Looking back at 2024
Earlier versions:
A cold evening in January, Adi exasperated “… I don’t think I like butter chicken very much”. This was personal. My ancestors who probably never ate the dish since most were vegetarians were offended. Hell, the paintings and plants in my house turned around to make an inquisitive face… Is this lady serious?
It was the day I turned around a die-hard skeptic with chemistry. She still claims the dish I made wasn’t “Indian”. I didn’t use any garam masala for instance. Doesn’t matter. It had butter, it had chicken.
Butter. Chicken.
A dish is three simple things: the ingredients, the chef and a little bit of love. Standing in a supermarket, staring at a grocery shelf of a few score ingredients, one can make infinite dishes that nourish the body and the soul. But once eaten, it’s only the story of the dish that matters.
Life is similar. Just needs a few places, the chef(s) and a little bit of love. But once an experience is lived, its story etched in memory is all that matters. I’ve been on a slow burn to realize how much I love stories. Reading and telling them.
This next story started with a Ciabata.
Wafrow was born earlier this year to help firms grow. Better customer insights, better copywriting, better creatives… to create better landing pages. Few months into bootstrapping this baby, I’m equal parts excited and terrified. Excited for crafting amazing things that just work. Terrified of apathy and disappearing in a sea of noise.
But, कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन. The craft is my joy.
Learning the craft of screen printing
Forcing colored paint to seep through fine silk strands set in a pattern is a ~1000 year old process to etch patterns on textiles. Compared to block prints, the patterns can be super fine and can be repeated often. As a couple, Adi and I now lean into multiple crafts building stuff together.
Personally, I also became far better at woodworking and completed a clothes bin. A rather well designed clothes bin if I may be a bit boisterous. The only downside is I now have a large gash on my calf from a slipped saw blade. Nothing serious but enough for me to not turn to this hobby casually. History is a very good teacher.
Favignana, where history seeps through.
A rock is cut out from the depths of an island to make a palace. This rock, named tuff has great strength, radiant sandy colour, cuts in clean lines and looks gorgeous. Centuries pass by, kingdoms fall, tides recede and the palace becomes a hotel. The hole which the porous rock left behind lets in the sea, some algae and an odd tourist, wandering to find themselves.
Favignana, an Italian island with all these left behind tuff quarries is arguably, the most eerily beautiful place in the world. Fortunately, it’s super hard to reach so unlikely to change rapidly.
As an older man, I tend to carry smaller bags when traveling. I could buy more, physically lift more but curiously find myself taking things out. The travels are also longer and blend into life and love.
Hacked out 6Kg mace with 4Kg of sand bags
When I bought this mace a few years ago, I pulled a muscle trying the first swing using both arms. Weight distribution away from the hand increases the torque needed to nearly 2x what one would feel with a dumb bell. I shocked myself earlier this month by hacking the 6Kg mace up with 4Kg of sand bags and finishing a 5 minute swing using just one arm.
Repetitions make hard things easier.
My cuties
The single hardest aspect of growing older is continuously worrying about the health of people you love. 2024 was much kinder to their health than the last few years put together. Excellent doctors and the tomes I read to incrementally improve health parameters are slowly seeping into their lives and I’m so stoked.
Family and friends are everything. Having them come over and stay with us for long stretches of time made Berlin feel more like home than ever before. Finishing this with the vignettes of all the good times in 2024.
Here’s wishing you a happy 2025. Have a wonderful time shooting for the stars 🚀
One last thing. Recommendations for brilliant stuff I came across.
My favorite reads
- The gift of rain, Tan Twan Eng. Incredible storytelling and very sparse writing. It’s hard to not fall in love with frangipani once again after reading this.
- The way of kings, Brandon Sanderson. I have just read the first one of the stormlight series. I like Brandon’s unique world building and just creating new words from thin air quite a lot. It’s an incredible skill. p.s. his youtube lectures on writing a fantasy novel are :chef’s kiss:
- Accelerating India’s development, Karthik Muralidharan. I have an endless fascination for how people can build frameworks for holding a large, complex problem in their head without shaving away any of the edge cases. Karthik does it brilliantly for India’s economic problems and I hope to emulate this level of craft one day.
Podcasts
- Why Duolingo worked? https://pca.st/eax2xnfz ACQ2. The discussion resonated with me deeply and got me to slightly alter the trajectory of Wafrow
- The Tipping Point Revisited: Georgetown Massacre. https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/the-tipping-point-revisited-georgetown-massacre-part-1 Malcolm gladwell. I haven’t yet read the new book but I’m bound to after listening to this :-)