the post, but to test the poster. Here’s that post.

When the skies peek from the canopy of the greens, sometimes that’s the best part of the walks! Yesterday was one such day - a walk through the old city of Pune. My daughter fell in love with the city that she never knew she was living in.

I have enabled the crossposting to all places again. Why? No reason. I have anyway been crossposting to Mastodon, which is the only social network I have been active on. But that need not be the case.

I am tired of overthinking stuff around my blogging. It’s okay if things aren’t perfect. I won’t worry about what reaches which audience.

I am happy as long as I write.

Wherever I get responses, I will reply. Participate in whichever stream I am in the mood to dip my toes in. Or stay away if that’s what feels right at that moment. Better to keep experimenting than to let things get stagnant.

Just had one of the worst Cafe Mocha that I have ever had. And the only reason I even came here was that I had to pass an hour and this is the only place that had good parking spot. I know now that shouldn’t be a parameter ever in choosing a cafe ☕

Crazy Glass at Crazy Noodles.. It wasn’t the food that won us! 🍜

Thanks to Chai Point, had a “good” ginger tea at Airport. Something that wasn’t just dark muddy water. Low bar I know, but still nice! 😊

A beautiful stay - high up in the mountains. And then some more.

A view that made me halt while exiting.

Relaxing.

Camera couldn’t capture the colors my eyes could see. Never does.

I love this shot from a walk to the mall. No idea why.

When music surrounds you, your life smiles.

A destination that all in my family love. Lots of memories with food, chatter and laughter.

Hope the greens creep up on the concrete jungle eventually!

A cosy Thai place that won me with its ambiance than food. I am not complaining.

I came across this beautiful Welsh word for poetic inspiration Awen. I loved the sound of this word and what it represents. Even the symbol and the meaning behind took me on a journey.

> Awen is an important symbol in Celtic culture. It’s a symbol of creativity, imagination, and aesthetic sensibility. In the Celtic language, Awen means essence or poetic inspiration. While seemingly simple in appearance, the Awen holds deep symbolic meaning.

I have generally been bored of every experience I have online, whether it’s reading or writing. Nothing feels exciting or enticing. Writing quick thoughts is easy, but it’s much more challenging to gather them, let them simmer, and then post a cohesive post. This friction can potentially derail the train of thought. The thoughts – they are better out there than within.

My daughter loves her music. Listening to it. Making it. Learning it. She enjoys her music classes and recently started self-learning Ukelele through YouTube. It didn’t take her long to get the chords right for one of her favourite songs. As she performed, I recorded it and up it went on her channel. A new video is out now.

She’s also super excited that she is a click away from reaching 100 subscribers. I calm her down. But the excitement of any milestone is challenging to push away.

I finished reading Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson recently 📚

I enjoyed the first Ernest Cunningham novel with its uniquely fresh narration style. Though the second in the series has a similar tone, it felt repetitively bland this time. The story takes ages to kick off. Humour barely lands and feels there only to fill the pages. The same goes for the “cute” and frequent talk with readers—it just didn’t land for me. It irritated me every time.

I listened to this book this time, and the narration was terrible. It was so fast and messy that I couldn’t understand which character was speaking. I couldn’t get involved thoroughly; I was waiting for the book to end.

Today, I pushed a minor release for Posts Stats plugin that enables (and defaults to) collapsing the table for the posts by year. You can expand the table by clicking the “Show Posts by Year” button below the chart. It should make the page slightly shorter and easier to follow.

PS: If the button to expand the table does not work by default, your theme might not import JavaScript from plugins correctly. Ideally, you should have the following code block around the footer layout. If you are unable to figure it out, email me. I will try to help you debug.

{{ range .Site.Params.plugins_js }}
      <script src="{{ . }}"></script>
{{ end }}