Let's talk about death

Death is a subject that is not discussed openly. This is not an India specific problem, it is a worldwide phenomenon. It is ironic because it is perhaps one of the few certainties of life (until scientists make some remarkable discovery). In this post, I would like to share what I want upon my death.  A set of Dos and Don'ts

• Do: Donate as many body parts as possible. I do not care if it is for another human being or if is it for some research. It is said that the consent should be given before. I have given my consent at multiple places but I have lost all the consent cards. Let this blog post be my consent. No body part is sacred, no destination is preferred. As long as there is a non-zero utility value, please give it off. 
• Don't: Don't perform any of the rituals on me. Be it a Arya Samaj or Sanatan or anything. I do not believe in the concept of re-incarnation, I do not believe in the concept of Heaven or Hell. No purification rituals are needed, no body cleansing is needed. 
• Don't : Do not donate any new clothes like shawls as an offering. Everybody agrees that it has become an industry now and what you donate will be recycled again and resold. It is a mindless exercise anyways. 
• Do: If any body is left after donation, I would prefer an electric cremation over any other because its carbon footprint is the least. If there is another one that is discovered which is better for environment, use that. But at the same time, it should be a minimal effort affair. If an electric cremation is closer, use that.  If my body is in Himalayas or in vacant lands, just do a burial. There should not be any fuss over religion over cremation. 
• Don't: As much as possible, do not buy any items, that means NO flowers, no Gangajal, no rice, wheat etc etc. A stretcher if needed for the body, re-use one if possible. 
• Do & Don't: Do not perform any havan post death. Instead, donate to any institution that helps in education. Pick any one of your choice and donate. Think how much it costs to do a usual cremation,  avoid all that cost and donate equivalent amount to that institution.
• Don't: Don't do any chautha, 13th, 10th etc etc. Instead remember that life goes on and carry on. Do the formalities and start making plans for future. Go travel to get some change of scenery. 

Bhatia Uncleji... RIP

Bhatia Uncleji lived his life fully with vigor. My earliest memory of him brings into mind his characteristic loud laugh and many many of them. He was proud of his work at dept. science and technology. Wearing his classical Safari suit with a leather bag cum brief case in hand, he was punctually ready everyday. He liked the punctuality of this tempo bus that would take him on time and drop him on time. Later, after he got a car, he carpooled and found really nice friends and had a jolly time in the commute as well.

He always had a soft corner for me. I too liked him since early on. We shared a lot of common interests and that was the reason, we were always at some level more friends, the formal bond of a familial relative was far less with him. Perhaps, it was also his way of living life aspect that I always liked.

He was always the one who liked campa colas and local samosas. With age, his appetite grew less, he would be restrictive but still loved it. He encouraged bets in house and ask for ice cream treats whenever someone lost, which was largely me only.  He had his Kulfi while me and other will revel in the chocolate ice cream.  He liked the road side Chole Kulche and the south indian food but always in moderation. He liked all vegetables, loved home made food and ate it with same passion as one eats in restaurants. He also took us to various 5-star hotels, my first ones and showed us the glimmer of the luxury side.

He loved technology, always an early adopter of computers. He loved being photographed, seeing photographs and liked them if they came out good. He had a good eye for these sort of things. He liked cricket, tennis, kept abreast of news and wanted good for everyone. He was a religious man, narrated the Arya Samaja Prathana by heard with great enunciation. He liked performing Sandhya, did so almost daily.

Where our interests overlapped maximum was both of our love for Radio. Those days, the FM was really good, great RJs, greats songs, and less ads. He would turn it on every morning and I would love to listen it while getting ready. On weekends, he would take it upstairs, do his usual chores all the time while radio was on.  On cold days, he would go to the roof and sun bathe while listening to the radio. He loved sleeping under the Sun on those cold weather days of Delhi, those days before the smog would go away when Sun came.

Outside of radio, we were both big fans of Pradeep ke Bhajan. He had this cassette which he would play in loop and neither of us could get tired of listening.  He introduced me to Pradeep ke bhajan and to this day, I remember him whenever I listen to that album. There is a level of simplicity to these tracks, a philosophy of life and I think both of us understood this and tried to follow some of those tenets.

He loved his time in US. We went to Disneyland, he liked the rides, liked the country, liked the developed-ness of US, in particular the 17-mile drive. He was enthusiastic to travel anywhere we asked to, even though his health had started to give little trouble.


Post retirement, he decided to adopt few students and fund their education. He would study these kids, went and met then and tracked their progress periodically. He was very happy when they got good grades, showed me their report cards. He had this file where he kept all their records, he was very organized in almost all things. He loved playing cards, walking in park and spending time with other people.

Last five-six years have been painful for him. With health deteriorating, he was confined to the home only. His concentration power declined, so did his ability to read books, to watch TV, to use computer, to listen to radio, social circle became very very limited. I personally got frozen whenever I went to his place. I just could not see him being in that situation, my mind would get shut and i could not even communicate with him. He battled strongly but in the end, God really called him. May his soul rest in peace!

Life In July 15 - Oct 8, 2019

Writing this on the fourth day of a four day long break in which we were at home for the most parts. Time indeed flies and today will be gone too but not without a nice blog post :)  It is indeed important to document the mundane as Annie Dillard puts it - how we spend our days is indeed how we spend our lives.

On Day 1, it was a delayed start as I felt little sicker. I had got drenched the day before and wanted to just relax in the morning. After that, it was some bank work followed by exhibition setup at Sobha for Sweet chestnuts. The exhibition was there till night and at the end of it we were tired of it all.

On Day 2, it was home cleaning where we cleaned almost couple of wardrobes, figured out a bunch of old clothes to be donated. In the evening, we went to see Durga Puja pandal nearby and had some good Bengali food.

On Day 3, it was an outing day where we first had breakfast at parents place - breakfast of puri+chana+halwa as it was the navarathri food. Followed by Joker screening, some shopping, a nutritionist consultation and then some work calls at night.

Today is day 4 and there is enough work that I have to get done.  Moving back to the original intent, here is what happened in the last 10 weeks -

Trip to US
It was an official visit, a one after 6 yrs for me. It was a busy one. It was a 18 day trip. Here are the highlights -

- Went to Atlanta first for a day and met Tayaji and Taiji.
- Did a muir woods hike with office colleagues, followed by a brief stint at Muir beach and lunch at Burma super star. Golden Gate vista point stopover was also very cool.
- Met bunch of old friends - Guy, Megan, Modi, Gurshi.  So cool to meet people after a long long time.
- Went to my old hangout places - Castro street, Philz coffee, Ethiopian cuisine, farmer's market in Mountain view.
- Went to Gilroy and then a short hike to Henry W Coe State park.  It was very hot but good fun.  For the night, i went to Pigeon lighthouse hostel.
- Lots of shopping - REI, Kohls, Santana row etc.
- Disappointed to see that Milk Pail had closed out. In general, lots of changes.
- Attended Hamilton play in shnsf. It was pretty good, could have been better if I was not that tired.
- Met all Bay area cousins and had good times. 

Books

Sula by Toni Morrison
A book store browse led me to pick this book up. My first Toni Morrison book. On the story side, I found the book to be decent but in terms of the flow, the characters, it is fairly a pretty good. Not what I will call a classic but a good read.

Exhaltation by Ted Chaing
This is a book of short stories by Ted Chiang (behind the Arrival book - The story of your life fame). I have read three of them now, the smaller ones are more interesting that the really big ones.

Earth Sea books -
Tehanu
The Other Wind
Tales from Earthsea
5/5
There will be a separate blog post for these but all I can say right now is that they are awesome, must read and to be re-read. Huge fan of the series.


Movies/TV-shows

Joker - 4.5/5
Liked the treatment, the background score and definitely acting of Mr. Phoenix. I am not sure why the critiques are calling it cliched, but to me it was a good study of where do villians come from? I would like to watch a movie called - Mogambo or Gabbar.


Ash is the Purest White - 4/5
This is a study of China's growth captured in the backdrop of a story. Very well made and goes in its own page.  Highly recommended. Other movies by this director, Jia Zhangke, are also very good.

Sacred Games - 3.5/5
I read the book last year when season 1 had come out. I finally decided to watch it once season 2 is out. First thought was that Kashyap can make a gritty crime series in India with ease now. He moves from one location to another effortlessly.
- First season follows the book more closely than second season.
- One of the highlights of the book was the banter that happens between the cops, in the police station, how they see the world etc. Much of that is missing in the TV series.
- I also liked the Sartaj's love story with Mary which is missing in the series.
- Saif's muted portrait was a very refreshing change to see in Indian cinema, loved it.
- I had lots of issues with season 2, and none of them are related to the Guruji arc. I thought that it was well done. My issues was Zoya does not get the much respect in tv as she gets in the books and the ending with bomb detonation was too cheesy for me. Like lifted out of some 90s movie.
- Changing the RAW agent from man to woman was a good thing and it was portrayed also very nicely. I do not remember her name now.
- Writing overall is crisp and does its job well.


House - 3.5/5
Rewatching House Tv series with Kanishka. It is a fun series to watch. In season 4 now.

Comicstaan Season 2 - 3/5
Some land well, some do not.  A good time pass series.

Meet the Malhotras - 3.5/5
A quirky show on a couple that goes to a counsellor to resolve their marital issues. Byte sized episodes, all together work like a movie.

Events
- Onam celebration at Elan with typical South Indian food.

- Farewell to Bflat, Indiranagar. Went to a farewell concert to Bflat and celebrated Babu's birthday there as well. Attended a blues concert which was pretty good as well.

- VVpuram street
Had been meaning to visit this place for last 5 years and finally made it.

Being Social

With EH folks

With Vymo and didi Jiju

With RH and Amazon folks

Other

- Travelled to Chennai for a recruiting trip to IIT campus. Good fun time.

- Tried Azul board game and liking it very much for now.

- Got a personal trainer and trying to work out thrice a week. Partially successful at it.

- Trip to Darjeeling was covered in a separate blog post - http://arvindbatra.blogspot.com/2019/08/darjeeling-2019.html

- My Coursera course on Science of Well being was covered in a separate blog post - http://arvindbatra.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-science-of-well-being-summary.html

- Got a new aquarium with 28 fishes originally. 22 survive as of now.

The Science of Well Being - A Summary

Course - The Science of Well Being (Link)
Teacher - Laurie Santos


NYTimes had this article on how a happiness course in Yale is the most popular course in campus and how it is available on coursera as well. Immediately, I was hooked. My motivation was not that I am unhappy but the following - 

• I wanted to understand what makes us happy. If there is a science behind it, I definitely wanted to know.
• If in the process of learning, I can become happier, then why not? 

With this, I immediately enrolled in the course and finished it last week. Overall, I think the course is very well structured and covers both theoretical aspects with practical activities to really make one happy. I will admit that I did not follow the practical activities (called rewirements) to the dot. However, although Dr. Santos claims that "Knowing is not half the battle", it is definitely non-zero and my attempts to get better on them continues on.  

The course is structured in two parts. Every week, we go over some of the theoretical aspects of the science. At the same time, there are exercises such as make more social connections, or meditate for 10 mins. These exercise are designed to bring us more happiness as there is enough evidence to suggest that they really do. In this post, I will summarize the theoretical aspects of this course. 

Warning - This will be a long post.

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What makes us happy? (or  Misconceptions about happiness)

This is a good question to begin this exercise. Here are some common responses and before starting the course, I would also agree to few of them 

• Good Job
• Money
• True Love
• Awesome stuff (car, big tv etc)
• Good Body
• Perfect grades (for those in school/college)

But in reality, none of the above actually makes us happy. There are studies that have shown over and over that we believe that the above make us happy but actually they do not. 

The only exception is money. Money in the initial phase does make us happy, as in, there is a threshold. If your money increases towards that threshold, it indeed gives us happiness but beyond that any increase in money does not increase in happiness.  This threshold exists to take care of our existential needs, better health care, access to clean water, air, house etc.  But once we start earning more than threshold and even if we continue to increase our earning, it makes no difference in our happiness. 

Summary - We are putting our efforts in wrong things, we are prioritizing misleading goals. We believe that such things will make us happy but they do not. 

Reference reading - The How of happiness by Sonja Lyubomomirsky

Why we prioritize wrong happiness goals? Why are our expectations so bad?

This is a very good question as we truly believed that good jobs, money, good body will bring us happiness but they do not. Why is that? The answer lies in Miswanting.

Miswanting - This act of being mistaken about what and how much you're going to like these things in the future.

(Term coined by Tim Wilson and Dan Gilbert)

To really understand miswanting, we need to understand that our mind has certain annoying features. These features distract us from prioritizing things correctly. They mislead us to what will make us happy. 

Annoying feature #1 - Mind's strongest intuitions are often totally wrong.

There are various visual illusions out there, example Muller-Lyer illusion and Shepard tables, where mind tricks us to believe that what is opposite of the real thing. We do not realize because our mind's convictions are really strong about these. 

Annoying feature #2 - Minds do not think in terms of absolutes.

This is really important as our mind always think in comparative reference point.  

• Study - A nice study shows that for every rise of a dollar in income, our mind's perception on what is required to be happy goes up by 1.4$.  
• Study - Social Media : Facebook use leads to low self esteem. 
• Another experiment, two control options
• Option 1 - You get 50K$, others get 25K$ 
• Option 2 - You get 100k$, others get 250K
• 56% prefer option 1.
• Study - TV: TV makes you assume that average wealth of people around you is higher.  More TV watching leads to more happiness.
• Study - TV: Each extra hr of TV makes you spend 4$ higher more than average. 

Our minds are always comparing our worth with other people or other reference points. TV, social media makes these comparisons very easy. 

Annoying feature #3 - Our minds are built to get used to stuff 

Also known as Perceptual Adaptation or Hedonic Adaptation.

Hedonic adaptation - The process of getting accustomed to positive and /or to negative stimuli such that over time, we get used to it.

As we get better job, higher salaries, with time, once they stick around, it becomes the new normal. Our mind adapts to it.  Hence, they no longer give us the same feeling of happiness as we thought they would give us. 

Wonderful things wanes with repetition - Dan Gilbert

Annoying feature #4 - We don't realize that our minds are built to get used to stuff.

This is really the worse one because we don't even realize this self evident truth. When we strive towards a goal, we expect that once achieved, it will have a positive impact on our happiness.  But our minds suffer from Impact Bias, namely - 

• Intensity of impact: We overestimate the overall increase in happiness once we achieve the goal.
• Duration of impact: We overestimate how long will the impact lead to increase in happiness.

In addition,  more experience of impact bias, that is same event happening again and again, does not make it any better.  That is, our minds is blind to this bias and hence there is no learning either. Example, as our salaries improve, it does not mean that we become happier.  The fact that when it increased last time did not lead to increment in happiness does not make us any wiser, we strongly believe that this next increment will make us happier. 

What leads to this impact bias? 

Focalism - When we think about the event, we only focus on that event, but not everything else. This results in the bias.

Adaptability - Our brains are very adaptable. Hence, when events happen, say bad events, we tend to cope up with them. It is a human intrinsic quality.

Reference reading - Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert

How to get out of Hedonic adaptation? What are strategies to reset our expectations?

From last section, we realize that we need to prevent the mind from tricking us into miswanting. In this section, we discuss certain ways to thwart the Hedonic adaption.

1. Savoring - The act of stepping out of an experience to review and to appreciate it. 
2. Negative visualization - Visualize the scenario of what will happen if the goal is not met. How bad will it be? Yes, you will be upset for some time but it is not really the end of this world. Is the present really that bad? This helps break the mind out of the Hedonic adaptation.
3. Make this day your last day - This is not necessarily the last day of your life but let's say the last day of the present. Example - last day of this job. 
4. Gratitude - the quality of being thankful and a tendency to show appreciation of what one has. It has shown that merely writing down 5 things that one is grateful for once a week makes people happy.

Reference Point - Reference point is a salient and often irrelevant standard against which all subsequent information is compared.

Reference point impact our happiness as our brain is comparing our state to this point to deduce happiness. We do not realize how much impact this does on our happiness. We need to constantly recalibrate this point to realize our true happiness. 

• Concretely re-experience: Try to to back to a place (physically) where you were some time ago. Example - go back to a previous job's office. Remember your state when you where there and what your expectations were at that point of time. Compare this to present and how much it meant at that point of time.
• Concretely observe: Say, you want to visit a place or get to a point. Actually go and visit that place and see if really matches with your expectation. Grass is always greener on the other side. We think that it will make us very happy once we reach a place X but in reality, it may not be true. So, actually, trying out that X for some time calibrates this expectation.
• Avoid Social comparisons: This is more important in today's world than ever. There are few techniques to realize this - 
• Stop Technique - Whenever you realize that your mind is comparing to others, just tell yourself to stop it. One has to be little vigilant for this.
• Gratitude also helps a lot in stopping social comparison. If mind is in a state of gratitude, it does less comparison.
• Get rid of social media accounts :)
• Interrupt your consumption/comparison: When one listens to a favorite song in a loop, one starts to enjoy it less with every repetition. Same goes with favorite dish. If you like something, take it intermittently, give some gap between occurrences.  
• Interesting corollary to above point is that, if you do not like something, do all of it one go instead of in piece-meals. 
• Add variety to your consumption: Variety brings new experiences. Also, vary the time between your favorite activity, say having donuts. Make things dynamic.

What stuff really increase our happiness?

Primarily, we can divide the stuff into two categories - 

1. Better Wanting - Wanting the right parts of what we already want.
2. Wanting things that we do not want - could be both known or unknown to us.

Category 1: Better Wanting

#1 Signature Strengths - Get a job that make use of your signature strengths. 

Signature strengths are strengths that (a) you are really good at and (b) Recognized by others as well.

#2 Flow - Find things/activities/jobs that give you a Flow.

Flow - The mental state in which a person performing an activity fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment.

The main features of Flow are - 

• Challenging but attainable goals.
• Strong focussed concentration.
• Activity is intrinsically rewarding.
• Feeling of serenity.
• Loss of self conscious.
• Lack of any physical needs

How to achieve flow -

Flow is achieved when we set out to accomplish voluntarily that is difficult and worthwhile. Typically, it does not distinguish between leisure and work. Since it is voluntary, it takes both one and the same. 

Intrinsic motivation - Engaging in a behavior because you enjoy the activity itself. 

Extrinsic motivation can undermine intrinsic motivation Focus on grades (external) undermines learning (intrinsic). 

Activities that has intrinsic motivation helps with in achieving flow. 

#3 Growth mindset 

Growth Mindset - The belief that intelligence can be trained, basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.

As opposed to fixed mindset which says that intelligence and traits are fixed traits. In fixed mindset, difficult tasks do not lead to change with time. In growth mindset, performance increases over time. One can learn to get to a growth mindset. 

Category 2: Wanting the stuff that we don't realize

#1 Kindness

Opportunities to be more kind to others. Studies show that happy people are more motivated to be kind. Consequently, happy people also act more kindly towards others. 

#2 Social connection

Happy people have strong close friends, strong family ties, better romantic ties. How much time you spend alone vs with friends/family/lover. Happy people spend more time in socializing. 

Also, social connections works with strangers too. Random talks with strangers increase happiness.  In general act of being with somebody leads to happiness.

#3 Time Affluence

Time Affluence = Feeling like you have enough time for doing things that you would like to do. 

Prioritizing time over money makes people happier. We should invest in time affluence. 

#4 Mind Control

Mind rarely sticks on the task that we are working on. Known as mind wandering.  Wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Meditation helps in controlling mind wandering.  Studies show that meditation helps in making brain tissue. Meditation makes us happier.

#5 Healthy Practices

- Exercise

- Sleep

This is largely self explanatory. 

How to put strategies into practice?

How to focus our energies to increase Kindness, Social Connection, Time Affluence, Mind Control and Healthy Practices. 

Strategy - Situation Support

• Fix bad environment - Get rid of stuff that is tempting to you. Clean your workplace. Throw out the sugary stuff that you don't really need.
• Promote healthy environment - Have fruits visible and open. Have a social group to share positive things. Start a meditation group.

Strategy - Goal Setting

• Goal Specificity -  The degree of quantitative precision with which a goal is specified. Create goals that are very specific. 
• Goal Visualization - Visualize the end of the goal. Use mental contrasting. Mental contrasting = A visualization technique involving first thinking of a positive future outcome followed by thinking of obstacles. 
• Goal planning - Implementation intention = A self regulatory strategy in the form of an "if-then" plan that can lead to better goal attainment

Strategy -  WOOP = Wish Outcome Obstacle Plan 

• Wish - Think about your Wish. What is the most important wish in life for today/next 4 weeks/this year? Isolate one important wish. Search for it. What is it that I want?
• Outcome -  What is the best outcome if I fulfill my wish? Search for this best outcome. Imagine and experience this best outcome. 
• Obstacle - Potential Obstacles that can hamper your accomplishment of goal. What stops me from this experience? What is my main inner obstacle? Can be a bad habit, inner behavior etc. Imagine the obstacle, experience it
•  Plan - Your If/Then Plan.  Muscle memory actions. Once you identify the obstacle, what can I do to overcome the obstacle. Go to details of this obstacle and create a plan for this, when you get to that obstacle.

Why WOOP works - 

• Cognitive : Links the future with the obstacle. And then the obstacle with the plan to overcome the obstacle. WOOP allows to trigger these non-cognitive response. Recognizing the obstacle is very important. and plan makes the implicit obstacle to explicit, 
• Motivational : It creates motivation which drives energy. 
• Feedback : Negative feedback (when you are not able to work towards the outcome) is not a threat, it s a mechanism to identify more obstacles and then put into a plan

Do WOOP every morning - 5 minutes uninterrupted and you will start to see the difference over time. 

Reference reading - Rethinking positive thinking by Gabriele Oettingen

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The psychological triggers of happiness are very different than the materialistic aspirations that we have. The course first deconstructs these materialistic views which we believe will give us happiness but in reality it is the opposite. The soft aspects such as exercise, gratitude, meditation are the real triggers for happiness. Once told, it appears to be evident. 

The challenge lies in how we orient ourselves to optimize for these latent aspects. WOOP is one such framework for it. Fixing situations, setting right goals are all methods to achieve happiness. While knowing is not half the battle, atleast with knowing and acknowledging, one can take steps in the right direction. 

The above is a cheat sheet. I would recommend everyone to take the course and go over the process on their own. It is worth it. 

Darjeeling - 2019

Tinchuley made me travel to Darjeeling again.  Ever since my Sandakphu visit, in which I could not visit Tinchuley, I was hoping to visit this place. 15 Aug provided an opportunity with its long weekend and I took it.  Together with Kanishka, Aarti and Babu. 15 Aug, was also Rakhi. Wasting a day for rakhi seemed too much, so we decided to celebrate it on the way.


Day 1 -
Our flight to Bagdogra was at 6 am. Due to 15 Aug, there are extra security layers and hence we got an SMS saying  to be at the airport 240 mins (4hrs) before the departure. Which meant reaching at 2 am which meant leaving home at 12:30 am, which meant no sleep. To our surprise, there was no queues at the airport and the security was also very organized. We were done with all our checks by 3 am.  We had a meal at KFC at 3 am and then wandered around the airport to rest.

After landing at Bagdogra, we waited for an hr for Babu to arrive from Hyderabad. Once all four were here, we had the Rakhi ceremony at the airport in full view of all travelers and locals.

We had Mr. Rabi,  a polite and calm person as our driver. We crossed Naxalbari and lush green scenery on our way. Our first stop was Mirik lake.  Mirik lake was full of travelers, most likely because of 15 Aug, a lot of locals had come to celebrate their holiday. We went to the other side of the lake and walked 15 mins to get to the bridge. The walk was good, it had started to drizzle lightly.
We were famished and decided to have our lunch at a local dhaba kind  of restaurant. We had momos, egg chowmien and veg chowmein. They were very tasty.

From Mirik, we headed to Pashupati market which is on the Nepal side. This brief detour turned this to an international vacation. It is very easy for Indians to visit Nepal, and that too for shopping. Earlier, Pashupati market used to have a significant value as it was a way for Chinese goods to enter India but now because of sea routes, it has become obsolete for that usecase. Yet, it is a historic place. Market itself was clean and tidy but shops were okayish

From the market, we headed to our homestay - Heyagriva  . Here is my review of Heyagriva via airbnb

Very cozy setup and a delightful host makes Heyagriva a no brainer place to stay in Darjeeling. Watch out as there is no parking outside here and accessibility is a challenge in general in Darjeeling. Heyagriva stands out as it has a very beautiful temple inside the place to stay, fully covered in carpets gives it a very cozy feeling and a view from the terrace balcony makes it a stand out. Paulzor and his newly wedded wife are great hosts and make you very welcome! Paulzor also helped us with local maps and arranging local rice wine which further boosted our spirits ;)

After quickly freshening up, we decided to walk to Mall road, 1.2 kms away. Mall road is this busy commercial place for shopping and hanging out. We went to Glenarys and picked up some cakes and bakes along with coffee day coffee, it is everywhere. Kanishka and co did some more shopping. After coming back, we were treated to this big sumptuous dinner consisting of three veggies and rice wine. The rice wine was very tangy, I just tried a few sips and we returned the full bottle back.

Day 2
It had rained quite frequently on Day 1, so we dropped our 4 am plan to go to Tiger hill to see sunrise as it would be all cloudy. Not to mention that we were really tired. We still woke up at 5 am to see sunrise. It was still some time to see for the sun to come up and I was super tired, so I went back to sleep. Others, still persisted. After having a quick breakfast, we left at 9:15 am.

First stop was the Ghum monastery, almost 100+ years old now. Access was via small lanes but inside, it was devoid of any other tourists. We roamed around, clicked few snaps and moved on.

Next stop was Batasia loop. Batasia loop is an interesting point that it features in the scenic places to visit in Darjeeling but actually it is nothing but a small garden. What makes it interesting is that it was created for a the toy train to take a turn via a loop which was an engineering marvel in those days. It costed a fraction and was very ingenuous at its time. That engineering marvel has made it a point to see. We were lucky as while we were visiting the loop, soon a toy train came, that too a steam engine one and we were able to click some snaps. Otherwise, the toy train ticket is INR 1500 per person.

From Batasia loop, we headed to the Zoo. Darjeeling Zoo is famous for Red Panda, an endangered species. This zoo also had couple of big bears, a Royal Bengal tiger, black leopard and many more animals. It was very clean and animals were given reasonably decent space, not just cages . It rained heavily while we were there and so few animals moved in to their sheds.  We had lunch at the local canteen. We were hungry so the hot food looked awesomely delicious.

Next to the zoo is the Mountaineering institute with museum dedicated to Tenzing Norgay. Mueseum was pretty good with lots of information on the peaks, people who had been on top and gear as well. Edmund Hillary was a New Zealander who went on top and Tenzing's story is very inspiring too.

Post our visits, we did some local shopping and headed to Tibetan refugee centre. This camp had two photographic exhibitions detailing the history of Dalai Lama, Tibet and Chinese aggression. Their story is a story of struggle which ends in a very sad note. It is still going on but it seems like people are getting used to this new world they are living in.

Before leaving Darjeeling we spent 30 mins in Mall road where we had local Pani puri, bhutta and ice creams. My other three companions were all busy with shopping.  The road to Tin Chulhey was very dark and full of mist. Mr. Rabi navigated quite well. At Teen Chulhey, we were quickly taken to our rooms followed by a very lavish dinner.


Day 3

We started Day 3 by going for a morning walk to Sunrise view point which had no views as it was full of mist. We also passed the local monastery along the way. Breakfast was luchi and alu sabji along with a tamarind chutney which was very delicious. With stomach full, we decided to walk to the Lamahatta park, some 5 kms away, but the locals mentioned to take the forest as it would be more "interesting". Forest walking distance is around 3 kms and it was supposed to take about 2 hrs as the trail is slippery and has a lot of leeches for this season. To prepare us for the trip, we were given salt and bamboo sticks.

On the trail, we were quickly in thick jungle and surrounded by leeches. It was meant to be a straight trail but because of rains, the trail was not clear in many places. Also, there was grass on the trail leading others question whether we are on the right way or not. Throughout the trip, there were calls to "lets go back", "this does not look right" and, " leeches are entering my shoes". Indeed, leeches were entering but as people stopped to fix it, more would come. They had to get over the initial phase of accepting it. It took some time. Forest was very beautiful. Green. Like after a good rain.

We reached Lamahatta village in 100 mins. We went to the Lamahatta park and sat under a shed to remove all the leeches. Local tourists to the park had one more amusement thing to watch. Out legs were bloodied. No pain but not a pleasant sight.

After cleaning up, we went to the local restaurant and had Chaang - a millet based beer. This beer is served with hot water instead of a chilled one.

With such interesting first half, we went back to homestay, had lunch and slept. Evening was spent in just relaxing. Mr. Rabi's brother was playing guitar in the evening, playing Nepali songs. Later it got morphed into few Bengali/Hindi songs but not that great.

Day 4
The only agenda for day 4 was to pack and leave early. We were ready and on time. Our breakfast was Chole Bhature which we had with no regrets.  Lunch was at the Bagdogra airport.

Life in Apr 19 - July 14, 2019

Time is flowing and so are we along with it. Change becomes constant and we need to run twice as hard just to become the normal that we once were. In this life instance, I started a new job and shifted to a new home - not a good idea to do both at the same time. Nevertheless, many other things happened as well.  I will start with books - 

Books - 

- LOTR - Had developed an itch to re-read LOTR again and so I did. I think I liked it better this time.

- Tehanu by Ursulla Le Guin - I am in awe of Earthsea books. They are so well done that I just want to live in that world. Sometimes you read a book and once it gets over, you wonder, how the characters are doing once their journey is over. Tehanu answers this wonderfully and adds more layers to it. 

- Fallen Too Far by Abby Glines - I wanted to get a flavor of Romantic genre of movies. So I picked this one as it was said that this is better than the typical others. While this curiosity was enough to run through the first few pages, finishing it became a challenge. Genre lovers may like it but not much for me.

Movies - 

Article 15 - 5/5

A movie on constitution of India, on a topic that is very relevant and a director/writer who want to genuinely use this medium to influence society. Must watch for our times.

Kimi no Na Wa (Your name) - 4.5/5 

Anime movie. New medium of storytelling. Went for this on my birthday. Loved it very much.

John Wick 3 - 3.5/5

Did not like this as much as the first and second but still a very good action film.

Avengers endgame - 3/5

Good masala film that ends a big part of the franchise.

Badla - 2.5/5

Travel - 

None

Plays/Events - 
- Tansen a play on the life of the artist. Saw this at Ranga Shankara. Good play to know more about his life.

- My Father - feat. Naseeruddin Shah  - a play on an old man suffering from Alzheimers' disease.

- Comedy show feat. Samay at That Comedy club, Koramangala 

Misc - 

- Lot of birthdays came and lots of new places were tried out. Foxtrot at Marathalli, Burma house in Indiranagar,  Dialogues cafe in Koramangala,  La Case brewery near Sarjapur, Aurum in Sarjapur, Big Spoon in Whitefield, Chung Wah in Koramangala

- Too much shifting. Splendid to ND, Splendid to Sobha, ND to Elan. Splendid to Elan. 

Review: The Americans - TV Series

Slow Burn is a trope where the story focuses on development of characters, evolution of story, while keeping the in-your-face conflict taut.  In the trope, the tension of main conflict is not resolved, although it is teased multiple times. This slow unraveling of the story until it climaxes is called Slow Burn.

For some reason, I have found myself drawn to Slow Burn based TV series a lot.   First, it was Breaking bad, but I think there also too many things were happening. Then, it was Line of Duty which is sheer brilliant. The Americans - TV Series, I believe has been the best so far.

Two Russian spies pretending to be a couple have been tasked to settle in US, live life like normal Americans blend in,  but at the same time,  their main task is to spy for the Russian government. They get their assignments via a Russian handler. Both of them are trained in defense, offense, and using sex, emotion or whatever in their means to achieve their end goal.

The series start with the couple - Elizabeth and Phillip, already living in US for many years, they even have two kids - Page and Henry. To masquerade their spy activities, the couple operate a small travel concierge company which employees 3-4 other people.

In the very first episode, an FBI agent moves in to a house opposite to their house. With this, the series sets itself to its primary conflict - will they get caught? Their missions are dangerous, their next door FBI agent is leading them. In other conflicts, their kids do not know about their spy game, but till now they were small. But now, as they grow and become curious, will they find out?

In another side, we have the Russian embassy where schemes are being devised to aid these folks. Folks in embassy do not know of their identity. The setting is when the US-Russia conflict was at its peak. 

The greatest con pulled by The Americans is to make Americans care for two Russian spies. Think about it, let me add some Indian flavor. There are two Pakistanis, a couple, living in India, spying on India, killing Indian people, stealing trade secrets, copying war codes and what not but still the Indians like them enough for them to be ok. To pull it off is ingenious.

How does Americans pull it off? One word - doubt. The Americans - our spies, with so many years in US are now doubting whether US is indeed a real enemy? They have better infrastructure, better food, ordinary folks do not hate Russia, they are people and like our species, they are inherently good. They want better future for their kids, want the world to be a happy place. The classic Arjun-Krishna dilemma - Why should we hate them? These thoughts are contrasted with life of challenges back home with some flashbacks. 

To top this setting : Slow Burn. The main conflict is not resolved at all. It is accepted, internalized but yet it is always there. And the minor ones, just keep on adding. Americans does not give you an inch in resolving even the minor ones. Only in later seasons, we start to see some closures, but in first three, it was just - keep the pot boiling.

The writing is very good. After reading a lot of their interviews, the writers admit that their approach was - what would this character do in this situation, what would be the logical next step? With this,  because it is so grounded in our psychology, it is so believable.  The last episode is a killer one. The last season is a killer one. RT rates it at 99%.

Just as much as it is a spy drama, it is a discourse on marriage as well. Two people tasked to live together as a couple, found some meaning of love with each other, who are now partners, but now are facing the trials of marriage, of raising kids but with different parenting philosophies, who come with different beliefs.

There won't be another The Americans for a long time. Just like there won't be another West Wing ever.  There won't be another Seinfeld.  Once you start, you will have to watch till the end. Be prepared.

Lord of the Rings - Book Review

Lord of the Rings
By J R R Tolkein


I wanted to get back into the fantasy genre. While I started with the Earthsea Trilogy by Ursulla Leguin, I had an urge to read, actually re-read LOTR by Tolkein. Two weeks ago, I picked it up and finished it yesterday.

One thing that was constantly in my mind as I was reading the book is that there is no way, I can now decouple the movies from the books. I have seen the movies so many times, I remember all scenes and almost remember all lines. To me Aragorn is nothing but Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of him, likewise for Gandalf and Sean Astin's Sam.  The movie's background score (by Howard Shore) goes in the background of many scenes. I was searching of lyrics of Into the West  in the poetry of Tolkein at the end.  I was just amazed at how so many things from the book that the movie has captured. Yet, so many beautiful things it missed. I honestly believe that movies do justice to the text as much as it can be done. Sure, there are some liberties taken and some annoy me, but overall, I think I not only approve of the approach, I love it.

The reason for the above para at the beginning is to acknowledge that I am a big fan of movies.  Even more so, after visiting Hobbiton. So, in a way this book reading can be seen more about enriching my movie version imagery of LOTR. It is a colored lens.

When I had read the first time, I had read Hobbit first and then followed it by LOTR.  The hobbit movies had not come out. I did not like the book of hobbit as much. It is childish. But my first reading of LOTR had a good memory. There was no blog post of that time, but I remember reading at my parents' home in Dakra and then watching the director's cut LOTR movies after that, on some break from US, and it remains a very good memory till date.  It is from this reading that something was imprinted that wanted me to revisit it. I remembered Tom Bombardill and hands of the king with its healing power.  I wanted to live that world again.

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I loved the book. Very very much. Probably better than the movies this time. Probably more than my first reading. So much texture is there. The characters are fairly well etched out. I love the small banter between Gimli and Legolas. I love when Gandalf carries Pippin on Shadowfax to Gondor and they tell stories. I love that the favorite pass-time of this world is to tell tales, historic tales of distant lands. Even more so, when they acknowledge that they themselves are in a tale which if they survive will be told to generations after them.

LOTR has three aspects to analyze - the plot/narrative, the language which is primarily the characters with their banter and lastly, the grandiose scale of the world building.  The narrative and world building go hand in hand. With Frodo's journey from one land to another, we are also explorers of this world. From Ents in Fangorn forest to Lothorien elves, the history of Moria, Mordor, Gondor with its stewards, Minas Tirith, Minas Mogul, this is an epic scale. To do so all in 1000 odd pages is phenomenal.  Tolkein even developed an entire language to aid his scale.

From plot point of view, once you remove the middle earth aspects, it is a simple good vs evil story where normal folks become heroes because of circumstance. It is a classic fairy tale. There is courage in all of us. When Merry uses his sword to attack the Nazgul, even knowing that he can not kill it, it is a sheer courage and loyalty. Some commentators attack this novel for black and white characters, while I agree, but at the same time, for this format, for this length, for this scale, it is not possible to have that too.  It is after all a simplistic right vs wrong tale underneath.

One thing to note, in particular is the penultimate chapter titled "Scouring of the Shire". I do remember that when I first read it, I was not sure what to make of it. I remember thinking that it is good that it was cut out from the movies. It adds nothing to the main plot line. But this time around, I liked it very much. For one, it reduce the scale from world to local to home. Throughout the journey, each hobbit longs for the Shire that they had left, wondering what would be happening there, how peaceful their past life is and how much they look forward to it. But once they reach Shire, after the ring id destroyed, the world has a new king, the home that they longed for, their home, it is no longer there. It is extremely tragic. This is the textured nuance that Tolkein brings that makes this chapter special. "This is worse than Mordor" claims Sam. Shire is juxtaposed with Mordor.   What follows this horror is again back to the good vs evil story - people of Shire come together to drive ruffians out. It is also a fitting end to Saruman, killed by his own disciple.

When the Gondor's gate is broken, Aragorn claims that he will ask Gimli to send skilled dwarfs from his home when he goes back to rebuild it. When the battle of Gondor is won, Aragorn tents outside the fort to wait for someone to welcome him as a king otherwise his claim may be challenged later where he decides to enter as a king himself.  And how do people believe that he is the true king? Because the hand of the king is the hand of the healer. When Bilbo meets Frodo after the ring is destroyed, he still longs to see the ring one more time. Through this vignettes, Tolkein immerses us in his world where things are connected. For we may forget these connections, as there is so much going on. But is in between these lines that makes LOTR shine on as a masterpiece. The fantasy, the myth comes in forefront and it is does not look contrived, it is a continuum.