Wishing you a very happy new year !

It is 2026 and the promise I’ve made to myself is to be more creative this year. To not let my head, get in the way of me wanting to write/make/create something.

Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking about laughter a lot. I’ve also been thinking about 2025.

How it went by, what happened, and what didn’t happen. The truth is, I blinked. I blinked and I missed parts of it.

But, when I was present. In the moment. When I was really within myself, and not observing myself doing things on autopilot - I started noticing something every so slightly different from the previous years.

The frequency of laughter in my life had increased. There were more moments of laughter where I was the one laughing. It’s been weighing on my head for a long time, and I guess what better way to start 2026 than write about it.

This was originally meant to be a video essay, but oh well.

Read it, let me know when was the last time you laughed out loud a lot !

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I.

Starting around the age of 23, many people start experiencing what is called the ‘The Humor Cliff’. It is this idea that as you enter the workforce and grow older, you stop laughing as much as when you were a child. You quite literally laugh less. I think you lose a little bit of the spark that you have when you’re a child.

“We lose our sense of humor. We stop smiling and laughing. So Gallup asked people in 166 countries the simple question, did you smile or laugh yesterday? So for those who are 16, 18, 20, the answer largely is yes. And then around 23, the answer becomes no. And we don’t start laughing again until 70 or 80. Put another way, the average four-year-old laughs 300 times a day. It takes the average 40-year-old two and a half months to laugh that many times. So yes, what we call a global humor cliff. And this was research that was done before the global pandemic.”

- Jennifer Aaker in Hidden Brain: Humor Us

I am on that cliff, and definitely below average even for the adults in terms of laughing. I am the kind of person who doesn’t laugh out loud much. I’ll smirk, give a smile but I’ll rarely have that boisterous loud laughter.

I’ll see the best standup special, and my brain only decides if it’s funny or not. I am not laughing out loud. I am analyzing the setup, and the punchline. If I’m watching one of the best comedy shows, and a good joke lands - I think that’s “brilliant writing”. I’ll deeply admire the memes, and the GIFs and the stickers and I do find them funny.

But that laughter? It isn’t there. There isn’t chuckling, or giggling or a guffaw. There is only a mental analysis of how this situation, or story, or experience was funny or humorous.

My laughter is limited. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, it just happens fewer times in comparison.

I can say that this changed quite a bit in 2025 though.

II.

One of my favourite things to hear is the sound of laughter from friends and family. It brings me tiny doses of delight to hear someone else laugh. I always notice when people laugh, because I know I can’t do it often.

According to the anthropologist Munro Edmonson, the central feature of laughter is aspiration: We release a forceful puff of air as we laugh.

But laughter is also characterized by repetition. In fact, given the extraordinary variability in the sounds people make when they laugh, repetition is what makes laughter universally recognizable. This is why writers conventionalize laughter as “he-he-he,” “ha-ha-ha,” and “ho-ho-ho” (well, at least if you’re Santa Claus).

- Kirsten Bell, The Strange Power of Laughter

The sound levels are distinct, but the experience is common. Some laugh softly. Others have a roaring laughter. Loud and irreverent. Uncontrollable sometimes. Faint even. Laughter is honestly random, but beautiful.

But to be in a room surrounded by laughter. To make someone laugh. To see someone laugh. These are some of the things that keep that tiny spark alive in me.

III.

I have often sent messages to my friends about how it is only when I’m surrounded by them that I am truly able to laugh. Maybe it has got to do with the sense of security I feel around them. That I can be unabashed, and I don’t have to hide behind anything. Perhaps, I feel a lot more free-er. When college got over, and I was working remotely, this would happen so little. I could hear the silence around me. I don’t think I could hear myself laugh that much.

2025 I think was the year where I laughed quite a bit.

I laughed in the face of despair. I laughed in moments of grief. I was giggling at the most inappropriate moments. I was uncontrollable, loud and I’m sure annoying for a few people around me as well.

I laughed. I absolutely did. Maybe not as much as the average person of my age, but more than 2024, and more than 2023, and more than 2022, and definitely more than 2021.

The sounds of laughter around me is the defining theme of 2025 for me.

But what that truly means is that I have made bonds, created a space and grown as a person to be secure enough to feel like I can laugh freely.

I don’t consider myself to be the reason for this small resurgence in laughter.

It is my family and my 1.5 year old niece who taught me to be intentional about laughter again. Hers is the best laughter in the world. To hear my niece laugh is to wash away the harshness of my life.

It is my friends. Old, and new.

Those, who despite experiencing and going through some incredibly tough times, have the resilience to laugh and find delight around them. They laugh at their sadness. They shared that laughter with me.

These are also people who are a shining light. I often say that in the kind of monochromatic life I live, my friends add a lot of color to my life. 2025 has proved that to be truer more than ever.

It is hard to explain this aspect to someone who already laughs normally by default. It isn’t like my life was bad or anything before. I’ve been quite lucky that way. But, this is such a noticeable shift from the past few years. Laughter is becoming a more recurring feature of my life.

For that, I am grateful.

IV.

There is a clip of Stephen Colbert and a Dua Lipa interview that I revisit from time to time (like many other Colber clips).

While discussing Dua Lipa’s podcast ‘At Your Service’, Colbert asks Dua Lipa if she’d like to interview him. Lipa asks Colbert about the relationship between his faith and comedy - whether one wins over the other.

(This is an incredible clip. Watch it in its entirety.)

I think about Colbert’s response often. He didn’t get me converted to Catholicism, but made me respect him even more. Colbert talks about one of his favourite movies “Belfast”, and why he liked it.

“It’s funny about being sad, in the same way that sadness is a little bit of an emotional death, but not a defeat if you can find a way to laugh about it; because that laughter keeps you from having fear of it.”

“So, if there’s some relationship between my faith and my comedy, it’s that no matter what happens, you are never defeated. You must understand and see this in the light of eternity and find some way to love and laugh with each other”

I am not that spiritual a person, but I think the core sentiment that finding some way to love and laugh with each other is a way to keep that fear at bay - is something I resonate with quite a bit.

A lot has happened in 2025.

But I could laugh.

Laugh at sadness.

Laugh at the harshness of the year.

Laugh with the warmth of people I care about.

Laugh to keep the child-like spark alive.

I hope the echoes from the laughter of 2025 finds its way into 2026 as well.

What were your favourite memories of laughter from 2025? Let me know.

Wishing you a year filled with lots of joy, delight and laughter !

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

I turned 27 last weekend (on August 30). It's been a wild, surreal and memorable set of days for me. Tried to jot down some thoughts around it.

This is an essay that captures why I am okay with growing older.

For the past five years I've had a personal ritual of sorts of publishing something on my birthday. I am late in that sense. I did have a different idea for a video, and I hope to make that someday.

But for now, I think this will do.

Give it a read !

I.

One of my favourite lines, quotes, passages etc. I’ve ever come across in a book is the opening acknowledgement in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

“I will dedicate the book to the child whom this grown-up used to be, once upon a time. All grown-ups started off as children (though few of them remember). So I hereby correct my dedication:

To Léon Werth when he was a little boy.”

All grown-ups started off as children (though few of them remember).

I think about this a lot.

And I definitely thought about these lines on my birthday yesterday.

I turned 27 and celebrated my birthday by organizing a games night. The day before that I spent time with my family and my wonderful 1.5 year old niece.

I don’t know much about my future or growing older.

But the one thing that is clear to me about growing older is: to continue to remember and protect the childlike wonder, sense of joy & play, and the capacity to experience awe - that I had when I was young. That my niece currently has, by default.

Growing older for me is to not forget that I too was a child.

II.

Many people have asked me how I think about turning older. How I feel about 27?

I am older.

Life is definitely not getting easier or anything. You can’t put things on hold. Everything happens all at once. There are no days where you can just bunk life. Or not show up.

I don’t know how my life is going to look like in the future, or if I’m in the right career, or if I’m on the “best” path available to me or what other harsher responsibilities the universe is going to put my way.

So, growing older kind of feels like it should suck.

All of this is true.

But the truth is also that – personally, I like growing older.

I think with each year, I’m learning more about myself and also feeling more and more comfortable in my own skin. In a weird way, growing older is more freeing and not less.

There’s a Hank Green quote which I really like and also keep revisiting from time to time, because it gets me to pause and reflect:

You don't have any obligation to your former self. There's no loyalty to them. There's no loyalty to a desire you once had.

So if you look around the room, none of these people can you say you are smarter than. Not just because that would be a really dicky thing to say but also because like intelligence is very tricky to measure and there are lots of different types of intelligence, and human brains are complicated.

But there is one person I can say objectively that I am smarter than and it is me four years ago because that guy knew less than I did.

He knew like all the things that I currently know except less and he had all the life experiences that I currently have except fewer.

So why do I have an obligation to a guy who not only is dumber than me but literally does not exist.”

I don’t know how life will look like in the future.

I just think that with each passing year – I deal with more challenges, make more memories, and grow just a little bit more intelligent than my older self.

That’s the good thing about growing older.

I am less dumb.

I think.

And that is good enough.

III.

Yesterday was the first time I’ve hosted a proper birthday party type thing in at least a decade.

Maybe when I was younger – my family would’ve organized something. I remember I definitely took my friends to McDonalds for a birthday treat around the age of 13/14. That is maybe the closest.

But, for the past decade, I’ve never exactly celebrated my birthday. And, I didn’t really care so much about my birthdays.

My birthdays are quiet. Reflective sometimes. I try to write and journal something. Mostly, I would try to do things I would normally do. I would consciously tell myself that this is just like any other day. It isn’t important.

This has of course changed a little in the past few years.

Five years back, I made Time Capsule | Ft. Some Thoughts on Birthdays

This was during the pandemic. I recorded about what I thought about birthdays and made a reminder to my future self:

I am also recording this as a reminder for my future self, that birthdays are a celebration of our continued existence in this world and in the worlds of those you care about. It is arbitrary and repetitive. I will have a birthday next year, and the year after that and the year after that.

But, I think, maybe just maybe it is worth making a fuss about our existence at least once a year and look at the silver lining.

The past two days reminded me of this shared, intertwined and continued existence.

My birthday is special.

I received caring gifts and heartfelt wishes.

I got to celebrate my birthday with an incredible group of friends and family.

We celebrated in my own space.

And I did it by doing the things I have always loved as a child: board games and video games (also Masala Puri).

It felt surreal, and magical.

I’m so grateful.

IV.

I think I am quite a lucky person.

This is the other thing about growing older that I keep coming back to.

I am really lucky.

I’ve been blessed by some brilliant bonds with people.

It is something I want to continue to nurture and cherish.

V.

I am also reminded of this quote by the other Green brother:

“You can't see the future coming--not the terrors, for sure, but you also can't see the wonders that are coming, the moments of light-soaked joy that await each of us.”

I am looking forward to the coming year.

To the terrors, yes.

But also the moments of light-soaked joy that await me.

What do you think about growing older?

Let me know.

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

I’m back with another video after a long time.

A few years back, I made a podcast about my hostel room. My experience in the hostel room changed me in a myriad of ways. It changed the way I think about a home.

But, that moment had to come to an end. I wasn’t sure if I would every have such a unique home again.

I was working remotely. The pandemic has restricted opportunities. It seemed unlikely that I could experience such a space again.

A year back, I took a decision with two of my friends to move into a new flat. Can I consider this new place a home, when I already have one in the same city?

What does it really mean to be at home?

I’ve been grappling with these questions for a year and this video attempts at capturing these swirling thoughts in my head.

There is a moment in the week that I absolutely love and find magical.

It has been a tiring day. I am coming back from work. Heading up the elevator to the top floor. I take off my shoes outside the door.

I enter and find my flatmates (and friends) Krishnan and Sandesh chatting away, watching Modern Family on TV.

I set my bag aside and join them.

Maybe for half an hour, we exchange stories from the day. Share some laughter and express our collective disappointment in adulting.

This particular moment feels like I am in my own pocket universe, away from all the heaviness and fatigue I carry throughout the day.

I feel lighter.

It may have been a tiring day, but I am at home now.

All is well.

—---

When can you start calling someplace your home?

Ever since I moved out of my home into a new house last year – this is a question I’ve been thinking about a lot.

Home has always meant where your elders are. The place where you grew up. The streets where you learnt how to play. The neighbourhood that has all your favourite eateries. The room that contains your entire collection of books.

Home is the place where most of your history is.

But, this changed when I went to college in Jodhpur.

A tiny hostel room in an unfamiliar city became my home.

It didn’t matter that my history was not present in that room. Or that I didn’t grow up here. Or that my family was with me.

Home was now a place where I was writing my own story. With new friends and people that I deeply cared for.

Home became more than just history.

It also meant freedom to create your own.

—

During the pandemic, I went back to living at home again. Stayed with my family. Worked remotely. Stuck to the place that contained most of my history. It was different now.

My experience living in Jodhpur, fundamentally altered how I thought about a home. It wasn’t just about my roots anymore. I was searching for something more as I waged a battle with adulthood. I needed to change. I longed for a home despite living in one.

So, when I had the opportunity to move out, I did.

Two friends of mine, and I decided to hunt for houses. After some grueling house hunting, we finally found a place. And my friends remarked “This is going to be our new home”.

I didn’t use that phrase at the time. I was wracked with guilt for wanting to create my own home, separately from my family. I felt like I was running away from my duties. Even as I signed the lease, it felt weird.

But, deep down - I knew it was the right thing to do.

A year later, my friends proved to be right.

This is home now. It is where I found my sense of belonging again.

My longing for a home was fulfilled.

—

When does someplace become your home?

I love what Candace Rose has to say about a home:

I believe that home isn't something we change or replace with another, but something we add to. Home is the aggregate of our journeys, a collection of people and places, memories and experiences, each home building on the last.

I think it is when the walls bear witness to your tears of sadness and joy.

It is when you start forging newer relationships while deepening bonds with your existing ones. It is when you create shared memories. When you can fill the place with stories—of not just yours, but also with the people around you.

It is when you feel like the place offers a warm hug and acts as a source of comfort. It is when you can be your most awkward self freely.

It is when you can bask in the silence. Take a moment quietly for yourself.

It is when you find the rhythm of your life.

I think you can start calling a place your home when you realise that this space can contain all your fears, burdens and anxieties as well as your hopes, dreams and happiness.

You are then at home.

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This is it for now.

What do you think of, when you think of a home? - Let me know !

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

It's been a while since the IPL Finals got over, but I've been thinking about that moment for a while now.

John Green introduced me to a quote about football by the Pope, St. John Paul II. I'm paraphrasing the quote here: Out of all the unimportant things in the world, sports is the most important.

I am not a fan of cricket, but the story of RCB and being able to witness the win at my home, amidst a group of strangers and friends - was unforgettable.

I wrote about the joy I felt when I saw the RCB fans around me experience the victory. A moment shared. A moment to revisit.

I.

It starts with a bad day.

I have been caught up with work. There are deadlines. Emails to send. Messages to respond to. An annoying list to get through. Piled up deliverables to complete.

This is normal for any working adult. But on this day, the ordinary feels unending.

I haven’t had a chance to take a break. I’m making mistakes. I’m frustrated with myself.

Not to mention, my friends and I are hosting a watch party. To watch the IPL Finals.

I haven’t had a chance to help much today and I don’t want to be the guy who is on the laptop while everyone around is showing up to have a good time. That’s just being a bad host.

And yet, here I am.

I am staring at my screen. Typing away emails.

It looks like the day is heading towards a bad ending as well.

II.

"Let's organise a watch party"

My friend, who has never wanted to or has been willing to host more than 4 people at a time, goes out of his way to suggest organising a gathering with as many people as we can.

The home I live in now, does not consist of people who have the dynamism or energy levels to meaningfully engage with a large gathering. Let alone allow for different worlds of people colliding.

But, how can you say no to the passion of an RCB fan, who is one match close to seeing an 18-year old dream come true.

More importantly, how can you not support the friend who has gone out of his way to pick up Canva and design the RSVP Invite.

Sports is a rather amusing experience. You will deeply believe and do things you otherwise wouldn’t even consider during an ordinary day.

We changed our minds about hosting a party.

My friend decided to become a graphic designer.

The most designing he's done is formatting tables on a word document.

But he is a quintessential RCB fan. This is the IPL Finals. There is nothing ordinary or normal about this experience.

III.

In case you haven’t noticed, my friends are fans of RCB.

I am not.

I don’t even like cricket. I don’t follow the IPL. Apart from Virat Kohli, I don’t know anyone else in RCB. Nor do I know of their cricketing prowess. I found out RCB was in the semi-finals, on the day of the semis. So, the consequence of this match shouldn’t matter to me. I don’t have stakes. There is nothing about this match that I should objectively care about.

But, I often think about this quote from Beartown by Fredrik Backman (a trilogy where Ice Hockey is a central theme).

“Why does anyone care about hockey?

Because it tells stories.”

I love sports.

More specifically, I love stories of sports.

I am from this city. I have witnessed the frenzy in Chinnaswamy Stadium. I have seen players on screen, and my friends off-screen experience the heartbreak of being there, but not quite. Year after year. An achievable goal that remained elusive.

I am not a fan of cricket.

But I am surrounded by people whose lives have intertwined with RCB. They experience the joys and sorrows of this team together. Most of my life, I have observed this.

It is then, hard to not get caught up in that same passion.

IV.

I have wrapped up work as the 2nd innings starts.

I can finally hangout properly with the people who came over. We’re all watching. The match isn't exactly in a comfortable position. The tension is palpable. People are calculating, planning and strategizing the best bowling attack to save the game.

Soon, a couple of wickets fall. This shifts the mood entirely. The nervousness has washed away. The room is now filled with excitement. With every ball, it gets better. The team is slowly inching towards victory.

But no one has relaxed yet. Even though the probability of RCB losing at this stage in the match is near 0. We know that anything can happen. This has happened in the past too.

You’re only through, when you’re actually through.

And then it happens.

The last ball is bowled.

Virat Kohli is on his knees. Emotional.

RCB is through.

Finally.

V.

Like I said earlier, I am not a fan of cricket or IPL. I don’t even remember each and every ball of the 2nd innings. I shouldn’t care much about the outcome of this game.

But, can I really be nonchalant about this? Can I really put up a stoic face about this match? Can I really say that I don’t care about the outcome of this game?

When the truth is that, I am forever going to remember this particular date - not as a bad day. But one where I shared so much joy with a gathering of people.

I may not remember the innings specifically, but I could see the bliss and joy on the faces of people around me. I could feel their happiness. I could see how much it meant to them. When you see a gathering of people so deeply invested in the journey of RCB, and you witness history being made – it is hard to not let that joy seep into you. You can’t help but care.

Sports can evoke reactions you wouldn’t even know.

There is another quote from the Beartown Trilogy I have been thinking about:

"The only thing the sport gives us are moments. But what the hell is life, Peter, apart from moments?”

When you follow stories around sports, you will find a lot of moments that give you solace and strength to get through the day.

The story of RCB is one of them. I am enthralled by the story of RCB and its fans. The winning sequence is one those moments to find solace in.

This story starts with a bad day. It doesn’t end that way.

I found so much joy in seeing those around me feel the exhilaration of winning the title.

We shared this moment together.

And it is a moment that I will keep revisiting.

That’s it.

Let me know what you think !

What are your favourite sport moments that you witnessed live?

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

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Since Substack has also started video (weird decision), I am now trying to play around with the platform. Might post all of my earlier short video essays onto the platform directly.

This is a video about the future, dreams and the inescapable realities of living.

Consider this a reminder to watch it, if you haven’t yet.

Let me know what you think !

Take care,

Nirmal

I've been wondering if I am the sort of person who has dreams anymore. I have stopped imagining who I want to be on the future. And ever since I watched The Holdovers, I have thought about having full dreams.

After months of thinking about this, and not writing, I finally managed to put some thoughts together. Going to pat myself on the back for publishing this, despite the inertia and constant need to “improve”.

This is a video about the future, dreams and the inescapable realities of living.

I seem to have stopped dreaming.

I am not talking about the neurological waves that you experience when you sleep.

I mean the dreams that you have as you grow older. Dreams about your future. A vision of your life. An imagination and story you tell yourself about the years ahead. A reality that you want to make true.

Lately, I don't seem to have these kinds of dreams anymore. They've fizzled away. My dreams are filled with compromises. The dreams are languishing. No longer alive.

This scene has been playing in my mind every single day.

I don't think I have had a whole dream in a while.

Those vivid dreams I had when I was young, about all the fun adventures I would participate in with a group of friends, as an adult no longer exist.

I would often visualize:

A life where I’m always together with friends and loved ones.

A life where I have a job that nourishes my soul.

A life where I am attentive, and deeply passionate about the world.

A life which does not bog down the magic I experienced as a kid.

These days, I am not dreaming about this life.

My dreams are amputated versions of this imagination. Dreams that accept reality, tradeoffs and circumstances.

I am not sure if I can be together with my friends and closed ones the same way I imagined. Some of those relationships will fade away. I may not be able to do anything about it.

A job now is more about paying the bills and taking care of responsibilities. I seem to have stopped looking for fulfillment.

I keep my head down. I am not looking around the world. I am just getting through each day. There is no zeal in my living.

The shape of my dreams are beaten down by “logic” and “rationality”.

My dreams are “realistic”.

There is no magical element to my future. I am living a life filled with compromises that I accept.

This kind of thinking is a trap for my mind. I know it. And yet it permeates how I live these days.

Some moments remind me of the progress I have made. Choices like moving out with my friends. Shifting jobs consistently to try and find something that nourishes my soul. Putting in the work to keep in touch with my friends. Creating my own space. I am trying to fill my life with play.

These are decisions I have made. A story that I am currently living. Towards a dream I saw.

And yet, I can’t see them now.

I feel like my dreams are broken. Collecting dust in a graveyard. Deteriorating into oblivion.

But that’s just not true is it?

The dreams are alive.

They are taking shape.

Magical moments are waiting for me in the future.

I need to look deeper.

That’s it for now.

Would love to know what you thought about this !

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

I had a bunch of thoughts swirling in my head for a while. Decided to put them out there, so there's a place for them. And not overthink by myself.

Every single piece of advice, blogpost, podcast, tip always say: consistency in actions leads to growth.

I acknowledge that.

But, there are a lot of moments where I don't really want to be consistent. I don't wanna show up.

Let me just be.

Give it a watch, and let me know what you think !

There is something I deeply dislike about adulthood. 

It is this absolute necessity to show up every single day of your life.  

Show up for work. Show up for your friends. Show up for family. Show up for your interests. 

Show up for yourself. 

You don’t have a choice. (maybe you do, but let’s not go there)

There are waves of expectations that I’m dealing with. Not only of those around me, but also the ones I have of myself. To give it my “best”, everyday. 

Some days these waves are crippling. 

To paraphrase a quote: I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the different expectations that I can’t meet. 

I know. 

I know. 

I know deep down that the only way to live intentionally, and have a life that is fulfilling: is to be consistent. Showing up is what counts. 

But 

It is exhausting. 

Sometimes, in an attempt at showing up everyday, all I feel like I’m doing is surviving. Getting through each day. To the next. And the one after that. The waves don’t stop. 

Once in a while, I’m okay with being marked absent from my own story. It’s alright if there is a proxy instead. I don’t want to take care of anything or anyone, including me. 

Sometimes I prefer disappearing. Into a fantastical realm. 

Where my dreams aren’t interrupted by my own expectations. 

Where there is no universal obligation to be consistent. 

I can just be. 

These are mere ruminations of course. The fact is: younger me showed up everyday. He didn’t contemplate so much. He just did. 

Maybe there’s something in that for the adult in me today. 

For now though, I’ll go to sleep. 

Wake up tomorrow. Make some chai. 

And navigate the next thing I need to show up for. 

That was it, thanks for watching !

If you’ve ever felt like this, I’m curious to hear your stories. Do reach out !

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

Since 2020, on August 30th I’ve tried to publish something. It started off with personal essays in the form of podcasts, and for in 2023 and 2024: these are video essays.

These are all Time Capsules. Little gifts I’m leaving myself on each birthday, for the future me to look at. This time is a little special.

It is hard to put in words the feeling I have after spending long periods of time with my friends: whether that's a trip, or just a hangout. It is a mix of so many things. Fulfilment, happiness, melancholy. I also feel the possibility of loss, everytime I hangout. It is a void that is now a default.

The last year, has been chaotic. A lot of disruptions. Shifts in priorities, hard decisions and no stable footing. Amidst all this, what I tend to remember are these moments I've shared and created with friends.

So, for my birthday today, I decided to look back and try to articulate all of these feelings. I hope I was able to.

Give it a watch !

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There exists a certain hollowness that I’ve been carrying for the last few years. I don’t think about it 99% of the time. But I know this hole resides within me. 

It doesn’t impair any of my living experiences. It isn’t a source of anxiety or stress or any kind of negative emotion. There’s nothing positive about it either. 

The hole merely exists. It has become a fact of life, after living through the pandemic. Something changed. 

How do I know about this, if it is so inconsequential to my life? 

Well, this hollow part of my being comes to my attention as I spend elongated periods of time with my friends and loved ones. I am acutely aware of it after a long conversation. Usually, it becomes evident and comes to the spotlight while I’m on a trip with friends. 

I’m hanging out with them. The room is filled with laughter and conversations and stories. It is safe. I’m asleep comfortably. 

We’re all together in a shared space, part of a shared moment, creating a shared memory. 

The hole is being filled up. 

And that’s how I know it exists. 

This rather simple act of being with friends enriches my life for a brief moment. 

The hole is being filled with some magical power. The weight of each moment is being absorbed. 

Then the hangout ends. The trip is over. We say our goodbyes. 

I come back. Open my laptop. Start work, and I can feel the hole becoming empty again. 

It's hard to articulate this experience. One word which has come close to it is “etherness” from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. 

It is this wistful feeling you have when you see the gathering of your loved ones in a single place, knowing that in the future this may never happen again. The passage of time will take these people on different paths. They will slowly drift away.  

And the only thing that you can do is imagine and go back to these memories and wonder what it felt like to have everyone in the same place. 

I feel this hole is a kind of grief. An anticipation of loss that I keep carrying with me. It makes me feel grateful for every moment I'm with my friends but it also seems heart wrenching because the number of times I will be a part of these moments keeps reducing. 

Like I said, this hollow space resides within me. I don't think about it. It doesn't affect my life in any significant way. 

But as I head home, and tell my friends goodbye. 

My eyes well up. I start thinking about the future me who is going to look back.  I'm already in mourning. I have lost another fleeting moment.  

And yet, I feel blessed. To know that there are people in my life that make me experience the fullness of my humanity. 

To know that when I'm part of fleeting moments with them, they become permanent memories. Forever etched in how I live. 

Let me know what you thought ! And, if you liked it, do send it to your friends too.

Take Care,

Nirmal Bhansali

I recently started a new job. This would be my 3rd job in 3 years. I’m back in the legal profession. Let’s see how it goes this time.

The transition from taking a break, to getting back to work isn’t easy.

I wrote (and made a short video) about this shift again.

Do watch it !

I’m always going to be amazed by how quickly time flows. Over a month of my new job is complete, and I’m not really sure what I did during those days. 

I had taken a step back from my career for two months. Doing nothing productive. Lazing around. Taking naps. Staying distracted online. Trying my best: to relax and not worry about my evasive future. 

Now that I’m working again, I’m already feeling nostalgic for this period of my life.

For a brief moment, I had forgotten how taxing work can get. 

Maybe it’s not really the work. Life is in hard mode for everyone these days, as my friend says. 

Tiring. 

Unpredictable. 

Instantaneous. 

That quote from Ferris Bueller’s Day Out is something I keep coming back to. 

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

I’m quite certain that I’ve seen a little bit of life go past me. I wasn’t even looking around. My optimism still remains though. This is a new month. 

I’ll settle into the rhythm of working a little bit more. 

I will meet my friends and visit a new city.

I’ll grow a year older. 

I’ll treat myself to a manga. 

I’ll write a letter to myself. 

I can see moments of light soaked joy ahead. 

I may have missed out on life a little, but I am still definitely looking forward to it.

Thanks for watching, let me know what you thought.

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

This is a special post because Timesheets is back !

Some of you may remember, a couple of years ago, I started a sub-series on my podcast called Timesheets with the intention of documenting all of the chaos that can be seen in adulthood.

I did released 3 episodes. Then I promised a bunch more, and as is the case with me: all those different ideas went down the drain.

After over a year now, I’ve finally managed to make another Timesheets episode.

A lot has changed since.

This particular episode is about quitting. Quitting your hobbies and in my case, quitting my jobs.

Give it a listen !

(Note: I’d urge you to listen before/during reading)

One of my favorite fictional characters is Naruto. A core part of his philosophy is to never give up. 

No matter what your circumstances are, you shouldn’t give up. That was his ninja way. 

He didn’t quit. 

But I did. 

I quit a lot. 

I finished the 3rd role in my career so far. It isn’t easy to leave a stable, well-meaning job that gives you a regular income. And yet I did. 

I quit. 

I am ashamed when I think about it. I feel like I’ve let down so many people. I think I ran away. 

What if I’m someone who just quits, and gives up? What if I don’t have the strength to take on the life that comes with adulting? I keep wondering if I’m just weak.

The thing is, I’ve quit many times before. 

I quit my tennis classes when I was young. But, in a parallel universe, I’m a professional tennis player. 

I quit my keyboard classes too. In a parallel universe, I’m playing the Interstellar theme in an airport. Live. 

Sigh. 

These are some of the lies I tell myself to feel better about quitting.   

I quit basketball in university. But, let’s just  say I wasn’t going to be an NBA player in any parallel universe. 

There are so many other hobbies and projects which I can think of that I started and after some time, I gave up on them. 

Why did I do that? 

I can point to a lot of things. I was bored. Life got in the way. I never made time. I was afraid. 

I was afraid to acknowledge that I might not be “good” at these things. And I believed that the only reason to pursue these hobbies and projects was if you’re “good enough”. 

I never was. 

At the time, people told me (and I also believed) that I had “high potential”. I could be very good at playing tennis, or the piano or even basketball. 

But someone wise told me that when someone says you have high potential, it just means you haven’t achieved something great enough yet to talk about that thing instead. It was said more poetically, but you get the point.

Smart people can ride on the high of being someone with high potential for a while. But eventually you hit roadblocks. You have to pay back the ego debts.

And I kept myself satisfied in the head, with this assessment. 

But the truth is, I never acted on it. I didn’t stay focused. I saw some other incredible people pursue these same things, and I questioned whether I would ever get there. I never put in the effort required to feel good about leveling up. 

I was happy and satisfied with my parallel universes. 

I know my thoughts around this have changed over the years. I recognize the value of hobbies. I don’t have this innate desire to be “good” at it. While I didn’t pick those up when I was younger, I know that I can pick them up again. 

Maybe I’ll have fun this time around. I’ll be able to reconnect with that old joy. 

But my career is different. 

The decisions I’ve taken while quitting my jobs, seem a lot more irreversible and definitely haunt me. 

Take for example: the 2 years of preparing for entrance exams. 5 years of law school. Almost a year of working as a corporate lawyer. 

And at the end of this 8-year journey, I decided that law isn’t for me. 

I quit. 

I didn’t know what I wanted my future to look like, but I just knew that I needed to experiment and pursue something else. And I thought now is the only time I’ll have to try different things. 

Did I rush? Was it the right choice? What if I stuck around longer? 

Immediately after, I decided I should set up a business with my family. If a marwari doesn’t try to be an entrepreneur, who would. Within half a year, I realized I don’t have the obsession required to run a business. 

I quit. 

Should I have analyzed my decision more? What if I was willing to take on bigger risks? Did I take the right path? 

I stepped away and decided to take my skills in the field of news and media. This was the most recent stint. Also the longest. I was happy with the work I was doing, until I wasn’t. 

I quit. 

Am I making enough money? What’s the best way to use my time? Should I go back to law?

I quit these roles partly because I didn’t see a future for myself. I quit because my instinct told me there's something else out there. I quit because I wasn’t satisfied. 

At the time, I didn’t regret any of these decisions. These were thoughtful. I feel like I didn’t rush into them. I was confident about the choice I was making. 

But, quitting your job is scary. 

It’s only after the fact that I hyper analyze every micro decision I had taken. I pick apart my trajectory. I carefully pick instances where I could’ve done something different. I carve out a path that I didn’t walk on, to see if that was better. 

I get stuck in a loop of wondering if I am on the “right path”. 

What if I’m only making bad choices all the time? What happens then? What if I’m always on the wrong road? 

I’m surrounded by this fear. I don’t know where things are headed. I’m not clear about my own priorities. 

I am ashamed about all the times I’ve quit. I feel like I’m running away from my problems. I should be battling them out head on, instead of giving up. If only I was more resilient, maybe things would work out for the better. Maybe I could’ve made better choices….

Anything that offers substantial rewards comes with risk, a high likelihood of failure. Which means you’ll need to make several appearances at the plate before you connect with the ball. The top scorers in the Premier League miss half their shots. Great players, like great entrepreneurs and leaders, see the ball go wide, shake their head, and move on. If you want to be successful, you will likely need to quit the majority of your jobs, homes, friends, and investments. Your jobs, locale, investments, and relationships are commitments, not suicide pacts.

My doubts are always following me around. And, all I can do is to learn to live with them. 

These days, I am trying hard to remind myself that life is quite long. There are decades worth of experiences to be lived. 

That I didn’t quit just for the heck of it. I was looking ahead. Searching for something. Learning more about myself and the world in the process. 

I remind myself to go back to my journal and text messages I sent my friends about how I felt when I quit. 

I often wrote about how I felt I was in a rut. I felt stuck and anxious. I mentioned how dissatisfied I was with my days. 

I remember writing about how a weight was lifted off my chest after quitting my first job, and I felt light. I definitely wrote about how circumstances around me and my family were changing. I had to adapt. 

I know I wrote about the hope I had for a better future. 

The question is, will this hope last? How long should I be searching? Will all these dots connect?

I hope they do. 

I hope they do. 

Because, what is the alternative? 

Thank you so much for listening (and reading) !

Let me know what you thought.

Share

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

What you are about to read is something I’ve been trying to write for months now. It is a long and deeply personal essay.

I almost never got to writing it, because I always thought I wouldn’t be able to do justice to it. I wanted it to be “perfect”. There was this immense burden to get it “right”. Eventually, I decided to just let it fly. I’ll publish it regardless of the condition it is in.

I’ve tried to collect many threads of non-linear thoughts into one place. It is a story about death, about grief, about growing older and what it means to live.

(A small warning: This posts contains sensitive discussions around suicide, death and mental health.)

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I. 

Every few days, my friend AA tells me he wants to kill himself. 

I wish this was a dark joke. 

He is serious. 

We aren’t laughing. 

He can only perceive pain and misery. His life is unbearable.

He seems to have set a deadline for himself. If his life doesn’t get better by that date, he’ll go ahead with this action. 

It hasn’t happened yet, because he imagines his funeral and considers the reactions of his loved ones. 

Whenever I see these kinds of messages from my friend, I am at once heartbroken and weirdly enough—I’m also glad. 

I’m glad that he continues to communicate with us (his friends). I’m glad he continues to show trust in us. I’m glad that he hasn’t isolated himself. To me it is a sign that he wants to live. 

But, I’m saddened by my own helplessness. I think about his funeral too. Sometimes, I wake up expecting to receive a call about an untimely death. 

I also think about how I’m on the path of another failure. 

II. 

It is May 18, 2021. 

I’m about to finish the final semester of law school. The last set of exams starts soon. 

The 2nd wave of CoVID has frightened me and my family. We aren’t going anywhere. The fear of the disease is still ever-present. We want to be safe. Specifically, we want my grandad to be safe. 

I couldn’t think about the end of my student life, and I never had the chance to come to terms with it either. 

My dad’s phone starts ringing really loudly early in the morning. It is that annoying default ringtone of iPhone. I’m a light sleeper, and I wake up immediately. I see my dad and mother in panic mode. They are worried. 

Something has happened to my cousin.  

My brother and my father immediately set off towards my uncle’s house nearby. 

I stay back, in case they need anything else. 

Some time later, I receive a call from my brother. 

In a breaking voice he tells me:

“Nirmal, I just carried R’s dead body to the ambulance.” 

R is my first cousin. He is 6 years older than me. 

My bad, he was 6 years older than me. 

He didn’t die due to CoVID. He passed away due to factors which I now know in hindsight could’ve been better handled. 

His age when he died? 

29. 

III. 

Last year, on August 30, I celebrated my 25th birthday. 

It was quiet. I received loving calls and messages from people wishing me. I went to dinner with my family. I published a small video essay I was making. I slept before 12. Kept my phone on silent. 

The age 25, seems to hold a special meaning for many people. It has this aura around it in popular culture. It is a seminal moment where your life changes. You officially enter the mid-twenties and now things will fundamentally alter for you. 

There are two distinct expectations that are randomly put on you as you turn 25. 

I’ve been told at different points by relatives and the community around me that this is the time to ‘settle down’. I’m no longer young, and I’m running out of time to build a stable life. That if I don’t settle down now, I’ll regret it later. 

I’m also told that 20s are the defining decade of  your entire life. In the remaining 5 years, I must ensure that I fulfill my “potential”. I must figure out my shit. I must live the best 5 years possible. 

Entering your late 20s then seems to be this crucial moment of completely figuring out your life ahead of you, AND simultaneously settling down. The age of 25 marks this turning point. 

I don’t share these sentiments. Or at least I’d like to think I don’t care too much about my age. 

There was nothing special when I turned 25. I didn’t have any coming-of-age moment that altered the trajectory of my life. I failed to have any clarity of where I was headed. 

Having said that, I quite liked the number 25. It’s the square of 5. 1/4th of a 100. If you add up all the consecutive single-digit odd numbers, you get 25. The number has a nice symmetric feel to it. Turning 25 was just that: from the time I was born, the earth circled around the sun 25 times and I managed to survive all those 25 times. 

For a long time now, I’ve viewed the 20s to be a very short number. I grew up playing fantasy games and reading fantasy novels. I want to live a long life. I don’t care for the small numbers. I don’t care so much about age-related expectations. Unless they’re at the scale of elves and hobbits. I want to celebrate my 111st birthday like Bilbo Baggins in the beginning of Lord of the Rings. 

I’ll turn 26 in a few months. In comparison to the long life I want, 26 is hardly unique. 

So much of my life is still unlived. 

IV. 

I don’t really have vivid memories from my early childhood days. I know I used to live in a joint family. It was big. My parents, my uncle and aunt, my grandfather, my four cousin sisters, one cousin brother, my elder brother and me. I was the youngest. Pampered the most, especially by my aunt. We all grew up together for a while. 

(there is a bigger joint family, but I don’t want this to be a family-relations CAT question, so we’ll avoid that)

As we grew older, the families went separate ways. We still used to live closeby. 

I vaguely remember looking up to my cousin brother R. When I was a kid, I thought he was cool. He had this calm demeanor around him. He was intelligent and smart. I was told by my parents that I needed to study like him in school. I used to fight him and my elder brother often. I wanted to be included in things that they did. I didn’t want to be left out. I know I wanted to be respected by him and my elder brother. 

This was long back. 

As years went by, I didn’t particularly develop a deep connection with my cousin despite being family. He went to study to become a doctor. I went to a different city to study law. There was very little interaction in those years. Any sense of admiration I may have had as a young kid fizzled away. There was a distance now. He was a stranger. 

I didn’t know what was going on in his life. 

Our conversations were small-talk. We would talk about the weather in Jodhpur. He’d make some remarks about Bangalore. We would discuss some new gadgets and their reviews. 

“How are you?” 

“All good.” 

Maybe things weren’t all good for my cousin. 

V. 

We are in my uncle’s house. Relatives are all around us. 

The men are wearing white and the women are wearing faded sarees. This is a funeral now. A prayer meeting is about to be held. All I can hear are people crying and bawling. 

I’m trying hard to keep my tears at bay. Now is not the time. There are other arrangements to be made. Some running around to do. Make sure we get the death certificate.  Heck, I even have my final semester exams coming up soon. 

My cousin is lying down in the hall, in the center. I’m sitting beside him. 

Across me is my aunt. She’s trying to wake my cousin up. 

She is in denial. She is shaken. Her eyes tell me that she can’t believe what just happened. She requests me to wake R up. 

I can see my cousin too. He’s right there. His eyes are closed. He looks peaceful. 

I can definitely wake him up right? 

Surely all of this is just a bad dream, and once I wake him up, I’ll also get out of this dream and everyone around me will stop suffering. 

Spoiler alert: This isn’t a dream sequence and I couldn’t wake him up. 

His body was there. He wasn’t. 

Only traces of his impermanence exist now—like a newly added photo frame in the home. 

VI. 

I was not as close to my cousin as others in my family. We grew apart. Beyond family gatherings, I didn’t speak to R. We didn’t really share a bond. 

Rationally, then, I shouldn’t be thinking about his passing that often. I shouldn’t have experienced sadness the way I did back then. And yet, I think about this death every few weeks or months. Joan Didion writes in ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ that grief can be rather random and disorienting:

“Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be.”

Maybe I’m grieving. But I also know that I feel guilty. 

I know how my cousin died. I have an inkling of the ‘why he died’ piece of the puzzle too. I think sometimes that it was a collective failure that led to his death.

A failure which I keep ruminating about, even though I know, no one is really to blame. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just happened.

Kamran Javadizadeh has this stunning essay about poetry and mourning the death of his sister. I’ve revisited it multiple times now. I think about this line often:

“Before a person dies, you talk to them. They die, and you still want to talk to them. But their body is gone.”

When I look at our WhatsApp chats, there really isn’t much. No calls. No messages. I hadn’t texted him even once in the last few years. And now I can’t. 

What was I doing?

VII. 

I like kurtas. Apart from t-shirts, I find them to be the most comfortable. 

We wear white kurtas after the death of a family member. I didn’t have any at the time when R passed away. 

After the death of my cousin, I decided to get a few white kurtas tailored. Might as well get a few made. The white kurtas can also double down as some casual wear. They are fashionable. That’s what I thought. 

Since then, I never wore the white kurtas for any ordinary occasions. I’ve only ended up wearing those white kurtas for funerals of some of my older relatives. 

One of those was my aunt. R’s mother. 

She passed away too. 7 months after my cousin’s death. Grieving the death of her son, led to her own. 

I’ve had occasions to wear white kurtas. But now, it’s a mental block. Sometimes, a random thought occurs to me that the next time I wear it will be at my friend AA’s funeral. 

VIII. 

I said that I don’t care too much about aging. 

I lied. 

I care. 

I care about the number. I care about it every year. 

I’ve cared about it ever since my cousin’s birthday came up soon after the death of my aunt in December 2021. And I noticed that I couldn’t even send him a birthday message. 

I don’t care about 25. That’s for sure. I definitely don’t care about turning 26, in a few months. 

But, I’ve started caring about milestones. Just specific ones. 

I care about 29 for example. 

My 29th birthday is three years away. 

My cousin passed away a few months before he even celebrated his 29th birthday. He had an entire life ahead of him. Decades of adventures, experiences, memories and connections were laid on his path.  

But all that was gone. He can’t take a step on this path now. There is an entire life that was stolen from him. 

Every year I live, I’m adding memories and experiences that my cousin cannot possibly have now. He’s not here anymore. 

From the moment I turn 29, every single day I live will be a day my cousin would never be able to savour from. I know I will care about each day I live after 29. 

My life is headed somewhere. 

He didn’t even get the chance to live through his. 

IX. 

Eight years ago, when I joined university, I was a shy, nervous and an awkward wreck. I wasn’t comfortable talking to strangers. I didn’t trust people easily. I also found it difficult to express my feelings. I wasn’t too confident in myself. I was thousands of kilometers away from home. I was lost. 

I met AA at this juncture of my life.

Back then, I didn’t laugh that much. Still don’t. 

(yes, I know that’s sad. It is what it is)

But, for whatever reason AA has this unique ability to make everyone around him laugh. I know many times where I was dying of laughter. He’d kill me with his remarks, quips, and random stories. 

Through his infectious energy, I got around to meeting new people who eventually became my closest friends. He has this extremely comforting presence around him that inevitably got me to open up and be vulnerable. I learnt to trust more wholeheartedly. He was kind, encouraging and instilled within me a quiet confidence in myself that I still carry today. 

In a myriad of tiny ways, meeting AA has made my life more magical than it was. It caused a chain reaction that altered the reality I found myself in. 

This is also why I find it so incredibly frustrating that my friend cannot see himself the way I see him. 

I’m sure there are different facets that affect him, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to live inside his head. Nevertheless, seeing him struggle is heart wrenching. I’d rather take it on by myself, than see my friend go through his struggle right now. 

AA tells me every week he wants to die. The constant misery is painful and it is hard to survive. 

He says life has toppled him. He says he hasn’t felt this defeated before. He is at the rock bottom. He doesn’t see hope. There is no point anymore. 

I wish I could just link the thoughts I have in my head to my friend. He doesn’t quite realize the many ways in which he’s radically changed my life (and so many others). 

So, when my friend says he can’t see the light anymore. I don’t get it. I am thinking about how he is the light for me. 

He says he is often surrounded by darkness which he cannot get out of, and I think about the different ways in which he added color to my rather monochromatic life. 

When my friend says that he is weak. And that he can’t find the strength to go on. I think about these lines from Rohan Joshi’s talk:

"When you feel you're weak or at your weakest and you should give up. Remember that you might think you are weak, but you're someone's source of strength, whether you know it or not." 

He was my source of strength. He continues to be. 

I wish he saw himself the way I see him. 

My friend sometimes worries about not meeting the many expectations he had of himself. He doesn’t think he’s achieved anything significant. He hasn’t hit any big milestones. He believes his 20s are going to a waste. 

He is lying.

I’m so incredibly proud of the things he’s managed to do, and the many lives he has touched. The decades ahead of him, will be much better than the decades that precede him. He is not defined by his 20s. He is astronomically more than his achievements. I hope we can continue to have a shared life and create thousands of more memories as we have already done for a decade.  

My friend wants his existence to be extinguished. He wants all of us to forget him.
I want to remember every moment I’ve lived and shared with him forever.

My friend wants to die. 
I don’t want to lose my friend to death. 

My friend hates himself. 
I love him.

I wish he saw himself the way I see him. 

Rayne Fisher-Quann has a heart-wrenching essay about everything around grief, but this specific part hit home for me:

So, I can’t stop talking about what will happen if my best friend dies. I am decimated by the loss of things that aren’t even gone yet. I am so full of the people I love — I have let so much of myself be made of them — that I can tell, with clinical specificity, precisely how little of me there could be if they were gone. The more firmly and reliably entrenched they are in my life, the more the fear persists. I, too, am defined by absence. I am a child, and anything could be taken from me at any moment. 

X. 

Adulthood to me was a series of deadlines. Anxieties around your career, struggles in your many relationships with people, and the pain of dealing with responsibilities are all things that you slowly learn to navigate. It is an excruciating way to live. 

Now, I still do think that adulthood is a series of deadlines. Just that those deadlines are the time you spend with the people you care about.  It is shorter with some, more with others. You have to acknowledge this. You can’t avoid it. You need to make the most of it. 

One of my favourite books that I’ve read in recent memory is Frederick Backman’s A Man Called Ove. It is a beautiful novel, and contains vivid descriptions of loss which I keep coming back to: 

“We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.”

If you hadn't noticed till now, I think about death a lot. 

I think about it despite not wanting to die. I want to live a long life. In that sense, you could say I’m the complete opposite of my friend (come on, my friend approves of this joke)

I want to live a fulfilling life. 

I owe it. To the unlived life of my cousin. To my aunt. To the people I care about. 

I want to carry this tiny burden of living, for those who couldn’t. 

I want to savour every moment. I want to experience the pain and the suffering that will definitely come along with living. But I also want to soak in all the delight, joy and wonderful memories that will undoubtedly come my way. I want these to be shared experiences with my friends, family and those I care about. 

I don’t know about where my life will lead me. I have no clue about my future.

I just know that as long as I’m alive, and I’m intentional with living, I’ll figure it out along the way. 

If you’ve reached all the way, thank you so much for reading! It truly means a lot.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this essay.

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

Lately, things have been worrisome.

Obviously, I decided to spend some time worrying about my worries. I made a video about it.

One of the things I did notice is I used to worry less when I was younger. Possibly due to timely breaks and summer vacations as well — which helped slow things down.

It was a brief interval before the next level of difficulties.

Those kinds of intervals don't exist anymore.

You are responsible for making the time to deal with your worries.

Unfortunately, there are no summer vacations or "semester" breaks for adults, where these worries can take a backseat.

And sometimes that makes me feel envious about those who have holidays going on. '

I resonate quite a bit with these lines from the poem ‘Facts of Life’ by Pádraig Ó Tuama.

“That life isn’t fair.
That life is sometimes good
and sometimes even better than good.

That life is often not so good.”

Script

As soon as the calendar changes to April, you start seeing posters of summer camps being distributed around my home. 

It is summer vacation. 

Students are on a break. 

They are in the middle of an interval before they move on to the next stage of their lives. 

They can do anything or nothing during this interval. 

And I am envious. 

Whenever I walk around KR Park these days, I always have a perpetual thought racing in my mind: 

Why am I so worried all the time? 

Every day, a new random worry gets added on to a never ending list. It’s a shadow that I can’t get rid of. My head is always carrying worries—big, small or random. They are relentless. 

To top it off, in your 20s, there are no externally imposed intervals where your worries can take a backseat. 

I know my younger self also did a lot of worrying, but maybe it helped that I had pauses in between which allowed me to be less serious. 

There was flexibility—to not show up, to zone out, day dream or do nothing. Having that option itself made it easier.  

What guides my actions in the present is getting rid of these worries from my looong list. 

And what used to guide me when I was younger was a little bit simpler: what’s the most fun way to spend my time. 

I find it fascinating that such a radical change occurred when I grew up. I also know I am also responsible for this shift. If this is how I spend my days as an adult, it’s also going to be how I spend the rest of my life. 

And I want to avoid that fate. 

I don’t want worries to guide me.

I want to follow my innate desires a little bit more. 

And I hope to do that without summer vacations. 

That’s it for now. If you watched the video, let me know what you think !

How did you spend your summer vacations? What kind of activities did you pursue? I’d love to hear your stories.

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

My friend recently remarked that everything turns me into "some introspective zone". I guess that's been happening often these days.

And this is me trying to get some of those thoughts out in the form of a video.

For the last few days, I’ve been thinking about this interaction between Dwight and Ryan from Season 3:

Ryan: “I don’t get it. I don’t get what I did wrong.”
Dwight: “Not everything’s a lesson, Ryan. Sometimes you just fail.”

I’m thinking about failures from my past. Calculating if there were better decisions I didn't take. 

Could I have had a different conversation? Should I have picked a different course? Would it have been better if I took a different path? 

My brain is racing with these What Ifs. 

It’s so easy for my mind to think about lives that I’m not living. As Matt Haig says:

It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.

Is there something to learn from these regrets and failures? Can I use this as a lesson for a better future? Shouldn't this crippling regret lead to something meaningful? 

Sometimes, the reality is you just fail. You made decisions. You deal with the consequences. There is no “better” decision that another me could’ve taken. I’ll never be able to tell if other versions of me are better or worse. I can only focus on where I am right now. 

Again, Matt Haig: 

Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.

Let me know if you’ve been contemplating or thinking about decisions you’ve taken? How do you deal with regrets? What gets you out of that zone?

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

I came across the news this morning about Akira Toriyama passing away, it came as a shock.

I felt saddened by this news and I was surprised at my own reaction. I normally don't have such feelings for a public figure passing away, but I guess this time the connection was a little too deep to even ignore. I was forced to acknowledge just how much this meant.

To say that DBZ was a critical part of my childhood is an understatement. So much of how I think about life, can be traced to different memories I've created because of the Dragon Ball series or because of where it led me.

I owe a humongous debt of gratitude to Akira Toriyama.

I know I'd be less of a person I'm today if not for Dragon Ball opening so many doors for me, to different worlds.

This is a post trying to share some of the memories that started flowing.

“Akira Toriyama, the influential Japanese manga artist who created the Dragon Ball series, has died at the age of 68.”

Ever since I came across this piece of news, I’ve been drowning in a tsunami of memories. 

I remember looking forward to rushing back from school  as a young child (6 or 7 years old) to watch Dragon Ball Z on Cartoon Network. I remember sitting in the school van playing DBZ with our hands. It was an upgraded version of rock, paper, scissors. This became our go to game during breaks in the classroom. In hindsight, a mechanism to bond with some of my now close friends. 

After watching Goku beat Vegeta in the clash between Kamehameha and Gallick Gun, 

I remember trying so hard to do the Kamehameha. I remember being scolded by my family because I kept shouting ‘Kaaa Meee Haaa Mee Haaaa’. 

Even now, as a 25 year old, I still sometimes do the Kamehameha movement. 

I remember going on the internet around 8/9 years old so that I could find the Dragon Balls in real life. At the time, I still had the tiniest hope that this rich and imaginative world actually existed and I just needed to find the Dragon Balls and wish for my entry into the realm of the Z warriors. 

The only time I’ve wanted to dye my hair is after I saw Goku become Super Saiyan for the first time against Freeza. I also remember thinking that the way to power up in life is to shout loudly. 

I think about how many times I’ve tried to go Super Saiyan since then. Even as an adult, there have been times where I felt I needed to go ‘Super Saiyan’ to be able to get things done. It became code for going to the “next level”. 

When I started playing games on my computer, I downloaded the Visual Boy Advance, an emulator for GBA games. Apart from Pokémon, the first set of games I played were the Dragon Ball games. I remember the absolute blast I had playing this. 

The only gaming console I’ve ever owned is the PlayStation 2. I think I got it for my 11th birthday. I attached it to a really small and old CRT TV in my room. The 2nd game I purchased was Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3. 

Every summer vacation, becoming the best at this game became the objective for me and many of my neighborhood friends. Every day, we would spend hours playing this game and trying to compete against each other. I remember the absolute delight it was to play this game and share this experience with my friends. I got closer to them because of this game. 

I remember playing with soft toys & action figures. I remember imagining intricate storylines leading up to battles between these toys. It was just me, and my imagination running wild and I had so much fun. 

I remember how much I hated Vegeta in the beginning. As I grew older, I remember thinking about the hard work that Vegeta put in. I saw his struggles. I saw his pain. I saw how he got through all of that. I remember how much Goku trusted him. I remember thinking about how much I wanted to be like Goku as a teenager. 

I remember wanting to be a good person. I wanted to be strong, and I wanted to have the kind of adventures Goku had. I wanted to be there for my friends and family like Goku was. I wanted the confidence that Goku had. 

I remember how Dragon Ball opened up an entire new world to me. I remember how it was easy for me to watch Naruto and One Piece when they aired on TV, because it felt familiar. 

I remember reading about how Eiichiro Oda and Masashi Kishimoto were inspired by Dragon Ball and Akira Toriyama. I remember that being the moment when I absolutely became enthralled with the universe of manga and anime. 

A few years back, my friends gifted me this incredible manga-style portrait of me - ‘Manga Nirmal’ is what I’ve come to refer to it as. Manga Nirmal is a reminder of the simple joy that comes with being imaginative with my life. It shows me that life can be rich and delightful. 

There is no Manga Nirmal without Dragon Ball Z.

These different worlds I’ve visited over the past 15 years have shaped so much of how I think of my life and the world around me. These worlds wouldn’t exist without Akira Toriyama. 

In my 20s, I’ve been able to remain imaginative as a person, still retain some childlike wonder, build bonds with people and continue to hope for more adventures. 

All of this can be traced to Akira Toriyama. I’m eternally grateful for this gift I received early on in my life. 

It is hard to admit. The truth is I am saddened by the loss of someone who I didn’t really know, but whose work has left an indelible mark on the trajectory of my life. To quote Oda Sensei: 

May heaven be the joyous world he envisioned.

Have you watched or read any of Akira Toriyama’s work? What kind of memories do they evoke in you?

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

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I hoard WhatsApp chats. I don’t delete them. I try making sure I always have a backup of WhatsApp. I don’t go read old chats often.

But sometimes, I do.

And going back through your old messages is such a revelatory experience. There are so many forgotten things that come up, and you feel a rush of mixed emotions just looking at past chats.

This happened to me a few weeks ago and I've been thinking about the deep history that WhatsApp stores of our lives. Decided to share some of my thoughts.

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The WhatsApp group with my friends suddenly started blowing up with notifications a few weeks back. It was just one of those random days. You’re busy at work but the forces of the universe are at play, and the once silent group suddenly starts bursting with messages. 

Till date, particularly after graduation as we live our separate lives—whenever this surge happens. I know I’m going to have a good day. 

These messages are old pictures from our college days. Everyone is trying to find the worst ones they have of each other. It is a competition. 

I’m going through my archives. Looking for a message/photo which will elicit a reaction from my friends. 

We are sharing glimpses from our lives. They are glimpses now.

But we lived in them a while back. 

Soon, we are not just sharing old photos. We are also looking at older threads of messages from our group chat. Inside jokes and stories that I had completely forgotten about start to resurface. 

I remember that week being tough. There was a crippling sense of stagnation and confusion about what I will do in the coming year. 

And the group chat coming alive gave me some solace. 

After our midday rush of messages, I decided to go through the archives of some other WhatsApp chats and wow, it was quite a ride. Looking at past messages evoke a myriad of emotions. 

One of my first thoughts was cringe. Is that really how we were? 

Then you start feeling a sense of loss for the person you were once and the memories you can’t go back to. 

Sometimes, old chats are like a graveyard. They are remnants of all those conversations that never went anywhere. Messages which show the spark of a friendship only for it to fizzle away and die. Relationships that have come to an end. Texts that highlight the many things you’ve had to let go as you grow up. 

I also saw a lot of moments where I expressed vulnerability through words in a group chat. I told my friends how I felt about grief and loss, after losing someone in the family a few years back. There were some other harsh moments from my past that I could see. The messages reminded me of memories I had locked away. 

One of the recurring themes and challenges of growing up is when there are days where my mind randomly starts telling me about how I “haven’t achieved a lot” or that I haven’t had a lot of “experiences in life” or that I should be “doing more”. 

When our group chat lit up two weeks ago, I was in that state. I felt stuck.

And I’m glad I took this trip down memory lane. These WhatsApp texts reveal a rich history of my life. 

One of the many group chats I share with my friends is called ‘Weird things we’ve heard’, and the focus is to share the most random, quirky, funny and absurd things we’ve heard people say around us. Without any context. 

So, whenever I revisit messages from this group, they inevitably make me laugh. Like so many other older messages. 

Yes, revisiting old messages opens up a can of worms. Yes, I was vulnerable but I think I formed some of my best friendships by expressing that vulnerability. There were difficult moments, and I found support to get by. In moments of weakness, I found kindness. In moments of loss, I found solace. In moments of deep confusion, I found clarity. We laughed despite the hard times. We found joy, where there wasn’t any. 

My mind is lying to me when it says that I am “stagnant”. My life hasn’t been “stuck”. 

The texts reveal a life lived together and the many memories I’ve been a part of over years. They are hard evidence of the adventure I’ve had. 

There is this quote by Gabrielle Zevine in ‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’ that I really like: 

“This is what time travel is. It’s looking at a person, and seeing them in the present and the past, concurrently. And that mode of transport only worked with those one had known for a significant time.”

I think looking at your past messages is also an act of time travel. You can’t forget the unpleasant moments, but it is also not possible to ignore the remarkable progress you’ve made all this while. The messages shed light on your past, but with the lens of the present. More importantly, these old chats force you to be hopeful about the future. As John Green says: 

“This me who was 20 could not know the joys or indeed the sorrows of the current me. And I find it helpful to look at pictures if only because they remind me that the current me cannot see the bad times that are coming-but also cannot see the moments of light-soaked joy that are in my future.” 

How do you feel when you go through old messages? Are there any weird groups you’re a part of? Let me know !

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

I’m trying to make 2024 a different year?

Every year, I promise to myself that I’ll write more, read more, watch more, listen more, create more etc.

And every year I fail.

But, despite that when the dates change, and the calendar resets in a way, I feel like I should make that attempt again.

So, here I am. Making another attempt with one of the things I couldn’t write about last year. Podcasts.

Podcasts were something I listened to all the time, but over the last year or so, that habit came to lull. I stopped listening to as many as I would have preferred and as a result, also never documented them on Listening Chronicles.

Starting this edition, I hope to change that. You can expect an edition of Listening Chronicles at least once a month. I will share thoughts about the podcasts I’m listening to, and if you have any podcasts recently that you liked, definitely share them with me.

Podcasts I Listened To

Poetry Unbound | When in Doubt?

Poetry Unbound started its latest season this year. This is its eighth season.

In this episode, Pádraig Ó Tuama reads out and discusses the poem ‘When in Doubt’ by Sandra Cisneros. I personally think it came at the right time for me. I’ve been in doubt a lot these days, and I think this gave me a moment of pause. I like these lines from the poem

“When in doubt,
Absorb biographies to avoid life’s major mistakes.

“When in doubt,
Make life’s major mistakes.

These sentiments shared by Padraig about the poem in this podcast is also really beautiful:

And the unfolding advice of the poem seems to be: in times of incertitude think about things like pleasure and generosity and hospitality and your relationship with people and gratitude. And it’s also saying: Try to be in the world. Try not to be outside of it, living some perfect kind of life. Try to be in it, living the complicated life that you have. And even in that world, pay attention to other sentient and insentient beings. Tell your grief to the tree. It’s like a secular set of commandments, this poem, and it does have a register of religion as it says, “When in doubt / Forgive us our myopia / As we forgive those who are myopic against us.” Picking up on a line that you find in the Gospels, instruction and prayer, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The Memory Palace | Alice Ramsay

One of my other favourite podcasts. The best way to listen to The Memory Palace is to just dive right in without reading the description, and patiently let Nate Di Meo tell you a story about some unique historical incident/figure/event etc.

This particular episode is about Alice Ramsay, the first woman to drive an automobile coast to coast in the United States. She did this in 1909, an era where women weren’t really driving cars in the US.

This story has a lot more to it. Only 16 minutes, and I promise it’s worth your time.

The Why | Pantheon with Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol and Tony Parker

Dwyane Wade, one of the legends of the game of basketball launched his own podcast this month. It is a trend for NBA players to start building out their personal brand, and podcasting is definitely one way of doing it.

Of course, what is unique about Wade is the reach he has, that I think other NBA players who are in this space don’t have yet.

The opening episode is a good example, it features three of the best players to ever play the game in the last two decades—Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol and Tony Parker.

These are all players who I have grown up watching, and it is definitely the first time that they have sat down together to even have a conversation like this.

There are two parts to this. I loved listening to a bunch of different stories and their perspective on their careers after 20 years. If you’re a basketball fan, this is a must watch.

Tanmay Bhat’s conversation with Varun Mayya

As someone who’s always interested in other content creator’s journeys, this is another appearance of Tanmay Bhat that I quite liked.

Particularly interesting was the discussions around the sheer amount of writing that is needed to actually reach a level of decent success, and what the ‘oven moment’ in a good video is.

If you’re curious about how much a YouTuber can earn in India, what it takes to write different types of stories and want to learn more about Tanmay, this one’s for you.

If you don’t want to know any of those things, you can skip it.

The Neon Show | Ashish Fafadia, Partner of Blume Ventures

Lately, I’ve been a little more interested in the venture capital space in India. I am only updated with things that happens in the headlines, but don’t know more about this space. My friend Sandesh recommended listening to this interview with Ashish, a founder of one of the most well-known VC funds in India - Blume.

I really liked this interview. I think it’s also because a lot of it was new for me, and I learnt a bunch of things about the history of venture capital in India, and how it really is quite young.

I’m on the look out for all things related to VC, so if you have suggestions feel free to drop them by.

Side Note: Over the last 2 years, there has been an explosion of podcasts in India which feature conversations with startup founders, investors etc. Again, this is also due to an increase in longform video podcasts become popular again on the YouTube platform and I also think a demand for a style of conversation which is missing in traditional business newspapers, journalism etc. Some do it really well, and there are others which are basically low-quality. I’m interested in this, at some point, will definitely try to write about it.

Other Recommendations

I am sure you have come across ‘edits’: these compilation videos across genre. It will have clips, stitched together with a fitting background theme. These can be related to some anime scenes, favourite movies, politics, music, fashion etc.

But edits have been on the rise.

Fueled initially by TikTok, and now something that has spread to reels, YouTube shorts etc.

Jules Terpak has a wonderful video which breakdown the rise of TikTok edits. Going all the way back to the first known fan-made edits, and what are the reasons why it has become such a mainstream phenomenon in modern culture.

I loved watching this. I think if you’re someone who spends a lot of time on Instagram, you should definitely check this out.

That was it for this edition.

Let me know what you thought about these episodes if you end up listening to them.

See you next week.

Take care !

Happy Listening,

Nirmal Bhansali

This is the first post of 2024 for Curiousect !

The only hope and wish I have for this year is that it is more creative than all of my previous years. I want to write and create more. Whether that’s recommendations, essays, reviews, videos or whatever. Anything.

I want it to be a creative year that I am happy with by December 31, 2024.

We’re starting with a video essay this time. This is a special video.

Sometime last month, I did my first ever Himalayan Trek with a wonderful group of people and made a ton of memories.

I think a part of my brain rewired itself after that experience. I wanted to write and share one aspect of it.

I've always been fascinated with the way writers and poets talk about nature. While I know their writing is beautiful, I never quite experienced nature the same way as they did.

This video is about how that changed, and an expression of my gratitude to all those poets who do the difficult work of putting into language our feelings.

It was extremely satisfying making this. Let me know what you thought!

I have always wanted to know what it is that poets see. Their view of nature is intricate. 

What is it that they know that I don’t? How is it that they can perceive things on earth differently, from the way I do? 

I am unaware what Mary Oliver went through in the woods, when she wrote: 

Something whispered something

that was not even a word.

It was more like a silence

that was understandable.

I am oblivious to what Victoria Chang saw in a forest, when she writes 

Every leaf that falls

never stops falling. I once

thought that leaves were leaves.

Now I think they are feeling,

in search of a place—

I have always thought about this line by Wendell Berry: “I come into the peace of wild things/ who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.”

What was it that he was experiencing? What was going through his life at the time? To feel and then also write such a beautiful line. 

I can't picture myself feeling the same thing. I didn’t think I could ever know what it is that these poets saw. It seems impossible to live through the same wonder that these writers did. 

I’m reminded of a quote by John Green: “From the quark to the supernova, the wonders do not cease. It is our attentiveness that is in short supply, our ability and willingness to do the work that awe requires.”

I live in a fragmented reality. A distracted world. I am constantly overthinking about my future and always escaping into nostalgia. I carefully deconstruct every emotion I feel instead of being in them. I am running away from the present. 

In the last few years, I haven’t spent time in nature with the same care as some of these writers. I avoid putting in the effort that awe requires. 

I tried to change this by doing my first ever Himalayan trek last month in  peak winters. Over the course of 4 exhausting and intense days, I think maybe, just maybe I was able to grasp what poets see. 

I spent almost a week in the mountains and forests. Making the effort to experience awe. I was living very briefly, in a world I had never witnessed before. 

I did not know forests could be so dense, yet soft. I never imagined mountains were so vast, tall and intricate. I never felt so small. I never felt the fear of standing at a cliff, while marveling at the moon bidding goodbye to the night. All at the same time. 

Slowly, I started to pay attention to myself, and my surroundings in these days. 

We walked through the forests, crossed river streams and rested at beautiful meadows. 

It was quiet in the mountains. 

Not the uneasy one you feel at work or when you are alone and anxious. This quiet was comfortable. Like Mary Oliver said, “a silence that was understandable”. 

I saw the seeds of a flower that would bloom soon. The muddy and rocky paths gave way to moments of wonder. I walked on snow. The moss around me was informing me where the light was. I felt my heartbeat loudly.  I witnessed leaves falling. Perhaps, in search of a place. 

On the final day, I managed to make it to the Chandrashila summit. I was flooded with emotions. I saw a sea of mountain peaks all around me. I didn’t realize Tolkein was right when he described the mountains in LOTR. I didn’t know such a sight was possible. 

At that moment, I thought “I get it, Mr. Berry. I do”.  

The weight off my chest disappeared. 

I wasn’t worrying about the future because there was no future to think about. 

No doubts, burdens or responsibilities to contemplate. 

All possible struggles and difficulties faded away into the horizon. 

I am here, in the present. Utterly and completely astonished. Deeply in awe. 

The forethought of grief is not taxing me. 

And I think about the final line of Peace of Wild Things: 

“For a time/I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” 

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This was it for my first post for 2024.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, and feedback !

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

I’m back with another small video essay. This one is special.

So, the Post Office is a short walk from my home. I don't visit there often. Afterall, we live in a perennially online world, why go to the post office, when everything can come to you.  

But once every few months, I make the trip. I go with a bunch of envelopes in my hand and some cash. The postal services operator asks me what is in these envelopes, as part of their standard procedure. 

Postcards, I answer. 

He looks at me with a bit of confusion, but proceeds to enter the addresses into the system, and I receive these small receipts. I go back home, feeling satisfied. 

Postcards are special for me. If you know me, you may think I am obsessed. 

Maybe, I am. In this small video, I try sharing why.

During a trip, as we’re doing some shopping  in a small store, my friend remarks that I’m obsessed with postcards. 

Well, he’s not wrong. Maybe, I am obsessed. 

Since 2019, after coming across a Reddit post about an old postcard, I have been trying to collect and send postcards whenever I get the opportunity to. I’m always on the lookout for one. 

When I am traveling, the only shopping I do is to hunt for good postcards. It doesn’t matter what type they are. Anything that will remind me of the trip. If I end up clicking a good photo, which is rare, I print it out as a postcard, and send some of them to my friends. The first thing I ask at a bookstore is if they have a postcard collection. Even during the time I spend on social media, whenever I come across a good artist, I check if they are selling their art in the form of cards. 

So yeah, maybe I am obsessed. 

These postcards are a collection of moments. They have become a delightful part of my life and also changed me in subtle ways. 

I am someone who finds it difficult to exhibit emotions in person. I am not particularly great at expressing the language of care. To tell my friends and family that I love them, in those precise words, for example, is still a work in progress. 

One of the easier ways for me to express myself is by writing and sending postcards. It is a medium to articulate the care I have for people, and a method of sharing some stories. 

To take a postcard and write about a moment, a memory, a favorite quote, my experiences or even some random thoughts—gives me a lot of joy and satisfaction. 

There is something magical about this archaic form of communication in our digitally fragmented world. The sender and receiver invariably end up with a smile while looking at a piece of paper. It acts as a small token of happiness and connection between two people. 

Perhaps what makes me even more happy these days is that my friends and family now know I have this obsession. Whenever they travel, or if they want to give me something, they end up sending postcards. 

My heart is always filled with gratitude when someone sends me a postcard—it makes my day better, it reminds me that I am not alone and more importantly, it adds on to my collection. 

Maybe I am obsessed. 

Postcards are slices of memories. They are echoes of the life you live. They inevitably bring you delight. 

These rectangular  shaped objects maintain bonds between two people. They make you feel the presence of your friend, in the moments you feel alone. They show you a world you haven’t experienced yet. 

And the process of sending a postcard gets you to pay attention and allows you to truly be present in the moment. 

For me, these are objects of wonder and fulfillment. 

One of the only pieces of advice I really want to imbibe comes from a short Mary Oliver poem. It is titled ‘Instructions for living a life’. She writes:

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

My obsession with collecting, receiving and sending postcards allows me to follow these instructions for living a life.

Thanks for watching/reading !

Are there any postcards that you hold dear? Let me know.

Take care,

Nirmal Bhansali

I’ve been struggling to get to doing any kind of writing. Work has been a bit tiring, and I end up resorting to YouTube/Instagram/Reddit at the end of every work day. I’m trying to break away from that cycle to get to some creative ideas. Let’s see.

So, I resorted to an old idea to get things started. An idea, which was collecting dust. I’m back with another manga recommendation.

This is a manga that is deeply personal, and I would urge you all to check it out, at least once.

While I do have some role models in real life—people whose values I want to inculcate in my life—I think I can safely say that the people I aspire to follow or draw life lessons from the most, are fictional characters. Particularly, from manga and anime.

One of those characters is Machida-kun from the manga ‘Machida-kun no Sekai’ or The World of Machida-kun.

I have always struggled with (and still do to some extent), seeing good in the world. My lenses are often tainted with monochrome. My instinct is to calculate the worst outcomes in any situation, and prepare myself mentally for those.

Wonder, joy and awe are secondary.

Of course, this has gotten better over the years. I can now find joy and delight in the people, places and the world around me and in myself. I pay a bit more attention to my surroundings. I’m trying my best to cherish and experience this world I reside in.

A small part of this change has been because of characters like Machida-kun. I revisit this manga often. When I’m distressed, feeling lost or just want a feel-good read.

This short manga is a story of a high school boy, Hajime Machida: he is the eldest of six siblings, a responsible son and brother, a quiet unassuming and wise teenager, a good student and a kind human.

He comes from a loving and warm family. He is always out to help people in need, and forms compelling relationships with people across ages. He is accommodative of people’s feelings, tries his best in everything that he’s doing, and he genuinely cares for others.

All in all, Machida-kun is a good guy.

But, he also thinks of himself as a total failure. He can’t study well. He isn’t particularly “good” at any hobbies. He doesn’t have any “special skills”. He makes a lot of mistakes. He doesn’t express his own emotions or desires freely.

Every chapter is an exploration of the daily life of Machida-kun. We follow his ordinary and everyday adventures, but there’s a deep sensitivity and empathy in the characters and different storylines.

Some of the chapters treat issues like bullying, loneliness, broken families, love, forgotten friendships and self-worth with care and measured dialogue.

I’ve read and reread this manga many times over the years. It fills my soul and acts as a warm embrace in moments of stress. It also acts as inspiration.

I want my actions to be filled with the kindness and sensitivity that Machida exhibits. I want to do my best in cultivating meaningful relationships and show genuine care for those around me. I want to support my friends/family, and pay close attention to their ambitions, desires and needs. Mostly, I want to see the world the way Machida does.

Machida-kun’s lenses sees the world in its entirety, with all its ugliness and terrifying nature. But he also see all the shades of the world, including the good, bright radiant colours around us.

My lenses are still changing. A work in progress.

I’m trying my best, like Machida.

If you end up reading this, do let me know what you thought !

Happy reading,

Nirmal Bhansali

On August 30, I celebrated my birthday.

A birthday tradition (which happened by coincidence since the pandemic) is that I write and published something every year.

This time, I made a mini-video essay about silences, friends and a lot of feelings. It’s my first time making a video like this.

If you haven’t yet, definitely give it a watch. Let me know what you thought !

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As I grow older into adulthood, I know there are many burdens that we must live with. 

They are inevitable. 

One of those dreadful burdens for me —is the gap and distance that exists within some of my friendships. I am trying to keep up with these gaps while getting used to the piercing silence around me.  

I sit in a quiet tiny room.

To drown out this silence, I play music constantly. I can clearly hear the sounds of my keyboard typing away, the clicks as I save something on my laptop and the noise of the construction worker drilling something into a building. 

I don’t hear myself that much. I have fewer conversations. I can’t listen to my own laughter.  I am not lost in the stories of my friends. 

The silence is haunting. 

Even when my friends and I do speak, I feel like I am always playing “catch up” because of the gap. 

We exchange our life updates on a call: a new job, some struggles, few complaints about life in general and then we’re done. 

Time is up. 

We each have our different burdens to bear. So, we go our separate ways and speak again. After weeks. Months. Or even a year.  The busyness of life doesn’t take it easy on us. 

Next time, we’ll play catch up again. The cycle continues. 

I don’t have a problem with this. I actually love getting to know what’s happening in the lives of my friends. I enjoy listening to them. 

It’s just that I am greedy. I want more. 

I have memories from a different era. In these memories, I am at ease with myself and the people I am around. My friends and I would have effortless conversations. We are sharing the most mundane events from our lives with deep passion. I am listening to them sing. The laughter is infectious. Some great stories are being passed around. I am a silent witness and a participant in this experience. 

Now, things are lonely. 

There are times when we are not speaking with the same ease. 

I am subconsciously prioritizing our conversations. I skip the “irrelevant” bits. I focus on sharing the most “important” notes from my life. Let’s focus on the big picture, forget the minor updates.  

This is the present burden I’m wrapping my head around. It is unnerving. One of the unfortunate realities of growing older is that you can’t live and go back to your memories. 

Almost everyday, I have a quiet yearning for those distant memories. Where we are unfettered and content with what we have around us. It was not complicated. 

This silent space I am in, may be haunting at times. But it’s also the place that has given me abundant joy. I have experienced some wonderful moments here. 

I know I can’t go back to those memories, but I am trying to find that warmth again despite all the pain that comes with growing older.  I am hopeful that we will build newer memories which might get rid of this yearning that I have. 

That was it for this post.

I’m hoping to write more in the coming months.

Stay tuned,

Nirmal Bhansali