Looking Back at 2024

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Today is the penultimate day of the year, and as always, here’s my wrap-up of the year.

2024 started on a very positive note for me. I was gainfully employed, enjoying what I was doing and looking forward to the year. I also made a trip to India to celebrate my father’s 80th birthday and met my sister after almost eight years. The week we spent in Bangalore was probably the highlight of the year for me. 

Then, by the end of the first quarter, I was let go from my job citing structural changes to the organisation. This hit me hard, I was finally starting to feel productive, but letting go made me go into a mild depression. I felt useless, but then after a period of not feeling like a productive member of society, I decided to start looking for something. I also found a career coach who is working with me to finetune my resume and working with me on interview techniques, so a huge thanks to her. 

Then, about mid-year, a friend, who was an ex-colleague reached out to ask if I was interested in writing commissioned pieces. This friend shared my interest in writing and we bonded on our shared love for books and writing. I tried a couple of articles and was hooked on it. I loved that I could earn money from doing something that I loved. This was my Ikigai moment and in 2025, I will explore this further. Maybe I can make a living from writing?

I have been meditating consistently for a few years now and my mental health has been the best it has in a long time. Even when I was laid off, it didn’t take long for me to bounce back, full credit goes to my meditation. I also evolved spiritually this year, learning more about Hinduism and going deep into myself to commune with my Ishtadev. 

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My health and fitness levels are the same as last year, though I’ve had a couple of health scares this year. I am getting old and my body is more than eager to let me know this. Other than my diabetes which is somewhat in check, other parts of my body decided to remind me of my age including my neck and shoulders and my leg. But like everything else, that also passed. My goal for 2025 is to be a healthier version of myself and the first step will be to give up on fried snacks and street food. That’s going to be a hard one, but I am going to try this for myself.

GG has been in school this year and is thriving, for which I am very happy since she is doing something she enjoys studying about. She is very ambitious and wants to do more in her life and has a five, ten and even a twenty-year plan for herself. BB, on the other hand, is still trying to find himself. He started 2024 by completing his Basic Military Training and then was posted to his unit where he is doing something he enjoys – working in the engineering field. This year, he was also sent for a driving course where he learnt to drive cars and heavy vehicles. This is a Singapore Armed Forces license, but hopefully, he can easily convert it to a civilian license. My hope for him is that in 2025, he will figure out what he wants in life and start planning to reach there once he ends his national service around the last quarter of 2025.

I am happy with the way this blog is taking shape. I started writing more than a decade back and after a few years of not writing regularly, for the past eight or nine years, I have been very consistent. And this year I breached the 4 figure mark and am happy that more people are liking and reacting to my posts. So a huge thank you to all of you for reading what I write. I have plans for 2025 which I will share in the next post.

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I want to show my gratitude to all those who came into my life this year and enriched it. Even if they did not do me good, the lessons I learned in those interactions will stand me in good stead. And to those who came into my life with positivity, I have immense respect for them and their teachings.

So happy New Year, and may 2025 be a better year than 2024!

2024 Week 52 Update

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Legendary singer, songwriter and best-known member of The Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney’s quote reflects the enduring, accessible nature of meditation and its value as a personal resource. McCartney highlights that meditation, once learned, becomes a tool for life—a practice that anyone can rely on whenever they seek peace, clarity, or a moment to reconnect. Meditation provides a way to centre oneself, creating moments of calm in an often chaotic world. Meditation is a gift that requires no special conditions or equipment, making it easy to integrate into daily life, whether during a stressful day at work, a quiet morning, or a moment of anxiety. It serves as a bridge to self-awareness and calm, and McCartney’s words remind us that it is always within reach, waiting to offer comfort, guidance, or clarity when needed. Through regular practice, meditation helps foster a sense of empowerment, as we become better equipped to respond to challenges with a clear and steady mind.

Today is the last Sunday of the year and the best time to reflect on the year that went by and what you want your life to look like in the new year. We’re at the fag end of our holiday in India, and while I am sad to leave my parents, I am also happy to go back to my life in Singapore. The last three weeks were a great pause in our lives, and I am going back, stronger and calmer, to a better me, to a new year, and to hopefully a better life.

Wishing each one of you a very Happy New Year! May 2025 be the year where everything falls into place in your lives and everything you think of and touch turns to gold…

In My Hands Today…

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The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight – Andrew Leland

We meet Andrew Leland as he’s suspended in the liminal state of the soon-to-be he’s midway through his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that ushers those who live with it from sightedness to blindness over years, even decades. He grew up with full vision, but starting in his teenage years, his sight began to degrade from the outside in, such that he now sees the world as if through a narrow tube. Soon—but without knowing exactly when—he will likely have no vision left.

Full of apprehension but also dogged curiosity, Leland embarks on a sweeping exploration of the state of being that awaits not only the physical experience of blindness but also its language, politics, and customs. He negotiates his changing relationships with his wife and son, and with his own sense of self, as he moves from his mainstream, “typical” life to one with a disability. Part memoir, part historical and cultural investigation, The Country of the Blind represents Leland’s determination not to merely survive this transition but to grow from it—to seek out and revel in that which makes blindness enlightening.

Thought-provoking and brimming with warmth and humor, The Country of the Blind is a deeply personal and intellectually exhilarating tour of a way of being that most of us have never paused to consider—and from which we have much to learn.

Recipes: (Almost) Instant Onion Chutney

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Today’s recipe is a chutney frequently served with South Indian food at restaurants. I saw this recipe in a reel a few months back, so recently, when I made masala dosai, I decided to make this quick chutney, albeit with my own take. The chutney took less than 10 minutes to make, and this included the prep work, which was miniscule. 

(Almost) Instant Onion Chutney

Ingredients:

  • 2-3 medium sized onions, roughly chopped
  • 3-5 cloves of garlic, peeled
  • 1 tsp ginger, peel and chopped roughly
  • 1 small ball of tamarind
  • 3-4 dried red chillies, destalked
  • 1-2 tsp jaggery powder
  • Salt to taste

Method:

  • In a blender, blend together all the ingredients into a smooth paste.
  • Check for seasoning and add salt and jaggery powder as needed.
  • Serve with Idlis and dosai or even chapati or bread.

Notes:

  • My chutney turned brown/purple because I only had purple onions at home. If you use the white onions, it turns a nice red colour
  • For some people, the taste of the onions may be strong, so in such cases, you can lightly sauté the onions and cool it before blending it.
  • I used jaggery powder, but this can be substituted with rock jaggery or even sugar.
  • As a South Indian, I always have tamarind fruit at home. This can be found in Indian stores, but as a substitute, you can also use 1 tsp tamarind paste or even lemon juice to amp up the tartness.
  • Traditional South Indian chutneys typically have a tempering on top. I don’t like that, so either avoid it or do it before I blend. If you want the tempering, heat 1 tsp oil in a small pan and when the oil heats up, add in 1 tsp mustard seeds and let them pop. Then put in 2 dry red chillies, along with 1 tsp urad dal and once the urad dal starts to brown, remove from the flame and pour over the chutney.
  • The untempered chutney is a great addition to sandwiches. 

In My Hands Today…

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Pandora’s Box: The Greed, Lust, and Lies that Broke Television – Peter Biskind

We are now lucky enough to be living through the era of so-called Peak TV, in which television, in its various formats, has seized the entertainment mantle from movies and dominates our leisure time. How and why this happened is the subject of this book.

Instead of focusing on one service, like HBO, Pandora’s Box asks, “What did HBO do besides give us The Sopranos?” The answer: It gave us a revolution. Biskind bites off a big chunk of entertainment history, following HBO from its birth to maturity, moving on to the basic cablers like FX and AMC, and ending with the streamers and their wars, pitting Netflix against Amazon Prime Video, Max, and the killer pluses—Disney, Apple TV, and Paramount.

Since the creative and business sides of TV are thoroughly entwined, Biskind examines both, and the interplay between them. Through frank and shockingly intimate interviews with creators and executives, Pandora’s Box investigates the dynamic interplay of commerce and art through the lens the game-changing shows they aired—not only old warhorses like The Sopranos, but recent shows like The White Lotus, Succession, and Yellow- (both -stone and -jackets)—as windows into the byzantine practices of the players as they use money and guile to destroy their competitors. With its long view and short takes—riveting snapshots of behind-the-scenes mischief—Pandora’s Box is the only book you’ll need to read to understand what’s on your small screen and how it got there.