Excursions

I watched all four episodes of The Romantics today. I loved the first two that documented the early life of Yash Chopra and the Yash Raj Films. I especially enjoyed the references to the early 90’s movies – especially the music. That was also my biggest gripe with the docuseries – it just didn’t speak enough about Yash Chopra’s taste in music. And his love for lyrics.

I remember listening once to Javed Akhtar on how valuable the lyrics, the words, and the poetry was to Yash Chopra. “If music is the body of a song, lyrics are its soul,” Javed Akhtar had said. Yash Chopra understood that.

So as I got nostalgic while listening to all the songs from the yesteryears – Waqt, Kabhi Kabhi, Silsila, Chandni, Darr – play in the background, I wished the makers of The Romantics had spent a whole episode just on his appreciation and quest for good music. There are so few Indian directors left who still value music as a core identity of movies. Yash Chopra was one of them.

Somedays are frustratingly productive, leaving me drained to the core. I am that today. What started as a routine day gradually turned into a busy nightmare as it went along. The only positive is that it was productive. I did everything that I had planned to complete in the morning, and then I did some more. I also checked off a couple of unplanned but priority tasks that got added to my list.

I am not fond of such a level of productivity. Not that I don’t want to work. I love working, especially when that work involves any amount of coding. The more complicated the problem, the better I feel.

But I have found over 17 years of working that such productivity levels aren’t sustainable. They leave me exhausted, needing that much more of a downtime and cool-off period. I would prefer consistently efficient days to the occasional burst of high productivity.

That said, there is some innate pleasure in such productive days. As I wind off the day well spent today, there is a smile of satisfaction on my face. Could I push some work to tomorrow? Sure. But it becomes difficult to pull away once I am in the flow.

One would think that years of experience at work make you immune to such bouts of focus. But there is no negating the drive for productivity. Especially for someone who loves what he does. Someone like me.

It’s summer enough for a nice natural’s ice-cream. With dry fruits overloaded.

Since uninstalling YouTube from my phone, the first result that comes up as I start searching for the app (typing “yo”) is Day One. I take that as a nudge to get away from the phone. I like that! 😎

Too much is said about how AI - ChatGPT & likes - is already challenging our being. Our personhood. But AI can learn from and build over only its training data.

What makes us human is we invent our own training data. As long as we keep the bulbs in our heads flashing, we have nothing to fear.

I have always carried a clean-shaven face, yet I often want to sport a beard. Sure, I frequently keep an unkempt stubble. 2-3 days of facial hair is my look when I am not meeting someone. But if we are going out, I shave. Or if we are expecting guests at home, I shave. And if I see a tired me looking back at me in the mirror, I shave. Keeping a beard hence has not been easy for me.

I inherited this clean look from my father, who he shaves daily without a miss. That is part of his morning routine. A cup of tea can wait. I have rarely seen him with stubble, let alone a full-grown beard.

Yet, as I write this, I carry a week’s stubble on my face today. I am pretty certain that I want to grow a beard this time. There is a fad amongst men in India to keep a well-trimmed beard. And that last part makes me nervous. It is not easy to keep a beard. It takes effort to maintain it. The beard needs attention. It needs grooming. I know because I already feel itchy after a week without shaving.

I know there are oils and beard washes to help with the discomfort.

But I ask myself, why put myself through all this trouble? Why not just go with what I know and am more comfortable with? Am I ready to pay the price of experimentation on the face? Well, time to find out tomorrow.

The weekly report from Digital Wellbeing on my phone informs me that the daily average screen time was 20 minutes less than last week’s. And I am pleased to see that trend has been downwards for the last few weeks. I uninstalled YouTube from my phone a few weeks back, which is one of the key reasons for lowered usage.

YouTube sucks away time without you noticing. The best way I know to control this beast is to not be available to you. The web app is a pain enough to not be distracting. So just get rid of the app from the phone and get your time back.

It’s just February, not peak summer yet by any means. But the afternoons are already hot enough that it has started to feel like the season of Mangos isn’t far enough. Today was another warm afternoon, and we couldn’t resist the Pune special Mango Mastani from Sujata Mastani.

I sometimes hate how I read stuff online – hopping from link to link. Reading, but not letting it absorb within. To not pause and think. That’s not the way I like to do it. If what I read doesn’t make me agree, disagree or learn something new, it’s futile.

Though it sounds cheesy, I love the word play in this advertisement of Federal Bank. “Rishta Aap Se Hai, Sirf App Se Nahi”.

It’s in Hindi and I won’t even try to translate - the fun will be lost.