My Open Diary
The Pre-Birthday Dilemma
I've been celebrating my birthdays alone for a while now. As an introvert, I find a unique kind of peace in gifting something lasting to myself; something perhaps more meaningful than the last year, and a year before. The ambiguous and forever-changing nature of the "meaningful" has amazed me for years now, and sometimes, disappointed me. As a general pattern, I've always wanted to see my birthday as a promise, a hope for some pleasant surprise in an otherwise mundane life. Thus, some years ago, after decades of others deciding how I spend the one day in an entire year I'm supposed to have for myself, I decided, traditional birthday celebrations have become monotonous for me. I no longer enjoyed grand decorations of the house and the chaos of having the entire neighborhood under the same roof. Partially thanks to my newly discovered but long-existing introversion, I felt it was time for something new: a concept I was theoretically familiar with, but had no practical experience howsoever... Solo dates. Living in a stepmother city, with people of different accents, a skyline of snowy mountains, green-and-white liveries of the state-specific buses, and a pleasant temperature radically unlike my home, sometimes, even a simple walk felt heavenly. But my solo dates weren't simply walks. Having fruit shakes of all kinds from different stalls, boarding random buses, taking a long stare at the snow-filled peaks along the horizon and wondering how those humongous pieces of land could ever have been under the sea, some of the past birthdays were tranquil like never before... As homely as I often felt, the place was far from home. The city where I grew up has no hilly skylines, no green-and-white-liveried buses, and is uncomfortably close to the sea, humid enough that I sometimes feel being steamed like a piece of momo. Speaking of momos, my home city has my favourite kind of momos. (Of course, they're my favourite kind probably BECAUSE I grew up here...) I missed the momos, the smell of biriyani while walking down any street (and also, a potato being a must-have in a plate biriyani), the soothing calm of coconut water in a hot summer day, the honks of local trains, the passenger-announcements of metro trains, and the familiarity of the place as a whole...In no time, I was drawn back to the city I once called home. Solo dates, in all its essence, are no longer exclusive to my birthdays. I now date myself whenever I wish. This, however, calls for the obvious question I have no answer to as of this moment: what's something new I can do for me this birthday? Something that doesn't require a lot of effort, yet will potentially mean something to me as I look back at this year a decade from now? What does a "perfect birthday gift" mean to me? The "meaningful" has changed once again, and this time, I feel pretty confident I'm going to disappoint myself as I add an irreversible year to my age...
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Made it exist, finally!
I have been planning a YouTube channel for what's effectively an eternity now. Ever since I was in college, I wanted to have one. While I did have a blank YouTube channel for a while, it was a blank one. Finally, the first video has made its maiden voyage. Like this website, the video, too, is a humble one, with background noise, not-so-impressive background, inefficient grouping of topics etc. But it finally exists! Well, here it is: (It won't open like a link because I am posting the whole thing like a text, but copy-pasting never betrays!) https://youtu.be/At91clJm4Ns?si=uPptE-5UJM0HqfsC (It's like owning a home twice, without ever owning a home!)
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Missed my valentine once again.
How do you define your valentine? I read in an Instagram post, your valentine is the one who you want to see right before your day starts, and right after your day ends. Fortunately, my valentines have always been non-human entities: fictional characters, transport vehicles, stars, planets, this website... With time, love changes... When I moved to my current place, my first love was a plane. A particular plane. Actually, in a place like mine, you don't often see huge jets flying around... Mostly medium-sized planes from within the country. So, when I woke up, on the morning after the day I moved in, I saw a huge jumbo taking a U-turn right before my window (which didn't have curtains, by the way, and that actually facilitated my view). It was, beyond any reasonable doubt, a Boeing 777: my plane-crush. I immediately checked FlightRadar24, and I was right... An Emirates 777 coming from Dubai. But how did my crush become my valentine? Every morning at around 7:30 and every evening around 5:30, there was a 777 coming in from Dubai. The winter winds here ensure the runway direction favours my view of landing planes. Staring at the beauty every time it passed by, I started and ended my day. I had a strict rule for myself: no hard work after the evening plane has passed. This went on for some days, and then, my old habits kicked in... Late-night time-wastes, waking up after 10 am, thus certainly missing my love. Initially, when I still woke up by 9, the Universe gave me signs that it wanted me in my old habits. The plane was delayed just enough so that I could see it despite waking up late. But, well, the scoreboard got updated: me 1, Universe 0... The Universe failed to push the good habits back into me. On Valentine's Day, finally, purely by chance, I woke up at 7:20 am... I saw the plane scheduled right before the Dubai 777 pass by, so I woke up and looked outside my window carefully for my lost love. But I couldn't see it. Schedule said it should be over my head. FlightRadar24 said it was in fact over my head. Even, the sound of its engines said it was over my head. But I couldn't see it. Sometime between the previous plane and my long-forgotten love, the clouds gathered, the fog increased, and the visibility dropped just so temporarily that I couldn't see my valentine. It was as if the Universe, looking at me with disappointed eyes, was saying, "You had your chances. It's over now."
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Comments:
Sumita Mal commented at 5 Aug 2026, 12:31 am.
Haha
Limit dismantled!
Everything that bothered me about this site so far (meaning, for the last 48 hours), no longer exists. No longer at the mercy of my insufficient knowledge, I can now look into more complicated endeavours, because, as they say, beauty is complicated. To make something beautiful, the first thing I need to do is, to be comfortable with the unknown... Slowly, at its right pace, the Universe is unravelling itself...
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There's a limit to everything. I hate limits.
Apparently I can't write to my heart's content because three long lines of text is enough to crack this website. I can't even pin-point where the limit stays... And to think, I sacrificed a whole night's food and sleep for this.
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Check!
Doing it just to see if this works!
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Comments:
Akash Ghoshal commented at 17 Mar 2026, 6:47 pm.
Checking comment box...
Akash Ghoshal commented at 6 Aug 2026, 2:21 pm.
Checking Replies...
Akash Ghoshal commented at 6 Aug 2026, 2:21 pm.
Checking nested replies!
Akash Ghoshal commented at 6 Aug 2026, 2:29 pm.
Hello again?
Akash Ghoshal commented at 6 Aug 2026, 2:29 pm.
Hello again?
Akash Ghoshal commented at 17 Mar 2026, 7:05 pm.
Trying again...
Sumita Mal commented at 5 Aug 2026, 12:31 am.
Yes its working!
Akash Ghoshal commented at 6 Aug 2026, 2:45 pm.
Hello!