Stupendously Sublime

The 13th in the series, wow, 13 years of writing this year after year. It feels a little giddy. Welcome to my yearly birthday blog, which is usually not published on my birthday. This year i promise not to speak about social media, how friendships have gone away, tragedies et cetera. This year i'll try to write a little bit more about what was great. 2022 was a buffer year, a buffer between COVID and normalcy. Early on in the year COVID's omicron variant wrecked havoc. I finally caught it, the missus gave it to me, but it was an easier hit than the delta variant a year before. The after effects were not something to look down upon and I spent a week in a haze. Brain fog if you must. (Shit man, can't keep a promise. Can I?) How did I get COVID? that in itself is a nice story, It was Baba. My dear friend Mathis got married this year (congratulations to her and YC) and her nuptials were in Goa (a destination wedding you see). So, naturally baba said "Pehle 2-3 din enjoy k...

It started with "Ladakh chalte hain" Frankly speaking, I was highly skeptical of our ability to do this road trip. Looking back, I'm still astounded that we were able to do this. But, with each others' support and our ability to problem solve and manage expectations, Theka and I were able to pull it off. The others were just along for the ride.  It was like having a trip with 6 kids, i felt like a school teacher to a menagerie of delinquents. Some excerpts from what i said "No, we cannot stop every 5 mins for photos" "How can you be hungry already, we just ATE" "what do you mean we should look for a bathroom?" Obviously, this is an exaggeration of what transpired, but I will not let the truth stand in the way of a good story - facts be damned. I have seen that any endeavour of such a size has multiple phases, and i will try to describe how we felt them below.  What can i say, I'm a science student and we love our processes. 1. Initial...