Things done

Year end trips

Coorg

Rajasthan

Dalhousie Amritsar

Dharmshala

Manali

Lucknow Kanpur

Kashmir

Orissa

North east

Kerala

Waynad Coorg

Udupi chikmaglur Halibed

Gokarna Mangalore Jog

Gujarat

Bijapur Pattadkal

Bhopal

Indore

Vietnam hanoi DaNang hoi an

2015

Amritsar

Bharatpur

2016

Pangot

Amritsar

Tamra

Stop biting nails

Jaipur

2017

Shujaat Khan

Khalifa of Delhi Gharana

Sohail Hashmi

Srinathji, Kumbhalgarh

Rekhta, NE festival

Bhimbetka

Vrindavan

Ramachandra Guha

Cruise for the first time, Vietnam

Food : Steamboat, Sulemani Chai, Urdu Bazaar, ghevar kababs, Majnu ka tila, Kulfi,p Lotan, pho, secret samosa

Harry Potter

2018

Kerala Mural

Jama Masjid

Food : Lobster, UPSC Chaat, K3, Karpagam Mess, Dindigul Biryani, Hokkaido cheesetart, beef fried rice, Georgetown aunties

Indian art festival

Madurai, Rameswaram, Brihadeshwar

Smithsonian, National Mall

Broadway

Jetski

Car rental in foreign country

High seas whale watching

Record reading of books

Banaras

New job

2019

Cirque de Soleil

The woods resort

Tanya's play

Zangoora

Shakespeare original Brit actors

Devdutt Pattnaik - lit fest

Cricket stadium first time

WM, Kew, Sherlock Holmes, Tower, Hyde park, Globe

Wicked

Scottish highlands Loch Ness

Parents 50th

Qazi camp, MTR, Lalbagh

Ruhaniyat

Halibed

2020

Hampi

Egg - Khan omlette, Agrasen ki Baoli

Conrad, Macchli

Veena violin tabla zh

Finished 15 k location book

Quantum jump in cooking - marag, butter chicken, haleem, yakhni, yakhni pulao, pizza

1000 pc puzzle

Started reading memoirs, space opera

Solved rubiks cube

Raju and jameel tea stall bhopal, ashapuri

Set record books

Set record in movies

Gokarna 

2021

Choti shadi and baby

Lucknow food - Kachori, ghutwa kabab, rahim nihari, idries biryani, golgappas, bhuna, jauzi

Lucknow history and architecture 

Ayodhya Lepakshi 

Shang Palace/once upon a flame/JW kitchen

Pork vindaloo, rogan josh, lettuce cups mince berry pulao chicken 65

Attended appreciation of Hindustani music

Mahabharata course

Visiting IIM Ahemdabad

Dal pakwan ice cream, home chefs order

Orchha

Samanth S, Aakar P, Samar H, Josy J, Jeet T

Gujarat

2022

Made photo archive

Got finances in order

Aced health check up

Dakhani Dastarkhan, Islamanagar

Maheshwar, onkareshwar

3 thousand puzzles

Eden, Tea ceremony

Bought car

Kodai, Adiyogi

Film appreciation 

Taj falaknuma, Hyd

Soo Ra Sang - Korean, Tres Les

Community durga puja

Lavale campus symbiosis

Gol Gumbaz, Ibrahim roza

2023

Podcasts - Echos, Revisionist History

Aeseo korean restaurant

SL

Taiwan - Xialongbao, bubble tea, photo booth, onsen, sun moon temple, chiyai

Rahul deshpande, Rahul Sharma, shujaat best kaushiki

Taj Mahal palace wing, Bombay House

Gymnasium 

Kombucha, KC Das doi

Staycation Leela palace, Van Gogh

Temple architecture

Anjan Dutt, suresh menon, tarana, zac

Chiang mai rai,  white/silver temple, rooftop

Sold house

2024

Water park GRT

Netram, Lulu mall day bangalore 

Chola tour

Azuki bistro, Matsuri

Bought House

Wasabi thakar bhojanalay, pune chinese Flame, Krea, IIM K

Cleaned up drive

Started bangalore walks

xlri visit

evolve back kabini

TMTC pune

WD, Ira M, Rana S, Neha D, Manu Pillai, Monica H

Sarafa Food indore, Mandav

2025

Homiga

Mumpy Graduation day, 4X4

Jayanthi Kumaresh

Japan - Teamlabs,  karage at tokyo, osaka castŕle, aquarium, temples, yokohama hotel, kamakura  sushi, macha, ramen

krish ashok, Dubai, La pearle

Reunion

Left job, farewell

Perfected photo archive/Made Financial plans (PF and Long-term)

LiverDoc, theKen

Dropped mumpy flame, living alone

Magniyar seduction, hamare ram

Ajanta Ellora Kailas temple

Chausath yogini, bedaghat

Record movies

2026

Vietnamese food, Trang an boating, Ha long cruise, raja dinh tomb, Bana Hills, Memories

Kabir Suman, Cordelia cruise

Ekambareshwar, Kailasnath, varadarajan P, Ram janmabhoomi

Sold final bpl house

Bali - great photos, waterfall, temples, sunsets, coasts, food

Substack - great blogs

Food focus - bao, kopitam, RosM, muro, bojee

BIC focus Slytrix, francesca 

Tashkent samarkand Bukhara Khiva, Uzbekistan food - plov kababs melon

New pujo model Koramangala

Pint of view

Full body scan

2027

Places visited

Kanpur

Ooty

Mysore/Somnathpura

Tirupati

Chennai

Kochi

Coorg

Darjeeling

Pelling

Gangtok

Kalimpong

Kolkata

Jaipur

Bikaner

Jodhpur

Jaisalmer

Ajmer

Pushkar

Dalhousie

Amritsar

Dharmashala

Kangra

Chandigarh

Simla

Gwalior

Lucknow

Srinagar

Manali

Bharatpur

Agra

Fatehpur Sikri

Naukuchiatal

Pangot

Khirsu

Hadidwar

Rishikesh 

Jabalpur 

Indore

Jamnagar

Bhubaneshwar

Cuttack 

Puri

Guwahati 

Kaziranga

Tawang

Shillong 

Munnar 

Thekaddy 

Alleppy 

Tiruvananthpuram 

Kanyakumari

Tanjavur

Madurai

Rameshwaram 

Dhanushkodi

Vrindavan

Fatehpur sikri

Hampi

Hàalibed

Udupi

Chikmaglur

Mangalore

Udaipur

Kumbhalgarh 

Gokarna 

Hyderabad

Corbett

Jammu

Katra vaishnodevi

Pune

Goa

Ahemdabad

Vadodara

Junagadh

Somnath

Dwarka

Ayodhya

Orchha

Murshidabad

Shanti nikeran

Pipariya 

Pachmadhi

Bangalore 

Delhi

Mumbai

Allahabad

Varanasi

Waynad

Khajuraho

Jabalpur

Raipur

Bilaspur

Nagpur 

Maheshwar

Omkareshwar

Kodaikanal 

Coimbatore 

Bijapur

Badami

Chidambaram

Kumbakonam

Jamshedpur

Kozhikode

Ujjain

Mandu

Solapur

Aurangabad

Kanchipuram

Mahabalipuram

Countries visited

Japan Tokyo Osaka kyoto

China Beijing shanghai

Australia Sydney Melbourne 

Singapore 

Malaysia Georgewown, kl, langkawi

Hong Kong

Macau

USA new youk, SF, Las Vegas, san jose

UK London, bath, oxford

Scotland edinburgh

Poland warsaw

Romania bucharest

France paris

Germany cologne berlin munich

Italy Rome venice

Spain Barcelona madrid

Austria vienna

Netherlands amsterdam Utrecht 

Vietnam da nang hoi an Hanoi ho chi minh

Thailand Chiang Mai Chiang Rai Bangkok pattaya

Indonesia - Bali kuta ubud nusa dua

Cambodia 

Taiwan Taipei Taichung tainan

Kenya nairobi naivasha

UAE dubai

Sri Lanka colombo

Uzbekistan Tashkent samarkand bukhara khiva

Top hotel rooms

Macau

Yokohama room

Falaknuma, Taj palace

China hotel room

Leela udaipur, Chennai

Jaipur hotel

Taiwan room

Chiang rai

Bali kuta

Kerala alleppy hotel room

Lessons from Books/Personalities

1 Notion of West and nation of West
2 Anthropologist studies pre modern and sociologist studies industrial society
3 Inconvenient and unjust laws

4 Who is a statesman ? One who goes against the grain to do the right thing


Lessons from Harry Potter
1. Your parents might not be as noble as you thought they are.
2. Do spare a thought for the under-privileged (Elves)
3. Advice for youngsters : Do something not as the last action (Ron/Hermione)
4. It is not the abilities you have but the choices that you make.
5. Modesty is a good thing. You are not responsible for all that happens to you.
6. Sometimes old wounds from childhood do not heal.
7. Is not your ancestry but what you can do that defines you.
8. Some things are worth dying for.

1. The essence of being a human is to strive.

2. Mathematics book - legal formalism or legal pragmatist. Should evolving national consensus be allowed to evolve or dictated? Anton Scalia

3. The four ultimate concerns in life are death, isolation, freedom and meaninglessness.

4. In arguments start with how and not why

5. The state is nothing except the monopoly of force.

6. Concepts can be ascientific. Notion of being ascientific.

Topics of interest

1. History of food, cultural
2. Psychology 
3. History of Islam - Shia and Suni
4. The Roman Empire
5. The revolt of 1857
6. The Mughal Era 
7. History of Deccan
8. Great crime writers from different countries
9. Young adult fiction 
10. Evolution 
11. Codes and ciphers 
12. Cosmos and stars
13. Deep history of earth 
14. World war II, Nazis and Jewish Holocaust 
15. US south and civil war
16. The British Raj and life of Brits 
17. Mahabharata
18. Indian mythology 
19. Middle English history - Tudors and civil war
20. Indian textiles
21. Hindustan classical music
22. Indie music in india
23. Probability/Algorithms/Forecasting
24. Happiness research/Behavioral Science 
25. Justice and philosophy 
26. JFK Assassination, whitechapel murders, great game 
27. Animation
28. Explorers and adventures
29. Biryani
30. Language and language families 
31. Law and legal topics
32. Narrative non fiction - patrick radden, eric larson, neal bascombe, Laura hillenbrad,  simon Winchester, Susan casey, ben mcintyre, david grann)
33. Temple architecture of India
34. Memoirs (quest, growing up)

Great Directors

1. The Coen Brothers : Fargo, No country for old men

2. Christopher Nolan : Memento, Inception, Interstellar

3. Woody Allen : Blue Jasmine, Hannah and her sisters

4. Clint Eastwood - Gran Torino, Million dollar baby

5. Quentin Tarintino : Pulp fiction, Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds

6. James Cameron : Terminator, Avatar

7. Alejandro González Iñárritu - Ammores Peros, 21 G, Babel, Birdman

8. Alexander Payne - Sideways, About Schmidt, The Descendants, Nebraska 

9. Hayao Miyazaki - Totoro, Ponyo

10. Makoto Shinkai - 5 seconds per cm, the garden of words

11. Mel Gibson - hacksaw ridge, acaplypto

Indian Art

Over the last few years, I have developed a new interest - Indian Art. This has been a gradual process. I believe it started from the time I started going to the Surajkund Mela and started to travel more in India. Gradually, i began to build a collection of paintings primarily via Surajkund.

I have to thank my better half to help me develop an interest in Indian fabrics/textiles. Even back as a child, since my mother had lots of Saris, i had heard the sweet-sounding names - pochampalli, kachipuram, chanderi, banarasi etc. but it is over the last few years that i really started dabbling into this world.

It is incredible that we have such a HUGE array of art, craft and culture in India.

Let me today just document some of the art works that  i have and those that i am salivating on in the next few years :

1. Phad  (Rajasthan)
2. Thangaka (Tibet)
3. Warli paintings (Tribal - Maharastra)
4. Tassar (Orissa)
5. Patta-chitra (Orissa)
6. Kalamkari (Andhra)
7. Madhubani (Bihar)
8. Ganjifa 
9. Pithora (Rajasthan)
10. Gond  (MP)
11. Tanjor / Mysore (Karntaka, TN)
12. Rogan art - (Gujrat)
13. Kerala mural
14. Cherial scroll

What  i am waiting to buy :

1. Santhal (Tribal - Bihar)
2. Kalighat (Bengal)
3. Mughal / Rajasthan minature

My Favourite Actors and Heroes

1. Hillary Swank - Million Dollar Baby
2. Daniel Day Lewis - My Left Foot, Last of Mohicans, Gangs of New York, In the name of the father
3. Morgan Freeman - Hard Rain, The Shawshank Redemption
4. Dustin Hoffman - Kramer vs. Kramer, Rainman
5. Geoffery Rush - Shine, Quills
6. Wiona Ryder - Little Women, Sense and Sensibility
7. Robert De Niro
8. Al Pachino - Scent of a Woman
9. Jack Nicholson - No count (About Smidt, One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest, The Shining)
10. Kate Winslet - Little Children, Revolutionary Road, The Reader
11. Cate Blanchett - Notes on a Scandal, Elizabeth
12. Denzel Washhington - Malcom X, Training Day
13. Sean Penn - Mystic River, Dead Man Walking
14. Susan Sarandon - Thelma and Louise, Dead Man Walking
15. Anthony Hopkins - The remains of the day, Lion in Winter
16. Natalie Portman - Beautiful Girls, Leon, Black Swan
17. Jeff Bridges : True Grit, Crazy Heart
18. Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook
19. Ryan Gosling - Hail Mary, Fall Guy, Barbie
20. Margot Robbie - Barbie, Bombshell
21. Tom Hanks - Top gun, Mission Impossible
22. Helen Mirren
23. Benedict Cumberbatch - 
24. Olivia Coleman
25. Meryl Streep
26. Robbin Williams
27. Jack Nicholson

My Intellectual Heros

The Liver Doc

Ramchandra Guha

Kris Ashok

Mukul Kesavan

Jonathan Haidt

Kawame anthony appiah

Steven Pinker

Peggy Mohan

Aviral Bhatnagar

Rajan Singh

Prasad Kurian HR

Jayannt Mundhra

Good Movies

Good Movies - definitely worth a watch

1. Fargo/Blood Simple
2. The Painted Veil
3. Notes on a Scandal/The English teacher
4. A Few Good Men/ Men of Honour /Top Gun
5. A Fish Called Wanda/Lock Stock and two smoking barrels/Wag the Dog/My cousin Vinny/Jackie Brown/Layer Cake/Midnight Run/Matchstick Men/American hustle
6. The Fugitive
7. Gladiator/Braveheart/Ben Hur
8. The Godfather /Heat
9. Jurassic Park Series
10. The Matrix - Part 1
11. The Terminator - Part 2 (1 and 3 are ok)/The Predator - Part 1/Die Hard
12. Where Eagles Dare
13. Mystic River
14. All the King's Men
15. Cape Fear
16. Erin Brokovich
17. Training Day
18. Malcom X/Whats love got to do with it/Walk the line
19. Four Feathers
20. My Left Foot/I am Sam
21. Shine
22. Thirteen Days
23. Silence of the Lambs
24. Stand by me
25. Sliver/Basic Instinct/Striptease
26. Wild Things/I know what you did last summer
27. Unforgiven/True Grit
28. Indiana Jones - Part 1
29. The Quiz Show
30. Speed/Proof of Life
31. Breakfast at Tiffany's
32. The Accused
33. Seabiscuit/Dreamer
34. Saving Private Ryan/Courage under fire
35. The Cider House Rules
36. Air Force I/Con Air
37. American Grafitti
38. The Sting
39. Fiddler on the roof/Moulin Rouge/Chicago
40. To Kill a Mockingbird
41. Blackhawk Down
42. Titanic
43. Cliffhanger/Vertical Limit
44. Commando/Rambo (all 3 are decent)
45. Eight Below
46. Dangerous Liasons
47. Kill Bill - both I and II
48. The Deer Hunter
49. Silence of the Lambs
50. Elizabeth
51. Memento/Following
52. Jaws
53. Dog Day Afternoon
54. Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves
55. Run Lola Run/Bonnie and Clyde/Natural Born Killers
56. The Mask
57. The Hollow Man
58. Clueless
59. Reds
60. Alien/Aliens
61. Three Colours : Red/White
62. Lords of Dogtown
63. In the heat of the night
64. Midnight Cowboy
65. Donnie Darko
66. Smoke/Insomnia/The Pledge
67. The Weatherman
68. Acaplypto/300
69. Field of Dreams
70. Cleopatra
71. There will be blood
72. Mulholland Dr
73. Milk
74. Juno
75. The curious case of Benjamin Button
76. Gran Torino
77. American Gangster
78. Horton hears a who/Over the hedge/
79. Final Fantasy : The spirits within
80. The Witness
81. The Reader
82. In the name of the father/Midnight Express
83. The mirror has two faces
84. Hannah and her sisters
85. Australia
86. The hand that rocks the cradle
87. Changeling
88. Escape from Alcatraz
89. Poseidon Adventure
90. The River Wild
91. The History Boys
92. The Alamo
93. It runs in the family/Margot at the wedding/The kids are all right
94. The assassination of Jessee James
95. The Hurt Locker
96. Sunshine
97. The Time Traveler's wife
98. The Life of David Gale
99. White Nights
100. The Wrestler/The Fighter
101. Zulu
102. Educating Rita /An Education
103. Lock-up
104. The mission
105. Gone baby gone
106. The manchurian candidate
107. Patton/JFK/Nixon
108. Prespolis
109. A Serious Man
110. Kinky Boots
111. Kingdom of Heaven
112. The Ides of March
113. Doubt
114. Pan's Labyrinth
115. Black Swan
116. 500 days of Summer/Garden state
117. Burn after Reading/Before the devil knows you are dead
118. The Lincoln Lawyer
119. A Single Man
120. Eastern Promises
121. Savages
122. The assassination of Richard Nixon
123. Silver Linings Playbook
124. Argo
125. Children of Men
126. Winter's bone
127. The station agent
128. Oldboy
129. How to train your dragon/Wreak it ralph/Brave
130. The Step-Up series
131. Margin Call
132. The perks of being a wallflower
133. Cloud Atlas
134. Downtown Abbey
135. Flight
136. Blue Jasmine
137. To kill a King
138. Jurassic world
139. Big Hero 6
140. Mary and Max
141. Selma
142. Kiki's Delivery Service/ The cat returns
143. Princess Mononoke/Nausicaa
144. Bridge of spies
145. San Andreas
146. Whiplash
147. Room
148. The big short
149. Mud
150. Begin Again
151. The magic of Belle Isle
152. The wolf of wall street
153. August : Osange county
154. The place beyond the pines
155. Southpaw
156. The Paperboy 
157. The call
158. Mean girls
159. Watchmen
160. Moonlight
161. Labour day
162. Five cm per second
163. The garden of words
164. Saving Mr Banks
165. Dunkirk
166. 50-50
167. Sicario
168. Foxcatcher
169. La la Land
170. Coco
171. Hell or high water
172. Nightcrawler
173. 3.10 to Yuma/The proposition
174. 45 years
175. The secret life of Walter Mitty
176. The Post
177. Sully
178. Crazy stupid love
179. The Raid
180. The last three days
181. Young Adult
182. Steel magnolias
183. Tokyo story
184. The shape of water
185. Deepwater horizon