week 49/2025 : 1st December Monday to 7th December Sunday

This week was fun (except for my back pain). I did a small embroidery on a notebook’s cover, inspired by something I had seen on insta handle of Neha Sachan. 

I really enjoy doing such tiny, refreshing customization activities.

The days suddenly jumped to Thursday, Dhruva’s first birthday. We didn’t celebrate with balloons, cakes, or people. I had ordered a new dhoti-kurta for Dhruva; we dressed him in it and took a photo. We went to Bakkala, to our Kuladevata ‘Satyanatheshwara’, and performed a ‘Rudra Abhisheka’. On the way back, we visited a ‘Gou Shala’. Dhruva, who is usually afraid of cows (very strange!), actually enjoyed watching the varied colored amba’s. The day was very auspicious because it was ‘Datta Jayanti’. We had a small pooja at home and later went to Sujay’s grandparents’ house for a ‘bhajan’ program. Thursday was extremely packed.

Cows at the Gou Shala

The temple of ‘Satyanatheshwara’ at Bakkala has a rich history. The place was once full of ‘Bakula’ flowering trees—hence the name. There is an inscription in the temple premises, written in an old script I cannot read.

Before all this, on Wednesday, the Access Agriculture team visited to see our progress with the projector and training. We have been using it well, and they were very impressed by our work.

Birthday Boy in his new Dhoti kurta

I finished watching Season 3 of my favorite web series, ‘Family Man’. The song ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ by Bobby McFerrin got stuck in my head, and I kept listening to it the whole time. I even added it to my Insta story while wishing Dhruva.

Over the weekend, I had a call with Learning Wala Mihir, who originally inspired me to write these weekly notes. The call was work related, but he was quite surprised to see my lengthy, detailed notes. I’m saying it again, I am truly enjoying this exercise. It’s a short time I spend reflecting on my week, a note to the future, a way to express things in words.

Two more funny things happened this week. As I mentioned earlier, I am writing about ‘insect proteins’ and ATREE’s work on this. I asked my cousin Sneha to visit a stall at the ‘Science Gallery Bangalore’, which featured different food products made using insects and insect powder. We are vegetarians, and she was completely disgusted watching insects being cooked live and people eating them. I asked her to taste a cookie (which she did, and she said she wouldn’t have guessed it was made from cricket!). She will be sending them to me by parcel. I am very excited to taste them next week and write a detailed story about the experience.Another funny thing was a WhatsApp call I received—it showed the caller was from ‘Madagascar’. I was scared to pick it up, thinking it must be a fraud call. Sujay answered it instead and it turned out to be a client who had come across our work and wanted consultancy to set up a farm!

Sneha sent me this picture, cooked garnished silkworm larvae, ready to taste! I believe insects are future food.

Next week, I will be busy writing my column and a few other articles. My periods are due, and I am already worried that my back pain will double. God save me.

On the farm: Hitachi work is still going on. We are leveling the land lifting up big boulder stones out of farm. We have average of 8 labourers working daily. Women picking up fallen arecanuts. We harvested 5 - 6 thousands of acid lime, marketing them is a big problem.