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And just like that our next house project has begun. Luckily a short one (and by short I mean a week lol). This time we are getting 4 net new windows installed by cutting through walls. This should improve our light situation in our hill station home. Come spring everything sprouts here to the point our living room is a dark dingy hell. The 4 windows should not only help getting more light inside, but also bring some of that outside green inside and provide a nice view for the eyes! Cannot wait for this to be over by end of week!

24 hours in I can hear every message notification, audio and video playing on dad’s phone from across the house and floor coz it’s that loud! On the other hand in living room now and TV is at comfortable volume and he can’t hear a thing. I am convinced that Indians are just turning deaf because of volume on their devices!!!

Dad telling stories about his village and his cousins who live there today. They have turned their life around from being paupers and hand to mouth existence in the late eighties/early nineties to minting money off their agricultural lands with bumper crops each year today. Part of the reason why my dad’s part of the family immigrated to Maharashtra and then Gujarat was precisely because even though they owned lots of acreage it was all arid and growing anything was a difficult exercise. Then in the late eighties, the government undertook multi year project of building canals and smaller dams around Krishna and Tungabhadra river tributaries. My uncle was one of the main civil engineers associated with the project, and as a part of survey work he had come across lands that belonged to my grandma that she had no idea she owned (well, nobody did until they found out her dad had written off land to her!). By the time legalese around it was over, my grandma had lost more than 95% of her lands to her brothers who had hoodwinked her in false documents, probably out jealousy, or just plain malaise. After all they were all paupers with lands and nothing to grow but they were smart enough to know you never give up land, and my grandma didnt live there. Their bets paid off — 30 years down the line, their sons & daughters now occupy some of the most fertile land in the area. Thanks to those canals that the government built during those times (& my uncle), the lands truly became fertile from dry arid soil they were. Today the families are minting money by exporting their crop all over India.

I keep thinking back to those visits to the village and meeting all those folks sometimes. I have no reason to visit them, and as bad as I feel about what happened to grandma, I also feel happy they were at least able to do good with what they had. But most of all I think about my uncle and trips we made to their home when young. I dont know if he realizes the monumental impact of the work he did (& as did countless others). India today was built on shoulders of people like them.

A woman in our local buy nothing group wants to gift a samasung tv box. I mean Jesus Christ just recycle the box away – what do you want? Karma points?

Willow is a great example of how to make a terrible tv app. When you access it first time, asks you to login. If you use smartphone tv app you can usually just use keyboard on phone to type out username and password to login. Works with pretty much all tv apps. Except of course, willow. With willow you have to press enter twice, and then use only tv keyboard to enter your username and password by selecting one letter at a time. Then and then it only logs in. What a complete cluster of an app!

Finally we were home at 2:30am in morning after whst dad described as “east” customs. No dad, easy customs is what you experience in India right now, not here. Anyway barely slept but looking forward to opening the stash of snacks from India 💪

Last time I went to Bangalore I was out of the plane, customs, covid test, bags and out of airport in 30 mins flat. It’s been more than an hour and slow trickle of people basically says w Rey thing that is wrong here – like figure this shit out! It cannot take this long for customs and bags.

The cutest sight at arrivals lounge is the grandpas and grandmas hugging their grandkids – for many this may be their first trip post pandemic and the passage of time clearly speaks through their tears of joy.

So if flights were on time dad would be at the airport right now instead because of 4 hour delay at LHR he will be landing at 12 in the night. Tonight is basically fucked for all of us – and can’t come at a better time coz kid is at swim meet tomorrow which begins at 6 😆

Going to Trader Joe’s. Never felt so woke!