I can hardly believe it, but 6th June 2024 marked 10 years since I originally purchased nagekar.com, my beloved blog’s address. In terms of longevity, this is the longest running project of mine, and outside of a few friendships and family, it even predates most of the people I have in my life today. How interesting!

As I spoke about in my 5th Anniversary blog post, it felt very pretentious to get a domain with my name in it, only so that I can show off my [email protected] email address to plebs friends who were using gmail and yahoo mail.

The website itself was never very popular. Partly because of the inconsistency in terms of the topics I wrote about, the quality of my writing or the efforts (or lack thereof) I put into promoting any of my pieces. The SEO game is also lacking hugely, although I refuse to participate in bot pleasing.

But that is also what is liberating about this website. I’m literally writing this line as I’m waiting for RE8 local train on Berlin’s Zoologischer Garten train station. The activation energy to starting writing about a topic is minimal, around the same as writing a whatsapp message to a friend you’ve not spoken with in a couple of months. Perhaps lower than that, now that I think about it.

10 years ago, it would’ve been inconceivable that I might not even be in India when I’d be writing the 10th anniversary post. Or that there would be one for that matter. Or that I’d be working with my dream company. Conceivability, perhaps, is just a product of the size of your dreams and desires. More importantly, it is perhaps the size of what one considers is possible and feasible.

I was recently watching a video of Rahul Gandhi where he talks about this very thing; about how what one dreams about and thinks is possible depends on the environment they grow up in. Think about all the human potential that’s underutilized due to lack of being able to see a bird’s eye view of the world; to understand all the possibilities, whether it is through traveling, reading, or consuming diverse media from different parts of the world.

Anyway, I digress. This time, I want to dream big. I want to dream big enough that the dream scares me away; that I myself laugh at the impracticality and infeasibility of it all. And then still attempt to do it. As Rutger Bregman wrote in Utopia for Realists

One needs to be able to believe passionately and also be able to see the absurdity of one’s own beliefs and laugh at them

What will June 2034 look like? I don’t know. That’s slightly discomforting. But then, no one does. There are innumerable possibilities for how things might turn out in June 2034, but I could also say that about tomorrow. And yet, we don’t stop trying. I hope to be a kind person tomorrow, and also 10 years later. I hope my blog stays, along with the thing we refer to as the Web, and everything we love about it.

Thank you for reading!

I’m playing a game of chess while listening to a remix album of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I finished work for the day, went to buy seeds to plant coriander and mint plants in my balcony, ate warm food and an Alphonso mango. In short, life is good.

This playlist always reminds me of the first half of 2020. Hearing about this new disease for the first time in the media and really not caring about it. Then all of a sudden, Berlin case #1 turns out to be a second degree contact.

It was a scary day. I remember fearing fear to the level that I had not experienced before. It was fair, to be honest. No one seemed to know what was happening, and all I was seeing was growing numbers on worldmeters.info‘s coronavirus stats.

Going through my Google Maps timeline shows an interesting stoppage in going to office or getting food outside in the middle of March, which was when I believe it hit us in Berlin, Germany. Within a week or two, most of the city went offline, so to speak.

Seeing the people we always met and hung out with on Google Meet calls was weird at first, and we wondered if things would ever change. It felt persistent and tiring. It felt like things would stay this way forever. It was overwhelming and I’d closely monitor any symptom I was showing and then trying to over fit it to Covid19 (with so many first hand experiences on the internet, almost any general sickness symptom could’ve been attributed to Covid19).

I still remember closing looking at the stats for age vs fatality graphs and convincing myself and my family that it isn’t that bad, although I didn’t believe it fully myself then either.

Masks were the norm. Shops had a N-people-only-inside ordinance, and sanitizing supermarket groceries was common. Entire days were spent just thinking about how life felt like before this new norm, and that was mixed with news of people dying, strangers and familiar names alike.

What a weird time. And I was one of the privileged ones who didn’t actually get affected nearly as much. A work from home job, residence in a country with state healthcare, parents who could afford staying indoors etc. I cannot imagine what it must’ve been for those who weren’t as privileged.

I regret not documenting more of my thoughts from that time. I tried to suppress it, trying to convince myself this is kinda normal. It has been more than four years since those scary first two weeks of lockdown. “Lockdown” feels like a strange word to type, but it had become such an integral part of our vocabularies back then.

It was a troubling time, and we’ve just come out of it, albeit not everyone and not completely. I feel grateful for being able to do the things that we couldn’t do during the covid19 time, things like hugging, eating out and traveling freely. Things that I took for granted before 2020. That year will serve as a good reminder of how quickly life can change, the fragility of it all and the importance to make the most of our now.

Thank you for reading!

Some 1,826 days ago I arrived at Berlin Tegel Airport. Missing my connecting flight, losing my luggage due to that and landing in a completely dark, freezing and rainy Berlin wasn’t pleasant, but it also wasn’t that tough. I was just happy that I finally stepped foot in another country, and given how long I prepared for this journey, I was glad it had finally started. The kind HR person from the company I was about to join was at the airport to pick me up which I’m extremely grateful for to this day.

The first super market trip was nerve wrecking, and not just because I only had 100 Euro bills with me and was worried I’ll get yelled at by the cashier. But I managed to have dinner that night (as depicted in my picture above), and sleep well. And then to my surprise I also managed to survive the rest of the week. And the rest of the month, and the year, and then some.

I did more than just survive, as one ought to aspire for. I made friends, traveled to pretty places and ate good food. I learned a new language and experienced a culture that was totally foreign just five years ago. I learned to play a musical instrument, play chess and cook tasty food. I did a lot of what I had only dreamed of, including landing my dream job at Mozilla.

Reminiscing on the time from my first day in Berlin till today, I have a lot to be grateful for, lot to smile about and a lot of notes on how to do better in the future.

I’m writing this eating delicious glutinous rice ball dessert, to celebrate the little milestone. The past few years brought us all a lot of changes, and it feels like the world is caught in turbulence. I wonder if I am only thinking so because I’m getting older and tend to pay more attention to what’s happening around me, or if everything is actually happening faster.

It was undoubtedly an interesting journey living through these last five years here in Berlin, and I’m looking forward to the next.

Thank you for reading!

When I was little, going to downtown Mumbai used to be exciting. A huge metropolitan city with double-decker buses, zoo, planetarium etc was sure exciting for a kid. Even as a young adult, my university friends and I would take the train to the city center to sit by the water front at Marine Drive or Bandstand. The city of Mumbai has fascinated me for a long time, and I’ve always wondered what it must be like to live in the center.

Of course, living in the fancy areas of downtown Mumbai is close to impossible if you don’t already live there or are extremely wealthy. Since I was neither, it always remained a wonder. Back in the day perhaps I’d have said that I’d love a home in the city center, but lately I’m over that thought. The steeply rising prices, the commodification of places of residence and prevailing view of buying a home as sort of a financial investment has been quite off-putting for me, to the point where I no longer desire to own my own place in the city.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped being fascinated by the idea of living in downtown Mumbai.

Fortunately for me, a friend was visiting Mumbai and decided to book a room in one of the poshiest parts of the city; Marine Drive. The “fortunately” part is about him booking a room big enough to accommodate me during his three day stay in the city.

Living at Marine Drive

So how does it feel to living at Marine Drive? Amazing. With a sea view, the sunsets are a delight to see from a french style full height glass windows. I could see all the people sitting exactly where my friends, family and I have sat numerous times. I woke up early to go for a morning walk and grabed a coffee along the way, something I literally dreamed of doing for years.

Eating casually at some very good restaurants, or going to a evening musical at the Opera House just a short walk away or having problems like having to travel quite far up north to get to the “regular” part of the city were a delight and I felt extremely privileged and fortunately to be experiencing it.

In closing

Yet another of those silly bucket list items got ticked. Sure, living the permanently would be cooler, but this is probably a close second. Or perhaps living there permanently wouldn’t have made me appreciate it as much as I did now.

Even as I was living in that hotel room, I knew how much I’m going to miss the couple of days that I’ll spend there. Now, as I’m writing this, I can see how my past self very accurately predicted that. I’ll end with a picture of sunset over Arabian sea from the hotel room’s window.

Thank you for reading!

Last Sunday I visited the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe near Kassel, Germany. I was wow-ing the entire time at probably one of the most impressive pieces of architecture I’ve ever witnessed with my own eyes. If you do get a chance, I’d highly recommend paying it a visit.

So we started our hike from the Schloss Wilhelmshöhe and started climbing the hundreds of steps that lead all the way up to the Hercules monument. I read somewhere it is a 250 meter elevation. Whenever I paused to take a look at how high I had reached, it got more and more impressive.

I was eager to reach the top. I tried to rush my way through some of the points of interests along the way to reach ever so higher to get a better view. I had my little camera with me, and I wanted to get the best view. Finally, we reached the top of the hill, but there was a whole building up there, on top of which was the Hercules statue.

Of course, I wanted the best view, so I started going up the stairs of the building trying to get ever so higher. The stairs got narrower and narrower as I rushed to the top. But finally, I was there and tried to look outside through the small windows.

The view was underwhelming. It was more or less the same that we’d been seeing for some time during this hike up the tower but this time through tiny windows that had a lot of dust built upon them. I took a picture, and started walking down after not too long up there.

I was thinking about it in the car on the way back to Berlin, and I realized this is just how I sometimes go about my life; rushing towards a goal while not appreciating the views along the way, thinking something better awaits me at the end of it. I’d have slowed down, had I known how little joy the reaching the destination would bring.

Fortunately, I could appreciate everything a bit more on the way down the hill. Unfortunately the same cannot be done with passed time and experiences.

In closing

We live we learn, and such experiences are always a good reminder to slow down and appreciate the views around us; appreciate the present consciously and intentionally for it cannot be re-experienced.

Thank you for reading!

Back in the day, I’d try to publish an article every month on my blog. It was difficult, but I’d still manage it for most part. I just looked at my last published article, which was in March, and the plethora or drafts sitting there, receiving little to no love.

Whenever I come across blogs with last published articles from years ago, I wondered what might’ve happened. Why (and how) do some people manage to keep publishing long form content after all these years, while others have given up on blogs. Some of them have done so in favour of more short form content that has taken over the web in the last decade or so. And of course, there’s a whole spectrum in between, where I see myself right now.

I came across this idea of perceived cost of doing things, depending on how much time it takes. For example, if I have an article that took my 2 months to finalise (and thus get satisfaction from), my brain might associate the cost of writing a long form article to be 2 months, thus discouraging me from picking up my computer to write again. If the actual satisfaction is derived from people finding my writing useful, then the gratification is delayed by several months or even years.

Creating a meme for Instagram, on the other hand, gets me gratification within minutes. Of course I know how these things work. But possession of a piece of knowledge isn’t very useful if it cannot be applied in a meaningful way.

Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong about creating short form content, and there’s nothing superior about people who create long form content. Personally, as long as I retain my ability to do either when I wish, I’d be pretty happy. I want to make memes and make my friends laugh, and keep publishing valuable content on the internet.

And that’s why I started writing in the morning today as I was on my way to meet some friends: To publish it immediately and remove some of the cost burden that has creeped into my head around publishing on my blog. Hopefully I can write more soon.

Thank you for reading!

I have a love-hate relationship with articles such as this. On one hand, the thought of going back in time and changing certain decisions is always fascinating, and documenting some of those thoughts into text that I can keep coming back is alluring. What is also appealing is to have this documented as a reference for my future self who’d probably (read: most likely) also want to write back to his 18 year old (or 27 year old self 🤷‍♂️, who knows).

But on the other hand, articles with titles such as this are so cliche that they don’t feel sincere and make me cringe. What’s even the point of publishing it? Don’t I believe that my current state defines the combined success or failure of all my past decisions and events in my life? If I’m happy with the state of affairs in my life right now, doesn’t that mean everything in the past kinda worked out in the end?

I don’t know. My current philosophy doesn’t allow for an article like this one, for it doesn’t make any sense to wish for the possibility of a different present when I have the certainty of my current present, which I believe I’m okay with. But then, why stop myself from writing down all the lessons that I’ve learned ever since I turned 18. I guess I could post that under a less cringey title along the lines of “Generic useful lessons in life”.

But then, useful to whom? When? Would I like it to be handed over to me when I was 5? 10?

Exactly. We’ll move in circles here and never get anywhere. That’s probably the reason this article has been a draft for a year or more. But I think I’ll have to get it out of my head first, and deal with the above thought later. Having cleared that, let’s get started * snaps finger *

The satisfaction of reaching a goal is so much smaller than the satisfaction of doing something you love, so love the process for that’s where most of the satisfaction lies

Quotes that urge us to enjoy the climb more than the peak, the journey more than the destination or something along those lines are dime a dozen. Being a quote-collector, I’ve known them forever.

But it is only after repeatedly going through the same journey over and over again — desiring something, working my way towards it and then eventually getting it — have I learned that the joy of having achieved something is minuscule compared to the joy I got along the way doing the thing I loved.

Happiness derived from external sources is very limited, and once the basics are covered, very superficial

Very similar to the previous point, but with an important distinction. Time and again, something has repeated:

• I’ve desired something materialistic
• Spent countless hours reading about it and contemplating about the joys its possession will bring me
• Eventually acquiring it
• Only to have the joy feel underwhelming after a matter of minutes of doing it

And then recently I came across this quote

“Traveling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his 1841 essay, “Self-Reliance.”

I think what Emerson is trying to say is that trying to fix something that’s an issue on the inside by changing something on the outside seldom, if ever, works. But if you’ve ever spent hours browsing Amazon out of boredom thinking the new iPhone or Sony’s new mirrorless camera will make you content and solve all of your life problems, and were lucky to actually be able to buy it, you’ll know that the satisfaction was very short lived and things go back to being exactly the way they were before.

We also vastly overestimate how much joy we’d get from achieving our material goals. Getting to a higher salary, or a dream job, or the latest iPhone; I realized how little joy the outcome eventually brought compared to the misery that the desire for it brought.

Friends and family are what keep you going even on the gloomiest days

I arrived in Berlin on a very cold and gloomy day, and the next few weren’t any different. Unable to cope, and having had my luggage misplaced, I was naturally sad after the second day, asking why was I even there.

Just sitting quietly in my bedroom having exactly 0 friends in this new city, I was feeling (what I’d later learn) the seasonal low mood sprinkled over homesickness. Then I got a call from a friend back home. Then my parents called me. And within an hour or so, I was actually happy I was in Berlin, went out for a walk and had some kebab 🥙

Case in point, I learned that my brain is easily tricked into happiness by interacting with people I love and care about. Just a casual chat a day with a friend keeps me in generally good mood. It is like a tonic for my mental health, doubling as first aid when time comes.

Hence, I think it is important to always have people that one can open up with. These people don’t magically appear but have to be invested in over years to cultivate such relationships and that’s something I really value in my life today.

Bad decisions attract bad circumstances which bring a bad state of mind, and a bad state of mind brings more bad decisions. Works just as well with good decisions

Or the snowball effect. Habits, outcomes of decisions and events in our lives, both good or bad, generally start small and they slowly spiral and become greater in magnitude and have a greater influence on our lives.

For this reason, I think it is important to 1. Be mindful of smaller problems that might have the potential to spiral into bigger ones, 2. Have people around you who can point out and alert you of the small cracks developing and 3. Believe that little good habits, however small, will compound with other little good habits and bring much greater good than their perceived insignificance.

Be aware and intentional

David Foster Wallace’s speech titled this is water talks about learning how to think, how to chose what we think about inside our minds irrespective of what’s happening outside of it, to be in control of our thoughts. I’d highly recommend you listen to it.

Like many, I found the speech very educational, and decided to not only be more attentive of my thoughts and the way I think about things, but also be very intentional about my actions. For me, it means to jump out of the default setting and steering the direction in which I mind decides to run with a thought after having passed it through my values filter.

It also means that when something doesn’t work out, it is usually not a sad outcome, but an educational one because I chose this version of reality over the others, and accepted the risks and rewards associated.

In closing

Phew, that was not easy to write. But I’m happy I did. I can already see myself coming back to this article from time to time. I hope you found some value in the text above

Thank you for reading.