Balaji's Weblog

Bluebox
The first manga I read was Akira 15 or so years ago. I read it only because the movie adaptation was in an IMDb list. I "properly" entered the world of manga when my kids were old enough to watch anime. One-Punch Man, Demon Slayer, One Piece are some of my favourites.
Blue Box is a high-school romance drama with a sports backdrop. It has likeable characters, an uplifting & moving story that is on equal parts emotional, romantic, tragic, heart-felt and motivational with a unique art style. I got hooked when I started watching it on Netflix with my daughters. Then I wanted more... #book #tv #manga #bookmark 
2024 is coming to a close. Like every recent years, I start and end the year in Chennai. Workwise it wasn't great (though not a bad one). In a few months in my performance review I will know how bad it was. In other news, I turned 40 this year. The year I "found out" after years of f**king around, aka the year I got diagonsed as diabetic. I had my most number of travels for a year this year, which was cool. Didn't read/workout/socialize/talk/take the initiative/learn/play as much as I'd have liked to.

I'm hoping for a better 2025. I am especially looking forward to this journal journey #reflection 
The annual Chennai Book Fair is in its 48th edition. It is the place to be if one is interested in classic, modern and neo-modern Tamil literature and poetry books. The English language book collection is so so. For discovering English books one should be outside the fair with the long row of book vendors on the footpath creating traffic chaos and selling used books at a flat rate from ₹20 onwards. No new books for me this year. I am still taking in batches the unread books in my old room to Stockholm.

The best part of being in Chennai in Week 52/+1. #tsundoku 
Kamal Haasan's 70 favourite Indian movies
On 70th Indian Independence Day celebrations, Hindustan Times requested Kamal Haasan (big fan) to curate a list of his favourite 70 Indian films and why. For obvious reasons, the list is limited to movies released till 2017.
The article is lost probably in a website rewrite but wayback machine to the rescue. If wayback machine fails here is my local copy sans images. #movie #bookmark 
In 1997/98, on a randaom Sunday afternoon I was traveling from Chennai Broadway to Anna Nagar West on the city bus. I must've been 13 or 14 year old. A lazy lungi clad middle-aged man with an empty grocery bag boarded the bus. After a while he approached me and asked "is this the stop to Koyambedu?" (I would later find out that he was in the wrong bus). I had no clue but I nodded enthusiastically. He got down at Thirumangalam. As the bus left, I saw him looking around cluelessly trying to make sense of where he was. He was 1.5 km away from Koyambedu market.

I think about him sometimes. #intj 
Both Chennai and Madurai are thriving. Everyone is purchasing something or the other, busy commuting here and there, having a more "outside" lifestyle than I am used to. The past 20 years has seen a massive urban migration. Population with a morbid desire to buy property. But unfortunately both the cities' infrastructure is just not able to keep up with this level of hyper growth. The roads, water supply, electricity, sewage and garbage disposal are working barely, bursting through the seams. Madurai is paticularly bad.

But the most depressing part is the apathy. #boilingfrog 
Hello World! This is a shortform post. I redesigned the site to show "micro blogs" i.e. posts that has a character limit and has its entire contents on the home page itself. Here is an image Gemini generated for me. #helloworld 
Poor Charlie's Alamanack
The Stripe Mode of this book is something I have never seen before for a book. The pictures, quotes, sections are well designed and it _makes_ you want to read the book. The book itself is a treasure. Don't miss the recommended reading and the Berkshire Mode. #book #bookmark