Terrible sleep

Kept drifting in and out of sleep most of the night. There are numerous moments through the night that I remember being uncomfortably awake in. There are also lots of blank spaces between those moments, so I was likely asleep then. It was all too discomforting. I don’t feel mentally rested at all.

It may have been the heat. It could also have been the larger than usual amount of caffeine I had—2 coffees and a Coke zero. The late ice cream and then lounging on the sofa may also have added to it. Latent anxiety and regret from an interview earlier in the day may have lent a hand as well. Though I feel that a combination of the first two was likely mostly responsible.
(It didn’t help that Bruno went and spread out in front of the fan, blocking any air from reaching me!)

Anyway, now I’m wasting time writing this note while waiting for coffee to hit the head so I can start working :/

No dogs allowed

Parents are moving out of the home we grew up in, and into a flat in a ‘society’.

They didn’t want this change but have now accepted it and are looking forward to it.

I struggled to accept this change, specially the circumstances that forced it, but had slowly accepted it. Till now.

I just realised that given it’s a flat in a small town Indian ‘society’, there’s no chance of a pet dog being allowed in there. It breaks my heart.

I had a long pending plan/hope/desire of visiting them and staying with them for a couple of months. I can’t take Chewie there, but I’d plotted about adopting a young dog, training him during my stay in Karnal, and leaving him with them once they developed a bond.

But now that they live in a flat in a ‘society’, this can’t ever happen 🙁

😞😢

Words

I read these words in Fred Wilson’s post earlier in the week:

As my friend David Steinberg said to me last month, we are witnessing 1918 (pandemic) plus 1929 (economic crisis) plus 1968 (racial crisis) all at the same time.

There’s something that’s been bothering me about this. They call the current anti racism protests in the US (and elsewhere) a ‘racial crises’.

It’s not a racial crisis. The racial (or racism) crisis is what the US has had for over a century. The police didn’t suddenly start shooting black people at a higher rate. It’s just that everyone has a camera, so the racist excesses are being recorded and exposed at a higher rate.

What’s happening now in the US is a boiling over of the frustrations of the frequently suppressed black minority. The current events are their response—both peaceful and the not peaceful ones.

To label these protest events (and the counter events) as ‘a racial crisis‘ is not very different from Trump saying there were very fine people on both sides after the Charlottesville incident.

That a fairly liberal person used these words indicates how easy it is to use a soft term, rooting it deeper into acceptance.

Continue reading Words

Which is worse—fear or complacency?

Manchester City lost to Lyon by not playing the way they usually play. Guardiola changed the formation, changed players’ positions, and refused to make the changes even after seeing his side struggle.

Manchester United lost to Sevilla by playing the same way they have often played and lost. They were making the same mistakes that they’ve made in some of the games I’ve seen them lose—midfielders (Pogba, but also Bruno) don’t track back well enough, they defend after taking lead even when the defence has been leaky under pressure.

Which is worse—abandoning your winning instincts and then having a brain freeze, or refusing to learn the lessons and making the same mistakes again?

I refuse to even ponder over that Champions League semifinal—the scoreline says it all. The performance on the field was way more shameful than even the scoreline.

Continue reading Which is worse—fear or complacency?

Almost a five checkmark day

Missing 17 mins of sleep.

Morning in bed with coffee, books and hugging boys. Followed by another (nearly) 10K run—felt and ran better than yesterday. Then a short walk, with a little chase play, for the boys. Lazy, hot afternoon. Capped off with another evening spent in the cool river water with Chewie and Dudley. All ready to crash now. Happy! 🙂

I miss Bombay

I often miss Shimla, where I spent some of the happiest periods of my childhood, most of them with my favourite cousins or my dad. Guildford smells like Shimla sometimes, bringing those memories back. Ambleside always smells like Shimla, perhaps why I like it so much.

I sometimes miss Joka, the place, some of the people, some sweet smiles, many regrets. Lakes, bridges, Calcutta and the rest.

I miss Goa. The easy escape, the careless freedom, the sea and the breeze.

I occasionally miss my Punjabi tabbar with all our eccentricities.

But the place I miss the most, that I itch to go back to every so often, is Bombay. I miss my Bombay. A hell, fucking, LOT.

It’s not my Bombay anymore. I’ve changed, and it must’ve changed. Yet I miss it like crazy and itch to be there. The unreachable itch.

Fuck.

Continue reading I miss Bombay