A list of things from 2021, that came from reflecting upon the year.
Chilling with the boys
January started with an absolute banger, where I got to meet my friends after a year and spent a weekend at Kotagiri. I couldn't help but smile seeing 4 of my best friends from college, pulling each others' leg and having a great time - won't get any better than that!
Bike trip with a friend from school
Mohinish, my best friend from school had hit me up with a plan to ride down to Pondicherry and spend a day there. Leaving on a wet Saturday morning, we reached Pondy and explored the "White Town", including the charming Puducherry Museum. Reminiscing about school, wondering what the rest of our gang would be up to and a fun evening with Sonia, my batchmate, joined us for the evening were the highlights of the trip. The roar of the wind filled my ears while zooming down the scenic East Coast Road, with yum food and a great time were unmatched. One of my favourite weekends the entire year.
Zooming down East Coast Road, with salt pans on the left
Kolkata trip
Spending two weeks in a city that I had never been to before? I was excited! A two week work trip turned into a fantastic time of bonding with my coworkers and exploring around Kolkata. Due to elections on a weekend, I got to explore the city only for a day. Which was fine because I spent the entire day exploring museums and heritage sites and eating amazing food. I got to try a yum Bangladeshi Thali at a restaurant, while the manager was sweet enough to explain the significance of all the dishes in the thali to me.
Spiritual retreat
I spent a 3 day retreat in December at Kanha Shanti Vanam, an ashram on the outskirts of Hyderabad. The ashram belongs to a spiritual organization called Heartfulness, whose practices are based on the principles of Raja Yoga. I have been a member of Heartfulness since Jan 2020 and the retreat was meant for newer members like me. Meditation sessions, talks and interactions with learned, wise people was a blessing for me. I got to meet people from various walks of life and with unique personalities. Everybody was there to understand themselves better through the practices of Heartfulness. Meditating every evening at the main meditation hall was blissful, it was an enormous space, silent and peaceful.
A panoramic view of the meditation hall at Kanha Shanti Vanam
Bangalore trip
Meeting my best friend and roommate from college Prashaanth, is always a joyful time. In short, our wavelengths match most of the time, which means best friend material. After meeting him in the month of January, I got to meet him again only in November. We couldn't contain our happiness in catching up, having long interesting conversations about life, goals and work. The true joy was having these conversations in person. Phone calls and video calls can never come close to the conversations we'd have every night in the hostel, with Illayaraja's songs playing in the background. I am extremely grateful that he's only 6 hours away, in Bangalore and not in the other end of the country.
A day of walking around rural Tamil Nadu
On a warm August weekend, I joined my brother to his friend's wedding in Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu. Karaikudi is the epicentre of Chettinadu culture, which has its unique style of architecture, food, arts and culture. We reached a town near Karaikudi early in the morning, visited a beautiful temple, attended the marraige, packed our bags and left to explore. With the help of public transport and friendly people, we reached Pillayarpatti Karpaga Vinayagar temple, an ancient and revered cave temple of Lord Ganesha. Although entry into the temple was closed, the space was very calming and tranquil. Leaving from the temple, we got back to the town of Karaikudi, walking around the town in the evening. After a filling dinner, we left to the railway station for our train to Chennai. I passed out in no time.
Karpaga Vinayagar Temple, Pillayarpatti
Beautiful Chettinadu houses dotted the streets
Entry of the firecracker
Brownie is a stray dog that my family has been taking care of for more than 7 years. He's incredibly lazy and pampered, thanks to his success of captivating my dad, who loves giving him, attention. He has been living on our street for long and has had many puppies over the course of his life. Most of the puppies ended up being taken away by people or died from road accidents. During the puppy season of 2021, one of Brownie's puppies managed to stay with him and started hanging out with us. That is Bijli, meaning firecracker.
In his earliest puppy days, Bijli couldn't sit in one place. He'd run up and down the street, play and annoy the other dogs in the street and learn to ask for food after watching Brownie. Soon he started hanging out with Brownie exclusively and napped with him inside the house. However, he started to vent his puppy energy by biting shoes and chappals. I couldn't stay mad at him. He has cute large ears that either stood pointed or floppy depending on his mood. In the course of a few months, all the energy died out and he's learned the art of looking cute and sleeping all day from his dad.
Brownie and Bijli demand for a rug or a mat to sleep on during Monsoons
Napping next to his dad
Working on an exciting project
Currently, I am on my first job at a prosthetics and orthotics start-up called Vispala. During the start of the year, I began working on a prosthetic hand which grew into a meaningful product solving critical problems for amputees who've lost their hands. Since the product is still in development, I cannot divulge any more details here, but the most exciting parts were building functional prototypes, working with different materials, testing user scenarios and improving iteratively. I got to understand the needs of the amputee users better and also gained big leaps on understanding engineering and manufacturing, which are critical to product design.
Learning to deal with loss
I lost my grandmother during June. It was out of the blue and we had no clue it was coming. I was shocked beyond belief, she was the first close member of the family I lost. I stayed in Tenali, where she had lived, for the next 11 days. Life threw an intense curveball at me, it was a glaring reminder of how uncertain life is. It took me weeks to understand and process her death. Sometimes I'd get dreams that she were there and talking to me, only to wake up and remember that all I have left of her are the memories.
Inti Ruchulu
After the death of my grandmom, my grandad moved to Chennai shortly after. A long time dream came true for him, became an entrepreneur. Manepalli Bojjiah, my grandad, has decades of experience in the processed food industry. With that knowledge, he set up a small business at home, making pickles, jams, spreads and much more under the name "Inti Ruchulu", meaning the taste of home in Telugu. His expertise resulted in jams and sauces that had so much depth and flavour, things that the products in the market could never match. Starting in July, Inti Ruchulu has been growing with a highly satisfied user base. For me, I loved seeing my grandad walking around and running the show with a sense of satisfaction, even at the age of 85. You can order from Inti Ruchulu here, we ship across India.
Packaging design
I was tasked to develop packaging labels for Inti Ruchulu and photograph them for advertising. It was a fun process of balancing regulatory information, dad's marketing requirements, my brother's trusty intuition and my skills on Illustrator to develop the labels. The design continued to evolve after a few iterations, many blunders and lots of head scratching.
The left is the first iteration of the label design, on the right is the current design of the label
Financial education
After getting a job, I ended up having money lying in the savings account that was not doing pretty much anything. Two people were really more concerned than me - my dad, who was in the banking industry for decades and my brother, a dedicated young investor helped me realize the importance of not stopping with just saving money. My dad suggested me to read books and articles from RBI on financial education. A book called "I Can Do", available on RBI's website broke things down to the basics and helped me understand money better. Check out the book here on RBI's website.
The importance of consistent efforts
The gym taught me the importance of discipline, or what happens when there's a lack of it. I spent the year going on and off to the gym, not maintaining consistency. Although there was a significant difference in how stronger I felt and I could see it for myself, I realized that the journey is more important. I had to learn to manage time better and start working out regularly.
When Chai Met Toast
During March, I got to see a live performance of an Indian band called When Chai Met Toast. I absolutely loved the energy of a live performance and the upbeat songs of theirs elevated the experience. The entire bar was swaying and rocking to their songs, singing along with them. I fell in love with live music performances, wish there were more of those in Chennai.
Drivers licence
After deciding to learn to drive in February 2020, thanks to my brother's nagging and indirect complaints that he kept driving me around when I am old enough to learn driving, I decided to sign up for classes. Fortunately, my procrastination helped me as the lockdown came a month later and I still hadn't signed up yet. The delay lasted until the February of 2021, which was when I finally applied. The Delta wave struck soon after and I had forgotten to go for the classes. After a lot of persuasion and guilt about wasting time and money and not going for classes, I finally went. I woke up at 5 AM for a month to reach the driving school soon and skip the queue to practice driving the car. Finally after 30 days, and a lot of stress, I was ready to give the test. It was a do-or-die mission because my learner's license would expire within 5 days and I wouldn't get a second chance at the test, which happens after 7 days. Fortunately, I passed the test without any hiccups. Sadly, there was alarming corruption and shoddy facilities at the RTO testing centre. Although I was happy that I got my license, it ended with disappointment about the system.
Changing my diet
Four years of poor lifestyle choices ended up in me having a very unhealthy body and mind. I struggled with focus, motivation and physiological issues for more than a year after returning home. Fortunately, with the help of Ayurveda, I gained enormous knowledge about my body's functioning and understood that I need to pay attention to the signs its giving. I was asked to overhaul my entire diet and lifestyle. The benefits were amazing after a few weeks of changing my lifestyle. I started to feel much more comfortable with myself, although it meant to drastically reduce spicy and sour food (that my Andhra genes loves to bits!).
Peace is 10 min away
My brother introduced me to a mud trail alongside a river just 10 minutes from home. I visited it during November, right after a major spell of rains in Chennai. I couldn't believe my eyes that such a tranquil and peaceful spot was right inside the city! Walking there transported me to an entirely different world, with the Adyar river flowing to my left and dense vegetation to my right. As one walks up and down the 2.5km trail, the end slowly brings to your notice that you were in Chennai all this while.
38,000 feet Above the Sea
Aircrafts are incredibly fascinating! I am filled with wonder every single time I get to travel in an airplane. Just looking at those huge, imposing machines with those powerful contraptions strapped to its wings gives me Goosebumps. I cannot help but glance at the window while the aircraft is taking off. The acceleration and the forces push me into my seat while the plane rolls. The saddest part of the journey is landing at the airport, as I would bid farewell to this mind blowing machine, truly a wonder of human achievement.
The last I had travelled in an airplane was in 2018. Three years and two lockdowns later, I was on a flight from Kolkata to Chennai. The feeling of excitement overcame my sleepiness as it was an early morning flight. Fortunately, I had got done with the whole process of check in, baggage drop and security check without messing up (each time I had travelled earlier had a different system, hence the confusion). As the flight took off and cleared the smoggy skies of Kolkata, I took this photo (below) around 15 min into the journey. Below was rural West Bengal, covered in an endless sea of smog. It reminded me of a scene in Porco Rosso, where the protagonist ascends to heaven. I'd highly recommend giving the film a watch, on Netflix India.
All rights to the image and the film are reserved by Studio Ghibli
Planning board
Being the "Absent Minded Professor" was no easy job. It was tough being disorganized and clueless about the tasks to do, relying on my memory to remember things. An idea struck and I bought a 3' x 2' whiteboard and a bunch of markers and began noting down my tasks. It has turned into a huge saver of my time and effort as it's helping me stay organized and better focused.
Starting therapy
It took a long time for me to accept that I needed help. I thought I could manage to improve myself on my own, but failed multiple times. I couldn't burden anyone else to take the responsibility to push and keep tabs on me as others had fight their own battles too. I finally decided to pull the trigger and started getting therapy to improve my mental health. The journey has just begun and I am looking forward to the support to help improve myself.
Guest posts in LTAS and making gifts
2021 started with 5 guest posts on Let's Take a Stroll. Close friends and important people to Vaibhavi and me contributed a piece of themselves to the blog. The two of us decided to get people to write a guest post for us every month. The end result was a beautiful collection of posts from people of different ages, in many walks of life. As a token of gratitude, we made a set of of gifts for every person who contributed to LTAS. I had to get the gifts made, pack them and ship it across the country to our guest writers. I got an opportunity to design a product for one of the gifts too! The contents of the gift shall remain a mystery. If you'd like to get some goodies from us, write a post for us! Reach us out on the form below.
Reflecting upon the memories and events of the year helped me take stock of all the things that I have in life and need to be grateful for - family, friends, meaningful work and dogs!
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