Lockdown stories : The haircut

I have forever planned to write a blog on haircut, barbershops having experienced it in rural, semi-urban and big city India and then having had my hair cut in a couple of other Asian countries and of course in a few cities in US. That detailed piece will maybe come some other day, but this is specific to events of this year 2020 - a year like no other. Having tried a few options and given the fact that I'm born stingy ( always blame the genes when you can), it meant haircuts in US are done in one of those chain shops with ever changing crew and getting a decent vs bad haircut is like a coin toss. My wife is usually very critical of my choice of these cheap haircut places and usually when I get back after a haircut it will usually be met with a disapproving look from her. Anyway the hair grows back quickly and within a week or so the slightly bad haircut won't be visible so I keep sticking to the cheap haircut option. 

So we start the story of haircuts in 2020. I had a haircut in the early Feb and usually I go for a haircut every 5-6 weeks or so. By the time the mid march arrived we had heard of the first case in our county and since this was very close to home it was treated with sudden realization that its a real thing and nearby. For a few weeks all we discussed and focused on was the virus and in all this activity I forgot to get my haircut done and after 3rd week of march I realized I do need a haircut and actively considered going for a good short one to last me for a couple of months till the virus goes away ( so much hope we had then!). But my wife shot that idea down by deeming haircut as non-essential and unnecessary risk. We were getting even grocery online so what was the need to go and spend 15 min next to someone who might be a carrier. I think I was just a week late at that point, anyway the short window to get the haircut done was missed so long hair it was. I did grow my hair long some 12-13 years back, but I was much younger then and could afford to look weird  without caring much. Spoke to a few friends and they were all in same boat, some were willing to take a risk and get haircut. In tamil it was labelled "Uyira - Mayira" choice! ( Translation probably won't work)

However by the time end of April arrived, I was positively sick of the long hair look and irritated my wife no end by constantly fiddling with my hair. The times were such that we were pulling our hairs out.  Then internet came to rescue as usual and a little bit of research gave me a few options for good self use trimmer for hair, but all were sold out. So landed on the regular hair trimmers similar to the ones used by hair stylists in the chain shops I visit - maybe they use a little more fancy ones. Finally the critic of my haircuts got the opportunity to do my hair by herself and even in the first attempt I have to say she fared better than maybe some of poor haircuts I had. For a home haircut it was a resounding success and thank to an ever willing wife who cuts my hair every few months I didn't have to endure long hair after that ( not writing this because I need her to do this, she doesn't keep up with this forgotten blog!). Now she does a really good job of cutting my hair that sometimes I don't even realize that I'm cutting hair at home. Plus this also makes her comments about bad haircuts reasonable as even a part timer is able to at most times do a better job.

Last week we ended up doing video chat with my wife's cousin's family as my daughter wanted to say hi to her cousins who she didn't know existed till then but once she realized their existence kept pestering to see them on video chat and say hi to them. We saw that my wife's cousin was sporting a long hair and his son was also having long hair and my 4 year old was surprised to see boys having long hair. While they explained to my daughter that they are sporting long hair because you can't go and get a haircut these days because of covid, my daughter was not buying it. But my dad always gets his hair cut by my mom... he never goes to any shop ... its easy she added! 

Just one of those 2020 things I guess, haircuts at home . There are lot of things we take for granted  about pre covid life that I miss but haircut is slightly lower on the list. Sure its a routine part of life and stuff and of those chores which are actually fun but getting this done at home isn't all that bad even if you cannot afford to complain this time about a bad haircut ;)

Lockdown stories - The first proper shopping trip

I have been an Amazon prime customer since the time I came to US and have used online shopping for lot of stuff over the years including grocery at times. However the suburbia I live in is practically built for in store shopping for regular stuff you need. Of course there is no personal local grocer and it is all chain stores but again after a while there is some sort of familiarity and rhythms to your usual life. Also supermarket grocery stores are quintessential American staple. These trips to supermarkets or dairy stores or hardware stores or Indian grocery stores become part of your regular weekend routine. The stores are pretty big in most places with sufficient space for you to shop and parking is always a breeze where I live as space is always in abundance so there is no hardship in going to shop in person and time is always never in short supply this point of my life with little one who has not reached a stage where she is pushed into lot of activities / studies and what not and when she really cares about going out on trips in car with dad even if its to buy some veggies or to pick up milk cartons from a store.

 Since the arrival of pandemic and general panic associated with it, we made a decision to avoid doing any in person shopping sometime in middle of March. The self imposed rule got relaxed occasionally after June when everyone realized this is not going away soon. I started making trips to buy things that we really needed, but it was just me initially and then after a point my wife also started stepping outside home for occasional shopping trips. However we didn't let our daughter go for any such shopping expedition and for most part that's what most parents who could help it did. But with all such self enforced isolations and precautionary measures fatigue sets in and I could see over a period of time the number of folks coming to stores and folks bringing their kids along as well started going up. One day when we drove up in car and then just one of us went in to pick up stuff we had pre-ordered online and came back my daughter was very disappointed that she could not go inside the store. As usual I tried to explain that there is corona virus so we have to be careful and then she pointed at some other kids going in with parents and asked if it doesn't apply for those folks.

By the time last week of September came, we sort of realized we are going to live this way for another year so might as adjust accordingly. I finally decided its been a while and took my daughter with me for a shopping trip to buy some Milk from a dairy/ice cream store. We picked morning 9 AM to ensure is not much crowd inside the store (there was just one other customer) which sells ice-creams and sundaes and stuff on one side and has milk and limited collection of fruits, veggies, bread, frozen food in another section. I had coached the little one enough times about not touching anything and ensuring facemask is in proper position and not fiddling with it. In a well practiced move we swooped into the store scanned around and saw there was no human being in sight in the Milk and veggies aisles and moved purposefully and picked up a few cartons of milk. As well walked towards the checkout counter, my daughter saw some 'goldfish crackers' and asked for it and got it. That perhaps was the first impulse buy in a long long time in a world of well planned online shopping or online order and store pickup shopping to just browse casually and pick up something that strikes your fancy at the moment with no real desire until that point, that particular purchase and the shopping trip for a minute made me feel like things were normal again.

Lockdown stories : Where did my movie go?

It was sometime in mid April 2020, we were all in the middle of stay at home time with outside movements totally stopped ( on our own accord).  My daughter was pulled from pre-school by us once we started working from home and cases got noticed in our county and by now all pre-schools/daycare and regular schools were closed as well. We had tried our best to limit TV time to just 1 movie during weekends till now but stay at home while we worked ended up opening the floodgates to incredible amount of TV watching. 

Initially she was not picky but we don't really use cable TV at home, most of our viewing is through streaming services and unlike cable this means you have to pick the content and play it. Luckily Disney+ had launched early in the year and its content library was good enough to keep the little one occupied for 3-4 hours in a day while rest of her time was spent in playing or coloring or reading stories together whenever we could spare some time between our work schedules. 

So Disney magic worked wonders as expected and everything went fine until one day there was some glitch in the app and it won't play anything. I was busy with some work when this happened one weekday afternoon so didn't have time to figure out what the error code shown on screen was and try to get Disney+ back on, instead I decided to pull out the last resort option Cable TV. Thanks to my employer, I have free cable tv but we never watch that at home but I quickly got that loaded in my tv and some kids movie was on and I thought this would be something she will like and got her setup and returned to my work. Within 5 mins I got angry protests and the little one was upset again that her movie was gone. "What happened to my movie, where did my movie go" she kept saying as some insurance ad was playing on TV.  Her eyes were full of tears and face had a look of being robbed of some hard earned reward. That was when I realized having never watched linear television before and just used to streaming TV in the last 3-4 months of TV watching, so she had never seen an ad before!!!

I guess we all grew up watching TV as we knew it full of Ads and sort of got used to them as a feature and in fact my wife says ( and its true of many others I knew) that as a kid she liked Ads more than what was on TV and would get upset when Ads went away and some other regular grown ups program came on. I tried explaining this concept called ads but the her movie resumed soon and she went back to it. I guess she got used to the concept eventually and by end of the day started humming that super annoying insurance ad jingle!  

Lockdown Stories - The Monkey Puzzle

As part of the social distancing / stay at home became very prevalent and fully enforced by April first week, it became hard to get stuff through Online delivery. I had stopped going to stores since Mid march and relied on home delivery, as we entered April I realized I had been lucky in the initial few weeks as most people either bought in bulk or had not fully embraced online grocery ordering. Luckily Walmart started upping its delivery game at that time so decided to try them.

We usually don't buy fresh produce from Walmart and I had not used their grocery app before. So started using their app to build a cart and was adding veggies and fruits and added Banana. While other apps I have used so far generally require you to add the number of bananas you want to buy these guys actually had it as number of banana bunches you want to buy. I clean missed the 'bunch' part and added 3 to the cart.  All good so far, I had finished the cart and then did a review with wife to check if we are missing anything. She was not happy seeing just 3 bananas added, add a few more she said and I did. I like to think she saw the phone when this happened but she is sure she didn't and perhaps that sealed it. I added 6 bunches of banana in the order and submitted it and the order was to be delivered same day evening.

The order got delivered and I picked up stuff from outside the door and moved some stuff to a 'safe corner' and then started with veggies and fruits which we wash, clean, dry and store in fridge or keep in right place. Somehow ended up picking all other fruits and veggies except bananas and then suddenly saw that there were like couple of bags of bananas. Quick scan of the reciept revealed it was like 12 lbs ( 6 kgs) almost. For a few mins we had no idea what to do with this and I thought what the guy delivering this order would have thought as there was like 6 bags of bananas. Must have thought some monkey lives in this house.

Our little monkey does like bananas, but between her and us still the consumption was going to be limited and offering it to anyone else in the neighborhood was out of question because of covid situation. So first we tried hanging it from the pots and pans holder which in turn hung from ceiling in the middle of kitchen and was more of a decorative thing than anything practical. So we hung up a few bunches like good old 'palacharakku/maligai kadai', the humble all in one small grocery stores in India. The theory we had was that by hanging it like it was in the tree/plant we could maybe convince the bananas to not ripen very quickly.

The house was quite a sight with all those bananas in kitchen and the smell after a while, despite the interesting attempt banana ripened soon. Since we were at home in a lockdown with lot of flour and time at hand the bananas got transformed into banana bread and cake of sorts.  Staying at home the cake and banana bread was good to much thorough as we processed all the news and sort of eased some of the worries! 

lockdown stories - Let there be milk

As we went through suggested stay at home period we did have option to go get groceries but I stopped doing that after mid March and decided to cut risks by just ordering stuff online. This worked fine by using Amazon Fresh ( for groceries) and Costco / Instacart for bulk order of larger quantity stuff. All this went fine initially in March but as we moved alon so many other folks in the area had decided to go down the same route and Online delivery companies could not scale up to the increased demand.  I found that Amazon was not able to pick up any online grocery orders from nearby whole foods store because of high demand and there went the easy option of getting stuff from a store I was used to.  I switched to online grocery orders through Instacart and tried an order and it worked fine but by April first even that was not available immediately, there were dates out in future through this platform.

We were set for a while with basics and staple foods but milk was one major issue and  with instacart ordering from local stores delayed and Costco online order had a wait time of 5 days because they did not have enough delivery folks we were facing rationing challenge. To be clear - I'm indeed extremely lucky and privileged to be where I'm, being able to live in a first world country and having a job that can be done from home which enables me to live through even such crisis without much of an issue, so in reality it was not a huge deal compared to what lot of folks without this privilege face. But again as someone who provides for a family, having a young child who needs 3 glasses of milk, it was strange to be staring at a scenario where you cannot get milk. To top it further we lost a can of milk which was within its expiry date but the milk had gone sour ( something that I have never seen before in last 7 years! ).  We converted the split milk to paneer and it did work out well to an extent but given our lifestyle where we consume lot of milk and curds this loss of a can of milk ensured we hit end of our milk stock earlier than anticipated. So we decided  its not biggie we will skip Coffee / Tea for a couple of days to ensure our daughter has milk  until one of the online orders gets picked up. Just as soon as we made the decision, I got a text message that my Costco order has been picked up by 'Jesus C'.  Somehow the order which was due only the next day evening got picked up early the previous day morning and got to me when I needed.

There surely is a God somewhere out to help out and listening to you, Jesus did deliver milk that day and the paneer from split milk actually turned out to be pretty good.

Lockdown stories - As it began - Mid March

March 2020

It started like any like usual, nothing untoward and life was moving along at usual pace. COVID19 was getting more news time and we were talking about how it was present in many other places outside of China and the fact that it could spread was getting traction. There was genuine concern all around that this could be much worse than flu to which it was initially compared to. Like anything else the reactions were getting politicized and based on which side of the political spectrum you were aligned to people started churning out very predictable reactions. Again nothing at start of march even prepared us or made us aware of what lay ahead.

One interesting thing that happened was that at work there was an expectation to be always in office and having done a lot of Work From Home over the years including years at a stretch, not something I was comfortable with. But with expectation set this way as a leader from company in my area I had to set the right example so had started turning up daily at work including fridays ( a new first for me in like 7 years). Against this backdrop around in the first week of March suddenly a rumor cropped up that someone on our office floor had tested positive and it spread quickly and informal decision was made that we can work from home for a couple of days until we know the truth. That first weekend we out shopping for groceries as a family and went to a couple of places to get stuff. Sounds unreal but as I type this now, little did I realize that such moments were disappearing quickly. We spent the weekend talking to friends and family in Seattle, WA which was under proper lockdown to cheer them up and also to find out more on how they are handling as there was a slight feeling maybe the entire country could get locked down to ensure nothing gets here as a precautionary step. The local Costco confirmed suspicions that its not just us but so many other folks felt the same way by looking at what people were purchasing during the first weekend in March at Dallas. We grabbed a couple of cartons of milk which is freeze packed or something like that which ensures they stay fresh for 6 months, thought it might come handy for the little one in case supply runs out if they impose like a few weeks lockdown suddenly.

Back at work, things just resumed as normal as it was discovered that someone who didn't like coming to office must have spread the rumor, the building admin/HR folks quickly stepped in to quash the rumor and also called out that the area and county did not have anyone positive yet. But the very next day we heard about someone in the county testing positive and later found his family was also positive. I think was like March 10th and we decided to cut risks and work from home going forward until we know better and pulled our daughter from her day care and decided to let her be at home as we  both worked from home.  On March 12 I had to travel to downtown office for an org meeting as they were going to change some of our teams and roles, I did not want to take bus or train like usual and did car pool with a team mate. At work met a few senior folks and they all were greeting everyone saying nice to meet you but don't mind we no longer do handshakes in current circumstance.  Once the meeting was over by 2 PM, we quickly headed back not wishing to stay much in office space given the risks and I had decided no more office for another month and nothing will make me get out anymore until things stabilize.

The count across the country was going up big time and every place was turning out to be a hotspot, there was no stoppage of work or no closures yet by March 13. I was working from home on that friday and someone messaged me to say he was planning to head to Indian store as he heard that people were doing desperate purchases and stocking up on stuff. Then he updated me later that he had to give up as the store had huge lines and people were just emptying the store buying up everything, the panic had truly set in. As we kept watching the news that day the reality set in, things were really really ugly and the country had missed an outside chance of clamping down early.

Towards end of that workday an email came from my company asking everyone to start fully working from home from coming monday onward as most of our jobs can be done from safety of our homes and we need to do that to ensure this is contained. That was a welcome relief, there was still nothing from Govt on any stoppage but lot of big private employers were taking this stuff to ensure their employees were safe. While chatting with colleagues and also with with friends working elsewhere found out that by 3rd week of March almost all companies with jobs involving computer and not requiring direct customer interaction switched to WFH.

The transformation was startling from how it all appeared to be something interesting and equally scary happening somewhere else in the world to somewhere else in the country where many near and dear ones lived to something that was right where you lived.

Note : This was written in early April based on what happened in March

Lockdown stories - before it all began

Jan / Feb 2020

We were planning a trip to Seattle for cousin's son's first b'day and we had two possible dates that we were considering as there were 2 different functions ( traditional one vs b'day party) in late Jan and mid Feb. So while debating if we can really go vs which function/event we target, my wife brought up the news of 'Corona Virus' which had erupted in far away China. Ah one of those virus stuff happening in some part of the globe I remarked, what about it I wondered. Well you know there are lot of folks from China in Seattle area and they travel frequently and the SeaTac airport could be an easy place to catch this thing was her counter argument. I thought it was silly to think something in China will get here and this could even be a problem, we booked tickets for Jan end itself to Seattle. The little one fell sick ( as it happens when you have non-cancellable tickets) the week before with ear infection but responded quickly to meds and was back to normal really fast. By then there was someone in WA state who did pass through Seattle airport who had this. Now my wife brought this up again and pointed out that didn't I tell you! You just brushed me off, see what has happened ... now look this up and decide if we want to go. We called our doctor who said she really cannot say anything and its unto us but as per govt advisory its very very minor thing so that's that. So we travelled with hand sanitizer which was used liberally during the flight by cleaning all surfaces we would touch and we also wore surgical face mask which was an odd sight in that airport with just 5-10 people at max wearing one. The trip was good we got back and settled into normal life, in fact we even forgot to wear the mask when we returned but did use hand sanitizer.

After a few weeks the case count started going up in the state of Washington and there were lot of theories floating around on twitter based on how this was playing out in China that this could spread far and wide. Lot of mainstream media folks were playing it down and making fun of tech community panicking early. I thought its best to use hand sanitizer more at work and ordered 3 small bottles and it didn't come in 2 days as usual and instead took more than a week. That in hindsight should have been the first clue that people were prepping by Feb 3rd week.

Nothing eventful except the case counts slowly started going up but this was still not big news and I certainly didn't do any planning yet or even carry those hand sanitizers I got to workplace.

Note : Writing this in March well into start our shelter in place, based on Jan / Feb events

2019 - List of books

Here comes the annual year end list of books read which I have been doing for a while now. Every year I look at some impressive lists online and by my cousins who read quite a bit and always think I should try to get there. This year perhaps marks my first serious attempt at reading a lot more than I usual do. I just did a few simple hacks this year, first put a cap on social media time and then gave up twitter and Facebook altogether ( for most part). This did free up a lot of time for books and I should say made me more happy.  I also wanted to read more fiction than what I usually do ( very little) so those were the goals when I set out at the start of this year.  Another helpful factor was audiobooks, by now I had grown very comfortable with this format and this did help in covering a lot books. Lot of my morning walks or afternoon post lunch walks during spring and autumn were spent listening to books.  So have split the list into fiction and non-fiction and also called out with * if the book was an audiobook. Have not added any comments/thoughts on already popular books.

So without much further ado here is the list


1) Who is Michael Ovitz - by Michael Ovitz*

Autobiography of a Hollywood / TV power broker  and covers his rise from total outsider hailing from lower middle class family to rising to be one of the best agents in Hollywood and setting up Creative Artists Agency.

2)  American Wolf  by Nate Blakeslee*

One of the best ones I read so far this year, this is the story of the Wolves being reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park which like most American parks was without any major predator. It was a big effect on the whole ecosystem ( this part has been well documented by Nat Geo and several others), but this book focuses more on the actual wolves through the eyes of a dedicated Wolf watching community in Yellowstone who chronicle the every day activities of serveral wolf packs. There is also a ripple effect when the wolf numbers start rising as it leads to inevitable human-wolf conflicts as the wolf pack range increases outside the park boundaries. Its an emotion packed narrative, like one of those Nat Geo/BBC Earth features where you try to visualize the lives of Wolf packs while also examining what goes on around them.


3)  The Last days of August by Jon Ronson*

A journalist investigates the death of an adult film star who died after twitter spat with a few other stars/players in adult film industry over some comments she made which got interpreted as homophobic. Everyone ganged up on her and it got called out as cyber bullying and it was believed it drove her to taking her own life in the end. This is an in depth investigation of this real incident as the author examines various possibilities including murder, to cut long story short ( not mystery, this was news) it was suicide but driven by so many factors. Just highlights some of the terrible things that happen to these  vulnerable women at the hands of a powerful industry and deals with abuse. Pretty dark and disturbing.

4)  Americana by Bhu Srinivasan*

Really fascinating book, long but much recommended. Covers the history of America from the time of Pilgrim fathers to modern day through the lens of capitalism. This truly is a land built by business, investments, technology and above all capitalism as the author sets out to showcase with wonderful examples.

5)  Boomerang by Michael Lewis - Michael Lewis is  again someone I always want to read given that he covers a wide variety of topics, always a good read. This one is about 2008 financial crisis as he traces it across Europe and back to US. Truth is always stranger than fiction, this is one such tale.

6)  Prediction Machines by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans* - On AI

7) Lean Startup by Eric Ries

8)  Zero to One by Peter Thiel

9) Moneyball by Michael Lewis

10) Airbnb Story by Leigh Gallagher - recommended by a good friend, who thought I will like this and it was indeed a great read.

11) The Sharing Economy by Arun Sundararajan* - This was referenced in airbnb book, so had to check this out.

12) Born a Crime by Trevor Noah* - Stories about his childhood in apartheid South Africa as a mixed race kid.

13) Rise and Fall of Nations by Ruchir Sharma*

14) The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

I joined a book club at work and this was the book of the month which we had to read and then discuss together. Turned out to be a pretty good read for all of us living in a consumption driven economy, the amount of choices while seemingly unlimited also pose the challenge of decision making and pressure to make optimal choices which make it so hard to pick from the myriad choices. Was a really good read on the science of decision making.

15) Eager - The  Surprising, Secret Lives of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb* - This was a delightful book on one of the most under appreciated super stars of North American ecology.

16) Becoming by Michelle Obama*


17) A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson*

I always try to read a Bill Bryson book every year. This is among his best I think. Truly awesome book and something everyone should read. He makes science so accessible and this book had a really vast/broad scope and he manages to keep us entertained and informed while moving across topics with typical ease. Lot of things we might have read in school science classes about various discoveries and inventions, it manages to be fascinating, informative and fluid as Bryson guides us across ages of scientific discovery. This one book I will read again and will still remain fascinated.
PS: Its super looong

18) 21 Lessons for 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari*

19)  It Happened in America by Lila Perl

This was a chance discovery in an AirBnb vacation home, I read a bit and then came home and borrowed this from library. Talks about the 50 states in US with some general description of the original of the state and its name and also contains an account of some person from that state to capture the essence of the state. Most of the stories are set in 1800s except for a few in mid 1900s for some states. Good way to know about American states!

20) The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by Jack Bogle*

21)  Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches - The Riddles of Culture by Marvin Harris

Why is Cow revered by Hindus, why do Muslims hate pigs, why do wars happen? This book comes up with logical, seemingly rational explanation for lot of these things. Very interesting stuff.

22)  Range by David Epstein*

Really fascinating book talking about generalists. I could connect a lot with this as I have felt a lot of times that I'm a jack of all trades without having in depth knowledge of anything. This book venerates such traits, so was a positive validation!

23) Educated - Tara Westover*

This was part of several year end lists and for good reason. Story of a girl from Utah who grew up in a self sustaining farm/scrap yard in rural Idaho under  crazy parents who did not believe in the 'system' and did not send kids to school and held outlandish beliefs about Government and society. Was disturbing at times but again a story of courage and determination pulling through and how she overcomes lack of schooling to make it to college by self study and get her PhD.

24)  Atomic Habits by James Clear*

This book and #27 below somewhat helped me in thinking further on what I can do to improve certain habits and get to my goals.

25) The case against Sugar* by Gary Taubes

Compelling argument against Sugar Industry and the product itself in the way it is consumed today.
PS: In 2019, I went sugar free in Coffee and Tea. So this book acted as validation of sorts.

26) Eating Tomorrow - Timothy A Wise

27) The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg*

28) Coromandel : A History of South India by Charles Allen - A much recommended book, this is again super informative and has a broad canvas and I learnt a lot of new things. I pick this up and read a chapter or two and then pick it up later and read a few chapters.

29) Creativity Inc by Ed Catamull

I had attended a Product Management workshop and the trainer had recommended this one. This is the story of how they get things done at Pixar. I'm a huge fan of Pixar movies and they have an incredible success rate in terms of delivering amazing movies and Ed Catamull who headed Pixar and later Disney Animation ( with Steve Jobs also around as Pixar boss) explains their secret sauce. Sort of guide on how good creative organization / teams are built. They just focused on removing obstacles and let people unleash their creativity and positive energy. Good read.

30) India Moving by Chimney Tumbe* - Heard about this through Amit Varma's Pragati podcast. Migration is a topic I'm really interested in for obvious reasons. This book traces history, patterns of migrations in India across last 3 centuries, covers migration heavy belts within India and goes over Indian diaspora spread across the world.

31) New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop - by  Fatima Bhutto

World for most part is driven by western cultural influences, this one covers the ones from East which has takers across the world - Bollywood movies/music/dance, Turkish soap operas ( Dizi) and K-POP of course. Driven by reporting from Middle East, Turkey and South America, was informative but very jumbled timelines. While some portions are from discussions with people on streets ( like in Peru, Lebanon) others are from interviews with execs, power players and perhaps personal circle ( for Bollywood) which makes the generalizations and sweeping statements a bit uneven and off putting at times.

32) The Social Leap by William von Hippel

This is an interesting tour through our evolutionary past from apes to modern humans and how our mind evolved. Core concept is that we are what we are because we are social and learnt to work with groups and grew to like and support fellow beings  and hate/oppose the 'others'.  The social group dynamics were fascinating and explains the echo bubble and the camps we see in social media these days perfectly well. As he puts it we love to exaggerate and we are good at believing each other's bullshit when it suits us as a group. That is how we survive and evolved!  Very good read.

Fiction :

33) Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Story of a slave girl from a Southern Plantation from hell making a run for it from oppressive masters to North where Slavery is abolished through underground railroad network operated by helpful whites. It is a powerful and gut wrenching narrative of the terrible life for slaves in that era. It is also a story of courage, hope and inherent good in human nature coming forward even in bleakest of times and helping. Highly recommended.

34)  The Third Man by Mani Sheriar

35)  Identity Thief by Rachel Rosenthal

36) Ninth and Nowhere  by Jeffery Deaver

37) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

38) Panchinko by Min Jin Lee*

Historic family saga spanning 4 generations of Korean family in early 20th century when Korea was occupied by Japan and continues in Japan where Koreans live as 2nd class citizens.  One of the first fiction audiobooks I tried and I found that reading fiction through audiobooks actually work. This was a book which shed light on lot of things I didn't know about - how the Japanese invasion and world war ravaged the life of Koreans and how they got treated subsequently in Japan. 

39) Evil Eye by Madhuri Shekar*

This was a short audio book ( less than 2 hours) which really employed this format really well. The story is about a few months in the live of an Indian american girl with parents living in India. It is covered fully through phone conversations and voicemails. This starts as relationship one and quickly takes a dark turn into an occultist thriller.

40) The Tenth Island : Finding Joy, Beauty and Unexpected Love in the Azores by Diana Marcum

Stumbled upon this through Amazon Prime as this was among free books for the year, since I was anyway exploring themes like migration and sense of belonging this one slotted right in. Based on author's semi autobiographical take on her time in Azores.

41)  Bright by Duanwad Pimwana

Picked this up blindly from Library. Set in Thailand, this is an English translation. Story of an abandoned 5 year old boy who is left on city streets in the working class neighborhood where the family lived until now after the parents separate and go their own ways. The boy waits expecting someone to come for him and the neighborhood pitches in and helps the boy out. Each chapter is a story based on some incident/event in the neighborhood. Its tragic at one level but from boy's perspective its still fine as he still has friends and folks to look after him and world as viewed by him while still being unfair and harsh place is still fun and adventure as he feels he is more free and the book does pack its fair share of humor as well. It comes across as tragic and heartwarming at the same time.


42) The Fox and Dr.Shimamura by Christine Wunnicke

Its a sly little novel set in early 19th century Japan of a psychologist who both doctor and perhaps the patient as well. Several unreliable narratives with quirky characters, blend of orientalism set in Europe as well as Eastern mysticism in Japan. Picked this up from curated international section in Library, this way beyond what I read and made no sense until it sort of comes together in the end. I would say it was an unique and rewarding experience.

43) Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong

Indukka had recommended this a lot and this was part of her list earlier, so wanted to try this and it was available in my library so picked this up and dived into it. This was a nice and comforting read which transports you to Shangai as we follow along Inspector Chen through various bylanes and the city itself is a character and comes alive in this series. This is an inspector who is also a poet and well read and is quite a foodie as well. I quite enjoyed the amount of attention paid to food the characters consume with vivid details. Overall a well crafted mystery with very well fleshed out characters and brings out the early 90s China truly alive. Can't recommend this enough to folks, such a delightful read.

44)  Loyal Character dancer by Qiu Xiaolong

45) When Red is Black by Qiu Xiaolong

46) Amazon collection of short stories* by Andy Weir, Paul Trembley, N.K Jemisin, Amor Towles

47) A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong

48) Where the Crawdad Sings by Delia Owens

Recent  2019 best-seller fiction list topper which I snagged from library and got 7 days to read it. Finished it within 2 days. Was a good read.


So that was the list, it was challenge remembering and noting down the books read as I got it from various sources. Ended up at 48, while the cricket fan in me rues missing a half century milestone, it still is quite a remarkable journey for me. I feel like I have smashed some ceiling or wall in terms of ability to read. Its 4 books a month which seems quite a lot. I have been reading quite a few blogs or helpful articles about reading itself and forming better habits. So one advice I implemented is to not trudge through things, I think I must have dropped like 10 books after reading it for a while and only continued if I thought I liked it. Other of course was to get away from social media and channelize the time into reading books.

I'm also super thankful for having some good friends who talk about books and my cousins who post some incredible reads every year. Also big thanks to the Library system in US which is simply amazing in the amount of good books they stock and the ease of access in getting books from libraries or online or via Libby App. I visited the Libraries in my neighborhood often to pick up books for my daughter or with parents ( who read a lot when they visit), this gave some chance to browse a bit and pick up things on a whim. I feel I was doing a lot of planned reading and wanted to shake things up by picking up something random every once in a while outside my usual comfort zone and this year as well I picked a few like that and mostly they were good. Thanks also to Amazon for the amount of free books they offer to 'Prime' members and of late there are some really nice ones that come up in that list. There is also a feature to listen and read as well ( audible + kindle).
Also returned to reading dead tree  (paper) books ( the library ones mentioned above) though majority of what I read were e-books and audio books. So far I still don't see any difference in my reading no matter what format the content is delivered, if the book is good I get hooked and read it. I think I did improve the amount of fiction I read as well as I covered 16 fiction vs 32 non-fiction. The ratio was more lop-sided last 5-6 years.

So overall it was a good year as I met/crossed the goals, I do hope to sustain this pace next year and hopefully do 50 books. Of course its not the number that matters, just that setting such a goal and an effort to read a variety of books ensures you do end up reading a lot more rather spend time on something else which in reflection turns out to be not all that productive or satisfying.

The year that was 2019

Doing a quick bullet point version of 2019 what worked and did not. I'm hoping put it out there helps in driving the habits more effectively as I have tried improving my habits this year to do better and be a better version of myself.

- Resolved to cut down my smartphone addiction habit

There is a good reason to put this at the top as this was one of my biggest 'to tackle' item. I think I did fairly well in this one as can be seen in the next item. Apple had introduced Screen time  feature with ability to limit time for social media, using this feature helped me to a large extent. I had set small goals of cutting down the time and then gradually was able to walk away from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. I do maintain the accounts and check them occasionally but it did free up a lot of time.

- Aimed to read much more books than I usually do

This will count as a big success as I improved both in number and in terms of genres and overall satisfaction. I really did read a lot this year and the time for this came purely from freed up  smart phone time

- Work on fitness & health

Needs more work on this one, I did do lot of walking but did not do any running this year. One a positive note started doing Yoga, but again did it only for like 2 months ( around 12 sessions) before winter and laziness set in.  Also ticked off the learn something new box with Yoga

- Spend quality time with daughter

- Try to cut down on procrastination and do things more methodically

- Try to take up new challenges at work and be more bold

- Think and write down thoughts and refine them - this one I didn't do that often

- Floss teeth daily & better dental hygiene - Again didn't do well on this count but hopefully can improve this next year as dental issues are always a problem ( I blame my genes). Got an electric toothbrush this year and hopefully this is used unlike the water flosser I purchased more than a year ago which remains unused after first few weeks.