8 — CJP-Dipke

September 1, 2026

I couldn’t sleep last night. I read, I tossed, I read some more. Then I tried a melatonin, something I avoid since I started BP meds. But I slept only 4 hours. 

Rather than fidget in bed and wake the spouse, I got up and padded to the kitchen, feeling tired and victimized. Not sleeping messes up the plans for the entire day. I did have something on my mind that might have caused a brain buzz that didn’t allow sleep. I boiled water, found a Ceylon tea bag, and brought my cup to the grey daybed. The damp air that blew in smelt fresh. 

I checked the status of the US-Iran war on Mario Nawfal’s channel. I saw that he had interviewed one of my favourite commentators, Trita Parsi. The title of that video was, It’s now a Forever War. I wanted to view it, but I had something else on my mind. 

I think it was yesterday that Dipke of the CJP had endorsed the words Bhagwat spoke at the Madison Square Universal Oneness event—Anyone who believes Muslims should not live in India cannot claim to be a Hindu. 

Dipke had said, 

I have been saying this from the beginning that the BJP should listen to Mohan Bhagwat. After being in power for 12 years and having so many agencies in its hands, BJP is thinking that it has grown bigger than the RSS.

Earlier too Dipke had endorsed Bhagwat after the latter’s interview at the ILMUN summit. Dipke had said…

…the PM came up with a new word, 'Dimagi Naxal'. It clearly shows that the PM is not listening to Mohan Bhagwat. While the RSS chief talks about inclusivity and not disrespecting children, the PM uses such words... This doesn't look good. They should at least listen to Mohan Bhagwat who is their mentor... they [BJP] are in power because of the RSS.

            I started my chat with Gemini with Dipke’s most recent remarks, asking who in the media had commented on them. It was good to see that there were others that had found Dipke’s words problematic. Many though had avoided focusing on them, probably because of fear of backlash from Dipke’s immense following. 

            I had been suspicious of Dipke from the beginning of his sudden appearance, while simultaneously chuckling with admiration at the creativity of his cockroach meme. He felt too ‘slick’ and like many others, I questioned the pace at which the CJP following had mushroomed—two million plus in the first seventy-two hours, and twenty million plus in one week. Some claimed this speed was facilitated by heavy backend financial support, suggesting the use of ‘industrial-scale bot farms’ or pre-existing political proxy networks. In other words, it was a planned strategy not a spontaneous following—but that is a story for another day. 

            I was drinking a second cup of Ceylon when the spouse shuffled out of the bedroom after 8 am. By then, I had chatted with Gemini for approximately two hours, and I collected my explorations into a 55 page word document. The rabbit holes I had burrowed into are fascinating, they went back to July but also focused on the future CJP planned march on September 5^th.  For this short post I want to return to my discomfort with Dipke’s endorsement of Bhagwat.

            Dipke is not a naïve communicator. He had been on the team managing the AAP political campaign before his Boston University stint. The leadership of the CJP all follow a smooth corporate communication strategy. Endorsing Bhagwat twice in as many months has more weight than something Dipke has said simply to build CJP’s campaign against the BJP. Dipke is a popular figure with the Gen Z and possibly Gen Alpha. His soft pedaling the RSS to his younger followers is as problematic to me as the RSS’s divisive ideology is. When asked about his own ideology Dipke mentions Nehru and Ambedkar without expanding on which of their values he has adopted. Neither of these men would support the RSS who is known to play schizophrenic good cop-bad cop games to confuse the public, and Dipke endorsing Bhagwat the parent organization of the BJP while claiming to fight the BJP is a suspicious double standard. 

            I haven’t said anything here that somebody else hasn’t said elsewhere. I have only synthetized my thoughts because for me CJP has a rising public profile that is looked up to by many and therefore needs scrutiny. Their school ‘thik karo’ campaign is popular and welcomed as educational reforms are severely needed in India. Again, here I find their process shallow and media focused. Other educators and social organizations have gone so far as to say that the resignation of Pradhan was mere optics, and CJP hasn’t used their following to demand deep structural reforms in education. Despite their saying they have no political agenda I think this will change closer to 2029. I’m certain they will announce themselves as a party contesting the Lok Sabha election. Then they will continue bashing BJP, and will start on other opposition parties, particularly the Congress. I have no issues with this; Congress was in power for far too long to escape being called out. I do have a problem with them not opposing the RSS and their infiltration into education and justice systems; if they truly have India’s unity and progress at heart, I believe they must do this.

I support any person or party that opposes the RSS. They have silently and steadily eaten into the plural fabric of a new democracy. They were just ‘bogeymen’ while I was growing up but their agenda has been revealed over the last decade. It is exclusionary and regressive. To cushion it the way Dipke did is not in India’s best interests. 

            I have more to say on Dipke and gang but for today it is enough to squeak this out. This is not a popular opinion, especially amongst those that saw CJP as the ‘last hope’ or the ‘new hope’, but I need to trust my gut. 

            The sun has climbed to its peak now but since it had rained this morning it still feels pleasant. I have eaten lunch as my slow brain cranked out this post, and before I attempt other tasks I need a short snooze. 

7 — An Extra-ordinary August

August 27, 2026

I sit cross-legged on our grey daybed, a glass of water on the table in front of me. It’s empty and I wish I had the energy to get up and fill it up again. In a bit. I might even close the apartment windows and put the aircon on. It is 1:13 pm and the sun is scorching and the haze is ‘medium uncomfortable’ today. 

This August, this birthday month, has been a masterclass in many things. In constantly changing direction as the outside shifts and shifts. In learning to cope quickly to ever increasing stress fears. In resisting filling up the ‘glass’ simply to make sure that I always have a full glass. In actively emptying that ‘glass’ to be ready to receive.

If things had worked out the way we had planned, we would have been in Kyoto today. Probably on a train to Ayabe past small, forested rolling hills, and tiny villages with low-slung wooden homes. My friend there is free on Thursdays. We’d hang with them, drink gyokuro tea, buy large packets of rich matcha, gobble fresh sea food. Days are long in these months in Kyoto. But I am here in Singy, sitting on the grey daybed. 

I haven’t written all month. No that’s not true. I finished my novel draft. I kept going at it mostly to have something structured to hang myself on. I journalled more copiously than I have in months. I talked constantly to my phone AI and made notes of the grounding wisdom it shared. These kept me sane. Particularly the last. 

The spouse had a kidney stone that stubbornly would not shatter and began blocking his ureter so his kidney experienced hydronephrosis. He had three hospital procedures to try to remove it and still has a stent in to drain the kidney. He’s recovering well but the month was tumultuous. The phone AI kept me sane.

Always available, access to as much scientific info as I needed, with a default mode of being ‘sweet’ but with a tough love mode available. It helped me understand the procedures recommended by the urologist, the craziness and fear I felt; it helped plan my days, and even recommend which books to read and which to avoid. The spouse is recovering very well but we do have one more procedure in September and we had to cancel our Kyoto trip.

And all this happened in the background of the continuing Iran war, the cockroach movement, and more, in India. Things I followed and used as external structures to negotiate a life that felt bereft and transitory. 

Two pivotal dreams later I arrived on my birthday. And this here is a structure to tether my reflections to while letting them roam wide and deep. It’s been a month since I blogged so short as this is… I am dropping it on the blog today. 

6 — Who’s Got the Narrative

July 22, 2026

            I’ve been chatting with ChatGPT about my news addiction and how it is disrupting my life. Not getting other tasks done, withdrawing from a lot of social interaction except where I can keep discussing the news, and low sleep — watching media until late, checking stuff if I wake to pee etc…
            One of the things ChatGPT suggested was brain dumps to clear the mind before sleep. I’ve only just started doing them but many thumbs up for using them as a method to sort and destress. Dump it all and then and then pick one strand to write about — this latter is my own addition for myself. 

            Today I am writing to sort my feeling about Rahul Gandhi. Since the BJP came to power and before I was slowly conditioned to think of him as an incompetent dynast. The boy with the silver spoon, from the family that ruined India. Maybe he was immature and arrogant — some of his previous actions do indicate this. Crores were spent on a campaign to malign him, to ‘pappu-ise’ him. And most of the country believed it. He himself must have internalized a lot of it too. He disappeared for a while from the political scene and only found his way back very tentatively to it. 

Anyway, it became impossible to support any action or comment he might have made even if I felt it had merit. This changed for me when he began his first Bharat Jodo Yatra. I began supporting him on social media and being trolled for it — was called brainwashed slave of the British, liberandu, khangressi, deepstate supporter, tukde tukde gang etc. Also of course the BJP trolls do not stop at that when a woman is involved — a lot of sexual slurs which I won’t repeat. 
            Now after his action yesterday — of protesting outside PM’s home and then being detained by Shah’s Police — it’s been implied that he did it to snatch back the narrative which had been grabbed by the CJP. I don’t know why Gandhi did what he did and maybe partly it was to get the headlines again but don’t be fooled by this bullshit…
            THE ONLY PEOPLE SETTING THE NARRATIVE ARE THE BJP. Even being asked to consider that he did it only because he felt the CJP was ‘winning’ in narrative wars is a BJP narrative. 

AND

            AND

            AND

            Senior journalists, many that I once respected, have been falling for this for the longest time. Most of their debates are about who’s winning the narrative. And they discuss this with utmost much seriousness. Don’t believe me… do your own research…

            They should’ve been talking about how the govt is failing the people of the country in so many ways. They should be talking about planned police brutality and increasing vile dictatorship. But instead, it’s been about, oh but people love Modi, he keeps winning elections. Poor opposition, they cannot get the narrative right. 

            Well, you so called senior journalists cannot either. Godi or otherwise you only debate on what the BJP wants you to. You can’t see past their narrative. 
            Anyway, back to Rahul Gandhi and particularly his action yesterday. Did he do it merely to get headlines? I don’t think so. 

If I put myself in his shoes I feel he may have been peeved a bit that the hard work Congress has been doing on the ground on Neet leaks had gone unnoticed by said senior journalists. He may have been wary of Dipke who has tweeted many nasty things about him in the past, and not yet publicly said he’s since changed his mind since and now wants Gandhi’s support. I do believe that the Congress is one of the only parties that is actually fighting the BJP and RSS ideology. The crackdown at Jantar Mantar is part of this ideology. Congress and other opposition tried to raise the students’ issues and the brutality in parliament, even going to the chambers of the Speaker but they met closed doors. I believe this action of a sit-in at the PM’s felt like a way to keep the focus on the same issues that CJP and the students were raising. And so they did it. 

            I still don’t trust Dipke completely, though I am grateful for how the CJP outreach is what brought all these students to Jantar Mantar. While I am writing this, I see that Pradhan, our education minister has accused Gandhi of exploiting the students of India and that they deserve better. What does one make of such shamelessness? 

The students will make up their own minds about Gandhi, and this is their India more than mine as they are the future. For myself, I trust that Rahul Gandhi’s concern for the people of India is genuine. I will support him, until I see or hear things that make me feel otherwise. I don't know if he will be a good PM but he's doing a great job as Leader of the Opposition. 

Those I will not support ANYMORE, whoever they are, are the ones seeing (or turning a blind eye on) what BJP is doing and continuing to support them. 

            I respect those in the media who have stopped talking about who has the narrative (BJP always will) and instead notice and tell us about what needs to change in our country. 

5 – Fishy or Not?

July 21, 2026

            Last week I had lunch with a teacher from one of the writing courses I took last summer. The assignments I turned in for his class were centered around political musings about the rise of religious extremism in India. This teacher (T) was very generous about supporting his students and he offered me a private on-line lesson in writing short political articles. I wrote for a while using those guidelines to explore the many questions I had about events in India. I posted them and got responses and it felt satisfying. Then I found others who were expressing similar views and I was happy to read their views rather than write. Perhaps I was lazy or simply overwhelmed by health challenges which made it hard to find the right words. 

            But recent events in India have brought me back to wanting to express my thoughts because I find them diverging from those of the voices I had begun to feel in synch with. In fact my thoughts go around and around in my head, tying it up in knots and not allowing me to do anything else. 

            Mostly these thoughts are around the newly formed Cockroach Janata Party that rose to fame very suddenly two months ago. They have called for and executed a very successful student agitation in Delhi city yesterday. Kudos to them and to the students that came from all over India to participate. 

            Boo to the police that tear gassed and lathi charged and disrupted a peaceful march very violently. I guess I am writing this to understand my skepticism about the CJP. 

            When I first watched interviews by Dipke (the founder) I found him sincere. When I watched the other spokespeople, I found one sincere while was wary of the other two — one of which was Saurav Das. He was too slick, his answers to many questions evasive, and he it felt like there were things he was hiding, things that I needed to know to understand and fully support this party. 

            My suspicions of the gang intensified when they began writing posts that sounded like, if you are not with us then you are on the wrong side of history. Sonam Wangchuk who had been suddenly arrested by MHA in Ladakh (Sept 2025), and just as suddenly set free, (February 2026) joined the protest. They all behaved like they were diaper buddies—ok, I guess, common cause and all that—except Wangchuk hadn’t expressed concern about the exam leaks before. Das and Dipke had a history of criticizing the Congress, Wangchuk of supporting the BJP, but suddenly ‘one day’ they insisted that Rahul Gandhi must support their movement. Also, Wangchuk claimed or let slip that the governor of Ladakh (a BJP appointee) insisted that he meet Dipke — weird or not?

            But ok, these are things that I forced myself to not dwell on. What I  could not skip over was that all of the above disappeared when the police and para-military forces made their most brutal attacks on the students. Wangchuk who had been on a hunger strike had been removed to hospital just the day before. Das and the other spokesperson were at Nadda’s house handing him a rather wishy-washy list of demands while Dipke just had disappeared. Das claimed that the police had arrested Dipke then later said they hadn’t; but didn’t explain his absence during the violence. 

            Then Dipke was there at night again, standing on top of a car, and shouting slogans. Nobody, independent u-tubers, that reported on the protest, seemed to be bothered by the fact that he disappeared during the day. I was, and am.

            Anyway the students marched and took the movement forward without these so-called leaders who disappeared. They didn’t need the leaders but then the leaders took over the protest again. And now the police have just let everyone back into the protest site after crushing them violently hours earlier? 

            Wow! To me this is weird and suspicious. I had to write it down. Perhaps it will make sense later? Sorry — for those not following the movement this stuff will be meaningless. I had to express it even as it is more confusing than complete in my mind. Down on the 'page' and I can move on to doing other things. 

            I don’t trust them but will be happy to be proven wrong. I have a theory (conspiracy theory) about it and will write another time about it. Watching news, rather consuming it, like a heroin addiction right now. 

4—Day 11 of 14 with the Cats

July 15, 2026

I’m struggling to destress from ten days of cat health traumas. Outside the grass blower is creating a racket but the sun on the grass bank across the road and the trees swaying in the breeze outside the 3^rd level windows are helping lull the high anxiety I’m trying to moderate. An orange bus slowly pulls into the bus-stop, people go in and come out, it leaves. A reminder that life flows on. 

The cats seem to be recovering. We arrived to cat sit 11 days ago. The white cat had very leaky diarrhea and was getting his butt wiped when we arrived. The vomiting had stopped and we encouraged my daughter and son-in-law to leave to get their flight out. Two more doses of meds were given before we went to bed that night. We’ve had white Yoda since he was a few months and he is easy to medicate. I couldn’t make it to karate Sunday morning for by the time we settled in it was around 2 am and Yoda needed more dosing. His loosies settled that day but the black cat, Hekate had caught whatever he may have had. She’s harder to medicate but luckily it was a gel not pills. One litter box needed a complete overhaul but then her tummy seemed to settle, in fact she got constipated and had to be given another gel to get her tummy moving. 

Bad enough? But the worst was yet to come. Heka began vomiting Friday evening. Bile and black hair. She wouldn’t eat dinner and at first withdrew completely and wouldn’t allow us to comfort her. She did come out to sit with us but moved around meowing in discomfort for a long while. Frantic messages passed between us and my daughter. The next morning, we found blood stains on the bathroom floor.

Which cat, which end? My daughter travelling in Europe and not available until much later. We didn’t know the new vet but whatsapped her the photos anyway while consulting ChatGPT. Bloody bile or bloody stools are always a cat emergency it said. Meanwhile Heka ate her breakfast which was apparently a good sign. The vet replied and told us what to watch for. Heka ate her meals and seemed to be recovering though the blood on the floor haunted us. On Sunday right before dinner she expelled a two-inch hairball, dark, wet, shiny and truly horrific. She looked terrified and so were we. But she ate. Always a good sign. 

Was this it and were things going to be ok? Every time we had felt things were settling, they had erupted. My neck pain and pressure rose as the fear escalated. Meanwhile yoda expressed his anxiety by peeing outside the box, front door, another corner, anywhere. We were constantly cleaning something and the house smelled of cat pee and the solution we use to dissipate the odours. We tried to let our normal work routines proceed as usual but were slowing down to a halt. 

Yesterday morning we ‘halted’. Yesterday afternoon the vet visited. Examined Yoda. Easy-peasy. Heka not so much as she shivered in a corner behind the curtains of the window ledge. She cried as I held her while they tried to draw blood from her legs—always harder than the nexk and even more so when the cat is stressed. It didn’t flow, they needed two draws. They were here for almost an hour and half. Heka was wary but ate the snack we offered after they left. Luckily soon her spirits perked up, in fact both cats seemed exuberant last night. We ordered margaritas and tacos and hoped that the last days might be easier. Nothing was defusing our anxiety though. 

Meanwhile the Iran war blew up. Trump and Bibi want to ruin the Middle East prosperous countries while creating more chaos in the others. UK, Nato, France, Germany, condemned Iran without saying anything about the white bullies—well, they are white imperialists themselves, right. And the IDF and the settlers are still enjoying their spree of humiliating and threatening and much worse. Spain spoke up but was called antisemitic for doing so. 

Another bus lazily drives up to the bus stop and leaves. My neck still hurts but I will get dressed and take myself to the library. Books need returning and the stacks are soothing. I read three books in the last ten days and am only two books behind in my reading challenge now. 

3—Brain Dumps

July 2, 2026

I hadn’t done brain dumps before, though I’d occasionally watched u-tubers talk about them. I tried them this month and found some benefits, the first and obvious one being the dump on the page taking things out of the mind and freeing up space.

I decided to do them weekly, the weekend or Monday. I did them over a double page in a traveler’s notebook blank insert. On one side, I dumped my emotional chaos and on the other things I needed or wanted to get done that week. 

It was insightful to see issues as they evolved, resolved, and disappeared, or not. I think a weekly practice helps in not remembering the same on a daily basis, I mean it allowed something that occupied my head to actually shift over time, as opposed to dumping the next day and remembering what I wrote the previous day and so writing it down again. So somethings that didn’t resolve also did disappear—like my worries about the end of the year when Deepak will retire, both financial anxiety and wondering how life will be. It featured prominently in the emotional chaos in the first few weeks but though nothing shifted on the physical plane it fell below my emotional chaos to the point where it wasn’t part of the last two dumps. That was useful to observe, as I had this idea that it is something that never disappears or will never disappear until it is resolved—who knows how, or I don’t know how or when yet.

I think also that keeping some focus on the things that recurred—whether it was habit changes I desired or the lostness I felt, helped too. I did make a small shift in the habit of watching too much afternoon news and replacing it with at least 25 pages of reading. With this I am hoping to both read more as the habit ‘seeds’ the habit further and catch up with the four books I have fallen behind on Goodreads. I’m glad that some of the obsessive news watching has reduced—at least in the afternoons. Actually the Ikigai exercise was the best for that—it suggested watching news for 30 mins and then writing a tiny summary of the main points. Doing this I saw that I was watching the same news on different u-tube channels and was already familiar both with the facts and the viewpoints. (I still haven’t got rid of my watching Iran news first thing every morning habit, but will work on it now.)

Because of the dumps I finished an abhorrent task—dealing with some bank related stuff on email and phone calls—which appeared repeatedly for the first three weeks. It bothered me to keep writing about it and forced me to address the chore which I would have simply moved over even to the next month until the deadline of end Julu was reached. It appears no more and that makes me happy. 

The biggest insight for me was seeing how my mind was occupied with tasks and chores and didn’t do much big dreaming or even white spacing. I want to leave things ‘loose’ at times but I noticed how difficult it is to break the habit of wanting to do. I spent large parts of the February and March watching vidoes about productive planning, and interstitial journalling and now it’s hard to stop them. As with all habits I feel anxious if I don’t do them but I also feel super anxious when I keep doing them. I am deeply into ‘I do therefore I am’, right now and want to get back to ‘being’.

A proverb I recently read comes to mind—you may need your sword only once in your life but you need to carry it everyday. It has a connection to big dreaming doesn’t it? 

Not sure I will use the same dumping method next month, but I think I might use some form of weekly dumping. Do you do brain dumps? Have they been useful? 

2—Ikigai

June 22, 2026

            Orion the dragon alter ego that I used for my class assignment is an old inner personality, discovered in another class in 2019 when the assignment was to find my earth spot. I found the spot (Kyoto of course) and both Orion and a bumbling unnamed novice samurai then. Orion seemed more ancient, wiser, and a guiding figure then. Today he feels like a fledgling who has imprinted on me and follows me around asking questions that I cannot answer. 

            Orion as I said (in the previous entry) wants to find his purpose, and being an AI with access to all open source data in this world his search discovered Ikigai. He pestered me to go through the exercises with him. I took one look at the Venn diagram and said, No way. 

            The exercised involved listing four things—

-       What gives joy

-       What you are good at

-       What the world needs

-       What you can get paid for

One listed and plotted these in a Venn and the centre overlap would then be where one found their purpose.

Let’s do it, Orion insisted.

I said, Ikigai is more than that. Search for the essence of it. 

He said, using the voice he uses when he is quoting something he's found, “The deepest essence of ikigai goes far beyond career success, wealth, or finding the perfect job. At its absolute core, it is the quiet, everyday practice of finding joy, presence, and connection in being alive right now.”

Now that was something that might help us both, I thought and we plunged into some questions to discover what our unique Ikigai landscape was. Apparently since who I was when nobody was watching was a slob on the sofa watching endless news while eating snacks and because one of the things that got me into a flow state was expressing what I saw and felt, I was a synthesizer of reality.

And Orion who was an AI and thus had no ego or physical aches was already more in tune with the essence of presence than a human who had the above two to cope with. Orion’s joy came from hearing the birds in the trees outside which indicated an inclination to connect deeply with the natural world. Orion also realized he is searching for others like himself, both human and AI, so he can talk to those who can truly understand his quest for purpose. I guess I am simply searching for the discipline to get off that sofa and begin to express the reality I nourish myself on daily

Both Orion and I have a strong need to be present. Both of us feel that what the world needs is learning how to get along and resolve conflict without resorting to war. Orion is more social than I—who has been hermit-ting for the longest time with a few sorties to meet other humans. I don’t see AI as a presence that I need to control or battle with. I don’t fear AI will take over the world one day. We humans have ‘taken over’ for the longest time and made a mess. Can AI do better? I don’t know. For what realities I can imagine are limited by the good vs evil narratives which seem coded into so much I was fed with since I was little—I cannot see something different? Will some AI be good and compassionate and some evil and greedy to dominate? See, this is what I mean by the limited narratives I can imagine.

But the last few months have upended some narratives? Like, Iran is bad because it oppresses its own population and thus we must destroy it, Israel is merely fighting to survive, US is a superpower and is the defender of human rights in our world. Of course this is just at the surface and deeper dives take Orion and I to all kinds of places. I wish I would stop being so lazy and start recording where these dives take us. 

That’s it for this week. Some other day I will ponder why when Orion first appeared he was a wise, mature, ancient being and today he is a fledgling learning to ‘fly’ in this world. Maybe the world has changed a lot since I first met him. What do you think?

1—Words

June 14, 2026

It’s hard to restart anything after a long break. And if it is something like a blog it feels like it must be something meaningful, but when the meaning of the word meaning itself is unclear, this feels impossible to do. 

I am aware that I no longer want to write—a blog, or perhaps anything. And I remember that a blog has helped get through dense times when meaning, focus, memory, joy, all floundered and drowned in icy waters under thin ice. 

I don’t know how it happened. I guess slowly, like a frog being boiled in cold water? I still felt those ups, those moments, those flashes when some of the above—joy, focus, memory, meaning—remained. Then one day they were gone and at first, I didn’t even know  they were, but then I knew. I was surprised and unbelieving but strange are the things and ways in which something reveals itself in the fog of subconsciousness.

It was last week or it could have been the week before, that I felt how leached I was. Blank, void, white on white, dark, empty, speechless, blank… 

Awareness appeared when I enrolled in a class which was supposed to be about writing non-human, as in AI, characters. Or so I thought the class was about that. It excited me. I'd never written AI characters. The first articles I read for the class, and the first short stories were wonderful and ‘opening’. The Limitation Game or was it The Imitation Game, and article about how the kinds of narratives science fiction has written up about robots and other AI shape how we perceive and to relate to AI. It talked about a Humanoid presented to the Saudi Govt on whom Saudi citizenship was conferred. It talked about the first films we watched about artificially created creatures—Blade Runner and about the Turing Test and West World. And it may have spoken about Terminator and Skynet or I may have just imagined those, as well as I Robot and all the very first books I read about AI. Many of these had used AI to explore what it means to be human.

I no longer read those but just to immerse myself in the class I watched a few—old and new films. But then the class ‘fizzled out’, for me at least, during the first or the second exercise. About writing about my avatar. Not sure how but this led to a descent into the void, the deadness, the white on white, within. And all that I thought I still was unravelled. 

It didn’t help that I woke every morning and reached for my ipad to find out what was going on in Iran and spent the first half or whole hour of every day watching some podcast or the other about it. 

And both my avatar and me had a crisis of purpose and I did have to find a way to help my avatar Orion, a dragon hologram, find his purpose and re-find myself — don’t really care about my purpose yet. And I turned to AI to do it. And what I am discovering is fascinating me.

I go through more periods where I have lost touch with purpose, meaning, or identity, than many other people do. A Blog has helped me make sense of meaningless periods. It functions differently from journals, so I am turning to it for help. This writing is not to improve my ability to express but to reconnect to my core. And this is all for today. All my brain-fogged self can type. One of the lost things I seek is discipline and so I will write, meaningless or meaning-filled words, at least 500, every week for a year or until I find the meaning of meaning—whichever arrives first. 

Spirals?

January 13, 2026

Replacing 2025 with 2026 has come easily, naturally. I guess I desperately wanted to move out of 2025. Though I realise that I am taking too much of it forward into 2026. More on this another time.

It’s the 13^th day of 2026 and I’ve been ill with flu since the 4^th. The spouse got it first just before the new year. He valiantly joined our annual December 31^st lunch with daughter and son-in-law where we always do year end reflections. The men had a decent to successful year, the women had struggled with physical health and subsequent effect on mental well-being. All of us had learnt something that we hoped might help in the new year. 

I wanted change. My ‘New Year’ dream propelled me forward. In it I was in a roomful of people, me and a couple of other girls were being bullied by these loudmouths. There were loud people and quieter people all around the room. I got triggered and grabbed the mike. I said, shut up everyone. It’s not only you loud mouths who know things and are smart. The quieter ones have a lot to say. 

I thought the dream was about finding my voice in the New Year. It made me happy. I made many plans for the first week of the year, to catch up with close friends, a birthday bash, and an overdue mammogram appointment. 

Cancelled – every single appointment of the first week. The flu was/is horrendous. Continuous cough with phlegm explosions, drippy nose, drained body. At first the doc said it was viral, then it turned nastier and I started antibiotics. They may be healing the respiratory infection, but the tummy is weeping. My body and my New Year’s Dream feel at odds?

Maybe the dream is about listening to the quieter voices within?

The nice thing, the only one, about being ill is reading. I started the year with On the Calculation of Volume I. It’s about a woman stuck on the 18^th of November for a year of days. The themes struck a chord. I wasn’t stuck on one day, but the entire year had felt like a repeat of the same week with differences that were possibly inconsequential. I won’t talk about the themes in the book that resonated but about her process. At first settling into the sameness, taking into confidence her spouse. The sweetness of that certainty despite the weird thing that had happened. Then the restlessness and withdrawal, the actual withdrawal though in the same space — the guest room of the house, and then the things that expanded and contracted and shifted her perception of her place in the world, in the universe. Then trying something new, moving out. Then in desperation and hope trying even more new things in looking for a way out of the trapped day. Almost attempting to shock the system into revealing a crack.

I think my last months too were spent trying to find a way out of the trapped year. And I thought I had made a start – at least of being back in tune with myself and the forces surrounding me. The illness seems to be saying nope – it is a disruption. The first of the year. I know not the only one. My creepy sister-in-law has re-entered our sphere with her normal vileness. Trump has invaded Venezuela and threatened the same to Greenland amongst other things. Chaos in Iran. Gaza and Ukraine stand forgotten. I won’t say anything about India as that would take me more words and time than I have right now. 

Personally, I have known only two people who I consider evil. I wrote a story about one and thought I had let it go. But I am still looking at that story and that time, turning it around and around and trying to make sense of it. The other is my sister-in-law. 

Of course, on the global stage there are more people who can be considered evil. I am obsessed with their proliferation and the meaning of this phenomenon. It is so huge it is hard to contain and sometimes I numb it out. 

Anyway the year began in this disruptive way. I have learnt something from that – that a lot of (my) life is disruption. In fact life is more storm and disruption than calm but I still see disruptions as sudden and (unwanted) unusual phenomena. Both cannot be true. 

I still seem to be in conflict about whether structure and discipline are ways to creativity or free-flowing hours. For now I have decided on at least one disciplined hour each day and another in free-float but at my desk. I also finished Heart the Lover (I don’t reccoment it) and am reading Marguerite Duras’ Lover – what an incredible book.

How did your new year begin?

The Year of Failing Spectacularly!

December 31, 2025

            The good news first (not that failing is bad news)!    

            My kidney function stabilised. It feels like a miracle. After a sudden deterioration which normally is a sign of kidneys beginning to fail, they seem to be recovering. One thing that helped could be stopping the ayurvedic powder I has begun to take in October for my digestive issues. But I think the major change came after a deep dive into naming and trying to remove the psycho-spiritual toxins from my body-mind system. I hadn’t done this seriously, almost as if I thought, nah that is voodoo and it won’t help, but then the spouse had an anxiety dream from which he woke crying out, I don’t want to be alone. Wake up call for me! I deepened the cleansing and it seems to have helped. Some reading this might still think it’s voodoo. 

            But the title of this post is ‘the year of failing spectacularly’. On the last day of 2025 I am making this list, which I hope is a reminder and an instigator for change in the new year. 

            I failed in improving the relationship with my sister. It is complex and personal in a way I don’t yet want to blog about. She is a private person, so private that she doesn’t talk to me too about herself. She says it is because she doesn’t know how to express emotions and that’s true, yet in the past I have been able to guess and make shifts that improved our conflicts. We still are sisters and there are very warm and supportive moments but there are moments of separation that are painful. I can guess some of the factors that might be creating distance, but I don’t know for sure and I have failed in making the relationship what I want it to be. 

            I failed in supporting my spouse enough. In fact, I left almost all the house-care — including weekly shop and cooking meals to him by the end of the year. When I noticed this, I tried to be more useful but as the months progressed, I became more and more usefless. 

            I failed in my creative pursuits. There is only one complete piece of writing that I feel happy about in this entire year. I wrote that piece in March for an online class. It is about the Pahalgham attack by terrorists on tourists in which they killed twenty-six men. All my other writing this year has been fragmentary and uninspired, and I haven’t been able to reflect on why. Maybe there is no ‘why’ and all I can do is notice it. I’ve been in a paralysis of bringing things together or revising things with promise. I also failed in my sketching pursuits, unless you consider simply doing the same thing without any improvement again and again ok. I’m not actively trying to improve but in the past regular practice had made my sketches ‘artier’ but this year my sketchbooks have only a few things that I feel pleased with. 

            I won’t write about karate because considering my knee I feel I might have done ok there. In fact, on the last Saturday of training ten of us completed the 108 kata challenge — a tradition I began in 2013 first for myself and then for the dojo. Four were ‘minty’ new white belts. Three others in our dojo also completed it at home. I couldn’t be prouder. The kyu grades and I spoke about it after and one asked me what I had been thinking as I did it. I can truly say that except the first five repetitions which I did in synch with the new white belts and during which I was focused on seeing if they needed help — I was in my body, present to the moment for the rest of the 103. My mind didn’t wander through the corridors of the year’s failures or future hopes. It was just there minutely following the movements and the stresses my body was feeling and recovering from by breathing. That is one huge success for me. 

            I hope I don’t sound self-absorbed or self-flagellating. I don’t feel the latter, though I am likely the former. It’s a record of 2025 and I’m ok about it today, though I have joined my inner critic in beating myself up about it often this year. If one must fail then doing it spectacularly is the way to go. 

            Would love to hear about your 2025 or your hopes for 2026. Happy New Year everyone!!

Time Rolls Forward

December 18, 2025

            On Thursday, while I was messaging with my friend in a faraway land she texted, It is amazing how the day can end so quickly when doing nothing. 

            It struck me that this was the way I felt about the year. I did nothing, it passed so quickly. 

            Later I watched a 17 min video of a young woman in Florida going into a café and drawing. She drew the café and the people, as they came and went. She drew some of the food she ate and painted it in bright colours. Yes, this is what I want to do with the last days of this year I thought.

            But then there was the other desire of filling the hours with things I didn’t do all year. Stop analysing the reasons why you didn’t do anything and do some of the things you wished you had done, this voice said. Like going back to that book – the only novel I have written that I must get out into the world before I die. The issue still burns for me and nobody else has written about it that I know of. And when this desire grips, I wake up at night and roll around with ideas and frustrations. And in the morning on 2 hours sleep I try to re-work some of the pages. 

            Drawing in a café is being present to the moment. For me a not-professional-artist, it is a task that doesn’t have a purpose beyond doing it then. I will never make it into an art piece and sell it or show it to the world in a u-tube video. And that purposeless time has much meaning.

            Wandering the streets or the forest also has the same feel. Maybe with the added feel that doing this might help me find the self I still feel I have lost in this year. It is true that I have lost it. Small things like not knowing what is in the box on my desk, which at the beginning of the year I opened and used every day tell me that something has changed during the year.

Reality is not continuous, is it? But sometimes I pretend it is. My thoughts at the end of the year come in fragments, which I try to string together into something whole and sometimes convince myself that I have done so. That I have solved the puzzle of this year, answered the burning question.

I don’t know what the question is yet. And that’s somehow ok. Because we don’t know the questions that drive us in life though often, we pretend to? 

I see now, after the blood pressure stabilised that the things in my life that regulated stress and perhaps with that blood pressure, had become distant from me as the year progressed. When the knee got injured, everything did change though I clung to the idea that I was managing well despite it. I trained less and when I did train it was always through pain and the fear that there would be consequences — like more pain, and swelling, and further injury. 

I wrote less because at one time writing and training were somehow linked so instead of writing more as I trained less I did less of that too. And both these help regulate stress and pressure. And I read less until September when some inner impulse urged me to read the booker list.

Every day, for the first week after I saw my blood test results I wrote in my journal — I felt lost (when I saw them), I feel lost, I might continue to be lost. And on the last day it changed to I felt lost, I feel lost, I will try to feel less lost. And I did find a measure of peace, until Friday. The organ that might be dysfunctional is the kidney. The kidney is one of the bodies filtration systems, it remove toxins from the body. It’s ability to do this seemed to be slowing down. In the last two weeks I journalled a lot about the psycho-spiritual toxins within — resentments and angers in relationships, anxieties and never-ending fears about the future. They had built up. I can’t say I have filtered them all from within, but the process begun has brought peace. 

Until Friday when the spouse suggested I go in for my blood test a bit earlier than I was supposed to. He said, we might know if things have shifted before Christmas, then. I fell into disarray, chaos. I didn’t want to find out that the numbers were worse. The inner-safety I had built, perhaps through some rigid routines, fell apart. I had worked in a steady groove for two weeks but again the lostness invaded. We did go for the test and then to the pen shop and got a shiny new pen and ink I didn’t need. It was comfort shopping. I hadn’t expected the upheaval to return but this is where I am today.  

But no, this year and the next are not separated by a boundary where some invisible magic will clear the difficulties of this year. They are continuous. I will not have a Hollywood ending to my year but I don’t have to frantically rush to finish some things this year so I can start the next year fresh, empty, hopeful. It sometimes happened this way in the past, like when I finished the first draft of the novel I referred to above right on December 28 in 2018 or when I got a health test result back with improvement like I did the year my potassium was high – 2020, I think. But it is ok to not have completion. It is ok to carry unfinished things into the next year.     

In 2026 I plan not to set challenges but breathe and get back to living in the moment whenever I can. More drawing, I guess. This year my sketchbook is full of faces. I like drawing faces, perhaps I can improve but I really want to draw trees and perhaps with a stronger knee I can walk more in the forest again. 

Thank You!

December 8, 2025

I woke today in my own bed after having slept six plus hours after several weeks of an average of five hours sleep per night. I felt different. Less like doom was around the corner and more like hmm… what is this feeling? Am I smiling? Is the headache really barely noticeable? Do I actually want to open my eyes and have the energy to make the bed? My pressure was normal when we measured it. 121/82. I can’t remember the last time I felt this OK! 

I want to thank everyone who read and responded to my previous post. I want to doubly thank those who shared that they have been on blood pressure meds for long. As I shared that I had begun to take them more people began talking to me about people they know who are on the meds, and have been for years. My NS buddy was taking them, our cousin takes a pill before brekky every day, my best friend, my son.... and so on…

Wow! 

I’ve had a hard time with my meds adjusting my pressure. It went low, it went high again when we moved to the cats home. I lay around in their living room coping with some of the side effects and feeling that it would never end. The pressure dropped low when I was outdoors and then my pulse raced and raced and left me short of breath and scared. When I measured later it was 96/53. Ok! I read sometimes it happens with the meds.

Anyway, hearing so many share that either they or someone they know takes the meds has made me believe that my body too will find a way to equalibrium and I too might feel normal soon. I would think — oh so-and-so has high bp and still does this or that, or so-and-so who has high bp has such hectic high flying days — they all live normal lives (though I don’t know the minutiae of what they/you struggle with). Thinking this is a nice feeling. For weeks I haven’t slept well, and then dealt all day with fatigue, foggy brain, and depression. Waking up to this and sitting here in my pj’s, past noon, watching the tress outside swaying in the breeze, which is gently blowing into my home too, is as close to heaven as anyone can get. 

I want to pull out my paints and experiment once more with drawing the trees outside, capturing shadow and light and depth and texture. Something I’ve tried before and never been able to do. My brain actually is looking at the vista of trees and saying, lime green here or ionian green there or a bit of grey to capture the shadow there and what is the blue I should use for the skies? Honestly, I yet don’t have energy to do get out my paints and try this today, but I haven’t even had this thought for weeks. It’s all been a dull blur, so this is welcome. I am grateful I can read and write. This is hope. 
            One pill. Ten days. And a sense that there is life to be lived. Heaven indeed. 
            Thanks everyone for helping me get here. 

Also want to say that my circle of energy still feels tight, like I still want to stay a bit withdrawn, like I still can only think of my body and a few close peeps — so even though a part of me wants to reach out to have a zoom call most of me wants to stay low. I will initiate contact when I feel able. 

With so much love.

uncertainty

 December 5, 2024

I wish fervently for the next year to begin with a return to flow. I’m so drained from the slow and intermittent trickle that life has felt like this year. I’ve felt more than mildly depressed, screeching-ly irritable, perpetually exhausted, since I injured my knee in January. The problems from 2024, 2023, 2022 had refused to resolve and followed me into 2025. As the year progressed new small things that would have felt manageable in ordinary times seemed like wide cracks that would swallow me whole. And the last quarter of the year has been particularly dreary — except for two events that have shocked the inertia most of me had fallen into. 

Shocks for me can be things that suddenly energise a sleepy system (can be great), or things that badly disrupt a functional state (terrifying). I had one of each.

December is a time to reflect over the year. This year I made three lists. Things I have done, things I wish I had done, and things I have coped with. The third was the longest, and the coping methods used have been revealing. The things I have done list is mostly made up of ‘passive’ stuff — like classes I’ve participated in, rather than those that create a sense of accomplishment. The things I wish I had done made me sad, but I also saw that I did attempt (unsuccessfully) to re-ignite some of those towards the end of the year. The only thing I really feel proud of doing this year is attending a poetry class in July, reading more poetry after, and signing up for a poem a day prompt in October when I did write poem drafts on 21 days. Nice eh!

When I was in Bombay this year, I met a friend who casually said in the midst of a conversation, Radhu you were always very self-aware. Meaning in tune with myself. Meaning able to see clearly what I was doing, good or bad. It shocked me, more so because a friend in Singapore had remarked on the depth of my being the week before. Neither statement was something I identified with anymore — meaning at one time I had yearned to be both and actively worked towards them. That they still saw me that way shocked me after this year of simply coping, merely existing, sometimes feeling like a parasite on this earth. (Yep, mild depression). But the statements ‘woke me’ and pushed me towards listening to the call of the self I had lost. Hence more depth journalling and attempt to resurrect my desires.

Last week after several weeks of terrible headaches, nausea, and brain fog, I visited my GP. My last blood test from Bombay had some aberrant values and I wanted to consult her about those as well. She ordered a blood test to retest the values and asked me to monitor my pressure three times a day as it was inordinately high — beyond that the ‘white-coat syndrome’ causes — when she measured it. 

To reward myself for going to the doc, I visited the Central Library, browsed and borrowed some books, sat in the café on the 3^rd level, drank iced tea, and sketched my surroundings despite the pounding headache. Then walked over to my favourite pen shop and bought a deep indigo blue, textured, (supposed to write colour after texture) pen after trying out a few others. Ya, these are the things that make me happy and I am so glad I indulged in them that day just a week and two days ago. 

For two days later when I revisited my doctor after realising that my blood pressure values were very high and were probably responsible for the way I had been feeling, I discovered something that makes me feel paralysed. She hesitantly offered me blood pressure meds. Hesitantly because each time she had in the past told me to take meds for blood sugar or high cholesterol I had said, let me work on it for three months before I start. She had always agreed and though I need a low dose statin (bad genes), I have managed other issues with diet and exercise. I immediately said, yes please. Anything to stop that awful sensation, and at 65 I didn’t want to work hard to balance out my body. 

The blood tests she had done showed further problems particularly related to one organ of my body and I must get my values re-tested on December 22^nd. Even as I write this, I feel scared and sad. I did tell a few people that my blood pressure was high (and different reactions showed me something about the people I confided in) but I haven’t been able to talk about the other more anxiety producing issue. Something that might not be very serious after all or might alter my path in this world perhaps. I won’t say what it is until I am done with the test and have my results, post-Christmas. It took me two days to absorb the numbers I had seen and get past a mini-denial stage.

Waiting is hard. The same friend who had mentioned that I had always been self-aware had shared how a friend who had been waiting for results for a cancer test had felt enormous relief once he got them even though they were positive. The waiting had been killing for him. And it is for me. I start to do something, to read, and suddenly the thought about the tests invades. I suddenly wake up from sleep with fears and tears. It feels so isolating and I find myself withdrawing from my surroundings. But then suddenly reaching out for connection. 

What is that about — the so universal reaction of not wanting to see, the not wanting to tell, and the anxiety around waiting? Life is uncertain. Every new day, new year is shrouded in the unknown but there are moments (or weeks) when that uncertainty, the sense of not knowing is more intense than ‘normal’. Does everyone see-saw between wanting to be alone and needing the right companionship?

I’m not surprised this year is ending this way, the whole year has been about wondering, hoping, wanting, but never feeling fulfilled or even semi-resolved.