My maternal grandfather was a freedom fighter who was once jailed while fighting for farmer's rights during independence. He used to write letters to my grandmother addressing her as "Mon Ami". After years, my mother read one of those and that's where I got my name from :)

I know people in Chennai who don't want to leave chennai. I know people in Mumbai who don't want to leave mumbai. I know people in Delhi who don't want to leave delhi. Strange.

It's been a month since I changed jobs and it feels like forever and like yesterday, in equal measures.

SIGNS THAT YOU'VE MATURED: 1. You prefer staying at home. 2. You like being alone. 3. You're no longer excited about your birthday. 4. You've become a quiet person. 5. You're not easily excited about everything anymore. 6. You think more about needs rather than wants. 7. You imagine and reflect before going to sleep. 8. You think a lot about your future and feel like you want everything to happen faster. 9. You avoid drama and focus on how to survive real life every day.

50 WEBSITES FOR BOOK LOVERS: 1. goodreads. com — track every book you've ever read 2. literaturemap. com — find authors similar to ones you love 3. whichbook. net — mood-based book recommendations 4. openlib. org — free books, millions of them 5. gutenberg. org — classic books, completely free, forever 6. bookbrowse. com — expert reviews before you commit 7. librarything. com — catalog your entire personal library 8. storygraph. com — goodreads but actually better 9. readng. app — track reading habits and streaks 10. bookriot. com — recommendations for every type of reader 11. fivebl. com — five books on any topic you want 12. shepherd. com — authors recommend their favorite books 13. nexpart .io — find your next book in 30 seconds 14.1000novels. com — the ultimate reading bucket list 15. bookdepository. com — free worldwide book delivery 16. libgen. is — every book ever, just saying 17. printsforsale. com — book-related art prints 18. openlibrary. org — borrow digital books for free 19. readanybook. com — read books online free 20. bookcrossing. com — leave books in public, track them worldwide 21. abebooks. com — rare and secondhand books 22. paperbackswap. com — swap books with strangers 23. novellist. com — "if you liked X, read Y" 24. yourlocallibrary. com — find your nearest library 25. bookscouter. com — sell your old books for the best price 26. manybooks. net — free ebooks in every format 27. bookish .com — celebrity book recommendations 28. readera. com — read anything on any device 29. fantasticfiction. com — complete series reading order 30. isfdb. org — every sci-fi and fantasy book ever published 31. buzzfeed. com /books — viral book lists for every mood 32. bookmarks. reviews — best reviews from top critics 33. bookpage. com — new releases worth your time 34. booksloth. com — social reading community 35. completelibrary. co — track series completion 36. howlongtoread. com — know exactly how long a book takes 37. wordery. com — cheap books delivered worldwide 38. mybookcave. com — clean reads recommendations 39. ebookfriendly .com — best ebook deals daily 40. theliterarycat. com — bookish lifestyle and reviews 41. readlist. com — curated reading lists by experts 42. authorama. com — public domain classics online 43. standard- ebooks. org — free ebooks made beautiful 44. booklovers .com — community reviews and ratings 45. digitallibrary. io — public library ebooks on your phone 46. bibliobd. com — track books by country of origin 47. tbrchallenge. com — tackle your to-be-read pile 48. unshelved. com — daily comic strip for book nerds 49. shortform. com — book summaries done properly 50. blinkist. com — full book in 15 minutes

Luxuries we forget that are luxuries: 1. Your mom still around 2. Hot water 3. Feeling healthy 4. Peace of mind & heart 5. Perfect weather days 6. Good food 7. Bills paid 8. Reliable transportation

Today I learned that in English: words starting with "gl-" often relate to light: gleam, glint, glance, glare, glaze, glimpse, glitter, gloss, glower, glisten, glaze, glitz, glazed. words starting with "sn-" often relate to nose: sniff, sneeze, snuff, snore, snort, snot.

CAREER MOVES THAT LOOK SMALL BUT CHANGE EVERYTHING: 1. Asking for the reason behind a task, not just the task 2. Sending a follow-up email after every important conversation 3. Saying "I'll get back to you with a proper answer" instead of guessing 4. Showing up prepared when everyone else winged it 5. Remembering details about people's lives and asking about them 6. Presenting solutions alongside every problem you raise 7. Taking notes when no one else bothered 8. Being the person who actually reads the full brief 9. Choosing to stay calm in the meeting where everyone panicked 10. Leaving every role with your reputation cleaner than when you arrived 11. Volunteering for the unglamorous project nobody wanted, then delivering it exceptionally 12. Asking a senior person one genuinely thoughtful question instead of trying to impress them 13. Knowing when to stop talking and let your work make the argument for you

Any recommendations for good books on public policy, pls send it my way!

Wish me luck. I'm about to restart learning the piano (keyboard 🎹) !

Once you start reading Kafka, Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, Emil Cioran, and Hermann Hesse, there is no going back.

Oh yes, it's the best cheat code.

Brilliant.

You're spending ₹50 lakhs on things you'll never own. Last week, my phone told me I was out of storage. I didn't delete anything. I just tapped "Upgrade" on iCloud and forgot about it. That evening, I asked a few team members to list every subscription they pay for monthly. For a typical affluent Indian household, you're looking at ₹6,000 to ₹8,500 every month. This is what normalisation looks like. Let me present you with an alternate scenario. ₹5,000 a month in an index SIP at 12% annual returns over 20 years compounds to roughly ₹50 lakhs. That's a child's college fund or a down-payment for a house. And it's only going in one direction. India's subscription economy is projected to reach ₹3.2 lakh crore by 2033. It has become the most resilient business architecture of the last two decades. I'm not saying stop subscribing. Some of these services genuinely add value to our lives and work. But I do have an issue with the direction we're all moving towards. When everything in your life is leased and nothing is owned, the fundamentals of ownership and transfer begin to evaporate. Your subscriptions die with your last payment. Decades of paying for Audible, Spotify, and Netflix leaves your family with zero books, zero music, and zero films. We are slowly becoming hostage to models where the price only goes up, the content only exists as long as you keep paying, and switching feels impossible because your memories and data are locked in. That's the part that should concern every wealth creator. In this week's Create Wealth newsletter, I've broken down the full economics of the subscription economy. Why cloud storage is the one bill that never stops growing. And a simple 4-step audit framework to take back control. We've also built a Subscription Audit Calculator. A Google Sheet where you can plug in your subscriptions and see the total cost over 1, 3, and 10 years compared to what the same amount would grow to as a SIP. 👉 Make a copy to personalise it for yourself. 🔗 Read the full newsletter: dezerv.in/blog/youre-paying-… 🔗 Subscription Audit Calculator: docs.google.com/spreadsheets… #SubscriptionEconomy #PersonalFinance #CreateWealth #Dezerv #WealthManagement

At least now people will believe the AI is not the magic pill, yet. When the bottom layers are broken, the fault lines will show through.

🚨 I just learned about a concept, I can't stop thinking about. The Four Burner Theory. It destroyed Elon Musk's first marriage. It explains why Bezos is jacked but divorced. And why Zuckerberg has no real friends. Once you understand it, your life will never be same:🧵

Observation about wealthy people: I once worked with someone extremely wealthy, and what struck me was how they never complained about small inconveniences. Their coffee order was wrong? They just drank it. Flight delayed? They pulled out a book. They had this quiet acceptance that some things just aren’t worth the emotional energy. While the rest of us were stressing over things we couldn’t control, they’d already moved on to what they could control. It wasn’t about the money solving problems.. it was about having enough security that they didn’t need to fight every battle. They could afford, mentally and emotionally, to let things go.

BTW, The Bengal Reader includes 25 full short stories in translation. Please get your copy at a bookshop. 1. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: Monkey Business 2. Rabindranath Tagore The Postmaster 3. Kazi Nazrul Islam: The Jasmine Necklace 4. Troilokyanath Mukhopadhyay: Damarudhar’s Crocodile Hunt 5. Parashuram: Birinchibaba 6. Jagadish Gupta: Ours and Others’ 7. Hemendra Kumar Roy: What was it? 8. Banaphool: Nawab Sahib 9. Premendra Mitra: On the Edge of Life 10. Bimal Mitra: A Twenty-minute Story 11. Narayan Gangopadhyay: That Ghuntepaara Match 12. Narendranath Mitra: A Flight of Stairs 13. Shibram Chakraborty: You Think It’s Easy To Bell The Cat? 14. Ashapurna Devi: Chhinnamasta 15. Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay: Distance 16. Mahasweta Devi: Cause of Death 17. Sandipan Chattopadhyay: The Ivy Shome Murder Case (1978) 18. Dibyendu Palit: The Gold Watch 19. Nabarun Bhattacharya: Flapperoos 20. Suchitra Bhattacharya: The Bet 21. Anish Deb: The Strange Death of Anindyasundar 22. Amar Mitra: The Forgetful Bees 23. Manoranjan Byapari: Chandana 24. Anita Agnihotri: Sarojbala 25. Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay: Sabotage

NSO India unveils the MCP Server for eSankhyiki, enabling seamless integration of official statistics with AI tools. Users can now connect directly to seven official datasets like PLFS, CPI, ASI, IIP, NAS & more through this beta version . Faster insights and smarter analysis through seamless access. 🔗 datainnovation.mospi.gov.in/… #AIReadyData #OpenGovernmentData #DigitalIndia #ViksitBharatBudget @PMOIndia @Rao_InderjitS @_saurabhgarg @PIB_India @PibMospi @mygovindia @NITIAayog

Woah

Most people aren’t ghosting you because they don’t like you. They’re overwhelmed. Information overload and task pressure drive anxiety and avoidance. But messages that feel useful cut through and get faster replies.