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Stuff I did today:

1. Wrote something on LinkedIn today: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gluttony-good-viewership-mukta-raut/?published=t

2. Ate vegetable cutlets with hot tava toast with lots of melted water.

3. Cancelled my tickets to Bangalore.

4. Feeling really heavy and lethargic today.

5. Started reading a book. Will do a longer post on reading sometime later.

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I celebrated Ma's birthday yesterday. She has been through a lot in the last year. Cancer, surgery, very slow recovery, loss of appetite, complete lack of strength - and still stay willing to see a better tomorrow. Maybe seeing my mother like this has shifted something in my mind. When it comes to survival, stubbornness is a goddamn virtue.

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I went to the temple today because it is a New Year of sorts for us. Wore a soft green lehenga from nearly ten years ago that was made out of my mother's jamaavar sari. It was so bright and colourful there. A group of girls were performing on stage - not singing particularly well but so enthusiastic! Took my mom - who was stepping out after quite a while. She seemed happy but is really wiped now.

There is some news coming my way that is getting a little tight to process. I think I need to write this all out to make sense of it.

Last night I had dinner with someone I knew from long ago - when I had started blogging. It was such a great night! First off, we went to the Grandmama's Cafe on Palm Beach Road that was quite delightful. I've been to the cafe in Juhu which is always crowded! But here, on Palm Beach, it was really nice - free-ish on a Sunday evening.

Came home very late and had procrastinated like crazy. But I have decided to never be against myself anymore. I am pretty cool and special and if there is a lapse in time and deadline, so be it. I am working on it and this thing is going to get sorted soon enough.

I have to say - there is a beautiful sheen of confidence you exude when you are not apologetic about who you are. True power.

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Much has happened.

I am in Bombay now and spending time at home with my mom. Is there anything as excruciating and exhiliratexh as family? There is a talk by Ernest Nightingale, The Strangest Secret, where he makes the point that the most precious things provided to us are free. The nation and families we are born in, for example. It struck me as interesting. That humanity actually devised institutions based on some natural tendencies of territory and biology to give us the benefit of an enduring sense of belonging. It may be a belonging we may not like or even tolerate the burden of, but we have it to give us a basic metric of sameness necessary for survival.

This much is good to acknowledge.