2025

2025 ended and 2026 started over 3 weeks ago. It's been quite the year - and I think I need to write up some of it "for the record" lest I lose track of it. In fact, I've been actively putting this off as it's been a year I still have mixed feelings about. But since I've already just posted my first blog for 2026, now is probably the best time to give it a go.

2025 started with me in A&E - we went for a movie on 31st december, I had intense lower abdominal pain that was gettng worse, and we had to leave the cinema and take a taxi to hospital. bringing in the year in hospital felt surreal. almost a throwback to 2007, when I "celebrated" my birthday being admitted to hospital right after lunch with family and cutting (and eating) the cake. the only difference this time is, unlike 2007, when I remember telling mom she didn't need to stay with me in hospital, and was left there alone by my choice, feeling absolutely down and in tears, I had Shruti by my side this time. I started the year grateful for the people around who supported me when I really needed it. oh and the first thing that happened to me after midnight was a rectal probe - Shruti and I laughed that it was the absolutely weirdest start to a year anyone could have had!

even though kidney stones are not dangerous, painkillers weren't doing the trick, and the year continued with two more trips to A&E, the third ending with me being admitted and the stones "taken care of" - a week into 2025 and I had another achievement to be ticked off, my first ever hospital admission in the UK and the 3rd hospitalization of my life.

a few days later, there was another shock, when Shruti's mom, who had been visiting, had a cardiac arrest that she never recovered from. it's another moment that I can never forget - having to do CPR for the first time on a person, after the half dozen or so times I've practiced on a training dummy. taking a break while the ambulance crew used the AED on her - unsuccessfully - then the adrenaline injection, still unsuccessful, then another go at the AED, and me doing CPR in between all of this. The relief when her heart restarted. the surreal experience of being in the same hospital, the same A&E, that I just got out of less than a week ago.

what followed was three weeks of ICU, having to come to terms with the possibility of her never regaining consciousness, and finally being told by the doctors it's time to pull the plug. 6 days of watching Shruti grieve by her mother who was still alive, but inching to a guaranteed death. and when the time came, organizing the wake (sort of) and the cremation. after family left, it was time to help Shruti get on with her life, while simultaneously trying to get on with mine. back to work, back to trying to deal with my chronic fatigue without the help of Shruti's family and our friends who pulled together to support us when things were really rough.

a few weeks later we travelled to India. that was another emotional whirlwind for Shruti, reopening fresh emotional wounds every time someone would ask about her mother's death, every time she had to submit a copy of the death certificate to get some more paperwork done. that month was a blur - I still don't remember much about that trip other than it involving loads of paperwork and form filling and Shruti crying every night. I convinced my mom that now was the best time to travel to Belfast, and we were able to organize things so that we could travel together.

april to september 2025 went by in a blink of an eye - it's the longest time I've spent with mom since I moved out in December 2016. It felt great to reconnect with her, but my fatigue got significantly worse during those 5 months and while she didn't say too much I'm sure it hurt her to see me struggle so badly with my health. Shruti turned 40, I turned 42, mom turned 76. I earned my day skipper at long last (literally 4 years of workong towards it!). Those 5 months were a blur of walks (which tapered off a couple of months in as my fatigue got worse), fatigue-induced-haze, and trying to work. I did start getting better towards the end of mom's visit though, and was on the upswing by the time she left in early september.

my own trip to India (second of the year!) was in early october, and by thast point I had steadily got better in terms of fatigue. it was literally the day before my flight that I had my last therapy session, and the flight to mumbai felt weird, as it was the first time in over a year that I had nobody to be accountable to for my wellness, than myself. something any adult should normally feel, but honestly given the emotional mental and physical turmoil I had been through so far in the recent past, I felt like I was a child who had just learned to walk all over again.

I think my therapist was right in deciding I was ready to face the world and my fatigue without professional assistance. I was able to function. I was able to live within my limitations and energy levels. definitely not as well as before, but I wasn't spending days in bed like I did only a few months earlier. three weeks in, I felt ready for what (to me) felt like the ultimate test of my recovery - an ambitious motorbike trip across the country to harshad's farm near kodaikanal. it was not without hiccups, but by the end of those two weeks, I had returned home with something I was really missing all this while: evidence to back my hope. evidence that things are concretely getting better, I can still do things I enjoy.

I returned to Belfast in early november, and while it wasn't smooth sailing throughout, I was able to get back into the grind of work, life and day to day stuff, and I definitely felt like things were sustainable.

come end december, we were off to Mumbai again - after a tiring day and a half of travel, we landed on Christmas eve, for the first Christmas in Mumbai since 2018 (and back then, we couldn't really enjoy it as we flew back on the 26th!). This was the first time in years that I was on leave in Mumbai without any plans, and while in hindsight it felt like I didn't do much, I think the relaxation and family time, meeting friends, a good amount of digital detox, really helped me end the year on a much better note than it started.

2025 ended with a bbq at Myron's, and 2026 started with Tony's Ros - defintiely an improvement over the previous year!

that's it for 2025. the year that was so crazy that even when it ended, I didn't want to think about how it went, what I've learned, or what I want 2026 to bring me. I'm just happy and grateful to have survived it, come through stronger, felt feelings that must be felt, and kept going through it all (even if just barely!)

footwear shenanigans

I was in a local train in Mumbai - running northbound on the western line. It was late afternoon. I was at a window seat, in the direction facing the breeze, just ahead of the door - an absolute prime position. The train was fairly crowded - all the seats were taken and there were even a fair number of people standing, but it wasn't packed like rush hour. I was reading a book, and had my lightweight fabric bag on my lap.

I looked up from my book and out of the window, trying to identify where I was.

I was pretty sure I was approaching Malad.

I put my book into my bag and (yes, I can't really explain this!) squeezed through the window! I hung on to the outside of the running train by holding myself up, like an extreme pull-up, from the bars of the window.

That's when panic struck: what if I got it wrong? What if I was not actually seconds away from Malad (or indeed, any?) station? I didn't dare look ahead. I just kept my grip and tried not to overthink the situation.

Thankfully, I was not wrong. The train entered Malad station seconds later. I waited for it to slow down enough before letting go and alighting on the platform without incident.

That's when I realized, I had kicked off my shoes when I was sitting and reading. I was barefoot on the platform!

My first reaction was to try and find my seat and wear my shoes. Easier said than done though. There was a pretty big crowd of people boarding and alighting the train. Also, I couldn't quite locate the door next to which my seat was. There was some confusion as I thoguht my seat was betwen the ladies' coach and the first class section, but when I located the two sections they turned out to be adjacent! Given the crowd and difficulty locating my seat, I decided to abandon that idea and buy a peair of shoes at Malad. I was afraid of getting my feet injured in the crowd, which was beginning to resemble rush hour from what I could see.

I walked out of the platform and on to the road, keepign an eye out for anything that might injure my feet. To my disappointment, there were no shoe shops nearby. I walked a couple of streets and finally found a small shoe shop - actually just a wooden shed, resembling a cobbler's shed. A young girl manned the shop - maybe in her late teens. To my surprise, she spoke perfect English! I pointed to a pair of shoes (a white canvas pair) and asked to try it out. It was quite a snug fit, but I was able to adjust the laces to get them to fit comfortably. I asked her the price, and she said they were Rs 3000. I was quite surprised, as I had picked that pair expecting it to be cheap. I told her I had lost my shoes getting out of the train and just needed a pair to wear to get home. She told me I had picked a high quality pair that had quite an advanced design and pointed out some of its subtle features that set it apart. I told her I wasn't interested in any of that, and actually had a canvas pair that costed barely Rs 1000, and suited me just fine. In fact I liked that design so much that I had two identical pairs, as did my wife and my father in law! She said that unfortunately this was the cheapest canvas pair she had and she recommended I buy it.

That's when I noticed that the bit under the laces, leading to the tongue of the left shoe, seemed to be darned. I asked her if the pair was new, which confused and then surprised her when I told her it looked like it had been darned. In fact, on closer inspection, it hadn't been mended properly, and a bit of the fabric was still ripped.

She told me this was a really embarassing mistake and she had no idea how such a pair was in her shop as she only stocked brand new shoes sourced directly from the manufacturer. She told me I could have the pair for free as she was going to complain to the manufacturer and get a refund. I thanked her and left the shop, thikning I had done well for myself, having got a pair that looked cosmetically new, and which could probably be mended cheaply!

But that's when I remembered I still didn't have the insoles that I was supposed to wear when walking. Those were way more expensive than my shoes and would be a pain to replace! The more I thought about it the more hopeless it seemed - the insoles had my name and phone number on the underside, but the phone number was missing the international code for the UK, so any attempt to contact me would be futile. Even worse, I realized that someone who found my shoes in the train would be unlikely to take out the insoles and check the underside so the odds of anyone even finding my number are probably close to nil. I was so disappointed I just stopped walking, closed my eyes and tried to visualize my shoes, cursing that moment I decided to leave them behind. Why did I even go through that train window? It didn't make sense. But then I remembered, those were my blue slip-on shoes I had been wearing. The ones that didn't have detachable in-soles. My (expensive) custom in-soles were in my black pair! Which means they were still at home!

A sense of relief came over me. All was not lost. In fact I had just got myself a nice pair of shoes for free! What a turn around!

And that's when I opened my eyes, in the dream and in real life - I woke up.

ps: my first thought when I woke up was this dream was based on very recent events - it's only been 5 days since I last rode a train in Mumbai, and the blue slip-on pair I supposedly left behind in the train was given to me by my father in law only three weeks ago! my second thought was... WHY ON EARTH WOULD I CONSIDER SQUEEZING OUT OF THE WINDOW OF A RUNNING TRAIN?

pps: I thoguht I'd add a photo of the blue slip-ons for the post but it turns out they're still drying in the bathroom as I washed them last night before going to bed! wonder if that's why they showed up in my dream!

a journey

lying, face to the lamp, but eyes closed. ignorant of the mosquitoes. take a deep breath. feel the energy, the fire, getting into you. it fills you, making you bigger and brighter, as the music fades in insignificance to the rush in you. you feel the rush, the brightness, spread. rapidly, then slower, as it reaches your extremities. it leaves a glow, a calm brightness, even as it begins to cool. imperciptibly, then noticeably, as the rush turns to a measured pace. but it doesn't stop. because as the light fades, you prepare the next one.

ps: this is one of those weird things that I typed a long time ago (precisely 12 years ago - December 2013) but didn't post at the time. I was reminded of it in a conversation last night... and it's something I remembered typing so vividly that I was able to pull up the draft mid-conversation in seconds! I still can't comprehend why I kept it in my drafts for 12 years despite it being fairly visible in my consciousness!

pps: the circumstances of this post are intentionally kept vague, but let's just say it was typed towards the end of a rather eventful evening in Hampi, and Clive (who experienced those events with me) was surprised I even got far enough to type it coherently 😂

my first favourite dish: sorpatel!

I'm not one to usually follow a recipe, let alone remember it, so this post is quite likely a one-off.

First, some back-story: growing up, sorpatel was my numero uno favourite dish. I wasn't given much agency as a kid in terms of food - I ate what was presented to me, although my parents were quite aware of my preferences. Once I finished school I did get to eat out a bit, but it was mostly snacks. I do remember the first time I was ever asked what I'd like to eat though. I was about 19, and my parents were going to be away on a pilgrimage for 10 days. It was going to be the first time by brother and I were going to be left alone at home for more than a few hours. They asked us what we'd like them to cook and refrigerate for the time they were away (we had never cooked independently, other than frying eggs for breakfast - I don't think I had even ever made instant noodles!). I don't remember what Kevin said, but I do remember saying that I want 10 days worth of sorpatel. And the end result was us eating sorpatel for 9 days (we loved it so much it didn't last 10 days, and I remember we cooked a very terrible chicken curry for day 10!).

So yes - sorpatel, my favourite by a long margin, made even more desirable by the fact that it was only made a couple of times every year - Christmas or Easter, birthdays if we were lucky.

And then, when I was in Bangalore last month, Neena gave me sorpatel for dinner. Two days in a row. It was so good that on day 1 I told mom she had ordered it from someplace, not even stopping to consider that such good sorpatel could be made at home (sorry, Neena!). When she told me she had made it herself, and it was our grand-aunt's recipe, I was mind-blown. It was the comfort food of my childhood, only better! I had to have the recipe!

Couple of weeks later, back in Belfast, Neena sent me the recipe. It wasn't in the usual format, more of a flow-of-concsiousness style, which works great for me except when I'm out shopping for ingredients (and my brain-fog does make things worse when I need to approach unstructured things too)

So, one Friday I decided that was the weekend for Sorpatel. Friday night was spent first transcribing the recipe, then restructuring it so I have ingredients first and then the process.

I woke up at noon-ish on Saturday (as has been the case for a few weeks now - long sotry that probably needs its own blog post) with only one objective: I will not go to bed without having made sorpatel.

And so, here is Aunty Flo (yes, that's what we called her!)'s sorpatel recipe:

1.5kg pork (can include liver)

6-8 onions

15 garlic flakes

1.5" ginger

5 big green chillies, halved and slit

3-4 bay leaves

1 teaspoon sugar (optional)

tamarind juice (optional)

pork blood (optional)

for spice paste:

20-24 kashmiri chillies

2 rounded teaspoons jeera

10 whole peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon mustard

2/3 teaspoon haldi

15 garlic flakes

2" ginger

9 cloves

3" cinnamon

5 elaichi

vinegar to make paste

salt to taste

2 teaspoons oil

grind spices with vinegar to make a paste

if using liver, boil with salt and discard water

parboil remaining meat with salt. retain water.

chop meat small.

fry small quantities of meat lightly in oil till lightly browned and fat renders. fry liver last. retain rendered fat.

fry onions lightly till soft in rendered fat

add garlic, ginger, chillies

when onions begin to brown add the spice paste

add meat water to make a thick masala gravy

add sugar if desired

add bay leaves

simmer for 10-15 minutes for spices to cook

add tamarind juice if not sour enough

add meat and cook till tender ensuring gravy reduces till it's thick

optionally add pork blood for the last 5 minutes of cooking

Of course, I didn't fully follow the recipe. Here's my modifications:

• 1kg pork loin and also 600gm of sweet and spicy pork belly that happened to be in the freezer
• double the garlic flakes
• balsamic vinegar instead of normal vinegar
• some random type of chillies that were in the supermarket - not green, but fleshy and red. less spicy than the green chillies the recipe called for
• more than 2 teaspoons sugar (basically just finished the last bit of sugar in the house!)
• I did use tamarnid juice but no portk blood
• I forgot the bay leaves (ironically, I have way too many bay leaves in my spice stash! I really need to use them more!)
• 4 tablespoons homemade mustard paste instead of whole mustard - it's been lying in the fridge for 3 months so I was hoping the flavoud had mellowed a bit
• did not have whole kashmiri chillies but had a mix ofcrushed kashmiri and guntur chillies (that we basically use for our everyday cooking). I have no idea how much I put. basically just topped up the mixer bowl, adding more as it ground until it was a bowl full of paste.
• did not boil the pork. chopped it raw. did two rounds of lightly frying the pork before adding to the main pot before I decided to not bother and tossed the last half kg of chopped pork straight in.
• since the pork wasn't boiled I rinsed the mixer bowl and used that water instead.
• simmered for about an hour after it was gently boiling to compensate for not boiling or frying the pork.

End result: the pot was off the stove at midnight. It smelled so good I decided I had to make rice to go with it. So I boiled some long-grain white rice. Also, the end result looked too monotonous for a photo so I chopped some chives and sprinkled on top (just for the photo - the sorpatel completely overpowered it!).

A meal made in heaven. Think I ate sorpatel for 10 days, with some breaks in between.

Yep, still my favourite dish.

BTW, for all the chilli I put in (which I have a feeling was way more than the recipe called for) it still wasn't overpoweringly "hot" spicy - but it was off the charts in terms of "aromatic" spicy. it ws so spicy that when I ran the pot (my cast-iron dutch oven) under hot water, I started coughing! I think the copious amounts of sugar (as well as the slight sweetness of balsamic vinegar) offset the spice.

I have a feeling that just like how 2025 was the year I got comfortable with biryani, 2026 might be the same for sorpatel!

bring back search engines!

Today, while poking fun at a friend (hinting that he his assets are hard to find because he is rich and well connected). I mentioned Parkinson's Law, a book I must have read about 30 years ago - I read a copy that belonged to my dad, which has probably been disposed of by now and definitely not read since I finished school.

I tried various searches before giving up and assuming I remembered wrong. I even managed to find hte lsit of chapters of Parkinson's law, but nothing jumped at me (I did skim it pretty quickly though!).

The friend had his curiousity piqued though and requested a link to the ebook... which I found, trangely enough, as a PDF that looked like it was typed out in Microsoft Word. Not sure if it's legal to share now (the book was written in the '50s!) But anywy, I'll let you be the judge of it - here's the copy of Parkinson's Law I skimmed.

And then, as I was about to close the tab a few hours later (after telling the friend that's not the book but it's a good enough read anyway!) I started reading the book backwards. It was chapter 11! "Palm thatch to Packard or a formula for success"

My search tab was still open, so I decided to follow up a bit.

Call me a skeptic (which I most certainly am - probably irrationally so!) but the search engine's AI definitely worked much worse than I think same the search engine would have, a decade ago.

Anyway, to summarize my "conversation" with the search engine:

1. Me: "flunkey puzzle book rich chinese"
   
   Search engine (I'm paraphrasing): "The search results do not mention a "flunkey puzzle book" or any direct connection between the term "flunkey" and a puzzle book related to a rich Chinese character or story. It's possible there may be a misunderstanding or misremembering of the title." Followed it up with a few unrelated books.
   
   
2. Me: "it's a chapter of a humourous book"
   
   Search engine (direct quote this time): "The term "flunkey puzzle book" does not appear in the search results, and no humorous book chapter by that name is identified. However, The Chinese Puzzle by Ernest Bramah features humorous and satirical stories centered on Kai Lung, a fictional Chinese storyteller, blending wit and parody of Chinese philosophy and culture.
   One chapter, "The Story of the Man Who Was Thrifty," exemplifies the book’s whimsical tone, where a man’s extreme frugality leads to absurd consequences, told in an exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek style."
   
   
3. Me: "the chapter refers to the tendency of rich people to stay under the radar until they get so tich they are beyond danger"
   
   Search engine (direct quote again): "There is no evidence in the search results of a "flunkey puzzle book" chapter describing rich individuals staying under the radar until they are financially secure. The term appears to be a misremembering or confusion with titles like The Chinese Puzzle by Ernest Bramah, which features humorous tales of Kai Lung, or other books with "Chinese Puzzle" in the title that focus on culture, mystery, or religion rather than wealth evasion.
   None of the chapters in these works address the behavior of wealthy people avoiding attention for safety or strategic reasons."
   
   
4. Me: "Why do wealthy individuals avoid public attention?"
   
   Search engine (direct quote, as before): "The search results do not directly explain why wealthy individuals avoid public attention, nor do they confirm the existence of a "flunkey puzzle book" chapter on this topic. However, based on general understanding reflected in cultural and literary themes (such as in The Chinese Maze Murders and The Chinese Puzzle), wealthy or powerful figures may stay under the radar to avoid scrutiny, protect assets, prevent extortion, or maintain strategic advantage—especially in environments with political instability or social tension."
   
   
5. Me: "is there a chapter of a humorous book refering to this phenomenon"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "Yes, the novel Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner features a satirical chapter-like narrative about an "extraordinarily, absurdly, kidnappably rich" Jewish family on Long Island who live with constant anxiety despite their wealth. The story humorously explores how the patriarch, Zelig Fletcher, amasses a fortune as a protective "amulet" against historical trauma, believing money can shield his family from disaster. His children grow up under this shadow—ostentatiously wealthy yet emotionally stunted—highlighting the absurdity and psychological cost of wealth used as a defense mechanism.
   The book satirizes how the rich, despite appearing powerful, often live in fear and go to extreme lengths to stay safe, not necessarily under the radar, but in a state of hyper-vigilance shaped by inherited trauma."
   
   
6. Me: "I have found it. It's chapter 11 of the book Parkinson's law, titled "Palm thatch to packard or a formula for success""
   
   Search engine (first para of the response): "Yes, Chapter 11 of Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson—titled "Palm Thatch to Packard, or A Formula for Success"—does address the phenomenon you described. In this chapter, Parkinson humorously observes that Chinese businessmen historically practiced evasion and modesty until their wealth became so substantial that ostentation became safer and more advantageous."
   
   
7. Me: "Why was this chapter so hard to find using my previous queries?"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "Your earlier queries were difficult to match because they used inexact or misremembered terms like "flunkey puzzle book" instead of the actual chapter title, "Palm Thatch to Packard", and did not mention Parkinson's Law or author C. Northcote Parkinson. Search engines rely on precise keywords—without them, results drift toward unrelated books with similar phrases (e.g., "Chinese Puzzle")."
   
   
8. Me: "the phrase flunkey puzzle is not very common and is used in this chapter"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "The term "flunkey puzzle" appears in Chapter 11 of Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson, titled "Palm Thatch to Packard, or A Formula for Success." It is a rare and distinctive phrase used humorously to describe how wealthy individuals—particularly in historical Chinese society—deliberately concealed their success ("flunkey" implying servility or low status) until their wealth made them secure from threat or envy.
   This obscurity explains why earlier searches failed: "flunkey puzzle" is an unusual, context-specific term not widely indexed outside direct references to this chapter."
   
   
9. Me: "are there other cited works of literature that talks about something called a flunkey puzzle?"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "No, there are no other cited works of literature that mention the term "flunkey puzzle" besides Chapter 11 of Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson.

   The term is highly unusual and appears to be unique to this chapter, where it describes the strategic modesty of wealthy individuals—particularly in historical Chinese society—who conceal their status ("palm thatch") until they accumulate enough wealth to safely display it ("Packard").

   Search results confirm that "flunkey puzzle" does not appear in other literary, academic, or cultural contexts. References to "flunkey" alone relate to characters (e.g., Flunkey the baboon in The Jungle Book) or synonyms for a servant, while "puzzle" appears in unrelated titles like crossword clues or educational exercises."

So, there you have it. I used a unique phrase in an indexed work of literature, with some (perhaps initially vague but increasingly refined and accurate) terms and context and it couldn't be found. A few questions spring to mind:

1. Have people been so bad at using traditional search engines prior to the introduction of AI/LLM based search engines that what seems like a step backward to me is a step forward to them?
2. Has the AI hype bubble driven this direction despite its ineffectiveness?
3. Is my search style so tuned to text search engines that LLMs can't work with it?
4. Is this all simply my confirmation bias?

Either way, I'm increasingly annoyed at not being able to find what I'm looking for.

ps: it's only a couple of days ago that I was looking for a BT song that I happened to be listening to, and the search engine couldn't find it despite me typing the lyrics of THE WHOLE FIRST VERSE into it! I should have asked why it cou;dn't find the song, but hey. I did take a screenshot though! Hopefully something to laugh at 10 years from now, assuming things get better by then 😁

for my eyes only

two occasions I missed having my dashcam on today:

the first one:

google maps taking me on a 55 minute drive through the countryside on completely unknown village roads (even crossing major roads and highways but not offering them as alternative routes) to rat-run a massive traffic jam on the highway at rush hour... I was doing 40 on many of those roads cos I was too scared to go any faster! I was cursing my luck but didn't want to stop and switch to Waze in case I lost network, because then I'd be well and truly lost... also it would have been very risky to park on those narrow roads on the chance that another city-slicker was blinkly following google maps straight into the back of my car! also the dashcam would have caught me audibly cursing... I was so glad I was alone in the car. Don't think Shruti has ever seen me scared when driving!

ps: found the route in google maps' location history. it looks like I could have easily been routed along highways instead!

the second (and more noteworthy!) one:

a fox ran across my path on the M3 exit at J1! thankfully, safely!

law of conservation of energy and computing

A question I've been mulling over for weeks, and wondering who to ask:

Computers use electrical energy and produce heat. Is the heat produced by computers less than the electrical energy consumed (I would assume so, but would like a definite answer!) and if so, what is that residual energy "stored in" computing? What happens to the energy when say the result of the computing is erased? A lot of the computing is just lost to the environment in general as well, so what happens there?

Trying to wrap my head around the law of conservation of energy in this special case.