random ramblings

“If he asks me, I will join” – I remember telling a friend, about joining a startup, in case the founder, who was someone I looked up to, ever calls me. I had no such indication that they might even need me. But that was a secret wish. Like those Malayalam movie dialogue sort of “avan vilichaal njaan irangi pokum” (“if he calls me, I will elope with him”). And like in such movies, I never asked if they would need me. I had daydreams about starting a startup for a long time, making some very detailed plans as mental exercises – it was almost like a game I play or sort of entertaining myself. Or like a prisoner planning escape routes. But never had the courage enough to actually try even any baby steps towards any such ideas, to test if any of those had market potential or any such. Since this was like a fantasy world building, in whatever small ways I practiced how this might work out – like kids playing house. I used to think that anything I do, I run it like I am running my own busine...

1. Are you closing the gap (with competition) vs opening the gap (going ahead of competition)?  >> A question from a mentor. Are you catching up, or are you running ahead? A good frame to evaluate where our time goes.  2. "I want you to do this". "I have high expectations from you". "You can do this". "We have to be world's best in this". "Who needs to do what by when". "Show me the code" >> I was noting down the usual phrases by the same mentor. Direct expectation setting, raising the aspiration, clarifying the vague asks, going to the ground truths than accepting the abstract picture.  3. Don't select people like yourself for the team. Choose people who challenge you, make you think differently, smarter than you.  >> Yet another mentor. He was a tiny bit upset that I managed to steal someone, but I was asking him permission (after the fact). The advise is something to be kept in mind.  4. Don't ...

I haven’t played tennis enough number of times to say I am even a beginner but picked up this book – “Inner game of Tennis” by Timothy Gallwey, since it kept coming up. It is a short book, but useful to add to the mental models. Core idea is that there is a “thinking” self (Self 1) and a “doing” self (Self 2) – when the thinking self tries to constantly instruct the doing self, we tend to produce substandard outcomes. When we are able to suppress the thinking and do unconsciously, then we produce a “flow” that feels like someone is “playing out of their mind” – there is no mind then. It is that the Self 1 is the one that doubts, fears, analyzes, criticizes constantly and that interferes with the action which Self 2 is supposed to perform. Elite players have figured out a way to focus on the present, on the next point, next serve, next ball and stopped worrying about the last mistake or the next set. I think it contrasts with “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman – that talked abo...

My reading habit (books) has plummeted. Absolutely crashed, in the bins. I hope I can recover that some day soon. But this is about the last book I read, almost a year back, which has stayed with me. It is “Impro – Improvisation and theatre” by Keith Johnstone. I had picked this up after its reference kept coming up in different places, like one of the books given to new joinees in the company, Palantir. While it is about how the author (a theatre acting coach, teaching improvisational comedy) found a way to teach people to let go of the fear and act with abandon, I think the lessons can have lasting impact in everything we do every day. Basic premise is – everything we do in company of people is playing a “status game”. Every movement, every inflection of a muscle, eye contact, posture, voice – everything is transmitting a status signal – that we are high status in some situation or low status in others. Slouching to indicate low status, puffing out the chest to indicate high status. ...

1. People good with AI. Slow, deliberate people. Patient. Good with language. Can write. Reads. Intentional. Conscientious. Wanting to build good systems. Good at some craft and art. Researches. Curious. Builds. Plays.  >> Some theories, about who might use AI better. Remains to be seen if this pans out. I am seeing a lot more examples of such people up close and personal these days and hope to write more about this soon.  2. Stories evoke emotion, emotions make memories.  >> Why story telling is important life skill  3. Lay down the complex workflow and then think about higher level abstractions that can simplify it.  >> Something I need to learn even more how to do  4. Language is imprecise. Now use that to think about LLMs and its applications. Maybe some imprecision is ok to get a surprisingly good unexpected outcome, but other times we need to watch it to get to the intended outcome.  >> Imprecise nature of language – what ...

Today is Messi’s farewell match in Argentina shirt. Few weeks back, when the international retirement news came out, my reaction was that this might be the beginning of the end for me as football fan. There is a precedence to it. I stopped watching any form of cricket after Sachin retired. Slowly the interest died and ever since haven’t watched any match. Like many Malayalees, Argentina and Messi (and Maradona before) was a “vikaaram” (a sentiment or an emotion). That beautiful journey ends today. As a kid, I used to play an entire imaginary world cup, all by myself. With a tennis ball sometimes. Making up rules as to what counts as a goal. One such world cup was played like this - I would kick the ball to the slanting tiled roof, one can’t predict how it will come down and when it comes down, hit the goal on the volley in one touch, two touch, three touch. I used to play group games, quarter finals, semis and finals and declare winner like this. Or play an entire tournament for hours ...

1. Self destruction is coded into us, at cell level? This is why court danger, to feel alive. >> I am not sure if this is true, but noted this down to know capacity for destruction is in us. Destroying, hurting, lashing out to feel alive might be what some people do. 2.Agency - remembering you can move. >> High Agency is a concept that is fascinating. Why some people act, some do not. 3. Telescope and microscope - how to view things. Long term and short term. >> Helpful analogy. Zoom in, Zoom out. 4. "Pressure does not exist, it is an excuse. If you just think about enjoying yourself and having fun, there is no pressure." >> From a 19 year old, Lamine Yamal. Living his life large, at the center of attention. They say this is how Gen Z is. 5. To develop agency, ask - "What's the stupidest easiest one thing you could do to make even a little progress?" >> Agency again. To keep moving. 6. When you need to converge on the single ri...

People are full of contradictions. Brilliance and Despair in the same person. Yin and Yang. God and Devil. Genius and Dumb. All in the same people, appearing at different times. A few examples. Brilliant in spending hours researching, reading, going into rabbit holes, burning midnight oil, coming up with diamonds from depths of internet’s dark corners and Reddit subs, aware of trends before it becomes trends, creates clear content to educate. But speaks in riddles, lacks self esteem, moody, emotionally unstable, can’t take any negative feedback, shuts off in face of confrontation, switches off and disappears at times. Ambitious, hard working, fights for oneself, grabbing any opportunity that comes one’s way, hungry, tenacious. But panics easily, constant worrier, affects people around with the worries, drops something once it becomes overwhelming, reacts sharply under stress. Conscientious, principled, disciplined, feels for fellow human beings pain to the extent that it affects physic...

In past few years, I was worried about not really absorbing, internalising learning - from experiences, reading, talking to people etc. Started keeping notes. Curating it here for posterity.  1.      You often only understand a problem by experiencing the journey, i.e. building a solution for it. >> I think this is a constant challenge – how to develop intuition for a class of problems unless we participate in it and try to build solutions for it, then it reveals its nuances and forces us to think. But then once we get the lay of the land about the problems and potential solutions, how to abstract the lessons and zoom out to see how it all fits together is also necessary. 2.      Under promise, over deliver >> A way of life as advised by a mentor. To be done always, to surprise with more, than disappoint with less. 3.      Crucial thing to realize: there are two kinds of happiness which are often...

There is a line in a movie, Spanglish, that stayed with me for a long time. Simple line - “In the midst of confrontation, she found clarity.” It is a movie about a Spanish housekeeper in an American household and her daughter – in a pivotal conflict between them, where the daughter humiliates the mother in public, the mother finds clarity in middle of that conflict and asks the crucial question that will define their relationship and identity - "Is what you want for yourself, to become someone very different than me?". I ended up working few hours, despite being holiday today. In middle of very ambiguous or confusing or conflicting situation, I could find enough courage and clarity to take control and somehow paint a picture of where we are and what we should be doing.  I wonder how this works. Many times during such situations, people need confidence that someone would help to find a way through it and that confidence not coming from anyone around will make it progressively ...

Woke up at 12:45 am, from a lucid dream - I was writing first two lines of a novel, someone was looking over my shoulder. I knew (or thought I knew) what the lines were when I woke up, wanted to write it down, but forgot soon after. Another early morning cab ride, driver was struggling with English, asked him "ulle varungala" (“can you come inside?”), surprised myself. I wish I can learn / be more confident to talk in Tamil. Despite being sleep deprived, was somehow feeling irrationally exuberant. Despite reading some complaints in emails which normally leaves faint irritation in the back of the mind. Full of ideas, full of optimism, wanting to smile, that nothing would faze me, feeling healthy. Feeling ok that whatever I may face, still would go through, let the feelings happen and try and enjoy the process. These are times when I think I should figure out all the parameters like a lab experiment – what led to this – what food I had, climate or what. If only that can be bott...

I came across this beauty today morning. In this campus, the gardeners have overdone themselves – some bougainvillea vines meshed with tall trees have flowers as high as two or three stories. It is one of my dreams to have the bright bougainvillea, like a flower explosion, in front of a house that I own. With a nomadic life for a decade, having lived in atleast ten or fifteen houses (lost count) so far in my lifetime and an apartment dweller for maybe half of it, this becomes even more of a sweeter daydream to have. Even though we have a dull pink colored (as the memes go, for me all of pink is pink) bougainvillea at the entrance of our current place, even if it is in the compound of the neighbor, who has sold the house and it is locked up now. Sometimes there is a clean, untouched flowerbed on the ground when it sheds it all at once. At office, we have a sort of inner courtyard, with a fake grass carpet and real big flowerpots. It is one of my favorite places to take calls, walk aroun...

“Que mira, bobo?” (“What are you looking at, idiot?”) – Messi’s angry retort to a dutch player during the post match interview after 2022 world cup semi final. It was Messi’s “roudra” avatar in that match. I had been spending a few minutes with Duolingo, trying to learn Spanish. I have seen the memes of Duolingo Spanish, but then for me keeping this streak is helping to building some familiarity with the language. Enough to now etch phrases like above to memory. It is now third European language attempt for me. First was a brief encounter with German, during school. We were living in a house which was at the bottom of a hill, on the other side of which lived a recluse commonly known as “sayippu”. I believe he was a Malayali, vaguely remember someone saying he was with the army, may have been deployed in Germany, but then it could have been memory playing games. But somehow he knew German and somehow my father enrolled me in a summer class on German there. It was just three of us – a br...

Late night cab rides through unfamiliar cities. I guess easy to say for a guy. But still. Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai. Families at juice places with small kids. A couple sitting on a roadside bench, catching up about the day. A girl boss learning on the bike and a guy with his elbow on her shoulder. People rushing home, bags on their back. Waiters with red ties in a bakery, even at this time. Time for the trucks and the roadside eateries. FM radio in the cab playing old songs. Life is just going full on busy in some parts of the world, people still trying to make ends meet.

My spotify usage must have spiked in last few weeks. One reason is this – a few accounts who post covers of old forgotten songs got into my Instagram algorithm and I keep adding them into spotify queue for later listen and some of them have been looping ever since. Readers of this blog (if there are), might know that for me lyrics is a big part (not so fortunate to just listen to the music irrespective of the lyrics). I was thinking today how blessed it is to be from the south of India – to equally enjoy Yesudas, Chitra, Ilayaraja, S Janaki, SPB, Sid Sriram in Malayalam and Tamil along with Lata, Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, Shreya Ghosal (she bridged all the language gaps btw) and Arijit Singh. We have been given enough to last a lifetime. Poove ponpoove – Yesudas, Ilayaraja nizhal pola naanum nadai poda neeyum thodarginra sondham nedungaala bandham (You walk, I am your shadow A relationship starts, till end of life.) naan seydha paavam ennodu pogum nee vaazhndhu nandhaan paarththaa...

This past week, I happened to meet a few people who I could describe only as “pure souls”.  Brilliant in what they do, child like, no worries about how they look or talk, mostly in their own world, but warm when they include you in their world. Not “normal” – since most of us adults are conditioned to navigate this world with masks and not having masks feels like not normal, but then what is really the definition of normal and who defines it. First of them was someone I was looking forward to meet. He used to call me for silliest of reasons like can he try something which he found interesting, why wouldn’t that be possible etc. He didn’t seem to understand some things which I wouldn’t have to explain to others. There was a crowd, someone said there is him, he comes over and first thing I notice is his socked feet, no shoes. I wanted to ask what happened to the shoes but luckily didn’t. He is like a gentle giant, with large frame, long hair, long thick unruly whiskers. He introduces...

It was a strange morning. I didn't sleep well, was in some strange loop of a dream, stayed in the place between waking and sleep. I checked time at about 3 am, went back to the fitful sleep, decided to get up again around 5 am. Did wordle puzzle (a new word for me), cleaned up day's calendar. Went out for Yoga (following the rule - the day when you don't feel like it is the day to go for sure).   It had rained overnight. Yellow leaves plastered on rainy streets. But pleasant light, like after the storm had passed.  Two lines were playing in a never ending loop in my head.  aur is dil mein kya rakha hai tera hi dard chupa rakha hai  (what else should be in my heart than your sorrows kept hidden) It was only me and the teacher today. All his students converted to online. New normal post covid. He has 4 devices for different purposes and a basic studio like setup.  Caged lovebirds were making a ruckus at that time in the morning. A bit later it would be the ki...

It has been almost a year and half of ignoring the blog. It has been a period of a turbulence at work and life, a period of big changes. It disrupted all the rhythms and habits, left me just riding the change. Now just about trying to put things back together once again. This may not be the best of the topics to restart a blog, a bit dark maybe. It is not intentional, but something curious that I picked up over last few days and was mulling over. I am now sort of looking for movies or shows that are not sad, no propaganda, not period pieces with their version of history. This process of elimination eventually leads me to murder mysteries or crime thrillers. I read somewhere that we watch such to relieve tension somehow, in some twisted way. Now, two such that I watched, which are not related in any way, but had a similar theme – that we sometimes put ourselves in harm’s way, not to die, but to feel alive. That self-destruction is coded into us at the cell level and this instinct makes ...

I took a day off today, just to avoid leaves expiring by month end. It was a relaxing day and had two instances of curious connections. I did the New York Times Mini Crossword in the morning. There was a clue “Tree with white bark” and the other letters started to form a word, but I doubted whether it was actually a tree. I knew of “Aspen, Colorado” as a city in the US, but it is just the familiarity of having read or heard about it. Like a friend said one time that their young daughter was familiar with US city names by having read about them in the books. Soft power of the US that kids, even in small towns in Kerala, know their cities even though they never saw it. I looked up Aspen, to see some images of this tree.  Later in the morning, I caught up with the “Poem of the day” feed. It had 28 unread poems. I came across this poem, “I sit by the window”, by Joseph Brodsky and these lines I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen. When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn’t often.  T...

I had attempted a word puzzle (Strands) last night before sleeping. Clue was “Sun Shade” and first word at random that I got was Lemon. I thought it might be beach accessories or some such, but none fit. Slept on it and in the morning, it was somehow clear to me that the answer was Yellow without even looking at the puzzle. As I was finishing it, one more word wasn’t fitting – Gold, Golden didn’t work. Finally figured it was Goldenrod. I hadn’t heard of it before – looked it up and it was a yellow flower that covers a stem, maybe a rod like look. I had seen one such in US, that we used in place of Konna Poovu (Golden shower, Cassia Fistula) for Vishu Kani (needed a yellow flower to stand in for beautiful konna, to see as first thing as one open our eyes on the day of Vishu). Wondered if Goldenrod is the same. Later in the morning, came across an article with interesting subtext “My time is my own even when I don’t spend it particularly well.”. It was written by someone with terminal ...