Tag: Books

240321 – Morning Pages

Quick post on things that are at the top of my head. And what I am doing about those.

8:26 AM. Starbucks. I dont have a lot of time today to write a long-drawn post. This will be a short post.

First things first. Yesterday, I got myself a financial planner.

No, I don’t have a lot of money to invest, barely any, come to think of it. But I realized I need some discipline. And thus the planner. In all of yesterday, I opened an MF account, activated my stockbroking account, made a spreadsheet to track money, and a few more things. Took me an hour but I did it. If you are reading this and do not belong to the Ambani-Adani clan, you must do this. No, I am yet to see any benefit but I know it would be useful next time we have a COVID kind of crisis.

To augment what she tells me, I think I will read more and more about practical finance. You know, things like Rich Dad, Poor Dad et al. Like I said earlier. I am reading Psychology of Money. Lemme talk about it a bit. The funny thing is that there is NOT one thing new that this book tells me. I know most things that MH has written. Really. I don’t mean to be boastful. But I know. However, the thing is, despite knowing all that, I am poor. I am in debt. So there’s something wrong for sure. Maybe I just have the academic knowledge and I lack what it takes to translate ideas into action? May be combined with the financial advisor, I would see some change? I am hoping I will figure out soon. Maybe the importance I gave to the freedom of time needs to be coupled with knowledge and action about the importance of money? Lets see.

Talking of reading, I am also reading You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. This is again a self-help book and again, as I read this, I am nodding at every line and I think I know most of what she’s talking about. Lol.

Here’s a thing. I have oscillated on the two extremes about self-help books. There are times when I love them and recommend those to people. And there are times when I abhor them to a point that I scoff at people that I spot reading these books. I know, I shouldn’t do this but then that’s how I am.

The next I want to read is 48 Laws of Power. I had read it when I was a kid and I need to re-read it. This rereading was a project that I started with Anubhab. He’s read the entire thing but I did not even start. Need to action it. Once I finish either the money book or the life book.

After this, I think I will spend all of 2021 reading as many self-help books around money as I can lay my hands on. What books would you recommend? Repeat. Selfhelp. On money. You know, books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, etc. #help!

To be honest, the only good thing is that I am back to reading. Last few days weeks months years, I hadnt read anything serious. Except long-form pieces on blogs and websites. Its so good to hold a book and carry it around. Like a companion. In fact, last evening I walked around with just a book. Just like the old times when I was far younger and far more hopeful about life and world and all that.

So that.

I think this is it. Oh, I did make some progress on various projects – Syndicate, SoG Grant, the Aram Nagar documentary. On the documentary specifically, let’s see if we can shoot some this weekend. I think it’s time to make a page about it on the website! No?

And, here’s the streaks…

  • Morning Pages – 103
  • #aPicADay – 83
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • OMAD – 0
  • #noCoffee – 14 . Lot of tea though, which I am assuming is better. I have to order something at Starbucks.
  • #noCoke – 14
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • #book2 – 0. I still haven’t been able to wake up at 5.

250121 – Morning Pages

Got late in waking up. Too blank. Too much. Did now know what to write. You may want to skip this one.

9:13. Woke up a minute ago. Super late. I had literally passed out. Damn age is catching up.

I am in that blank daze state where I don’t know what to write. I can talk about how I spent yesterday – which was nothing to write home about – too many power cuts too often for too long, too many calls that I had to attend but could not, too many things to do that I could not.

Since its 9ish and a Monday, the world has woken up and I am required to make a living, I am breaking the rule (probably for the first time since I started these morning pages). But theek hai. Exceptions are ok. I am writing this as I juggle calls, emails, dark thoughts about life, glasses of water, the househelp cleaning and making a ruckus, the alert from my mobile phone about data that is getting exhausted, and all that. Also, since it’s Monday, Nicky’s is shut and I will have to go to Felix, Clay, or Royal Enfield. Probably, Felix, it’s still free till Feb.

Fuck the minds blank and I don’t know what to write. Lemme write in staccatos.

A friend told me that her 21 resolution is to get abs. No, she doesn’t really have flab per se. But she probably wants those washboard ones. I like the idea of tangible goals. If I could get anything done with my fitness, I’d love to gun for that as well! I love when people take up these self-development projects!

The word staccato itself is interesting to think about, come to think of it. I’ve read it numerous times in the context of gun-fire. I think in Jack Reacher books, if not John Grisham ones. Oh, how I crave to create a Jack Reacher! I do have a Rujuta but I don’t have a second book to talk about it. In fact, yesterday at Nicky’s one of the patrons picked #tnks and we had a short chat about writing, books, and more. Books are those social objects that we can chat over. Just that they are disappearing fast. I think the creators are moving to create content for screens and thus readers are unable to find great things to read. And vice versa. Readers are moving to the screen and hence creators are not incentivized to write books. Wish something could break this and create more books. No, for a change, I am not excited about this problem to actually try and solve 🙂 Guess this is my coming of age!

Chalo enough.

Dont know what else to write. Time to write the piece on #book2.

The #freewriting piece for #book2 today is inspired by a real-life incident that I saw unfold yesterday. Here we go…

The thing with Goa is that apart from the ones that own parcels of land, everyone is an outsider. You could own a flat, a shop, an establishment or whatever. But you are an outsider. And like all outsiders, you either stay within your limits. Or you get bashed up. The scene’s played multiple times over at multiple places in multiple avatars. The local Goan would do what he deems fit. The temporary tourist would do what he deems fit. An argument will follow. Most times it would end in the intervening and breaking the fight up. But once in a while, it would reach a proportion where one of the two would get aggressive and things would take a turn for the worse. This is what happened at Caravan Serai that night.

Chintan was perched on his stool, lost in his pages. Udita was hovering around as she kept an eye on the staff and the patrons. Mrs. Gomes was somewhere in the kitchen. And then one loud, young man pushed Darpan, a staff member so hard that he crash landed into another table and knocked another patron off. Udita yelled at no one in particular, “what the fuck!”

They say when you are really angry, you use cuss words from your mother tongue. Udita had no mother tongue. She did not know what it was. Awadhi? Marathi? Konkani? English? Whatever it was. She still cussed in English. That felt the most natural to her.

She had rushed to the table and was trying to understand what had transpired. Other members of the staff were crowding around. Some guests were also hoping to catch a sight of the action. All they could see in the melee was Udita and another young woman talking animatedly. The other woman was clearly with the patron that had started the ruckus.

From his corner, Chintan could see that Udita was trying to reason with them and when she folded her hand to apologize to the guests, Chintan knew that she was way out of her way. Udita that he had come to known would’ve probably tackled this differently. Guess this is what coming of age is? Since Mrs. Gomes had started to rely more on Udita to manage work at Caravan Serai, she had shown surprising maturity.

The young couple continued to yell at the staff. This was not the Caravan Serai that the patrons frequented. Mrs. Gomes was at the scene now and was profusely apologising to the guests. Raunak stood right next to her and like any well-trained second-in-command knew that he lets his benefactor be the alpha. Mrs Gomes on the other hand was being anything but alpha as she tried to calm the nerves down.

And they did. From the time Mrs. Gomes came in, it took less than a minute for the situation to disperse and the cheerful calm to come back to Caravan Serai. Mrs Gomes clapped thunderously with her frail hands and spoke out loud, “ok then, ladies and gents, that was some fun! The next round of the drinks in on the house. Let’s have a great time”. And like on the queue, Josh started to belt out the Piano Man, on well, his guitar!

***

Over and out. Need to get up early from tomorrow on!