Welcome to a brand-new year! I hope the end of 2024 treated you well. For me, it was incredible—first Goa, then Hyderabad. It’s been ages since I took such a long break, and with all the travel and fun, it couldn’t have been better. I’m heading into 2025 feeling refreshed and recharged!
Sam Mendelsohn describes Hyderabad as follows - I wouldn’t rank it among the top places in India to visit as a tourist who only has a few days, but it’s certainly solidly mid-tier. It has more to explore than any of the other big South Indian cities, and it is great for longer stays for people who like to delve into places. There’s of course a rich history, but as far as modern India goes it is pretty nice, and there’s surprisingly a lot of natural beauty.
His blog on Hyderabad is a fantastic read, offering plenty of tips on what to plan and expect. I hope to write my own version soon, but for now, let’s relive it through some pictures.
Hyderabad Trip. Dec'24
This new year has kicked off wonderfully with some captivating reads on culture and history. I’ve shared a few highlights in today’s post, complete with links to the sources. Let me know if they spark the same joy for you!
Here’s what’s on the lineup for today’s post!
A quick request before we dive in: If you enjoy “Stay Curious,” share it with a curious friend who would love discovering something new each week. The more, the merrier—let’s grow our gang and make this space even better!
And with that out of our way now, Let’s get started…
🇮🇳 Startup Ideas for India
IndiaQuotient recently published their 2025 “Request for Startups” — a list of opportunities they’re most eager to back. This fresh collection of ideas instantly caught my attention, sparking curiosity and inspiration. Many of the concepts align with areas I currently operate in or aspire to explore, such as consumer internet, Internet 3.0, and innovative brands.
These ideas are genuinely exciting, and I’m eager to connect with others who share this enthusiasm. Let’s discuss and dive into our shared curiosities!
Credit: IndiaQuotients’s LinkedIn post
🫅 People Are The New Brands
Ed Elson, Scott Galloway’s 25-year-old co-host on Prof G Markets, makes a bold claim that people are the new brands. He dives into themes like social media, content creation, and the rise of influencers, painting a picture of how individuals are driving massive impact—and why that’s the future. Give a read to know more. A couple of interesting snippets below:
On loneliness and its play with social media & influencers
For lonely people, however, simply seeing someone is not enough. What we really want is to know them, to understand them, to be familiar with the intimate details of their life and for them to understand us. In other words, we want a friend. Many have watched in confusion the extraordinary rise of online influencers — people who make millions posting videos of their daily coffee routine or workout regimen. Much of this can be explained by our chronic lack of friends.
On Trump’s brand
As with podcasting, this presidential election was also less about left vs. right than it was about people vs. brands. No one understood this better than Donald Trump, who doubled down on his parasocial relationship with millions of Americans while actively disassociating from the Republican brand. It was the ultimate people-over-brand strategy.
What drove this home for me was a leaked video of Trump watching the Democratic National Convention with his team. “Too many thank yous,” he says about Harris’s speech. “Is she crazy?” At first it looks like a watch party, then the tone changes. “Get that out right away,” he orders. A staffer types out his exact words, then blasts them across social media channels. Throughout the rest of the speech, Trump live-dictates his thoughts. With each thought, another tweet. The team’s job is to publish anything and everything that pops up into his head — no edits or cuts, just the raw Trump.
Call it narcissism or flooding the zone with shit, but what’s most striking is Trump’s determination to livestream his persona to his followers. He’s so determined, he hired someone to type out his thoughts. Think of the millions of lonely people watching that convention, craving Trump’s live commentary, perhaps because they share his politics, but almost certainly because they want his friendship.
Sasha Chapin offers an intriguing perspective on the art of enjoyment in his essay “How to like everything more.”
He believes…
In my experience, high-level enjoyment, like a sport, is composed of many interlocking micro-skills that must be trained individually, but which reinforce each other.
He shares practical ideas for improving your ability to appreciate almost anything, referring to them as "enjoyment micro-skills." Here are a couple that stood out to me:
Predict where it’s going
You might get bored of a certain movie or song or book, finding it predictable, as if you could write the rest of it yourself. To this I would respond: oh, really? Can you? Test yourself by turning it into a game, see if you can project what unfolds.
Absorb or create a critical vocabulary
If you don’t have any vocabulary for a medium, then the film or song or dish simply appears as a blur of impressions, it’s hard to draw lines and isolate the particular areas and causes of enjoyment. So, having a better vocabulary for a given medium doesn’t just make you sound smart, it increases the resolution of your enthusiasm.
Get lost in a tiny detail
I could probably literally scream about the moment in Ulysses when Joyce describes a bird of paradise as a “little mite of a thing with a heart the size of a fullstop.” I find it so clever and so wrenching at the same time, how he allows you to understand the fragility of this miniscule exotic being using the most common punctuation mark as assistance. Moreover, it’s amazingly clever that in one of the most verbose novels in human history, Joyce figures out how to describe something by making one of the ink marks on the page into a diagram, rather than reaching for another adjective.
I find Sasha’s writing deeply engaging—he captures a sense of depth that feels both relatable and intriguingly out of reach. His wordplay elevates his ideas, turning them into poetic reflections worth revisiting. If you’re interested in exploring more of his work, check out: 50 things I know and Things you learn dating Cate Hall.
🤹 Learning Skills
Are you learning real skills from your activities, or is it just something to make yourself temporarily feel better?
Karthik S gives a useful lens “Learning skills” to help you think better.
Recently, someone I know started going to a psychiatrist after having already seen a few therapists (the fact that I’m “out” with my neurodiversity means people talk to me about such stuff). The psychiatrist’s first question to her about this was “what skills did you learn at these therapy sessions?”
He went on to say (obviously I’m paraphrasing) that the only purpose of therapy is to learn “skills” that help you live better, and make better decisions than you’ve made in the past.
And I’m not just talking about “classes” (which can cover kids’ after school classes, gyms and therapy) here. Any activity you do - you need to ask yourself if it is actually teaching you new skills, or if it is just “timepass”, or something that makes you temporarily feel better. If it is solely the latter, you should question yourself if you find yourself doing it repeatedly and often.
A short but thought provoking post! It will be a good read for the start of the year.
😴 Sleep Deprived
"Rest is not something that the world gives us. It's never been a gift. It's never been something you do when you've finished everything else. If you want rest, you have to take it. You have to resist the lure of busyness, make time for rest, take it seriously, and protect it from a world that is intent on stealing it.”
This is such a powerful yet counterintuitive realization. I came across it in Jamal Robinson’s Sleep Deprived. It’s a short post featuring an illustrated poem—or rather, a few of them. Dive in and experience it in all its brilliance!
(via Substack reads)
🛕 Juggernaut
One of my final gifts to myself in 2024 was a paid subscription to Juggernaut, and I couldn’t be happier with the decision. I’ve been binge-reading ever since! For those unfamiliar, Juggernaut is an online publication dedicated to South Asian stories. In their own words: “We publish well-reported stories about South Asia and South Asians. We call it ‘smart journalism for the South Asian diaspora,’ though we welcome all readers who are curious about our stories.”
What I love most is their diversity of ideas and the nuanced themes they explore. Over the past week, they’ve been publishing their “Best of 2024” posts, covering culture, business, technology, true crime, food, and more. It’s been the perfect way to kick off a deeper exploration of the world around me.
Here are a couple of stories I loved and want to share with you.
Tamil, the Indian Language that Spread Across the World. A rich historical, political, cultural, and linguistic journey into a language that hasn’t received the respect and recognition it truly deserves on national and global stages. There’s so much about Tamil that I didn’t know or fully appreciate until now.
Today, approximately 85 million speak the language worldwide, with communities in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Canada, Fiji, Mauritius, and more. But Tamil’s origins are shrouded in mystery, with early works dating back to the Sangam age, a literary period. Historians consider this era, which spanned 300 B.C. to the year 300, to be Tamil language and literature’s golden era: nearly 500 poets wrote more than 2000 poems that varied in length from three to 782 lines. Its poetic anthologies grapple with love, war, governance, and social values. The topical diversity was unusual for a period when most Indian literary works were religious. “It’s kind of unimaginable how they could make such world renowned secular literature during that period,” said Vasu Renganathan, a Tamil language and literature professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Sari Blouse: Colonial Import or Indian Ingenuity? We’ve always seen it as an essential part of women’s attire, but I had no idea about its origins or the context behind it. This piece offers nuanced storytelling, weaving together the cultural, social, political, and historical significance of what seems like an ordinary object in our lives today.
Jnanadanandini called her sari style, of pairing the blouse and petticoat with the sari, the “Bombay dastur,” due to her living there at the time. She also popularized many other drapes with the blouse, including one on the front that draped to the back over the left shoulder, which many today call the Nivi drape, the most common drape today. “She popularized even how she wore the sari, because she had to walk with a graceful gait,” added Kumar.
✝️ Secret Saint-making Process
The Vatican is preparing to anoint its first millennial saint, but how does it decide who is worthy?
Linda Kinstler takes us inside the Vatican’s secret saint-making process.. A fascinating story covering history, cultural & political nuances as well as procedural details of one of the most secret acts.
Who gets to be a saint is not just about holiness; it is about identity, politics, economics and geography. The historian Peter Burke regards saints as “cultural indicators, a sort of historical litmus paper sensitive to conditions between religion and society”. Canonisation has long been a way for the Catholic church to shape its image, and the Vatican has an incentive to approve candidates with useful profiles. In Acutis, the Holy See found an avenue to connect with a younger generation. From the moment his Cause was officially opened, Acutis was referred to as potentially “the first millennial saint”. He has been nicknamed “God’s influencer” and “the patron saint of the internet”.
I remember spotting posters of Carlo Acutis during my visit to the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa, where St. Francis Xavier's body was displayed for his exposition. At the time, it puzzled me to see a young face among the images of older, more renowned saints. Now, I finally understand why!
Before envelopes, people protected messages with Letterlocking. An elaborate art involving folds, slits and wax seals to make written communication protected from the prying eyes! Thanks Ranga for sharing this fascinating story.
Magic and mystery illuminate Hari & Deepti's Paper-Cut Dioramas. Unbelievable depth and incredible detailing.
Credit: Hari & Deepti’s Instagram feed
I’m your boyfriend, proposing to you in Times Square on new year’s eve. McSweeney’s has spilled the bins. This is why I don’t want to do these fancy things to express my love & affection, you see!
If you’ve not yet chuckled your quote of the week, here’s one more from the good folks at McSweeney’s. It’s titled “This woman in labor is gonna love my drumming” and you’re not going to believe what it's about!
ICYMI…
Thoughts on nostalgia, Just delete them, Villain in our coffee, Tyler Cowen on Indian Food and Restoring vintage posters are some of the most popular reads from the last week. You can find the post here:
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Oh and thx for including the article about letter locking 😁
Loved “How To Like Everything More” 🙏👍