Monthly review: May 2026
May started with me being with my family in my hometown for a few days, visiting a beverages factory, spending time with family, and then coming back to Hyderabad.
Once I was back, I slowly got back to my routines — workouts, runs, yoga classes, and also spending time recalling my Japan trip. I was still mentally in Japan in a way, because I was writing the Japan blog post during this time, revisiting memories, looking at photographs, remembering conversations, and trying to put all those experiences into words.
In the first week of May, I was in my hometown, with my family — parents and sister. One interesting place that I visited in the month of May was the factory of Allied Blenders and Distillers, which manufactures a variety of alcoholic beverages including whisky, gin, brandy, rum, and vodka.
This distillery has been near my hometown for almost a decade now. Apparently, the factory management had once told my father (works in the government) that he could visit the plant if he was interested. So when I was home in the first week of May, my father asked if I wanted to come along.
And I immediately said yes. It was actually a fascinating experience.
The irony, of course, is that both my father and I are teetotallers. Yet there we were, walking through a liquor factory trying to understand how everything works.
We started from the initial stages of production and followed the process all the way through. We saw the huge storage tanks where alcohol is stored in its raw form. Then we learned how it gets diluted, tested in laboratories, and processed further.
One thing that surprised me was the level of regulation involved.
Apparently, samples are collected regularly and sent to the Excise Department in Hyderabad. Only after receiving approval from them can the alcohol be bottled and moved forward in the production process.
And the entire factory felt like music in motion. That is probably the best way I can describe it.
The bottles moving through the assembly lines, being filled, sealed, labelled, grouped together, packed into cartons, and finally prepared for dispatch — almost everything was automated, with very little human intervention.
And another thing that stood out to me was the workforce.
I saw a large number of women working there. Hundreds of women, from what I understood, were employed in different shifts across the plant. That was something I hadn’t expected before visiting.
The manager who was showing us around was genuinely happy that we had come. He even mentioned that they encourage more people to visit the factory because alcohol manufacturing is often treated as a taboo. He seemed pleased that we were simply curious about learning how things work rather than approaching it with preconceived notions.
There was something amusing and strangely wholesome about two teetotallers spending half a day inside a liquor factory, asking questions and learning how alcohol is made.
Moving on to the usual things now, starting with Cinema.
Cinema
I watched two movies, starting with Athiradi, a Malayalam movie, and then Karuppu, in theatres.
Athiradi
Starting with Athiradi, I wasn’t even aware that a movie with this name was coming our way. Thanks to Communite Hyderabad, they organized a movie watch party of sorts, and I happened to go for it. I watched the movie with a bunch of strangers in a way, except for a person called Varun, whom I had met at another event before.
And the movie was good fun.
I kept wondering how the writers even came up with the plot. Because many times during our college days, whenever there used to be fests, the chief guest would never show up on time. It was almost a given. While watching the movie, I was wondering what would happen if the guest was not late, or if something completely different happened behind the scenes. Maybe they wrote something along those lines and then built a story around it with a lot of little emotions sprinkled here and there.
So all in all, it felt like a good film. A simple story, fun comedy moments, and a pleasant watch overall.
Karuppu
Coming to Karuppu, I felt that the movie had interesting ideas, which I felt the director did not fully utilize. Even the villain character played by RJ Balaji (the director) did not feel like the perfect casting choice to me.
Coming to the writing, there were a couple of ideas that genuinely intrigued me.
Suriya plays God, who doesn’t use his powers or magic. Instead, he lives like a human being and wins against another human being while remaining within those limitations.
The second idea was that God has jurisdiction. Within that jurisdiction, he has power. Outside of it, he has none.
Both these ideas felt really interesting to me. But the film never fully committed to them. It never completely banked on those ideas or explored them in depth.
And eventually, it became more of a fan-service film. Which, in a way, I was okay with. Because it has been a long time since we celebrated Suriya on the big screen.
So overall, Karuppu left me with mixed feelings. I didn’t feel like I watched a bad movie. At the same time, I didn’t come out of the theatre feeling great either.
OTT
I watched a couple of movies this month on OTT.
Raanjhanaa
I watched Raanjhanaa for the very first time in my life.
I wasn’t aware of the plot or anything about the movie, except that I had always been a fan of A.R. Rahman’s songs from it.
Back in January 2025, when I was in Mumbai for the AR Rahman Sufi concert, he sang “Piya Milenge.” That was the first time I heard that song. Until then, the only songs I knew from Raanjhanaa were “Raanjhanaa Hua Main Tera” and “Tum Tak.”
And after hearing “Piya Milenge” live in that concert, it immediately became my favourite song from the album. Ever since then, I’ve been going back to that song repeatedly. And again, in the month of May, I found myself listening to it a lot.
At some point, I also watched a glimpse of the video song. And I thought, why not watch the movie itself? So I ended up watching Raanjhanaa.
And oh my God. The movie has innocence. It has toxicity. It has beautiful music. Beautiful visuals and Varanasi ❤.
I have some complaints about the movie, but overall I liked it.
One thing that bothered me was how extreme Kundan’s toxicity is in certain places. I didn’t particularly like that aspect. But then again, that is the character.
What I disliked more was the glorification towards the end, where the heroine goes back to the hero. That writing choice didn’t completely work for me.
Personally, I felt the movie could have ended around the “Piya Milenge” portion itself.
But yeah, despite those complaints, I liked the experience of watching the film. And I love the fact that I ended up watching an entire movie because of one song.
Maybe I should do this more often. Pick a song that I love and then go back and watch the movie it belongs to. Who knows what I might discover next?
Middle Class Melodies
I also revisited Middle Class Melodies. I did not completely watch Middle Class Melodies during my first watch. My parents watched it during COVID when it was directly released on Prime Video, and they really enjoyed it. I watched glimpses of it back then, but even from those glimpses, I knew something was working really well in that film.
Recently, one of my friends sent me a screenplay to read. He happens to work with the director of Middle Class Melodies. So I thought, yeah, why not revisit the film properly?
And I watched it.
I really appreciated the screenplay. The director gives weightage to most of the characters. The conflicts of the hero and his friend happen in parallel, and everything seems to pile up on the protagonist at once. His love life, his profession, his dreams — everything starts cornering him simultaneously. The downfall happens all at once, where almost everything he attempts fails. And similarly, the uplift also happens together.
So it felt like a very well-made film to me. And to be very honest, I especially enjoyed the father character.
Okkadunnadu and Anukokunda Okaroju
After this, I watched a movie called Okkadunnadu, directed by Chandra Sekhar Yeleti.
Again, I noticed something interesting about his writing. He introduces the plot first, then the villain, and only then the hero. And once the hero enters, we travel through the story alongside him. It felt very well-written and very well-directed in my opinion. And the background score by M. M. Keeravani elevated the film even more.
And because I watched Okkadunnadu, I went back to another Chandra Sekhar Yeleti film — Anukokunda Oka Roju.
Oh my God. What a lovely film.
Ask any Telugu film lover who has watched this movie, and I think they would end up talking a lot about it and appreciating the craft behind it. Because when it was released, it felt completely out of the box.
I rewatched it purely for the fun of it.
Again, this is a film where the truth is slowly uncovered. We travel along with the protagonist trying to understand why certain things are happening. And in many ways, the audience is represented by Jagapathi Babu, who uses logic and reasoning to discover the truth.
Even the way supporting characters enter the story is written really well.
For example, there comes a point where Jagapathi Babu feels he has reached a dead end. He can’t identify the pattern, and he can’t understand why people are chasing Sahasra. And then there is a scene where Harshavardhan casually says something while talking to Sahasra in Jagapathi Babu’s presence. It feels like an ordinary conversation, but that small moment unlocks the truth for him.
I loved things like that. Because not a single scene feels disconnected from the story. Every character, every dialogue, every interaction seems to have a purpose. Everything contributes to pushing the plot forward.
And while rewatching it, I appreciated those details even more than I did before.
Songs
Now coming to the songs that I’ve been listening to in the month of May.
I added a couple of new songs to my playlist, but more than discovering completely new music, I found myself going back to songs that I already loved.
One such song was Manwa Laage from Happy New Year. I came across it through an Instagram reel. One small clip was enough to make me curious, so I searched for the song and listened to it properly. And ever since then, I’ve been playing it on loop.
And of course, there is Piya Milenge. Like I mentioned earlier, I stumbled upon that song again after a long time and ended up watching Raanjhanaa because of it. It’s fascinating how a single song can pull you back into a world you had almost forgotten about.
And then there were the Dhurandhar songs.
Both Dhurandhar 1 and Dhurandhar 2 have been constantly playing in my headphones. I don’t even consciously decide to listen to them anymore. I just end up shuffling through the albums whenever I need music while travelling, working out, walking, or doing absolutely nothing.
And somehow they keep finding their way back.
I also went back to O Cheli Thaara from Sammohanam. Every now and then there are songs that don’t demand attention. They simply sit quietly in your playlist for months or years and then suddenly become relevant again. O Cheli Thaara felt like one such song this month.
Apart from these, it was the usual comfort zone for me. A few Ilaiyaraaja songs. A few A.R. Rahman songs. The songs that I have loved for years and continue to go back to whenever I don’t know what else to listen to.
I think my relationship with music has become less about discovering something new every day and more about revisiting songs that already mean something to me.
Like revisiting a favourite café. Or meeting an old friend. You know what to expect. Yet somehow it still feels good.
Inventions by Biswa
One more really good event that I attended this month, was Biswa Kalyan Rath’s stand-up comedy special called Inventions.
I’ve been a fan of Biswa for a really long time now. From my college days, when he used to put out content like Pretentious Movie Reviews on YouTube, I’ve been following him. So when I came across a sponsored ad on Instagram saying that Biswa is performing in Hyderabad, I immediately checked it out.
I asked a couple of my friends if they wanted to join, and Pranay came along. Both of us went to the show. We were seated in the balcony of Shilpakala Vedika, which is actually at a walkable distance from my home.
And oh God, from the moment he came on stage till the very end of the show, he kept making us laugh continuously. His timing, wit, spontaneity… unbelievable.
And the very first joke itself kind of set the tone for the evening. It wasn’t even scripted. He came on stage and casually mentioned, “I’m feeling sleepy today because I just had Hyderabadi biryani.” Immediately, someone from the audience shouted, “Have Iranian chai so you won’t feel sleepy.” And instantly Biswa replied, “Abhi Iran mein kuch chal raha hai, wo log chai banana band kar diya. (There’s something happening in Iran, they’ve stopped making chai)”
The entire auditorium burst out laughing. I just loved that spontaneity.
And after that, he got into the actual show. He came up with these funny set pieces imagining what Newton’s friends would have joked about after he discovered gravity, or how Brahmagupta’s friends and relatives must have reacted when he invented zero.
So the whole show was structured around inventions, but in a very playful and absurd way.
And one thing I appreciated a lot was that the comedy remained healthy throughout. He was making fun of situations, people, ideas, observations but never in a way that felt unnecessarily offensive.
The show was around one and a half hours long and the entire auditorium was laughing throughout. He also kept interacting with the audience, picking up random comments and instantly turning them into jokes without sounding rude or offensive.
Books
Now coming to the books that I read this month, I finally finished a book called Dial D for Don, written by Neeraj Kumar.
I think I had been postponing this book for quite some time now, and I finally got a chance to finish it in the month of May.
The book is written by Neeraj Kumar, who served as an IPS officer and worked with the CBI. It covers a few of the cases he handled during his tenure, explaining not just how those cases were solved, but also providing context around the crime, the criminals involved, and the circumstances surrounding each investigation.
I enjoyed reading it.
It felt like a well-written book to me. And considering that this was his first book, I thought he did a really good job. I had already read his second book, Khaki Files, back in 2025. Since I was in the mood for something related to crime and investigation, especially written from the perspective of police officers, I picked this one up.
Apart from this, I picked up a couple of other books during the month, but nothing really clicked. I would read a few pages, put the book down, pick up another one, read a few pages, and again keep it aside.
So reading-wise, I don’t think there has been a lot of progress after finishing Dial D for Dawn.
But if I keep books aside for a moment, I think I ended up reading three screenplays in the month of May.
And that is actually quite a lot for me. A few of my friends had written screenplays and sent them to me for feedback, review, or sometimes just to read and share my thoughts. So I sat down and read all three of them.
I don’t think I have ever read that many screenplays in a single month before.
One was a crime comedy, one was a drama, and one was a psychological thriller of sorts. So they were all very different from each other, which made the experience even more interesting.
But more than the screenplays themselves, what stayed with me was this feeling that people trusted me enough to read their work and share feedback. And that they valued whatever observations I had to offer.
Routines and apps
One thing that I haven’t covered in the month of March or April is that I’ve been using a couple of apps these days to track different things in my life.
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The first one is an app called Hevy. It’s an app to track workouts, learn how to work out in the gym, and also measure how far we have progressed. My friend Samhith suggested that I download and use this app. I started using it in February and ever since then, I’ve been logging my gym routines every time I visit the gym.
And it has honestly been really helpful. It gives me my own workout routines that I can customize based on my goals. And it also helps visually because it has videos and descriptive text explaining how to use every machine properly. So it kind of became an all-in-one app for me, and I’ve genuinely loved using it these days. It tracks everything to the level of individual sets. So yeah, thank you Samhith, for making me download this app and actually use it.
One more app that I want to talk about is Strava, which I’ve already been using for a couple of years now. Since Hevy has an integration with Strava, all the workouts that I log there also get reflected on Strava. And obviously, all my runs are already tracked there.
When I open Strava and look at the calendar view of a week, I can actually see the days I showed up — either for a run or for a workout. It feels good in a very subtle way.
And the last app that I want to mention is Calm. During COVID, I discovered that guided meditations and apps built around mindfulness were actually a thing. The very first app I used was Mindhouse and it was good, helping me with guided meditations and peace.
Calm is an app that was recommended by my colleagues, and I had been looking forward to trying it. Thanks to Sage acquiring Fyle, Sage offers a subscription to Calm, and I started using it from the month of April. And I’ve been pretty regular with it. Calm genuinely feels like one of the best apps I’ve come across for guided meditation.
It feels nice that my phone, which used to be filled with apps like Instagram, YouTube, and random distractions, now also has apps dedicated purely to fitness and mental wellness.
And coming to habits, writing took a backseat in the month of May.
I think I need to consciously work on getting back to writing. There were one or two days where I sat down with complete focus, without distractions, and I was able to write a couple of pages. And those days felt really good. But apart from that, I realized there is something that I am lacking right now.
Discipline. Not discipline in a larger life sense, but specifically the discipline to sit down, put distractions away, and simply write.
So that’s something I want to work on in the month of June.
Fitness-wise, however, May was beautiful.
Almost every week, I touched at least five kilometres of running. Usually, every Monday or Tuesday, I would go for a 5K run. The following day, I would attend a yoga class. And during the remaining days of the week, I would hit the gym.
So it became a nice rhythm. Run -> Yoga -> Gym -> Repeat.
And on the 1st of June, something funny and nice happened.
Cult has a thing called “Cult Ninja,” where if you show up consistently for a certain number of classes over multiple weeks, they acknowledge you. On 1st June, after a yoga class, our instructor Balaji called me in front of everyone and appreciated me for being a Cult Ninja. He gave me a small certificate of sorts.
I don’t know why, but it felt nice.
Maybe because fitness is one of those things where progress is usually invisible. You keep showing up, doing the same things, and you don’t always notice the improvements. So when someone acknowledges that consistency, it feels good.
Every week looked slightly different, but almost every week had a combination of running, yoga, and gym workouts. And then there were a couple of personal records that made me really happy.
When I started going back to the gym in January, I think I was doing leg presses with around 30 kilograms in total. In the month of May, I touched 100 kilograms and that felt incredible.
I weigh around 60 kilograms myself, so seeing that number on the machine gave me a genuine sense of achievement. Not because of the number itself, but because I could see the progress.
And then came something that made me even happier. I had already participated in a couple of 10K runs this year. So naturally, the next question in my head was: “Can I run 15 kilometres?”
There was only one way to find out. One Sunday morning, I went to Durgam Cheruvu.
I reached there around six in the morning. I started running at around 6:10. And then I just kept running.
No music. No running community. No cheering crowd. No medals. Nothing.
Just me, my shoes, and the towel to wipe sweat off my face.
I carried my phone in my pocket with Strava tracking the run. That’s it.
I ran around Durgam Cheruvu four times. The loop is somewhere around 3.75 to 4 kilometres, so four rounds got me to roughly 15 kilometres. In between, I slowed down. I walked for brief periods. I stopped once or twice to drink water and electrolytes because I had parked my scooter nearby and kept supplies there.
But I never stopped the run entirely. And after about two hours and twenty-two minutes, I had completed fifteen kilometres.
And honestly, that felt special.
The earlier 10K runs I had done were supported by a community. There were people around, volunteers cheering, music playing, and an event atmosphere. This time there was none of that.
When I finished, I came back home, had breakfast, and slept.
But throughout the day, there was this quiet sense of satisfaction. Because I had set out with an intention and I had completed it.
So all in all, May was beautiful when it came to physical activity.
Apart from all of this, the Calm app that I mentioned earlier also continued to be a part of my routine. I was meditating fairly regularly, and I think it helped, especially on days when my mind felt cluttered.
Writing may have taken a step back this month. But physically, mentally, and fitness-wise, May felt like a really good month.
Travel
Speaking of travel, I went to Bangalore towards the end of the month.
I stayed with my sister there. For a couple of days, I was with my sister and brother-in-law, and we roamed around different parts of Bangalore. We ate at multiple places like Noodle Theory, Pablo’s Gelato, and a few other spots that they liked. My sister was basically on a mission to make sure her brother experienced all the places she enjoys.
And I really loved Pablo’s Gelato. There was one flavour, I think it had “Dutch” in its name, which somehow tasted exactly like a toffee called Solano that I used to eat when I was four or five years old. I haven’t seen that toffee in almost twenty years now. But the moment I took a bite of that ice cream, I was immediately transported back to childhood.
How does the brain even do that?
I haven’t tasted that thing in two decades, yet one spoon of ice cream was enough for my brain to unlock a memory from when I was five or six years old. The way our senses store memories somewhere deep inside and suddenly bring them back is fascinating.
Anyways, Bangalore was only the first stop. The main reason I was there was because I was attending my friend and colleague Ashwin’s wedding in Salem.
I went to Bangalore, and from there Hemanth, Sravan, and I drove to Salem. And thanks to Hemanth and his family’s hospitality, I had a lovely time there as well. In fact, Hemanth’s mother made mushroom biryani because she remembered that I loved it the last time she had cooked it.
So the three of us got into the car and headed towards Salem. Hemanth drove the entire way while we spent the journey talking about everything and nothing at the same time.
The wedding itself turned into a lovely gathering of colleagues and friends.
On the evening of the reception, a lot of people from Fyle had come down. A few people who used to work at Fyle and had since moved on also came. So it felt like one of those reunions where everyone gathers, catches up and has a good time.
And Ashwin looked really good. He was wearing a suit with a bow tie, and he looked handsome that evening. Swetha and Ashwin made a very cute couple.
We clicked pictures, spoke to everyone, had dinner, and then something happened during dinner that I don’t think I’ll forget anytime soon.
The menu outside the dining hall was written entirely in Tamil. One of my colleagues and friends, Kulasekar, looked at it and said, “They have veg chicken and veg prawn in the menu.”
I heard it. And then I completely forgot about it.
While having dinner, one of the starters was served to us that felt strange.
I have been a vegetarian my entire life, and this was not something I had ever eaten before. The texture felt unfamiliar. Even the smell felt slightly different. In fact, it reminded me of the smell I had experienced in places where seafood was being cooked.
So I was already suspicious. Still, I took a bite as the menu was only vegetarian as per the board outside.
And immediately I knew this was unlike anything I had ever eaten before. The taste was unfamiliar. The texture was unfamiliar. Everything felt alien.
So I turned towards Hemanth and Sravan and asked, “What exactly is this?”
While they assured the menu is only vegetarian, I wasn’t fully convinced. There was a catering staff member serving nearby, so we asked her.
And she very confidently replied: “Prawn.”
I was stunned. For a few seconds, it genuinely felt like a transformer had exploded inside my head. All my life I had never consciously eaten non-vegetarian food. And suddenly I was standing there wondering whether I had accidentally eaten prawn at a wedding reception in Salem.
The shock was unbelievable. Immediately afterwards, we asked again.
Right next to us, Kamalini and her father were having dinner. We explained the confusion. Kamalini’s father immediately called another member of the catering team and asked for clarification. And thankfully, they reassured us.
It was completely vegetarian. Only then did my heart rate return to normal. Apparently, my facial expression took much longer to recover. After dinner, Kamalini explained what had happened.
In many parts of Tamil Nadu, people love non-vegetarian food. But serving meat at weddings is often considered inauspicious. So what they do instead is create vegetarian dishes that resemble popular non-vegetarian items.
The starter I had eaten was one such dish. It looked like prawn. It was shaped like prawn. They even used masalas and flavouring styles associated with seafood dishes. The intention was to make a vegetarian dish feel similar to a non-vegetarian dish.
Although those few minutes were slightly traumatic for me, it ended up becoming a funny story and a new cultural learning.
I had never come across anything like that before. So that was my unexpected lesson from a Tamil wedding.
The following morning was interesting because the wedding was scheduled at around 6 or 6:30 in the morning, inside a temple. And I don’t think I had attended a Tamil wedding in a temple before.
We woke up early, got ready, took a bath, wore traditional attire, and headed to the temple.
The wedding rituals were about to begin. And the moment we entered the temple, I was fascinated because it wasn’t just Ashwin’s wedding happening there. There were four or five weddings taking place simultaneously in that small Murugan temple in Salem.
And somehow, it all worked beautifully. There was no chaos. No confusion. No noise. Just a peaceful, harmonious morning.
Different corners of the temple had different wedding ceremonies taking place. One wedding was about to begin. Another one was halfway through. One couple had already completed the rituals and were taking photographs. Another couple had finished everything and had moved into the community hall next to the temple.
And there we were, witnessing four or five couples getting married at the same venue, around the same time, surrounded by their own families and friends. It was beautiful in a very simple way.
We found our place near Ashwin’s ceremony and watched everything unfold. Ashwin and Swetha looked good. And what made it more memorable for me was that Ashwin wasn’t just a colleague.
In fact, we became friends before we started working together closely. We joined the same company, but our friendship grew because of shared interests, random conversations, and the endless reels we kept sending each other. Later, we ended up working together on a few projects as well.
Same age. Similar interests. Matching sense of humour.
So standing there and watching him get married felt a little surreal. At one point, I casually told Hemanth that this entire thing reminded me of waiting outside an exam hall. It felt like Hemanth and I were standing outside a viva room, waiting for Ashwin to come out after finishing his viva and tell us how it went.
That was genuinely the feeling. Because someone you’ve spent the last few years growing alongside is suddenly entering an entirely new phase of life.
There is something magical about that. I was genuinely happy for him.
Ashwin, on the other hand, was a little shy. After the wedding rituals were completed, everyone started taking photographs. He looked slightly awkward, slightly conscious, and couldn’t quite smile naturally, which, of course, made it even more fun for us.
Then we went back to the wedding hall, had breakfast, and slowly started heading back towards Bangalore. In Banglore, I also met my friends — Nakul-Uma, Madhu-Akhila, and Naman for lunch and ended up with them until night to catch the last metro home! It was fun, revisiting our memories, trolling each other, and laughing so hard that our cheek muscles were in pain! ❤
I’d like to talk about two more things. In a way, both incidents left me frustrated. At the same time, they also made me realize how lucky I was not to be directly affected by them.
The first one happened in the first week of May when I was in my hometown.
I happened to pass by a NEET examination centre on the day of the exam. There were students standing outside with their parents or guardians, carrying hall tickets, waiting for their turn to enter. And seeing them immediately took me back to that phase of life. I still remember how tense entrance exams used to be.
My sister wrote NEET years ago. I remember how she barely had breakfast that morning because of the pressure and the exam timings. And I know many students go through the same thing. For them, that day feels huge. Maybe it doesn’t decide their entire future, but at that age, it certainly feels like it does.
So while passing by, I silently wished all of them good luck and moved on.
A few days later, I came across news about the NEET paper leak. And honestly, I felt angry.
Because whenever something goes wrong in a large examination system, it is never just about administration or paperwork. It affects lakhs of students who have spent months or years preparing for that one day.
I remembered those students standing outside the examination centre. I remembered the anxiety, the pressure, the expectations. And I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.
At the same time, there was another feeling. Relief. Relief that I was no longer in that phase of life. Because I know how exhausting that uncertainty can be.
The second incident happened towards the end of the month.
After the IPL season concluded, celebrations broke out in many places. RCB won the IPL trophy for the consecutive second time and I was in a bus from Bengaluru to Hyderabad. There’s a city called Kurnool which is in Andhra Pradesh that I had to cross by bus. I reached Hyderabad the following morning and read reports about disturbances and damage to public property in Kurnool during those celebrations. I saw videos of people breaking windows of a bus. WTF. I was just lucky by not being in that bus.
I was frustrated by seeing those visuals. And relief that I was not caught in the middle of it.
Maybe I am getting older, but I increasingly find myself wondering why ordinary people have to suffer because of things that have nothing to do with them.
Someone is travelling home after work. Someone is trying to reach their family. And suddenly their day gets disrupted because a crowd decides that celebration means damaging property or creating panic.
Because civic sense is one of those things that everyone talks about but very few people practice when emotions take over. And taking things for granted is what I was totally angered about.
Both incidents left me frustrated. But they also reminded me how fortunate I am to be looking at them from the outside and not experiencing their consequences firsthand.
That was May. A month of showing up, running a little farther than before, meeting people I care about, and finding joy in familiar songs and familiar faces. Until next time, take care, stay hydrated, and I’ll be back with another one!
And while I was there, Bangalore welcomed me with rain. Meanwhile, Hyderabad was dealing with peak summer temperatures.
So in a way, May felt like a month of contrasts.
There were days spent with family and days spent with friends. There were moments when I was alone, writing or reflecting, and moments when I was surrounded by people celebrating weddings and catching up on life. There was cloudy weather and rain in Bangalore, while Hyderabad and Gadwal were battling intense summer heat.
And through all of this, I was trying to stay consistent with the things that I enjoy doing — reading, writing, working out, meeting people, watching movies, and simply showing up for the small routines that make life feel familiar.
