First week of the new year and I am not making too many new resolutions this year. Whatever habits I started accruing the last year would compound better if I am able to stick with them this year.

This week leading up to today was surrounded by friends and family and therefore, they are going to feature in this set of weekly notes for me.

I was in Hanoi leading up to the last days of the year and for most part of the trip, I was down with fever and a bad throat rash. My cold turned me towards soups and teas and I couldn’t have even a single glass of Vietnamese cold coffee. However, the old quarter of Hanoi was so full of colour and picturesque that I picked my phone camera and engaged in some very intentional photography.
On the flight back, I watched Audrey’s Children, a beautiful biopic on the pediatric oncologist, Dr. Audrey Evans who brought the survival rates of children suffering from neuroblastoma from 20% to 85% with her work.
With Shobhit and Nishita around, the last days of the year went by in a warm embrace of easy smiles and chatter. A lot of coffees were had and on 31st night, I wore my best pajama set and gave in to the din that was our living room.
Between 30th and 31st December, was able to take a couple of hours to sit by myself and write my yearly reflection and also plan the year ahead since that was quite important to do and I am really happy I got to do that. I am realising that a solid block of three hours is all I need to return to myself either by drawing or writing or thinking and I am really hoping that I don’t lose this thread this year.
Nishita runs a podcast and a consulting co. for creative businesses and we recorded a short episode on my experience of building Anomalie Tattoo Co. It was fun to record a podcast in pajamas (I think pajamas are an emergent theme for me this year)
I was also very happy to have finally met Gunjan - my school friend who I know since pre-kindergarten. She is an extremely inspiring artist and now a restauranter and we met after two decades!
Finally, I shook off my inertia and made way to meet my grandmom and cousin an hour away from where we live. Sushant is a contemporary artist and it’s always a deep pleasure to talk with him on art, galleries, making a living as an artist in a completely unpretentious breath.