As sweet as spring

There is absolutely nothing that changes from turning 26. Turning 25 was a milestone, 22 is a cute Taylor Swift age, 18 is adulthood but 26 is just there. I think the rest of my life is going to operate more or less exactly like this, which isn't necessarily a bad proposition. I have always loved predictability. What I don't like is how far back I have to scroll to get to my year when filling forms out. Then again, there are many many things happening at a global scale that I don't like about this year. I am pretty sure this is close enough to the "dystopian future fiction" people wrote about around the time I was born. And for anyone wondering, I haven't used Al tools ever and refuse to, as a matter of principle. I don't like that Google makes me use it without a choice now.

With that little rant out of the way, things are looking better than ever. Due to Chinese New Year and my stay being in a 1969 HDB that is filled with, well, "older" people, there were a lot of footfalls of their children and grandchildren visiting them. I could hear the lion dance music every day, which reminded me of the drums played in festival music back home. For the first time in my life, I received CNY red packets (with actual money) and I must say I made quite the stash. God bless whoever decided that married people should give unmarried people money.

My public holidays and Sundays are so orderly these days - music classes in the morning, occasional delicious lunch with my cousin and then meal prep for the week. Since moving out of Little India, I had been getting tired of the oatmeal/ bread/ mixed vegetable fried rice combo and was badly craving a proper Indian grocery store near where I live. Mainly, I needed access to paneer which doesn't hold a spot in the vast dairy aisle at your usual Fairprice. A quick Google Maps search later, I was on my way to the nearest store 20 mins away. I kid you not, apart from the usual shelf in the freezer, there were three industrial size coolers filled with various brands and quantities and forms of paneer. A favourite brand from my Bangalore days, iD, had also reached this store - I grabbed a Malabar Parota packet before you could say "iD".

iD was created by PC Mustafa and his cousins, a family originally from Wayanad, Kerala (which is one of the many great tourist destinations in my state fyi). When I was studying in Bangalore, where ID is headquartered, he would show up to my mostly Malayali-populated college to give speeches on his entrepreneurial journey, which I found genuinely inspiring. iD released many products since and has clearly widened their reach, but I still remember one story he told us. In their initial days, they had sold a product called "diamond cuts" which is this addictive salty snack - maybe you know it as namak para. They were close to signing a big order for this product when they realised that the customer was planning to use it as a bar snack, and they cancelled the order as this clashed with the founder's values. It may look silly from a capitalistic point of view, but it's good to know that ambitious people with principles still exist.

I was a much happier summer child when I first tried iD food, but I can say I'm slowly and surely getting back up there. It's almost like I hadn't noticed how pretty the blue and pink skies of Singapore are or how there are yellow and brown butterflies, and little sparrows and mynahs, that join my morning bus-stop run or how the toddler from the fourth floor, along with her extremely chubby younger sibling, waves to me on Saturday evenings. In short, I seem to have organically learnt the basic fact that being burnt out and anxious is a waste of precious lifetime hours, apart from being bad for your physical and mental health. Not just me, every one of my friends is making this spectacular realization that our professors, parents and seniors had very clearly told us early on. And while they run 10Ks or go to Coldplay concerts or play team sports, I prefer to write about them. Apart from impulse shopping, yes, that's still a work in progress.

Note: Wix had a bug that prevented me from uploading in February, but we can March on now :P