Things worked out

 I am sorted now. I am working in Bengaluru at a PR firm, with my mandates being two top tech clients. I tried out at a few news places but they were not willing to pay a salary that is aligned with my expertise and experience. The cost of text has plummeted, so it was the right time for me to exit the industry. I can continue covering what I am passionate about at community fora, so not too worried about that. X is an excellent platform, and so is Wordpress when it comes to engagement and self-expression. 

There is a lot to write, and a lot happened, and I will be posting everything over time. I first send ahead all my packages from Delhi to Bengaluru, then hopped on a train. I also joined my new job at the Delhi office for two months, which was a lot of fun because it was at GK2 M-block market, just 15 minutes from my home, door to door. There was a nice juice seller there that I will miss. I was able to eat at Carnatic Cafe in the mornings, and at Tanjore Veg Dosa Cafe in the evenings. Towards the end of two weeks I started getting a frequent customer discount. I did not know that there was a GK M-block market apart from the GK2 and GK1 M-block markets. The rickshaw drivers are also confused, and refer to both the GK and GK1 M-block markets as the GK1 M-block market. 

Here in Bengaluru, my office is in Indiranagar. My house is in Srirampuram, and there is a Metro that I need to switch. The walk from the Metro station to office is about two kilometers, so I need to find a better way to make this hop. There is a Cafe Amudham next to my office where the dishes cost half as much as Delhi. Delhi is a cheap city in every way, but not when it comes to South Indian food. Miss the glasses of complementary rasam served at Delhi, which you do not get in Bengaluru. 

Got Laid OFF

 So I just got laid off from News9. I could not take anything in writing, and will likely lose my gratuity, just one month before I become eligible for it. They have also blocked three months of pay, so I have to financially struggle for two months now. Will get a final settlement, hopefully that will give me some savings. They basically asked me to resign at gunpoint. Something similar had happened to my dad 26 years ago, and he never talks much about it. It was a shock, and I have to find another desk. The thing is there are not too many newsrooms that do both Science and Tech in Mumbai. Right now I have a bunch of choices to make... 

1. Continue working in media as a journalist or jump to corp comm.

2. Stay in Delhi or move to Mumbai

The two are kind of linked together, if I move to Mumbai, I cannot continue to work as a science and tech journalist. I will have to give up everything that I have gained expertise on, over the course of half a career. Spoke to a lot of people and they are helping me, with some plans laid out. 

1. Join another organisation in Delhi quickly

2. Move back to Mumbai and take a break, see what opportunities show up. Can ask for relocation fees if I get a job at Delhi again. 

Either way, need to start preparing to exit this place. Out of an abundance of caution, I am scheduling this post for after my notice period. Actually written on 3 May. 

Visit to IIM Kashipur

So last time I was invited to attend the 33rd convocation at BIT Mesra, because the chief guest was V Narayanan, and I am a science journalist. This time, the same team invited me to the 13th convocation of IIM Kashipur. There was no reason for me to go, but I thought I would have a cool road trip. It was not exactly that, because everything was rushed. 

I left at 08:00 hours IST on Saturday, and reached the hotel in Kashipur around 13:30 hours. I slept most of the way, but remember that the roads were well-made, except for one bumpy stretch. I also played a bit of Jurassic Park: Evolution 2 on GeForce Now. The Asus Expertbook Ultra was bright enough to use in the car, with a long enough battery life to sustain cloud gaming at least. Was fun. 

Reached the hotel, some Kumaon Palace. God knows what has happened to that place, it was first a house that got turned into a mill that then got turned into a hotel. It has elements from all the phases. Nice, British-looking mansion. The Anna Villa where I was put up is actually booked as a whole for parties, costing about Rs 16K a night. I got a room right at the end, and was sharing it with two people in a neighbouring room, who never came out of their room, but were talking loudly. 

It was a very casual setup, because i left the room door open, and the hotel staff were coming and going also. The AC broke down, which was instantly fixed by the time I had lunch. I then took a nap, and then got ready for the convocation. I reached around 15:30 hours IST. We were taken to a room, given an opportunity to interview the medal winners, as well as the chief guest. This was all managed very well, and I was happy that the press interactions were organised before the convocation, which went well into the night. The timing was also suitable because otherwise the heat would have been sweltering. 

The convocation carried on, and I bashed out a whole bunch of stories, while talking to a reporter named Shreya. There were drones flying overhead, recording everything. I left the place around 20:00 hours and headed back to the hotel. In the night, I did not eat, but made my driver eat at the hotel, even though he felt that the food would be unsatisfying, and light, compared to the food that he was used to. I went, took a nice luxurious hot water bath (the taps were really confusing, but all hotel taps are), set the fixed AC to 16 degrees, and took a luxurious nap. 

I really need to get a better bed at home, because a nice, comfortable bed makes a huge difference in sleep quality. 

Anyway, I woke up at 06:45 hours, checked out by 07:00, and left the property by 07:15. The driver felt a little sleepy on the way, because the mosquitoes prevented him from resting properly in the night. I was back in Delhi by 12:00. Shreya went to check out Corbett, and was flying back to Mumbai on Monday, that is today, instead of yesterday. A few others went to check out local attractions, including Hanuman Dham, as they wondered when they would go to Kashipur again (probably never for most). I just took the cab straight back home, not even stopping for breakfast. We did take a cigarette break though. The driver was anxious to get home so drove speedily, between 80 and 100 kmph. 

I grabbed a beer, and then headed to work, reaching by around 14:00 hours. Akshit left to meet a Tibetan childhood friend, and the kid just left. Because I had finished my quota of stories the previous day itself, I had the entire day to write a detailed review of the Asus Zenbook S16. The review of the Asus Zenbook S14 and the Asus Expertbook Ultra are pending. I am sad that these devices will go back, and I will not have any fresh silicon to play on. Hopefully, GFN now works well on my office machine lol. 

About Today

 So I am just about done with my work for today. Fell short a bit. Today was my first day at work in the new 6:00 hours IST shift. Went back to sleep after waking up. The transport guy was forcing me to walk faster, I was like what do you want me to do I am walking from my home to the pickup point. He said jaldi jao I said aap jaldi call karo. 

HAHAHAHA

Anyway, happy for a few stories I did lately. One was on how great the Nvidia GeForce Now experience was on smartphones, another on how GeForce Now solves the problems of Xbox Game Pass. 

Another older story I really liked, that shows the differences between what a person says and what is written in their speech was this story on Narayanan. 

Have to go back by Metro now, with over 4 lakhs worth of laptops in my bag. I have right now four laptops for review, and one of them has not even been opened up yet. 

About Today

 Finished my eight stories yesterday, not getting the motivation to bash out a smartphone review. It is actually of an expensive device that I do not really like at all, but there are no real technical deficiencies, so I have to get over my distaste and tell what is good or not about the device. 

Finished my eight stories today as well, played a bit of Pile Up! but I am unable to finish a single level. A few people wished me on by Birthday, Yuna and Awake from the game and Asmita from IRL, apart from my aunt Gautami and my Mom. My boss wished me today after seeing the corporate email, and ofc the HR wished me as well... so that is a total of six people, two more if you consider a surprised Akshit and Ahsan jumping in to wish when my Boss did. 

I am not a big fan of birthdays, I do not see why one should enjoy any single day more than the others. If you want to celebrate your life, my belief is that you do that every second that you live. A birthday is an arbitrary date of no particular significance. The Earth has taken a lap around the Sun since you were born, congrats lol. 

I just came in to work yesterday, like any other regular day. There is an Asus event tomorrow, also Ambedkar Jayanti. So will have a few hours off to work on the review. Have to plan out the rest of the Month now. Over smokes and food, we talked today about how little India invests in research and development, why the idiotic, small-minded business owners in India are only running after short-term profits, the ridiculousness of SEO guidelines in a newsroom that are not anchored by a comprehensive editorial policy, and generally why people are shit lol. 

There were also some protests in Noida about some company not giving its employees as much as it pays them in Gurugram. It did not affect me. I have about one hour... actually 45 minutes to kill before my clock runs out. 

About Today

 Have about an hour left before my shift ends, and my work is done. Today I felt bad throughout the day for behaving a bit like an asshole after drinking yesterday. I actually said something in a group to an irritating shady guy that I wanted to say for years. Then I posted a rant against Microsoft scamming users by aggressively filling out OneDrive space, when it does not work as intended, especially with Clip Champ. Everything is uploaded into the cloud, but not downloaded on new machines. I did nothing wrong, and said what I wanted to, but what struck me was that I did not want to spend my life being an asshole. 

Also I hung out on clubhouse for a while was fun. New quest started in WWO, Yuna cancelled a quest she started by mistake, but got most gold refunded for that, so no problem. BetaMom is MIA since last September. Hope everything is fine there. 

The thing is, I am hard and direct that way with everyone, my parents, my colleagues and my friends. If I were to be buried instead of being cremated, I imagine the gravestone would read 'This guy spent his life complaining'. I am just dissatisfied with everything around me... so I have resolved to just grin and bear it, keep my comments to myself or this blog, and try to be positive and uplifting. I tried to have some fun today, which was successful. Made Akshit and Pragya lob a paper ball at Roheen, on the count of three, but I did not throw it. Nakshab scolded Akshit for that, which was fun. Roheen was engrossed in some work and did not understand what happened. 

There are small preferences that make us all do our own things. Akshit does not like the Sun, while I like it. Smoking is not allowed in the office canteen between 12:00 and 16:00 hours IST, but Akshit does not care about that, while I follow it religiously. So for one smoke, I went down while he went to the canteen. For another one, we found a spot where he could stand in the shade while I caught the Sun. For a third one, the heat was oppressive so we both found the Shade. The kid, Ahsan wanted to slowly sit in the canteen and drink coffee by mixing it in a glass glass. We wanted to go outside, which we did. I feel bad when other people have to compromise as well. 

I guess it is time to play Pile Up! for about 50 mins before I get to leave.  

About Today

 Today felt like recovering from the craziness of yesterday. I was expecting the livestream of the Artemis II flyby to wrap up around 7:30 hours IST, but it kept going on and on, with a solar eclipse, the first ever witnessed by humans in cislunar space, and a call with Trump, and an interaction with Isaacman, who btw asked really amazing questions. I made a weird hype reel based on comments by Trump before crashing after an unusually long day. 

#Mood pic.twitter.com/l8eCTWbYbo

— Aditya Madanapalle (@electricfoo) April 7, 2026

Today, had to do a story for story for Melzo Anubhav. I met the team at the Convergence Expo, and the kids sent me a message with their portfolio and pamphlet, and asked me to do a story. I said I would do one on Sunday, but had forgotten with everything happening. This is a really good team, that is using tech developed for entertainment, for education. The kids learn better in an immersive environment, retain what they learned better, and can experiment with hazardous, toxic chemicals in a simulated lab without needing adult supervision. I really liked what they are doing, and they have installed over 100 of these devices in public, government-run schools in Thane, which is more than their hometown of Surat! 

There was also a press con in the morning at 11:00 hours, that I attended as soon as I came in. Vaidy was not on, but there were Rehan, Sheldon and someone I did not recognise from Digit. There was a Divya, have to confirm if its my former colleage. 

I have always wanted to sit on these conferences, put my friends on the pinned panes, and then react with not obvious but comedic expressions to whatever the company is saying. 

After that I bashed out the stories, first the Anubhav one, followed by the Logitech release, and then Astrophel Aerospace announcing a VTVL test on 15 August, that I also posted on IndianSpaceflight.in. The PR was a bit hesitant to allow me to post there, but when I showed some other posts and the site, they were convinced and understood the value and benefit of appearing on a grassroots, community run forum for spaceflight enthusiasts. 

All in all, it was a good day and I wrapped up my copies in sufficient time to wrap up the HyperX Pulsefire Saga review. This is a strange modular mouse where Logitech is selling you a platform, expecting you to 3D print the buttons, palm rest and the side buttons. There is a cost and weight penalty for the modularity, so this is an extremely niche device. But, I got a keeper and have to see if there are any 3D printing services that will let me customise it further. I maybe want a knobby palm rest! 

Okay, will go home now, and really have to pay this new game that I purchased that I forgot the name of haha. Oh right, it is called Pile Up! 

GlideX is a bit iffy, will start using this TUF A14 as my primary, switching out from the Vivobook S16 that looks really slick.