I turned 27 couple of days ago and scribbling about the year that's gone has been a ritual. So this post is that ritual. In my post last year (read here), I wrote about how I joined a B school with certain expectations and thanks to lack of my research, I was in for a few surprises. However, I also wrote of reasons to be happy. Not much has changed after I wrote that, except for some new lessons learnt both professionally and personally, new friends made, and some new plans chalked out with respect to my career post MBA. Two years of life at a B School deserves a separate blog post, which I'm eager to publish as soon as possible.
Travel
I started my year with a solo trip to Jaipur, Pushkar and Udaipur. While I had been to Jaipur earlier and I knew what to expect in Udaipur because of my readings, Pushkar caught me by surprise. I never thought I'd like the place so much. Despite being a beautiful town, Pushkar has a lot to offer for solo travellers, one being Zostel, a chain of hostels that are a boon for backpackers. Zostel has it's presence in only a few places in India for now, and I hope they will expand soon. I also went to Goa twice this year and have made multiple trips to Mysore and Chikkamagaluru. A bike trip to Bandipur and a trip to Hampi were great fun too.
Mumbai
The highlight of the year has to be my stay in Mumbai, arguably the most cosmopolitan city in India, for a couple of months during my summer internship. I had made a short visit to Mumbai earlier, but this time, I had about 8 weeks to explore the city and I did manage to live the city to the extent possible. A period of two months in a new city is ideal to explore it. It's neither so short that you can't find enough time to roam around, nor too long to make you lazy enough to procrastinate the things that you wanted to do. I lived the city through its trains, beaches, theatres, movies, nightlife, diversity, history, architecture and so on. Also, there was something about the slums in Mumbai that alternately fascinated and bothered me. It nudged me to reread one of my favourite books "Behind the beautiful forevers".
Plays and Movies
Unfortunately, last year, I must have hardly watched 4-5 plays that I loved and would watch again. The rest of them were pretty dull. However, this was compensated by some great movies that I watched, both old and new, in multiple languages. Notably, a few new talented folks in the Kannada movie industry have laid the foundation for the much needed revival of Kannada movies. It all started with Lucia and Ulidavaru Kandante back in 2013, the two fine movies that encouraged a bunch of fresh talents to make some interesting movies without having had to worry much about their acceptance. And 2016 was even more special because of a fantastic movie called "Thithi", which was internationally acclaimed. Thithi was followed by a few other decent movies in Kannada, but none of them could even come close to it.
And thanks to YouTube, I could enjoy watching some of the finest works by Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Mani Ratnam as film-makers and Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Anant Nag and Mohanlal, to name a few, as actors.
Reading
And finally, here's the list of books that I read in 2016. The priority this year, was to re-read a few books that I had read a few years back.
1. The Fault Lines - Raghuram Rajan
2. The Argumentative Indian - Amartya Sen
3. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
4. The Mahatma and The Poet - compiled and edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
5. Swami and Friends, Bachelor of Arts, The Vendor of Sweets - R K Narayan ( Reread)
6. Sophie's Choice - William Styron (Reread)
7. Behind the beautiful forevers - Katherine Boo (Reread)
8. An era of darkness - Shashi Tharoor (incomplete)
9. Old Path White Clouds - Thich Nhat Hanh (incomplete)
Of the above, The White Tiger and Behind the beautiful forevers have made it to my list of "all-time favourites".
As I'm about to complete my MBA and then waste time for a couple of months, I'm looking forward to get back to work after 3 long years. And now it's time to end this self obsessed post.
Travel
I started my year with a solo trip to Jaipur, Pushkar and Udaipur. While I had been to Jaipur earlier and I knew what to expect in Udaipur because of my readings, Pushkar caught me by surprise. I never thought I'd like the place so much. Despite being a beautiful town, Pushkar has a lot to offer for solo travellers, one being Zostel, a chain of hostels that are a boon for backpackers. Zostel has it's presence in only a few places in India for now, and I hope they will expand soon. I also went to Goa twice this year and have made multiple trips to Mysore and Chikkamagaluru. A bike trip to Bandipur and a trip to Hampi were great fun too.
Mumbai
The highlight of the year has to be my stay in Mumbai, arguably the most cosmopolitan city in India, for a couple of months during my summer internship. I had made a short visit to Mumbai earlier, but this time, I had about 8 weeks to explore the city and I did manage to live the city to the extent possible. A period of two months in a new city is ideal to explore it. It's neither so short that you can't find enough time to roam around, nor too long to make you lazy enough to procrastinate the things that you wanted to do. I lived the city through its trains, beaches, theatres, movies, nightlife, diversity, history, architecture and so on. Also, there was something about the slums in Mumbai that alternately fascinated and bothered me. It nudged me to reread one of my favourite books "Behind the beautiful forevers".
Plays and Movies
Unfortunately, last year, I must have hardly watched 4-5 plays that I loved and would watch again. The rest of them were pretty dull. However, this was compensated by some great movies that I watched, both old and new, in multiple languages. Notably, a few new talented folks in the Kannada movie industry have laid the foundation for the much needed revival of Kannada movies. It all started with Lucia and Ulidavaru Kandante back in 2013, the two fine movies that encouraged a bunch of fresh talents to make some interesting movies without having had to worry much about their acceptance. And 2016 was even more special because of a fantastic movie called "Thithi", which was internationally acclaimed. Thithi was followed by a few other decent movies in Kannada, but none of them could even come close to it.
And thanks to YouTube, I could enjoy watching some of the finest works by Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Mani Ratnam as film-makers and Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Anant Nag and Mohanlal, to name a few, as actors.
Reading
And finally, here's the list of books that I read in 2016. The priority this year, was to re-read a few books that I had read a few years back.
1. The Fault Lines - Raghuram Rajan
2. The Argumentative Indian - Amartya Sen
3. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
4. The Mahatma and The Poet - compiled and edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
5. Swami and Friends, Bachelor of Arts, The Vendor of Sweets - R K Narayan ( Reread)
6. Sophie's Choice - William Styron (Reread)
7. Behind the beautiful forevers - Katherine Boo (Reread)
8. An era of darkness - Shashi Tharoor (incomplete)
9. Old Path White Clouds - Thich Nhat Hanh (incomplete)
Of the above, The White Tiger and Behind the beautiful forevers have made it to my list of "all-time favourites".
As I'm about to complete my MBA and then waste time for a couple of months, I'm looking forward to get back to work after 3 long years. And now it's time to end this self obsessed post.
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