I love the early morning feels out here in India – the birds chirping, the oddly earthy smells, a temple bell ringing in distance, and invariably someone has MS Subhalaxmi’s suprabhatam on just loud enough that you know it’s that. A few moments of relative peace and nice before general mayhem of day starts. Of course I am also waking up early coz of jet lag.
stupendousblog
Yesterday my nieces went for a birthday party. The parents don’t know each other but the nannies of the kids do. So the entire thing was planned through nannies meeting up in evening in park with their individual kids they look after. Invitations exchanges, gifts thought off and all. Not a single parent at the party – just kids and their nannies! This is sad and hilarious at the same time. I mean if I can get out of a toddle birthday party I absolutely would 
The amount of urgent and frantic background music that accompanies every Indian news channel is hilarious. It’s like without the music Indians won’t really get the gravity of the news – more panicky and faster the music is bigger the crisis is. For example women in UP are fighting over clothes drying rack and now it’s national news! This is 100x better than CNN crap! I am here for this!
My god the modern conveniences of Blinkit / Zepto apps. Everything delivered in 10 mins or less. No planning by anyone – it’s like you think of it and it’s home, so no qn of making a “list”. People keep delivering things through the day! Like how do they even get this to work is beyond amazing – scale efficiencies at work!
The Social Network (2010) – ★★★★★
Rewatched it again on flight and man this movie holds up. We need a sequel to show us how much more of a pathetic asshole Mark became. The dude truly is a third rate human.
Today is Maha Shivratri, so according to Hindu calendar is also death anniversary for mom. It’s also her birthday too today, along with my wife who shares the bday. And it’s also my in-laws wedding anniversary. So yeah a lot going on today! It was a good call to celebrate the birthday dinner last night instead.
I cannot in good conscience support Afghanistan cricket team any more sorry. There was a reason why South Africa was banned from International cricket for 22 years. While they may all be great players, but I can’t support a team that represents, ultimately, whether they want or not, Taliban. I hope these players flee their countries and play for someone else.
Dad and Uncle/Aunt have successfully done their dubkis in Ganga river on occasion of Maha-Shivratri and Kumbh Mela. I was worried after seeing and reading so much about crowds there, especially for my aunt who can’t walk much. Two days ago on a different trip, my father-in-law and mother-in-law did the same. Both set of parents came back with same feedback: Good arrangements, everything was convenient. They had people biking you to different locations, and if not you could just take the boat out to the ghat and avoid all walking/rush. All in all they had a convenient experience at Maha Kumbh and glad that they went and it was nothing like what was on media. As usual, another reminder, do not believe everything you see on social media or any media channels. I am glad it went off well for both set of parents and uncle/aunt.
A common friend of ours moved out of USA two years back as part of job rotation in bank and posted to Addis Ababa. Their kid mostly grew up here and thanks to pandemic they skipped multiple posting resulting in kid almost becoming a teenager here. He was on business trip back here and turns out the kid is having a blast growing up in Addis Ababa and swears he has no interest ever to come back to USA! And now the same family is moving to Cambodia for next posting. The kid is in 11th grade and is looking forward to new experiences! I love such stories of young people exploring the world – unlike my kid who thinks the world starts and ends in America and India 
For wife’s bday dinner the kid wants us to go to a steakhouse coz she wants to eat a burger there and neither of us actually like steak at all so we are all going there to eat fish and cauliflower while my kid will eat an expensive burger only to complain that the one she had in McDs tastes better!