Weeknotes - 2025-W13
Cover image for 2025-W13
I started the week with a hangover from the policy simulation workshop that I attended in the last weekend. Maybe I’ll dump a little bit of the experience here: The policy simulation workshop is a 3 day in-person workshop where the Advanced Public Policy and Technology & Policy students of the GCPP course come together and attempt to design an entire policy for a problem statement. The problem statement that we had was around India’s AI Sovereignty and the path to achieve it. AI Sovereignty is a very large umbrella so the team and I decided to focus on taking a shot at moving the needle in the right direction on the talent front. India’s biggest asset is the talent that we have both in India and outside of India. This will be the strongest set of “cards” that we will have (in case Mr. Dolan asks) and is one that we must focus on - if we are going to be a player at the proverbial global AI table. Many folks have the same POV too - which really means that its a definite path forward.
So the weekend was filled with that - we learnt an 8 step process to designing a public policy and went about implementing it, in this context. There was a lot of disagreement (which is awesome), lot of agreement and lots of learning from both within the team and from other teams. And so Monday was a lot of hangover from being in such a “charged” environment to coming back to business as usual.
Otherwise, work was pretty hectic, having to coordinate the finishing of a big feature piece - its still not at 100% but its inching there and will be a good feature to have on the product.
I got in the usual 1.5H badminton this week too. Happy about that :)
Also one very amazemax thing happened thanks to WeekNotes this week. I got to meet a fellow WeekNoter - Divya. I read in her weeknotes that she was in Chennai and we quickly arranged to meet up for dinner. Prasanna came along as well. This was the first time I met her even though we’ve been in each other replies on Twitter for quite a long time now. It was a wonderful evening filled with some great pasta (Thanks ETC) and great conversation. Also thanks to her WeekNotes it didn’t feel like she was a new person to me and that I (and she) knew a bunch of things about each others’ lives already. So, if you’re on the fence - start weeknoting!
This weekend was a full one. Saturday was back to classes. Had 3 wonderful tech oriented sessions and learnt a lot. Much to think about, I think I need to get over the problem of “log kya kahenge” and start writing more about policy stuff. Too many thoughts in my head but afraid to put it down on words out of a (unnecessary) fear that I will get judged as a n00bie policy enthusiast (which I truthfully am). But everyone who is something, was here. And I am here. So I should just put the pedal to the metal and start concretizing these thoughts in my head.
On Saturday night, we went to see a play - Serpants Tongue by Theatre Nisha. A very dear friend has acted in it. It was a wonderfully staged performance. I was stunned by the physical demands of the play. Really top notch stuff. If you like watching plays, do keep your ears out for upcoming stuff from Threatre Nisha. They are awesome.
Sunday was Ugadi so Prasanna and I spent half the day at my parents’ place. We had good food and watched parts of a movie called Family Star. I could not believe that in 2024, we’re still making movies like this - pandering to the patriarchy. It was so preachy, gas lighty and a whole lot of “awwwww the man does so much. He’s sooo paavam. Family is the only thing on his heart so its OK if he slaps his girlfriend.” Ugh. I’m glad it bombed at the box office - the policy wonk in me was happy that the demand for shit like this seems to be low - Samaaj is working!
We quickly fixed this by hooking my parents onto REACHER 😁 by re/watching the first episode.
Looking forward, April is going to be hard because it will be Puthandu (Tamil new year) and FIL isn’t around. Just like Ugadi, it was a designated “visit parents” day - filled with food and conversation. There would always be a hilter skilter around taking a picture with the 4 of us in it, and breaking off into pairs for more pictures. Then we’d sit in the AC and have some good food and laugh together. I know I’m going to miss it, I cannot even begin to think of what it will be for Prasanna. A hard month approaches.