cricket, anger, and relatives

I tried crowdsourcing this week - asking you to give me questions you want me to answer. I was skeptical and didn’t expect any responses. I was pleasantly surprised by the fun questions. Ready?

I don’t celebrate festivals as much. Not because I don’t like festivals or anything. I love the vibe. I like that it makes people happy and brings them together.

I don’t have siblings, and my cousins are significantly older than I am. My parents participate more in pooja than in celebration. It never excited me.

I know I will have fun if I celebrate, and I was looking forward to last Diwali. I never dressed up and celebrated with my favourite people; maybe 2024 is the year.

Coming back to the question, it’s Diwali for traditional outfits, sweets, and lights during the night; Holi for just how beautiful colours are together (eventually to turn pink :p); Christmas for the holiday vibe; and Ramzan for Haleem (shoutout to Hyderabad’s Haleem.)

Well, I pursued professional cricket for a decade—and things didn’t work out for several reasons. Cricket was my life’s most fun and painful phase, but I am glad it happened.

Many qualities my friends admire come from cricket, and if not anything, this sport has turned me into a stronger, disciplined person.

I still play. I go to my academy and play club/corporate matches 2x a week. It keeps me sane, and I have no idea how it will feel if/when I stop playing.

Someday, I will write about why everybody should play sports.

I mostly visit cafés for work. I like getting out once in a while for a change of environment. A few cafés are on top of my mind right now:

• Aaromalé

• Roastery Coffee House

• Café Niloufer

• Café Baatakani

• Van Lavino

I am sure I have missed out on many

Has to be uncertainty and a constant search for clients. Time and project management become the most important skills—even more important than your core service. You always have something urgent, awkward work timings, and the lack of boundaries with work usually misbalance the personal life.

There is a beautiful, flexible, nomadic side to freelancing, but only 1 in 30 freelancers get to see it.

(PS: this is not a stat but an estimate of what I see around me)

I don’t know; it’s a tricky question. I am not really sure if my tolerance levels are high or if I am good at controlling my emotions. I feel frustrated, but I don’t act on it.

Some silly things and a few serious things make me angry. Few I could think of:

• Being really hungry

• Not having time to sleep properly for a few days on a stretch

• Anyone misbehaving with my close ones

• Long-time efforts resulting in nothing

• Being taken for granted (maybe)

Damn, it’s a hard thought. I had to think a lot about the things I have mentioned. I might have to think deeper on this; hope I don’t fall into overthinking, lol.

About the second part of the question…

Back in 2019, when I was 20, I was giving my everything in sports. I was disciplined with food, exercise, practice, sleep, and everything else I needed to do that might lead to so-called success.

I don’t think I left any stone unturned. Yet there were no results—and I was in this no-results phase for more than three months after eight months of hard work.

I was frustrated and impatient, and I was playing a badminton match with my friend. Again, irrespective of what I did and giving it all, I kept losing. I put my shit back together and aligned my focus to win one last set.

(…and a lot of stress was caused by a family member during this phase)

I played the set; it was much better than the previous ones, but I still lost.

It got it me. 10 minutes later, I couldn’t hold the frustration of losing for so long and punched a wall. I wish I could tell you the wall fell apart, but this is not a movie.

I fractured my hand. Not a serious one, but I had to hide the pain from people and act okay for two months before the pain faded away.

Hardly anyone knows about this apart from a couple of close friends.

Now you know.

It was the only incident I expressed my anger in a Hulky way. Most other times I just break down and cry.

Yes, many times.

I might go on a rant (don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.)

I observed two kinds of people—people who are genuinely curious and concerned about you and people who want to make a point. Sadly, the second category is more populated.

My career choices have been unconventional. I wanted to be a cricketer. Then, I chose freelancing straight out of college. I was surviving on 10k per month when all my batchmates had at least a 5L per annum package.

So if there is concern, I understand.

What I never understood was people were trying to take control of my decisions without my input. I am not even talking about consent or permission. I was young and maybe I could use some guidance.

But no one ever asked me my plans, processes, progress, ambitions, nothing. They went straight from What do you do to You shouldn’t be doing this. They just assumed whatever I did was bad and would not yield good results.

“Both your parents are government employees, what will others think if you are like this?” (duh, what do you mean ‘like this’?) “No one did business in our family. You don’t even know how to do these things. These are not meant for us.” …and so many shitty statements.

Unconventional careers don’t have incremental progression like jobs. When someone asks when I'll make it big, it’s hard to define a timeline. It’s not like I might get a promotion after two years of service. But I just know I will.

I’d respect their opinions if they asked for more details before they passed judgment.

You might have noticed a pattern of this ending with relatives/elders boasting about their children or putting themselves in charge of fixing your life. It gets easier to deal with stuff when you notice this pattern and realize: they’re just trying to make a point.

I have always been good at ignoring people whose opinions I don’t respect. It gets to my head sometimes but that’s only a small percentage.

Based on what I absolutely loved in my travels:

• Evening walks on Church Street, Bangalore

• Sunsets in South Goa

• Namdrolling Monastery in Kushalnagar, Coorg

• Radhanagar Beach, Andaman and Nicobar (don’t go with friends, take a date)

• Thar Desert, Jaisalmer

That’s all the questions I got. Let me know what you feel about this new format. And please share the newsletter with someone you think will enjoy reading. Here is the link.

I am streamlining many work things, one of which is publishing every Sunday. Wish me luck.

See ya!