Anish Nadh’s Blog

I woke up, hungry, tired! I went up to mom’s  kitchen and found nothing great to eat! So I ordered a subway sandwich and sugarcane juice! I felt sleepy again. Then I woke up at 3:00 pm! I must try and sleep by 10 everyday or it doesn’t feel so good! Now I will go for a walk and start classes at 4:00 pm! 

Duality,  Man, woman  Light, Dark  Sharp, Blunt  But they say there’s an in between,  Like dawn and dusk!  Where is the line?  What separates night and day? 

 Just got home some time ago after seeing off Denzil at the airport. The baggage had excess weight and he had to take out some of his clothes from the check in bag.  He thought the hand bag won’t be weighed! Anyway he made it without paying extra charges. 

 I must get back to reading! I have not been consistent with that. I have a lot of books to read. The recent one that I bought was Kirtana Kumar’s Bangalore blues. This book is filled the with old Bangalore charm. I’m so looking forward to reading it. 

This blog is late! But I’m writing it before I sleep! Denzil hosted a farewell dinner and after the formal prayer, I sat by the piano and I just played. I was so in the zone, every one else disappeared and it was just me and the sound. Music flew out of my fingers, but every-time I doubted my ability to play, I made mistakes. I had never felt this way for the longest time. I’m so grateful to be able to do this, maybe it sucks to everyone else, but I got high playing music. I want to do more of this. 

My niece and I made mango popsicles with some over ripe Neelam mangoes.We cut the mangoes and grounded it into a pulp with some honey. I already had the mould ready! The mango was sweet, almost had a velvety-buttery feel to it. It was yum! 

8 big African snails were caught and killed. These snails are quite some nuisance. They eat up all the vegetation and grow big and multiply during rainy season. It is declared invasive, must have hitched hiked its way here with no natural predators it is difficult yo keep its numbers in check. Some of them also hiss and are disgusting.  It’s quite easy to kill snails, salt water. Pour some salt water and they just drop dead. It is cruel, but I like my plants more and they are not welcome. 

I tried learning the banjo in its standard tuning! It gave me the G tuning,  most common banjo tuning, D B G D G! I tried learning the songs and immediately found it really difficult to follow. It was quite hard to place the notes. So I tuned up to the standard guitar tuning E B G D and G on the neck tuning key. And viola! It was so easy to adapt. Though I cannot play the songs exactly, it’s quite easy to adapt to this. 

Tuesday! Today was my day off, I caught up on some sleep finally! Practiced the banjo, sent piano assignments, got a lot of work done. Solomon is moving in next door, he had hired a crew to clean up his place. So, I went there for some time. 

Gotta win them brownie points! Determined was I!  So when we decided to play the  game!  Cat and mouse, you catch me, I catch you!  I put in some effort, to win those precious brownie points!  She was not easily impressed, Told me I just scored One point!  But I thought I deserved at-least Ten!  For that song I sang to her, you see!  Then she gave me her wisdom  Told me, I scored more points earlier,  When I had decided to spend some extra time with her Time! Quality time  That’s what it takes to score some, Brownie points. 

 I have been slacking a lot and I have to get back to routine. The only way to do it is saying no to over sleeping (I’m not sleeping well), social media and diet. I have been eating junk. It’s time to pull back to routine and save the junk food for weekends. 

It’s all changing, We don’t need to meet! We hear each other!  Judge everything by sound  These are my evenings  Keeping my blues away!

 Jude took us out to Byg Brewski! There was Denzil, Andy and Sharmi with us. We sneaked into the VIP section where a DJ was just pretending to create music. He was twiddling with the knobs but Bob significant change was noticed in the sound. We then found a table where the noise was less, and ordered food, I enjoyed the beef chilly and nags pork bao. Andy and I ordered a mango drink and we got a watered down version of Tropicana, overpriced!! We had some few chuckles, then I drove Denzil home. It’s 1:00 by blog is late, I have an early morning class. I’m gonna crash! Bye! 

 The lantana plants in my neighbour’s empty plot are quite invasive and they are taking over the road side as well. The plants are hovering over the guava and avocado trees that I planted recently, by the road side. I decided to do something about it!  I put someone who is always up for some destruction of invasive plants, in action. This person is a natural arson! You will quite often see them burning things around, almost destroying expensive property. Mom! She loves burning things, including food some times. So we jumped the wall and bunt some heavily vegetated lantanas!  Hope this will protect the trees, before the lantana can cover all the sun from them. The destruction will continue till the lantanas are eradicated!  PS: As I write this mom burnt a switch! Love her!

I have been using chat GPT to assist me with interview questions and blog posts for my client. Ai is making life a lot easier to drive quality content. I also saw Ai in action on a movie editing project. Machine learning is going to be big! This frees up a lot of time for us mortals to enjoy the finer  things in life like gardening, making music, art and dance. But how this impacts the working class is yet to be seen. Because I could churn out a nice perfectly done professional writeup within seconds! 

Recently I was hired to do a job. Curious, I enquired about the guy I was replacing and quickly learnt that he spoke ill about the person who was paying him. Why did he work there if he was not comfortable in the first place? Find a boss or a wife you want to be loyal with! If not don’t do it at all. And if you still choose to stay in that uncomfortable place because of the perks, shut up, put your head down, work and get paid. This is a conversation I had with myself in the recent past. Thou shall never biteth the had that feedeth you! 

Student, (free lessons) is late for class, scheduled at 4:30. After waiting for 5 minutes, I texted his mom, no response. After waiting 10 minutes, I left a message to her saying  the class is cancelled.  I get a call after a few minutes from my student! Student: Sir, I’m online!  Me: What time is your class? S: Sir, 4:30  Me: What’s the time now?  S: Sir, I was online.  Me: I’ll repeat the question again, What is the time now?  S: Sir, it’s 4:55. Me: What time does your class end?    S: sir 5:00.  Me: We cannot have a productive class today. Let’s have it next week.  S: But sir I was waiting online from 4:20 Me: Where were you waiting? I did not see you online.  S: Sir really!  Me: See, J***** your class was at 4:30. I was online, I did not see you online, so I texted your mom, who is at work. I didn’t get any response from her. Now, if you were waiting for me for so long online and you did not see me, what are you supposed to do?  S: But sir I was online…and from 4:30… Me: J*****, I’

I got on dating apps to find love but I don’t think I’m ready for this. I’m going to delete the apps. The women I match with are not interesting. And I’m losing a lot of time and energy making conversations and small talk. I’m done! 

Red pill or blue pill? What if you had a choice?  Would you choose one over the other?  What if you want ‘em both?  What if taking both killed you? 

 I have not been getting enough time to play the banjo or learn its tuning. It’s taking longer than expected. Thanks to a super busy lesson schedule that I have taken upon myself. I’ve been feeling the heat as well with the weather going all berserk! Must get into the banjo learning routine soon before it’s too late. 

Patriarchy has ruined it she says,  I politely told her we are not all the same!  Even within our own genders.  Men have ruined it!  Men!   

I was given a banjo by the band I’m going to soon be a part of. Now it’s time to start learning the songs. Some tunes are played by Bela Fleck and it’s quite challenging. Other songs are familiar and so damn easy to play. The strings seemed to be a little rusted. I think I have to change the strings. But start learning the songs I must. 

I always look forward to Tuesdays. This is the day I have all the time to myself. I sleep in, plan my week forward, reflect reorganize and relax. I structure the rest of the week and tweak my schedules on this day. Looking back, I’m waking up to a clean house, organized thoughts, scheduled work but I can improve on sleep quality, spend more time reading and building Exodus Media, now that we started blogging for our client, Edge 3D  Technologies, Tuesdays and Fridays will see some blog posts. Looking forward to a day filled with puzzle solving, guitar playing day! 

My niece went to Orion mall yesterday and I gave her some pocket money of ₹500. She came back with a 300 piece jungle-themed jigsaw puzzle! We are now in the process of solving it. We cannot solve this in one sitting. So we use this to take a break from our “busy” work schedules.  My student Muthu, said as soon as we solve this he will bring another 500 piece puzzle to solve! He also has a 1000 piece puzzle which will happen eventually!  I think this puzzle will take a couple of more days to solve. Looking forward to finishing it! 

I’m progressing well with my piano classes and I have started my reading level 2B. I find it even more challenging and I find it difficult if I have missed a day practicing it. The rhythm complexities and quick reading is getting harder to read. I’m quite enjoying it. I need to get done with the piano work early in the day from now on. 

I got me two hives of stingless bees, ! My parents transported it from Kerala. Now I must protect the hive from potential threats like spiders, lizards, ants etc. stingless honey bee’s honey is recommended by Ayurveda for its medicinal and healing properties. I have to find the right place to keep them. 

Someone very dear to me is going through a surgery today for prostate cancer. I was shocked to know about this just yesterday. This person, sent me uplifting forwards and messages every single day on WhatsApp since he was diagnosed. I sometimes ignore it.  He silently suffered through it, kept a smile on his face. But they diagnosed it early before it could spread and the surgery will bring all the healing he needs.  We can be a little more kind to everyone around us and there’s always time to laugh and play even though the tough times. 

 Yesterday, Sahana aunty, (Denzils mother) introduced me to Renuka. I had asked her for some contact for cleaning up my place periodically. So she agreed to come twice a week, Monday and Thursday after 1:00. This would work for me as well as it wouldn’t clash with my lessons. So this gives me some time and energy to work on other important things. 

Giant African snails are invading my backyard again! They are voracious eaters and are capable of eating any kind of vegetation! They grow to the size bigger than an average hand! The last one I found also hissed loudly to terrify me.  But it’s quite easy to kill them! Just pour some salt water over them and they melt away! 

Andy, Solomon and I got on FaceTime today we chatted while working. I got a lot of work done today. I designed the blog section for Edge 3D tech and also wrote one blog. This will go on all their platforms tomorrow morning.  We were chatting and without us realizing we were drawn to work. Solomon was playing some John Mayer in the background. Now to complete my pending work and chores! Feed the dog, class with Avir, piano assignments and setting up my practice space. 

The struggle is real Not for money,  But for healthy nourishing,  And some time.  Cooking takes a lot of hours   Ordering oily food,  Does not empower!  Then came this plan, to order!  Bhojanam from Andhra,  Such a life saver.  One big meal for the day,  Eat leftovers the next!