About Today

 Today, the journey to office was uneventful. I forgot to change the pickup location, so my Uber driver made an unnecessary U-turn and I crossed the road twice. For lunch we had gone to Panditji ka Dhaba in Raipur Khadar which is at an excellent location, is on the first floor and has open views of the street on three sides. There is a table for big parties on the inside. The food was really good, we had a paratha, mix veg, butter naan, butter roti, dal and chawal among three people. Food was good and filling. 

The main topic of discussion was the paper on the Simuverse by Evangelos Katsamakas. A colleague was insisting that the ideas proposed for operating a simulation, such as research or education were anthropocentric. My point was that it does not matter what the specific use case is, what Katsamakas is essentially exploring is a different perspective, not a philosophical one about the nature of reality itself, nor a physical one where the universe is a 3D projection from a distant 2D surface, one on the economics of simulating universes. I explained that just the idea of sustainable activities cannot be a uniquely human approach, that even gods will be constrained by energy use and conversion, and that the paper was actually just saying that simulations, irrespective of their purpose, can be thought of as one of three possibilities, a one-off project being undertaken for a specific purpose (the actual purpose does not matter here, can be no reason or a mad civilisation), a service that is offered as a subscription for users, and as a platform that allows for multiple users to interact in the simulated universe, a setup which would have network effects. 

The discussions grew out of two stories I had published, one on News9 and another on my site, Starbullet.in. 

Finished most of my work with only about an hour to go. On Sundays, they do the pest control in office which stinks up the place. Taking a break right now because they just came around. 

Dream Diary SGNP metro edition

 So this morning saw some weird dream where I was travelling in a metro rake through SGNP, going over the treetops. I saw a tank and some classic car outside the window, but there was some problem with the rake. First it went in one direction, left behind a few cars, then it started going backwards, and shed a few cars as well. I remember being frustrated by the journey because it wasn't going where we wanted. The frustration woke me up, which was the whole point of repetitive dreams that don't go anywhere and make you feel stuck I feel, another form of nightmare to wake you up, only it is frustrating instead of being scary. 

Was a nice metro though, something like this can be experienced in the airport line, especially if you go all the way to Yashobhoomi. 

The Story of Ravinder Gujjar

 So Ravinder Gujjar is a customs officer who is great at profiling, or spotting possible smugglers based on their face, and out of a healthy amount of self-love he has picked his own nickname as Santa Claus. Gujjar's father, two brothers, one sister, mother, paternal uncle, paternal uncle's wife, paternal aunt and her husband were all in the Central Excise or Income Tax department. 

If there were to be a competition in India among the most corrupt families, then Ravinder Gujjar's family would always come first. Gujjar had been listening to stories of their corruption since childhood, and developed a hatred towards the system. That is why, on the first day of joining Customs only, he had decided that he will never take even a paise of bribe ever in his life, a promise that he keeps to this day. He is not especially respected in his family, and everyone thinks he is a little mad. 

But Gujjar is not crazy at all. He is a soft-hearted romantic, and his love story is also a bit unique. Within 15 days of joining, Gujjar took a liking to a pleasant, homely girl who worked in the duty-free shop called Meenakshi. Meenakshi also liked Gujjar a lot. The two would go on breaks together and drink at the tea shop on the runway canteen. Meenakshi did not know at that time that Gujjar was doing this because tea was expensive at the airport. Meenakshi's parents liked Gujjar because he did not make a demand for dowry, and decided to go for a court marriage. On the day of the marriage though, Meenakshi did not show up, because she understood that Gujjar intended to live his life on his meagre salary, without earning on the side through bribes, and it was not just a show. On that day itself, The End happened to Gujjar's love story. 

You can find out what happens to Gujjar in Taskaree on Netflix. 

About Today

So came to office early in the morning today at around 10:00. There was no problem in booking the cab. There was another cab waiting for me to take me to an event in Lalit. I came to office, quickly filed a copy, and caught the cab. 

On the way, a Microsoft embargoed story came up, that I quickly did and scheduled for 12:00. The sun was too bright and overpowering the screen, so I struggled in the cab a bit, but I got it done. Had to swap out the images later at the event. 

The event was great, got to know the whole development of technological banking infrastructure in the country. 

1987 - the first ATM launched in India

1990 - Credit Cards introduced in India

2002 - Internet banking gets introduced

2010 - Mobile Banking gets introduced

The food was particularly good because they had kosambri! Two other journos asked me why I was having kosambri and I explained that it is a native dish that is not easily available in Delhi. So they also ate and enjoyed! Was fun, there was Abhinav from Times who was supposed to come back with me, but he booked his own cab as he had to make a couple of pit stops. I was happy to learn that the guy liked my DVDs as well as the Dmystify supplement that I wrote for Digit. 

A couple of days ago at the Asus event there was this irritating guy who was constantly doing plich plich with his tongue while I was taking photos. Dude wait a bit lol I just need five minutes, then you take as many photos as you want how you want. But he didnt do that I think he wanted to needle me haha. 

I came back to work, and belted out more copies, mostly for IIT Bombay and IIIT Hyderabad. Was a good day, now headed back home early. 

About Today

 Today was also a struggle to get to office. I think I really should start using the metro in the mornings, but cannot do so tomorrow because I plan to reach office before the metro even starts. I need to belt out the eight copies by 10:30 or so because there is an event and hopefully lunch at the Lalit. If I do not finish the copies in the morning, I will have to come back to work. 

Tomorrow is a cheat day because even if I show up to office, my attendance gets marked and I get a comp off, but I will not be working the whole day. I was pretty preoccupied the whole day, as last night I finished off most of the day's work between 20:00 hours IST and 00:00 hours IST, that required me to do six copies. Two of these were very involving, one about the American Pronghorn that is a favourite of Joe Rogan, and another about the Simulation Hypothesis. I was brimming so much with ideas about the latter that I also wrote a completely different story about it on my site. I am still not satisfied though, and may do another story on just the Simulation Hypothesis or the Holographic Principle, as I have primarily focused on the Simuverse here. All of this is even without exploring in detail how just investigating the simulation hypothesis can cause the universe to crash, if we are, in-fact in a simulation. 

Anyway, now I have about six minutes left before I can wrap up and leave. Felt good to come to work and then prioritise my own site first. I spent most of the day, till lunch in doing that story. My neck is still paining a bit from the sprain yesterday, especially when I sleep on my right side. Will have to find a way to get into a comfortable position that does not stress my body. We also had fun in office with a TV News Generator that I cooked up, that is making everyone laugh! We just put in all the terms in it that makes it to the news, asked it to mix it up, and generate dramatic news! I cannot believe Gemini was up to the task lol. 

People were like this is enough, you should sell it to the news team, if you ask for footage on any of this you will get, and reporters will also line up to scream for hours on all these 'stories' hahahaha. The state of news is pathetic, and my time is exactly up! 

Was a struggle to get to office today

I had actually gotten ready by 09:30 hours IST, but only just reached office now, at nearly 12:00 hours IST. The problem was that my phone had not juiced up with the Sharge charger, because the contact point is a bit finicky. As I was picking up smokes at the tapri, the phone died entirely. Had to return the smokes, come back home, and juice up my phone. Used this time to smoke one. Then when the battery charged up to around 15 per cent, by which time it was 10:15 hours IST, I left my home, purchased the smokes again, and booked the cab. 

There was an insane buildup of vehicles at a traffic light at a T-point close to where I stay. There was a complete logjam with vehicles unable to move in any directions, and more vehicles were coming in from behind. My cab took almost half an hour to reach me, but fortunately had taken me back home from office a couple of times and was sure that I would not cancel. The cab only reached by by 10:55 hours IST. Then I reached office, grabbed a tea, and began work now. 

In about 1/2 an hour, a cab is coming to pick me up for an event in Chhatarpur. Going there and coming back will take upwards of three hours. I am not sure if I will come back. The plan was to get here early, belt out my quota of stories, grab lunch and then leave for the day. That looks like it is not happening. So I will see what to do now. 

About a really long day

 I was going to call this about a really long today, but the day was so long that it stretched out over two days! So I am going to do this in chronological order. 

06 Feb 2026 01:00 hours IST

I am trying to sleep but unable to do so. I know I need to wake up early in the morning. Instead, I am elbow deep in reading up on the Lyman Alpha Forest, which is a series of spectral absorption lines caused by interstellar clouds of pristine hydrogen gas, that appears as a forest because of the expansion of the universe. Confusingly, the Lyman Alpha Forest refers to not just the spectral lines, but also the tenuous web of neutral hydrogen in intergalactic space that permeated the universe in its infancy. Every time I use the word universe, I am acutely aware that we have no way of knowing or defining what it is, and if it is in fact, a universe. There will be stars for trillions of years, but in a few billion years anything other than the local group would have faded out beyond the horizon of our observational capabilities. Cosmology of a science cannot exist for any new species that emerge. Humans will have to rely on the observations of today to conduct studies trillions of years into the future, if we survive. To those future humans, the universe would be as our scientists imagined it a century ago, without galaxies, no oases of stars, just a fairly homogenous continuum. The universe would be a galaxy. At some point, I must have drifted off to sleep. 

06 Feb 2025 05:30 hours IST 

I wake up. Grab a brush and put a little make up. Go down to the local shop that opens at 05:30 hours IST, operated by the old man named Chaurasia and presumably his kids. He has big glasses. Takes any notes, no matter how torn or busted. Very kind and friendly guy. Reminds me of the old aunty below Ghansoli. Her husband used to operate the shop too, also very old. Died suddenly. Chaurasia has a few decades in him yet. But yeah, mortality has a strange habit of suddenly staring you in the face. 

Anyway, got a nice 50 Rs bottle of coke and smoked up a J, but by then it was 06:25 hours IST, so I abandoned a half smoke J and ran out to grab a cab. 

O6:31 hours IST

I catch the Uber and reach the airport at 7:01 hours IST. Uber continues to act up, thinking I am in Ghatkopar or Kurla still. Anyway, ended up in Delhi Airport, T3, Air India flight to Mumbai. Rehan from IGN met me at the queue outside. I got in first, and he took forever to clear the first security barrier for some reason. I waited a bit, got impatient, and decided to go into security check. I forgot my wallet, keys and hoodie on my person, had to go back and remove all of that again. Then got through, and had a smoke at the smoking lounge, where that push button machine just failed to light my fire. Dumb contraption. 

10:50 hours IST

It was soon time to board, and the flight lifted off at 08:35 hours IST from Delhi, and landed on time at 10:50 hours IST in Mumbai. I was seated way at the back, got boarded first and deboarded last. It was literally the last row, which I am never taking again because I heard everything while three people pooped. I was scared water would leak out onto my bag, which was beneath my seat. Oh, I had packed light, as usual, no carry-on, and the bag was a tiny one too! Rehan, as usual, had carried his camera and tripod as well. Both Delhi guys next to me as usual had zero consideration for the guy in the middle seat. They were all elbows and knees. The food was good, methi-mirch paratha with paneer bhurji, bun and pav and strawberry yoghurt. Which they had given some cashew-badams! The guy on the left when to sleep. Both had their arms and legs spread out, like Vitruvian Men with aircraft-induced arthrogryposis. I read the magazine, the quality of airline magazines are really great, but pity they do only one a month! So if you fly twice in a month, you have to read the same stuff, also on the return flights lol. Now as I was walking to the exit, I saw four other journalists from Delhi apart from Rehan, including someone called Mirchi, and this guy from Times Now, that I really need to find out the name of, because he also writes for Digit. 

Rehan only knew Mirchi. There was another guy wearing a Ubisoft bag, that I saw sitting close to my seat, and also on the flight back. I am sure he is also a journo but I didnt see him at the event lol. Wonder who that guy was, should have just talked to him. Anyway, I am jumping ahead. 

The event was at Lalit. The other people went to get some kind of a cab, I head out on a solo adventure! I walked around the airport, and found this tea seller who has occupied the same corner for IDK how many years, ever since I first remember the airport and smoked, so at least since 2008! He seems to be one of those timeless vampires types who never seems to age a day. Anyway, I had a nice leisurely smoke, walked to the Hotel, and guess what, these other people with their fancy cab for 750 metres only reached after my relaxing detour. They insisted on doing a security check for some reason, all of them, in line, after I told them that the event was somewhere else entirely! Anyway, we are all creatures of habit I suppose, or people just like to do things by the book. 

I had checked out the location, so I helped them reach the place. There was vada pav and poha available. I immediately had some poha. One guy was sleeping on the desk. There was this waiting room where people were talking I spoke to Vaidy and an influencer from Hyderabad, Vimal Chintapatla. He has a great YouTube Channel, and did a lot of work on his own, starting in 2016 with How To videos. He focuses on laptops and audio gear now. Then I went out for another smoke. 

12:15 hours IST

My seat next to Rehan was occupied by none other than Rishi. Because of the prompting by Karan, I went up to him and said 6-7 IRL. That was one of the peak moments of the day. I knew this is brain rot. Then I met Sheldon! It was like a Firstpost reunion, because Rehan, Sheldon and Me met all together after a long time. Sheldon snapped a picture and sent it to Anirudh. So on one side there is the Firstpost reunion, but simultaneously, there is also the Digit reunion. Mithun apparently had some adventures with Sheldon in foreign lands. Soham, who is the Executive Director of Brand and Editorial Strategy at MySmartPrice was there, along with Satvik, an intern who joined Digit just as I was leaving. Then there was Swapnil Mathur, the PR manager at Nvidia who got us all together. So there was the Digit Team on one side with Mithun, Soham, Satvik, the guy from Times Now and me, and on other side there was the Firstpost team with Sheldon, Rehan and me. I just realised that I was the bridge between two worlds.  

Image Credit: Sheldon! 

Apparently the Digit office in both New Delhi and Mumbai have been consolidated. The Ghansoli office has now moved to BKC. The Sector 2 office in Noida has now moved to Film City. Im jumping a bit ahead though. Anyway, one of the journos there was from Times Now who also publishes in Digit, it is a strange new world after the Times takeover.

12:30 hours IST

I signed an embargo. That is the reason why I am being extra careful and putting this up after the Embargo time, even though this post has nothing to do with the event. I signed two embargoes actually. Anyway, this super secret event took place, which was the Indian launch of the Nvidia cloud gaming platform, GeForce now. I quickly played some games, checked it out on a tablet, a thin-and-light laptop, and a thin-and-light laptop with Loonix, then said my goodbyes. I was going to have lunch at home, not at a five star hotel!

14:08 hours IST

I catch the cab home. Exhausted a bit, so nod off to sleep. It takes a little more than an hour to reach. I'm seeing more metro construction. Majiwada is a bigger clusterfuck than before. My mom is surprised. My dad is too, but he goes back to sleep. I have a luxurious hot water bath. There is no geyser in Delhi, the Landlord is scared of water and electricity in the same room, despite my flat being a barsatiya, with the water essentially seeping through the wires all the time. My old cosmetics are still there, so I finish a facewash and a body scrub! Me and my dad then go to the Audumbar house and return all my stuff that was stashed for the renovation. I deposit them in the interior of my bed, hopefully safely. My mom makes food, its potato sabji with very little capsicum and carrot, and saaru. Easily the best meal in the year, which includes last. I have it with lots of ghee. Then I help my parents with some Amazon support ticket problem. I have to explain to them that kindness, politeness, and encouragement are all useless here, not everything works through emails, and that it is best to be clear and communicate the facts without getting emotional in such cases. Anyway, too soon, it was time to leave. 

18:09 hours IST

I leave for Delhi. Nod off on this ride as well. IT takes quite a while, nearly two hours! I reach the airport just a bit before 8:00. Someone jumps ahead of me because she is getting late. I patiently wait my turn. The security guy was not satisfied with my driving license. When I showed him my Press card, he asked if it was the south wala TV9. I said yes, that very one. I dropped my PAN card, driving license and press card in all the hustle bustle, but picked them out and went on my hurried way. I had to throw away a cigarette I had gotten at the Skyscanner event, as well as a lighter that I purchased outside Lalit for 25 bucks. The lady either was a smart upseller or only had the jet flame lighter. Anyway, this time I correctly shed everything at security check, and at 8:15 I am at the gate! 

The boarding had started, and I was on the last section. It was a fancy new wide-body Airbus A350-900 plane with a really cool in-flight entertainment system. It had movies, audio shows for entertaining kids without screen time, music, a map view with a pterosaur showing the flight, a map view for adults showing top and follow views, as well as contextual info such as air and ground speed, and elevation, casual games such as Poker and Angry Birds, and my favourite which were live views from cameras mounted on the base and top of the plane. Unfortunately, the optical low-res cameras did not capture much light in the night. 

I was enamoured by the in-flight entertainment system, but someone was watching something smutty, someone was watching Pokemon (a grown adult male), someone was on meditation music, someone else was watching a reality show type thing, and my neighbour moved to the Marathi movie Like and Subscribe. I felt like I was intruding on the personal space of a lot of people. Air India has a beautiful safety video incorporating dance forms from across the country, but I prefer getting it from the people, as it feels more direct, something you will remember, because both the crew and the passengers are invested in each others safety. Felt bad when the crew was just standing there while professional dancers did their job. I was enamoured by the screen for a bit, but the WiFi was not really working. I put on a demo cycling through the various map visualisations and read a book on Marine archaeology!

The food on the way back was better! They had rajma rice and potato bhaji, same bun and butter, a gulab jamun and Californian Walnuts! Got home, walked out, smoked in the smoking lounge outside T3. That thing also had another useless cigarette lighting wire contraption. There are now different lines for Priority and Go at the airport. You have to provide a long six digit pin to get the ride. Apparently the system was changed 3-4 months ago. 

Feb 6

06:31 hours IST - 07:01 hours IST, Iskon Temple to Delhi Airport T3

14:08 hours IST - 15:16 hours IST, Lalit to VV

18:09 hours IST - 19:52 hours IST, VV to BOM T2

Feb 7

00:15 hours IST - 00:55 hours IST, Delhi Airport T3 to Iskon Temple