Thursday, April 30, 2020

Day 37 of 40

I did my morning pages and realized, I am writing morning pages for more than a month.  Worked on the to-do list. Cleared a few on the list and made progress with Stories at Work. I created a story by the nick of the time. The whiny Crow.

Watched a few old videos. Picked up Kate Atkinson's book to read. I will start it soon. Today is Sri's birthday as well. Along with reading a couple of poems from Mahprasthanam, I should read other versions as well.

3-hour storytelling session.  Lovely experience.

Heard that Telangana is not increasing it's testing limits. These days, I'm being more affected with the news. Trying to listen to know the news through less animated communications.

Nice Link- Growing cohort of unengaged children and overwhelming parents.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-growing-cohort-of-overwhelmed-parents-unengaged-children-drop/


Working parents are finding it overwhelming to meet the needs of the children with distance learning.  How are the urban school coping up? What's the scene with the Online digital learning for the privileged children.
 

North Star Academy Elementary - Morning Circle



Vibrant energy and engaging children. Loved the responses as well as energy from the children. Loved the music and the rythm, performed by the children.

I see children appreciating whenever there's a response from another child. Inducing children to talk it out and repeat the appreciations seemed to be a good way to induce the habit of appreciating others.


Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Raja Ravi Varma's Event

Celebrating his birth anniversary, Raja Ravi Varma heritage foundation hosted a special screening of the movie, 'Wanderer of the worlds', and many spoke at the event. Attended via zoom platform and couldn't interact with any audience or the speakers of the event.

It was an informative and jaw-dropping session. I saw other's sessions with frequent shifting to tabs and hangouts but got glued to Manu's presentation. He shared the humane stories of history. How the Baroda king rebelled the British, how Kerala Varma ended his life and how his wife reacted to his disappearance.

One amazing story was how his relative modeled for the portrait of Rama in one of the Ramayana sketches. Many may assume the image of Rama but, Manu mentioned how
retired police modeled for the Rama and got etched in history.

The Man behind the paintings.  Raja Ravi Varma.
An interesting story on how Britishers acted as marriage brokers between Mysore princes and Rajput princesses. Interesting. I loved the event. I wish they have the recording of the event to post it here.

Monday, April 27, 2020

34 of 40 (27.April.20)

I didn't want to get out of the bed. Lucid sleep and living in the dreams, I woke up at 9. Quick cleaning and caught up with the books. Dyu got on to the job of distributing the ration. We cooked up lunch with the water that was left. 12 pm, I went down to fetch the water. The shop got closed. The shopkeeper mentioned, he'd be late. From 12 to 7pm, we were at home without water. The situation without water seemed to grimace. Worked on a few writings and reading. I got onto the conference calls. Over time, I think, I need to effectively manage my time for, half my time is going in zoom and teams itself.


Got the feedback from Harry. Now I am all rejuvenated to get back on to the book and work to bring it.

3 years ago, I spent my evening at Park Hyatt at TEDx Hyderabad Live, watching it with the community.Recalled all the good  memories. God bless Ranjit Bhai.


Sunday, April 26, 2020

Mansi and I - Conversation and the fruit

These days, I only go out for bringing the dinner and dropping the trash. Early morning, Mansi does not come out of the home. In late evenings, she looks at me and strikes for a conversation. Today, I stepped down to fetch the dinner. ‘Abhinay’ she shouted, walking out of the house and said,’Dyu Aaya, video call karre the. Aap kaha the?' This little 7 year old loves to call me by my name from the moment she heard my names. 

While I was returning home after bringing the dinner, once again, she came out, ‘take this,’ offered me a musekmelon fruit.

‘Thank you,’ I shouted entering my home. ‘Welcome,’ she shouted and waited for me to see her again. ‘Uncle Ji!’ she shouted trying to strike a conversation but instead smiled.

Thanks, Mansi for the conversation and the fruit.

Day 33 of 40

The routines are set these days. Some are worth following, some need a fix. Will work on it. Done with chores and morning pages, I made a progress with the book, 'Stories at Work.' I am enjoying the book. The book is for anyone who is interested in stories.

Had special lunch prepared by Satvir Ji. Enjoyed listening to Priyanka, Super Singer voice. After few days break, got back on meditation and enjoyed the meditation.

Last but one class with Vikram Sridhar. Enjoyed the class and the Gujarati folk song he sung. There's a stark difference between weekdays and sunday. Lazed around and did nothing with intention.

Calling it a day with writing. Good day.

Day 32 of 40

Woke up with chores and morning pages on the to-do list. While I tried striking off doing all the things I had to do, I had to attend a call. Post call, we got into the kitchen. While Dyu was cooking, I was talking to him about 'Barack Obama's letters to my father'. He shared his views upon completing the book. We shared our thoughts. From patriarchy to Panchatantra, we discussed a lot till the lunch got ready.

Watched the movie, Vaanam Kottatum. Loved the background score, cast, story. I spent the day reading the book, Stories at Work.

Spoke to Amol, Jaya and called it a day. These days, I am watching news less and that's helping me to stay sane. Cut down social media in big time. Before this lifestyle comes down to normalcy, I wish there's a change and peace in the world.

Thought- Regret life

On conversation with my friend, I was told, "At the end days of anyone's life, they always come up with regrets. Regrets are inevitable as we reach the end days of life."

I agreed to disagree with him. And we decided upon to talk about this during our end days of our life. That's a record of a  thought to speak during the last days of life. 

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Movie- Vaanam Kottatum

'Vaanam Kottatum,'  produced by Madras Talkies and directed Dhana Sekharan. I remember skimming the movie review in The Hindu. I enjoyed listening to the music, composed by Sid Sriram. I wanted to watch this movie solely for the background score. I loved the story and the characters of the movie. Sharath and Radhika were at their best. I liked the acting of Aishwarya Rajesh, Vikram Prabhu, Madonna's characters as well.

This movie reminded me of my grandfather as I remember listening to his farming stories. Sharath Kumar reminded me of the tales I used to listen to from my grandfather.




Day 31 of 40 (April 25.2020)

Woke up at the usual time and got back into the cleaning and morning pages. Morning pages are the calmness booster for the morning. Every day, I wake up with a rush, and 40 minutes of my time to spend on paper works for me. 

 Worked for breakfast and lunch, the time just flew away. Every time,  I am in the kitchen, I am able to visualize my mom as an individual. Other than cooking, being self-less for us, she is an individual who has interests and personality.  Grateful to my mom for being an avid learner. I remember her preserving her Peddha Baala Shiksha and worked through to learn the letters. She managed to learn the signature both in Telugu and English. She is curious to learn the calculations as well. In the age of digital transactions, she is firm to learn to use the ATM. 


She wants to stay independent. Her dependence on dad pushes her to stand firm. Come what may, she reciprocates with her prayers and goodness. 'The faith,' she tells, 'has more power than any other doubts'. I learned from her to believe in our intuition. Every time, I spent time in the kitchen, I imagine, what is it for all the women out there who spent their lives in kitchen without giving time for themselves to reflect. 


 I spent time attending the meetings and painting. I need to work on the TO DO list. Worked on few and failed to do a lot of work planned. 

Today, we read a story, 'An old man and the bridge' by Ernest Hemingway. Everyone was discussing the story and there were so many views and guesses in the story. The learners were hesitant to get corrected. As a facilitator, I was trying to give out the questions. They were expressing their guesses whenever they feel they are right. They are not confident of expressing their views.

When children do not find enough encouragment to express, they do not share. It's same with the children. When we keep asking to come up with the responses. It's' important that we need to realise, we have to take a step to expect the others to take another step. 

As a facilitator, I discovered my role in posing the right questions. 'Who can the characters be? What colour, he could have worn. what time of the day it could be?' and many more questions to help the learners to guess. 

The difficulty of questions comes to help. It was an interesting session. For it's importance of communication.

The learners give up saying I'm not connected but, they didn't put an effort to travel. It's the same with all the learners. We all do. Confidence and sensitized enough to fail at small things prepare us for the learning. 

As adults, it's quite important to fail at little things. 

Failing at little things opens the ways for the learning. We always try to be right, even at the small things and never open up to know if it's not in our circle. Interesting learning to ponder. 


At 5.30 attended a live session hosted by Triptin Talks.  Hridaya hosted it well and came up with few questions helping to share a few thoughts on my writing journey and hitchhiking journey. 

Sharing my thoughts on hitchhiking on live helped me to understand my personal ego and ego at work. 

I also understood how to talk on my work rather than myself. It's my work that can speak more of it. Will talk more about my work. Less narcissism. More work. 


Attended the Storytelling workshop. Continuous calls from 2pm till 8.30. That's hectic. Now, I'm unable to understand how this new Worklife can be normalized. 


Couldn't get a chance to read the book or work on the draft. Need to work on the TO DO List. 
 










Thoughts- Ego

It's dichotomous to work on ego. Trying to practice humility in this vast world. Realizing our importance, it was so easy to get that effect on the work as well. I was trying to play subtly in postering my work whenever I have to talk to others. 

I realized it's dangerous to leave it in that way. It's important to be humble but, it's important to be egoistic in the work. It's important to be our best in the work. The work will speak for us. We gotta do our best and remain humble. A.R.Rahman keeps talking about it. I do not know how to practice this dichotomy of ego. 
 


Friday, April 24, 2020

Day-3 Storytelling workshop by Vikram Sridhar

We read a few famous and classic stories of Panchatantra. We tried to observe the choice of animals and the gender and the relations between the animals.

Interspecies communication, they call it. There are so many animals that communicate with other species as well. It was interesting to see the connection between the other species.

I looked at all the state birds and animals and the most common animals found in the stories are not the birds and animals of any state.

Many versions, many stories, it's important to observe the selection of animals. Fox, Jackal, and wolf.  What are the differences in these animals and in such a way, how do we use them for the context.

I read the story Clever Turtle and used the word tortoise. Both are the same, right I assumed. But, there's a huge difference between the turtle and tortoise.



When there are thousands of animals and birds, how did only few animals got into the stories? The most common are monkey, crow, and snake.  Even in a category of snakes, it's Cobra.

It's is used as a metaphor. The metaphors drawn are quite interesting.  For snake to nature and woman.

There are three similarities one can find with humans.

1) Movement
2)Search
3)Communication

There are a lot of simple huge differences in the two versions of one story.

There's an interesting relation between reptiles and feminine energy.

Vikram shared the interesting facts on owls. It's a session of ecology in stories. How the choice of animals plays an important role.

Interesting session. More to explore the stories.



Nice Link- Telugu Dalit Literature

Thoughts- You gotta share your own stories.

Reading all the great experiences, stories of hitchhiking of others, I failed to acknowledge what I did. ‘It’s common. You are not the only one who hitchhikes, you don’t need to talk about it.’ I said to myself. Pushing the thought further, I also asked myself, ‘Do you really have to write this?’ ‘Who will read this?’ ‘There are many people who already wrote, they have far better experiences than your’s’ I told myself.

Voicing out my thoughts, I told my Harry. ‘I don’t feel confident in sharing, as there are so many out there who did fabulous work. My experiences are nothing in front of them.’

‘Your story can never be told by others. It’s your thoughts, your experiences, your words. It’s yours. And believe in it.’ Said, Harry.



Lesson learned.  If we do not believe in our voice and do not share, who is going to do it?

Day 29 of 40 (24.April.20)

Saket visited home and offered breakfast. It was refreshing to eat different traditional food. I do not remember the dish. I enjoyed reading the book, 'Stories at Work.' Spent the day listening to music and a few calls. Spoke to Harry after a long time.  Today, I observed Mansi playing with the mud. Nyra and I played hide and seek from the place we lived. It's interesting to engage with these children. Mansi discovered 'abhi- nahi' in my name.

She teases Dyu by his name. Spent evening over terrace talks.




Tomorrow, I am going to be live on Triptinadventures. Looking forward to engaging conversation.
Inspiring story of the day.

https://thewire.in/rights/lockdown-assam-man-walks-gujarat

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Book- The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer

I heard the name, J.R.Moehringer for the first time when I read the acknowledgements of the book, ‘Open’ by Andre Agassi. I enjoyed the book and the writing style. After few years, I read the Phil Knight’s memoir which had the similar style. No wonder, it is the same author. J.R.Moehringer. 
Finally, I got a chance to read his own memoir knowing his writing life and personal life. It was titled, ‘The Tender Bar.’ What important role does a bar play in a life I thought, but, as I read the book, I discovered the beauty of the J.R’s life.
J.R.Moehringer, raised by single parent(mother), was curious about his father who left  their family, despaired to see there’s no fatherly figure, to look up in their family,  he craved for an escape. The Dickens, Steve’s bar gave him a chance.
His uncle Charlie works at the bar and introduced to the characters of the bar and his experiences with the people over there changed life for many reasons. As a boy, he solaced in the comfort of being around a lot of men, discovering the world. Few times, he attempted to understand, why their family members act the way, they act and he could find few answers.
His school visit with his Grand Pa is one experience that puts how different people are. Enjoyed reading about it.

In the process of knowing his father, he learned about his family a lot. 

Growing among the company of men, he realized his mother struggled a lot to cater to his needs.  Part of caring for J.R, his mother decided to move to Arizona with him. J. R’s life was no good at the new place. Loneliness and guilty burdened his life. Coping up with the new school, J.R worked out in his way. He tried to work at the book store accidentally.
His encounter with Bill and Bud changed his life. The introduction to the reader’s world, one may call it. They showed him the ticket to the world, Yale University. Amidst the teenage rush, comparing the lives, J.R got through Yale being covered on financial expenses. And a journey discovering his life through college, women, and the bar is the rest of the book.
J.R.’s introspective struggle on his identity and his passion is laid out through out the book.  His narrative writing makes the book, gripping.  The craft of showing the reader but not telling is clearly visible here.
I enjoyed how he described the characters and the subtle recounting the nuances of a person. Reading through the Tender Bar, it seemed I traveled through the bar witnessing his life.
My take away from this book is the writing style and choice of words. It’s brilliant.
There are stories that humbled me of the opportunities I got through in real life.  Reading Bill and Bud encounter, I felt grateful I met good friends, who introduce me to the beautiful things in life. Books.
I enjoyed the book.

Helpful Tools- Collecting Stories

I read a lot of stories, I heard a lot of stories but, I never knew how to compile, arrange them in order. Stories at Work book have few brilliant techniques to compile the stories and arrange them in order for quick use. 


  1. Create key words of the story. 
  2. Create labels. 
  3. Arrange labels in a note to retrieve. 


Day 28 of 40

I woke up late and caught up with chores. Got onto morning pages, soon after that. These days, I'm looking forward to writing morning pages. I am loving it. I got onto reflecting on the memoir I read recently. 'The Tender Bar' by J.R.Moehringer.  Spent some time in browsing through PC, I had to attend meetings. Got onto the meetings. Continuous calls from the afternoon from 2pm till 9. With Gap of half an hour, Interesting how timezones may affect us.

Learned a bit about stories, mythology, folktales. Interesting learnings. Started the book, 'Stories at Work.' by Indranil Chakraborty.

Spoke to Amu after a long time.  A happy mellow talk after a long time.




Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Quote of the day

“Don't wait until people are dead to give them flowers.”

Thoughts to self- Love!

Treat your work with love. That brings the magic in every work you create. Without a touch of love, the work that was put out with compulsion, pressure fails to make a connection. 

At ECC,  Bengaluru

Enna Solla Pogirai (All Versions) - A.R.Rahman Musical









Senthil Kumar has been sharing a lot of works of ARR. I remember reading his book. I could relate to his passion he puts towards listening to music. Great efforts Senthil. More power to you.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Movie- The Judge

This movie reminded me of my GrandPa. The hardships the elderly people go through tough times.   The judge's father commits an accident and the lawyer's son tries to defend the father. Interesting. Enjoyed the sound track as well.

Nice Blog- Sadhana's blog

http://sadhanablog.blogspot.com/2020/04/to-my-children-in-times-of-covid-19.html


I learnt about Skylab for the first time. Interesting.  It's funny to know Skylab Reddy's story.

The Little Things - Own up your actions.

'There is one thing my brother told me, 'Do what you want! but, know that you are the cause of all the effects and you are responsible for your actions.



The Little Things- Go deep into it.

 I always stumbled upon many pieces as I lost the track of what I was writing and why I was writing. I was getting confused and also confused my readers with my writings. I once shared this with Harry and he said,  'The better way to improve the craft of the writing is to go deep into one thought. Take one thought that makes you write. Think deep into it and that makes the whole writing work.'

Day 27 of 40

Started the day with chores. Helped a bit in cooking and got onto the morning pages. The process of writing down the thoughts that trouble me on the paper seemed therapeutic. Soon after the work, I got on the draft, editing a few chapters. From then on, I went on with the meetings and lunch with TaleSpin tales.

I'm loving the experience of watching all the cartoons again. Thanks, Meghana for the suggestion. Fell into the trap of Netflix and prime, I never looked for the cartoons, I grew up with.

Little work and got back on to the meetings. I'm glad the course is going well. The participants are showing a great response to the work.

Meditation over zoom. Interesting experiences and learning about how language influences over meditation.

Began to attend the online workshop. With little time to stretch and stroll, I was on a laptop almost the whole day.

From now, more than distance, the time zones and time duration is going to matter a lot. Time management is a big need than ever.

First day of the story telling session workshop

Reflecting on the word, ‘Panchtantra,’ Vikram revealed a lot of stories through questions but, not as dry information. ‘Listen for yourself but not for your children or for others,’ Vikram mentioned.

"This story is for the child, how he’d see it?'. 'Stop these questions as we can never be a child. We are adults, there’s puberty that makes us adults.  We can never think of others because we are not others. Let’s think of ourselves as we attend these stories." Vikram encouraged to reflect on stories.

‘Whom do you think, wrote these stories? Where did these stories come from?’ were the questions that put us on racing with our assumptions. We were surprised by the facts that were revealed to us in an anecdotal way. The very old version that’s documented is available in Urdu/Persian. How Urdu? Well, that’s another story. We went on with the stories of how it traveled from one language and ended up in Persian/ Urdu. Within the story, there’s another story shared. The stories surprised us, soothed us, inspired us to celebrate the stories. With the help of couplets, translations, the session gave a lot of questions to reflect on. Panchatantra, is it for children? If Panchtantra is translated to English, it’s five strategies. Are strategies meant for children or adults?

How did we end up giving moral sense to stories? How did we label this whole classic stories as ‘stories for children.’

A lot of facts were revealed in this session. The facts can be found anywhere but, the collective discussion and the gathering to celebrate stories made it more meaningful.

I was intrigued to read about the community in Rajasthan, who heal people through stories. That’s quite interesting. In fact, the story of how the Panchatantra traveled to Iran also has the healing perspective.

The translation of the couplet that Vikram mentioned was profound. 

Are these stories meant for children? Why do we always get the label, ‘for children.’ Are stories only for children? The reason why we tell stories is to bring in the moral sense of the story. Well, are those stories meant to bring in the moral sense? No.

Even, if we want to bring moral sense, what do we want to share about?
Truth? Goodness?
As adults, are we purer than children? That’s one question we need to reflect on. As adults are we truthful enough? As adults are we good enough?

Are stories meant for children, for others?
Stories are meant to tell ourselves to reflect upon, absorb, and act on what we understand from.

Why do we always push it on children when there’s nothing mentioned for children?

The stories originated for some other intent and the stories traveled and got shaped into a scenario where we put it out only for children but, not for ourselves.

As an artist, storyteller, writer, the story we share has to be resonated for us, before it's shared with others. Stories are for ourselves, individuals.

Friday, April 17, 2020

Day 24 of 40 (April 17. 2020)

Woke up with an adventurous, intense dream. By the time, I finished my morning pages, I felt easy putting all my pacy thoughts on the paper.

I wrote down hour to hour by morning and had  a fruit for breakfast. Got some work done and got onto meetings, calls without a break. I shared G.V. Ramanjaneyulu TEDx talk with the group I shared.  Everyone is speaking. I am so happy with how we are gaining confidence.

Today's meditation, I had to meet my younger self  acknowledging the interests that were ignored. I had a different experience. Took a stroll on the terrace. Got onto work and did some work on the draft.  Watched the movie, Coach Carter. I knew I have to work on draft. I am running away from it. What am I fearing from? Need to do some talk with myself to get the work done!

Need to commit to life to finish this draft.


Writing- The fear of rejection

I'm escaping from the craft I love in the fear of rejection. May be I am living under the shelter of Fear. I am not pushing myself to come out of the shelter and work on the job when I got all the time in life to work on it.

Everytime I write a chapter in the draft, I have the fear of being rejected as I bleed the words of my life. I am putting myself there. In fiction, I can play out the characters that I create but, here it's me. My own life with full of fears, ego, humility and every emotion I went through.  Am I ready to put it out? I committed to it. I enjoy walking the path but, I need to push myself to go through those emotions of being vulnerable. Being vulnerable is okay!.



Writing- The three edits

The process of writing is actually 'rewriting.'

At first, we need to write our thoughts. Just write whatever is in our minds. Put everything out on the paper, without a filter. 

1)The first edit has to be done for ourselves. 
2)The second edit is for the readers 
3)The third edit is for the critics


In the first edit, we need to bring our own style and put whatever we like. In the second edit, we need to look out for the spaces to make the readers happy. We need to make sure, the readers do not get confused. Make sure there's a gripping narrative. 

In the third edit, we need to make sure that we do not give enough chance to let critics point out the flaws. We need to correct all the nuances.

TED Talk- Poverty is not lack of character.







Rutger started the talk with the question, ' Why do the poor make so many poor decisions? ' Interesting question. Explaining poverty with a lot of quotes and gripping narrative, he spoke about basic guarantee income. 

Rutger shared the action research experiment people tried on basic guarantee income.It's interesting how there's 'poverty scarcity.' I loved the last lines. 
'Poverty is not about lack of character but, lack of cash.'


Analysis Paralysis- Thoughts

I woke up jotting my intense dream in a sleepy mood. I realized I wrote only a few lines of the dream. As I caught up with other work, I forgot the dream and couldn't put it on the paper. 

In general, I left the habit of writing a diary and continued writing the journal. In the journal, I write random lines, the story I am working on, to-do lists. And it serves as an all-in-one notebook for me. 

There was a time where I tried to maintain different books for different things and didn't write if the book was not in reach to me. I talked a lot about writing various things but I didn't write. 
There's no point of talking about writing when I don't write daily,' I thought. I picked up the habit of writing everything in one book I carry till it gets finished. Writing somewhere is better than not writing at all. 

I am glad that I didn't get into the loop of analyzing and more analyzing rather than working at it.

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Movie- Race

Unbelievable. Good to know about the star, Jesse Owens. Can't believe the atrocities the Hitler did during his reign.

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

The 25th Birthday

Swathi reminded me of her upcoming 25th birthday. Excited for her birthday but, never realized it's her 25th. "Abhinay 18-25 years is a kind of tutorial life, preparing you for the adult life which is post 25." Never realized it.

"Reflect on it," she said, "It's 25th birthday." And here I am, reflecting my 25th birthday.


November 18  9 PM.

Few hours before my birthday, I was busy typing the draft I wrote and the front door got opened surprising me for real. Saket entered, surprised to see me with a laptop and stacks of books around me. Then came, Priyanka, Kaveri, Hemraj, Bhuvaneshwar. Bhuvaneshwar came from Jalore. Dyu arranged this small gathering as he was leaving for Abu road early morning. Thanks, Dyu.

Delighted to see the gathering, I made the room cozy with dim lights and caught up with the group on the banter and the latest updates of our ISTT experiences.

Soon after the cake cutting, Kaveri gifted me two journals. Thanks, Kaveri for the thoughtful gifts. I loved the journals.

Too cold to hang out at the terrace, we called it a day soon after we spent a good time talking a lot.

 'It's another day,' I thought. 

I woke up early out of dream scribbling the lines I was reciting in the dream. Those lines do not make sense to me even now but, I recited these lines with so much of rigor and passion.

"Faceless. You are honest at once. You are reflecting. You eye for the hornet and at times all you see are the lustful eyes in the sea of crowd. 

Age-old crowd of getting down to meet people, we walked down to people. I walked out without shoes. The feet are cold and the hard ground is hard to pelt the stones. And we walked around. No, we sneaked around. 

We people. We were made to constant rounding of the building, we were made to run into people. We ran. No! only few ran. Later, we got into the conversation. We had a book in hand, full of contradictions. Reading the book that I read or write, the story starts."


I wrote this at 5.36 am, under the cozy lights that we used during my birthday eve. 'Weird' I felt, as I was not writing these lines out of consciousness but, through the subconscious. Strange to encounter my subconscious thoughts in this fashion. 
  


Satvir Ji wished me on the phone assuming, I was going to fieldwork.  I headed to the school and many of the students realized that today is my birthday. Naanu got to know that today is my birthday. She walked to me and asked if today is my birthday. 'Yes,' I said. 'She came after a few minutes with the greeting card she made. She wrote Happy birthday in her own words and shapes.

'Happy birthday' she said and ran away, as I was in fourth class talking to children. Dhawal got enthusiastic in preparing a birthday card for me and took all the stationary focusing to draw a huge cake and different patterns to wish me.

Grateful to Nanu's wishes. I spent the day at school answering the question, 'Bhaiya, Aaj aapka birthday hai?'

At the assembly,  Lalit, Chaya, Suman, Paramjit, Dhawal, Payal, walked on to the stage to wish and said a few words about me. Everyone made a greeting card and handed it to me. Cute and nice.

Of all, Ashok, a 4-year-old kid,  made his own card and gave it. He walked onto the stage and said, "Abhinay bhaiya accha ladka hai." 

He usually, never comes on to the stage. For the first time, he walked on to the stage to wish me and testify, 'Abhinay bhaiya accha ladka hai.'

Grateful for all the wishes. Being in school, I never checked the phone and missed many calls and messages. Smruthi, as ever wished me without a break. All other friends called up to wish.

Before I realize that the day got ended, we went to Jora Magra to hang out with Bhuvaneshwar.  Caught up with crazy conversations with Saket, Bhuvaneshwar, and Dyu.

Looking back at my birthday, I was overwhelmed to celebrate my birthday with children. Last year, I hitchhiked to Bidar. This year, I am in Rajasthan.


Tutorial Life birthdays.

At the age of 18, I celebrated my birthday with 60+ friends in a hostel. My birthday was the first birthday celebrated in the college hostel and it was a huge party.  Vinod, Aswath, Hemanth, Iragam, Nikith and many more friends organised it. First birthday party at college hostel was held at B-1, the duplex villa. I still remember the mess we made with the huge cake people got it for me. 

I celebrated my 19th birthday with the loved one, grateful to happy memories. The second birthday part at hostel went violent with lots of shoe kicks and birthday bumps. I couldn't walk properly the next day. College parties are at different levels. We can't run away. Need to brace ourselves for the worst.

Celebrated my 20th birthday with the snickers gifted by Vikas, as he walked down to court practice.  I spent the evening at the practice among the brothers and enjoyed the birthday gift, 'the snickers.' Due to semester exams, we planned for the post-birthday celebration.


Celebrated my 21st birthday along with Jishan. It was such a melodrama. We all gathered at Elli's place for a festival gathering. My friends knew and I knew that we are going to party for the night. But, they acted and I acted. I told that I would return to the hostel. They also said, 'okay.' Too clear about the party, every one of us drove to Jishan's place and gathered for the celebration. Both of us share our birthdays on November 19th.  I wrote a poem on my 21st birthday. Last birthday in the college.


Celebrated my 22nd birthday at home with no hungama. I returned home from Bangalore. I was recovering from chicken pox. An okay birthday.

Celebrated my 23rd birthday with all the friends who were in Hyderabad. A party with the friends at the workplace and another with the college friends.  I had a surprise birthday party hosted by Elsa, Prosenjit and Manisha.  I can't forget the way, Elsa fooled me to rush in and took me to the birthday place. So sweet of everyone. I enjoyed it. First birthday at the workplace. Thanks to all the loved ones.

I met my college friends for birthday. And only 4 of them were there, rest were off to the U.S and other countries. Elli, Shyam, Ding and Bala. E I realized that the utmost thing, one can give to others seems to be time.


24th birthday, By this birthday most of the people left and there were fewer friends to call out to celebrate. I was too individualistic to feel the loneliness. I am grateful for this sudden birthday party. I met Pooja for the first time and we realized that we met on my birthday eve. Quick decisions, we ended up at a stranger's house celebrating my birthday. Their whole family sang birthday song for me as I cut the cake. And also, I hitchhiked to Bidar introspecting on my life. I visited Gurudwara and had my dinner at their place. One of the most memorable journeys.

25th birthday, a simple one, with the children full of love.And I realized Birthdays are not about crazy celebrations but sharing the love with loved ones. Grateful to be among people who love me and share the happiness.


I wish to be surrounded by the loved ones during the birthdays. Good to reflect on my birthdays. And yes, I turned 25 and slowly, I realised I am gaining so many experiences through my life.



Art- Empty Spaces-Flow

The abstract of the exhibition is out.  https://www.graduateinstitute.ch/communications/events/empty-spaces-flow-art-exhibition-abhinay-renny