Faith, Inquiry, and Endurance
February, the quirky 28-day month that defies the calendar norm, stands as a testament to ancient Roman superstitions and the enduring legacy of lunar-inspired timekeeping. Further, it apparently has the discredit of being one of the most misspelled words in the English language!
For me, however, it was yet another fulfilling month of learning, doing, and getting better. The highlight of the month was a visit to the Mahakumbh in Prayagraj and taking a dip in the holy waters of the Triveni Sangam. While a lot has been reported and Instagrammed about the Mahakumbh experience, my take is that everything you hear about it is equally factual and overdramatized at the same time. The scale, the complexity, and the power of faith that made crores of people overcome challenges and hardships to be a part of what can be described as a celebration of everything Indian and a spectacle of galactic proportions touch you deeply. The visit to that amazing city that is Varanasi, Kashi, or Benares and experiencing the power of the place, with its many flavoured ghats, the Kashi Vishwanath temple, the celebration of death and passing, given it is the portal to Moksha, the street food, the Doms and much, much more makes you want to come back again to the city and experience the power of the city once again.
On the academic research front, I am happy to report substantial progress. I have completed the coding of the qualitative interview transcripts and am actively working on the analysis and theory building. The real fun in the process is the conceptualisation of ideas from the data, fine-tuning it, establishing connections, and seeing if the data supports the conjectures and the causal relationships. For me, this is the best stage in the entire journey, but one that needs to be closed soon to progress to the next stage.
There has been a lot to do through the entire month, and I cherished the weekend I spent cycling up and down the hills at Kolli Hills, near Namakkal in Tamil Nadu. This is the one that boasts of the infamous 70 hairpin bends, a 20-odd km climb with an elevation gain of about 950 meters. In the end, you put your head down, pedal, endure, and get it done. Something that reminds me of how life is lived, which is why I love climbing hills and mountains, be it on foot or on a cycle. The rest of the training for the upcoming triathlons is progressing well and, thankfully, injury-free. Happy with the progress and looking forward to the Bergman Mysore Triathlon early March.
The process of multidisciplinary reading and learning continues, and the big callout book for the month is Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson,” which calls out the importance of considering long-term and widespread effects of economic policies while debunking common misconceptions that focus only on short-term or visible outcomes. A nice, easy read, and it holds enormous relevance when you apply the concepts to economic policies being adopted across the world. I have started reading ‘Simple, Not Easy: A No-Nonsense Guide to Fitness, Nutrition and Weight Loss’, written by my coach and the co-founder of ‘The Quad’, Raj Ganpath. It is a straightforward guide to leading a fitter life, and it is a book I will recommend to everyone.
I spent more time reading a bunch of seminal papers that defined their respective domains, ranging from Thomas Nagel’s paper—‘What Is It Like to Be a Bat?’ on what consciousness is and can your consciousness be perceived or understood by someone else—to wrapping my head around the genius of Alan Turing and his famous ‘Imitation Game’ to help figure out if machines can ‘think?.’ One could see multiple points where Turing foresaw the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is unfolding today. Understanding the first few minutes post ‘The Big Bang’ as articulated in the αβγ paper and the drama and intrigue behind the conceptualisation of the Double Helix structure of the DNA by Watson & Crick all made for engaging learning, helping fire new neurons in the process of collecting and connecting the dots. Lex Fridman has a great podcast episode on the Turing Test that is a must-watch. I am going back to reading ‘The Short History of Nearly Everything’ by Bill Bryson to get a ringside view of how we got from ‘The Big Bang’ to the rise of Civlisations.
My recommendations for the month include this amazing conversation between Lex Fridman and Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, the AI-powered answer engine that is rapidly taking Google’s place in my daily workflow. Aravind's thought process and vision are truly impressive, and I believe this is a name we should closely monitor. If you have not started using Perplexity yet, please do so right now. I can state with confidence that you will be impressed.
And if you would like to understand various perspectives on Trump’s Tariff moves, you would not go wrong in digging into this newsletter
And one final recommendation: a short, quick read on Twitter. It's incredibly brief, and goosebumps are guaranteed!
So, that’s that for February 2025. More in a month. Sayonara!