/dev/random

 I kind of went more than a week offline to complete this book. After a hectic week at work and a couple of errands at home, I went on a mission to complete this book left hanging for a month atleast. I started reading this book while waiting for passport renewal and for odd reasons my application for tatkal got rejected. Actually I was questioned for the first time my lastname is my father's name and hence they can't renew my passport via tatkal process. After explaining the Assistant Passport Officer how father's name is chosen over caste names in Tamil Nadu as last name, he agreed to renew via normal process instead of tatkal. Though I portrayed TamilNadu a progressive state in the conversation, it's definitely casteist. Though I didn't like to identify myself with either the caste name or father's name, I was put in a position to fight for the father's name as last name. In a way it's my right. I went through an identity crisis when I started the boo...

 Animal farm is a classic by George Orwell. I have read Animal Farm atleast twice before picking up this week for Dialogues with Books. Each time I got a different perspective while reading Animal Farm. This time I had read some backstories of First world war, Russian Revolution, Second world war and that gave a complete perspective of the book. Infact I would say I have understood the satire much better than all the previous reads. Title: Animal Farm Author: George Orwell Synopsis from Goodreads: When  Animal Farm  was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh. I'm not going to talk about various interpretations of Animal Farm and how the satire relates to the various events during the Russian Revolution and world wars. I'm thinking of ...

What Since the start of the pandemic, my routine has definitely changed. It did cast a behavioural shift in my way of handling things. I was missing a sense of calmness in my day to day life. A lot changed in this one and a half years and my mind is still trying to find peace with all of this. My workspace one fine day shifted 24*7 completely to my bedroom like everyone else in the IT industry. The Bangalore traffic gave me a sense of forgetfulness from the work related things, and I had all my anger already vented out in the traffic. I felt "my mom's world is small at home because all she has to talk to, is my grandfather during the whole day, she overthinks  things as she doesn't have a world outside home". After the pandemic, my world has also become small and there is no demarcation between work and home. Being someone who is not an introvert but definitely not an extrovert, it does take time to adjust to the new normal. Changes in work, grandfather's severe A...