Weeknotes - 2025-W14
Cover image for 2025-W14
Perhaps good to start this weeknote talking about the book I started in WN11 that I forgot to talk about. I finished it in the last week of March. The book’s premise was fantastic but I felt that it fell flat in a few places - there was some unnecessary name dropping of fancy artists and their works (none of which I understood the reference to 🤷🏾) and I was quite uncomfortable with the soft slavery bits of it - maybe it was reflective of that time, but it still made me uncomfortable. Overall I’d give it a 3 on 5 simply because the time travelling portion was really well executed. I’d have loved to read more about the wife herself - and how her mind space would have been through all the time travelling of her partner, but alas. With that said, I’d recommend it for anyone who wants a sci-fi x romance fix.
Keeping up with my promise to Prasanna, to read more books this year that she recommends, I picked up something I’ve also wanted to read for a while now - Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh by Shrayana Bhattacharya. Growing up, I’ve watched most SRK movies on the big screen with my parents and he always made me feel different things than the other Khans. Only in my reading of this book, I’m beginning to understand what those things were. Given my public policy course, there’s a lot to learn from this book too - about the economics of women’s empowerment. The stats for which, are really shocking.
I’ve also picked up All Systems Red by Martha Wells. The premise sounds really really interesting and I’m looking forward to it.
It is cherry blossom (?) season in Chennai and the trees are so beautiful. Growing up, I remember how it was “girly” to admire the beauty of flowers (I was one among the people who mocked other boys for this 😔). This week, on my morning walk, I met a friend after a very long time and we caught up over the happenings of our lives. He is a person I respect a lot - for his ability to take complex concepts and synthesize them into simple words. By the end of this walk - we happened upon one such tree and both of us were just astounded, looking at its beauty and talking about how beautiful it looks. I’m so glad that I’ve found my way out of the societal conditioning I was a part of.
I got my 1.5h of badminton down this week too but ended up with a minor injury in the right wrist. I hit myself in the hook that is used to tie the net to the pole 😒. Stupid me got too excited to play a few more rallys while the rest of players were taking a bio break. Serves me right 🤦🏾. I hope that it recovers by the next week, otherwise I think I’ll have it to sit it out.
I’ve effectively narrowed down my morning breakfast choices to 1 of 2 things:
- Eggs with 1 slice of bread
- Protein smoothie
ID has these wonderful fershly frozen fruit pulps which is a damn easy thing to add to jazz up the smoothies. Usually it is 50g of protein (I use nutrabox), some pulp, some peanut butter (I use Alpino) and water as required.
This weekend was the last set of seminars as part of the GCPP course. The final examination is upon us. We have to either write a policy brief or to analyze an already existing policy. The problem statements are hard, but interesting and I look forward to working on them. I hope that I’m able to do it justice. I will write more about the entire course itself once it is done. The cohort was a wonderful set of people. Over the last 12 weeks it felt like we got to learn a lot about each other through our interactions in the chat, the questions we ask and the brief 3 day meeting. In some weird way, I will miss seeing them every Saturday going forward. I hope that we can stay in touch.
I also got over taking myself too seriously and wrote this week. I decided to go back to the basics and write about why public policy is important. Do read and feel free to disagree with me: Why is public policy important?
On Saturday evening, we had company and we played some board games and ordered in some pizza. One of them is a doctor and through her, I got to learn about all the nonsense that happens down in Government hospitals. Being a (recent) student of Public Policy, all I’m able to see are failures of the State at every juncture - not enough doctors, doctors not being paid enough - all of which results in a loss of dignity for most people that step into these hospitals. This reminded me of a quote a dear friend once shared with me:
As the bonfire of our knowledge grows, the range of our ignorance is illuminated
– Paraphrased from Neil deGrasse Tyson
Pre GCPP, I would have consumed this information is a very different way than I do right now, and for that, I am very thankful to GCPP. Now I must find a way to better channelize this anger. I must write more.
The upcoming weeks are going to be long, with having to work on the final exam submission and work stuff.
Chop chop, let’s get cracking!