2025 - The eventful year

I think this has been the most happening year of my life, yet. I have read more, travelled more, worked more, been more social (intentionally), just feels like I have lived more. I read my first Marathi book this year – पार्टनर (Partner) by V. P. Kale, already on my second one right now. I've roamed around in 5 countries this year. I quit my job at Google, once my dream company, to pursue something new, and have moved back to India from the UK. I have also attended 2 weddings, and saw Total Lunar Eclipse twice this year. Right now I am sitting in Vadodara airport. It's 6:15 in the morning, and I am waiting for the flight to Mumbai. Aishwarya & I are on our way to meet our flatmates from our Hyderabad days who are visiting Mumbai as well. I'm writing this post in my notebook right now, but I will copy it to my blog later (which is now). So here's a recap of this year. Might seem fragmented because it's a highlights reel.

The year started in London with us watching fireworks from the balcony of our flat. Next was launch of Centre for Digital Language Inclusion (CDLI) at University College London (UCL). I was working at Google on Project Relate with a goal of improving Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) for dysarthric speakers. I already knew quite a few attendees there from our collaborations with them on Project Relate, and got to know a few more people who shared the same vision of speech accessibility. Got a tour of UCL's campus, and shortly after that a tour Google's Accessibility Discovery Centre in our London office.

February was short, as it often is. Aishwarya visited the Google office for the first time. We found a new grocery store near our home, Aishwarya loved the tomato variety they offered. I focused on cheese & wine.

March was quite busy. I was going to present Project Relate at the CSUN conference in LA. This was my first trip to LA, and my first conference presentation. I reached LA on Saturday, planned a tour of LA on Sunday - Hollywood Boulevard, Beverly Hills, couple of beaches, the Hollywood Sign and the Griffith Observatory. I attended a lot of interesting talks on Monday, and Tuesday, presented our talk on Wednesday with 2 of my teammates, had a nice team-dinner with all the Googlers present at the conference, and then on Thursday went to Disneyland with a small group of Googlers. I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. And just at the end of that amazing trip, saw the first total Lunar Eclipse of the year, Blood Moon, while having an ice-cream.

April was turbulent. Aishwarya & I had our trip to Switzerland and Italy planned. Since I have already detailed the trip in 2 posts earlier I will keep it short here. Had an amazing time in both the countries. Was thoroughly impressed by Switzerland's punctuality and urban design. Experienced snowfall for the very first time, built a snowman as one should - enjoyed it. Explored food and art in Italy to my heart's content. Towards the end of the Italy trip received a mail from my manager about my promotion being denied yet again, and as pre-decided during the last cycle for this occurrence, I handed my resignation informally. After coming back to London, I made it formal. Although I loved living in London, I wasn't happy with the way things were at work, and decided it wasn't a good enough option to stick around and give it another try. I had been dreaming of starting my Indie Developer gig again for years now, and this seemed as good a time as any to give it a try. I decided to come back to India, and give this long pending dream a try. I had 2 months of notice period at Google and 2 months of time after that to leave London. The countdown to exiting London had just begun with that decision. I was sad about leaving behind my friends there, my teammates and the city I had come to enjoy living-in in a span of 3 years. Also a little anxious about leaving the best job I have ever had, and starting anew.

May was spent in refreshing and collecting memories of London. We visited Natural History museum, revisited the nearby parks, and pubs. We also met Anurag and Abhilasha's daughter this month. She is one of the happiest baby I have ever met. Later in the month, we attended the engagement of one of Aishwarya's cousin - Mihir. This was the first engagement I had attended in London. Met new people from Aishwarya's extended family. At the end of the month I bought myself a 3D printer to tinker with while Aishwarya worked from home. She was going to continue with the same job once we returned to India, so she didn't have any leaves to spare. I was not keen on solo exploration at that time, so I made sure to have fun while at home.

June was spent having lunches and dinners with friends. We like to host our friends and cook for them, and luckily so do they. I also cooked more and baked more for Aishwarya this month. I learned to cook fish, and was really proud of how well it turned out. I took part in a makerworld.com contest for candy dispenser design and made my first 3D design, which is based on a character from Ghibli's "Spirited Away". June 27th was my last day in the office. I met my friends at the office, returned my devices, had one last mocha on the terrace as a Googler, returned my badge, and went to have an ice cream at Ruby Violet. It used to be a ritual in summers - I used to have a quick 10-min lunch at the office and went on a half an hour walk on the Regent's Canal with a double scoop from Ruby Violet. I'm going to miss that. As I was entering the King's Cross station that day on my way back home, there was a lady singing "It's time to say goodbye" at the entrance of the station. Coincidence? I think YES. Another highlight from June was I received a proposal to continue my work on Project Euphonia with CDLI. I loved the work, and the vision of the project, and instead of going at it solo as I had planned, this seemed like a much better proposition. I was going to work with the people I already liked working with 2 days a week, get paid for it and I could do my solo thing 3 days a week, couldn't get any better. This meant the journey ahead won't be as lonely as it was when I worked as an Independent Developer before I started working at Google. Yay!

July was jam-packed. I had initially intended to take a few months of break before I started again with work, but with Project Euphonia work having started, I was in the flow and thought I would start with my solo projects too. I started my work on Exporter again. July 5th was Diana's wedding. She was an excellent team-mate from my first team in London and has been an excellent friend since then. Aishwarya and I had a lot of fun at her wedding. It was hosted in a woodland area near London, very Lord of the Rings . There was good company, good vibes, good food, and good drinks, needless to say we had a grand time. We had to leave early as Aishwarya had her Japanese N5 exams the next day. I went to drop her at King's College for the exams the next morning, and roamed around a little taking in the view around Thames for one last time. July 11, we had a visit planned to Manchester, to meet Mihir and his fiancee, Apurva. We had a nice weekend stay at their place, and went on a trip with them to Windermere. Windermere was beautiful, but the part of the trip I remember most fondly was the 4 of us playing cards on the train on our way back to Manchester. The free time of the month was spent calling pet relocation companies and international movers, packing rehearsals, and showing the house to potential tenants. I like to put extra efforts in keeping the house super presentable with the idea that it'll minimise the number of people and the number of days we need to present the house for. And this trick has worked with both the houses we lived in London.

August was our last month in London. We started the month with a revisit of Hyde Park, and then V&A museum a few days later. We had a dinner with our neighbours - the Wadke family, who we had become good friends with in the last year. Next we revisited Kew Gardens - the place I am going to miss the most. I went to my now ex-workplace for one last time to meet my friends. Walked around the Regent's canal, went to the British Library, visited my favourite bookshops, and bought a few books as souvenirs. And after 3.5 wonderful years, waved goodbye to London and on August 22nd landed in India.

September started with a visit to Mumbai. We stayed at Abhishek's home, one of Aishwarya's cousins. We were there to submit documents for Holly as she was flying in on 4th September. We stayed there for 2 days, and enjoyed Mumbai's street-food and couple games of Sequence. Holly reached us on 5th September, she was going to stay with Aishwarya at her parent's place (From here on referred to as Aishwarya's home) since our home isn't cat-proofed yet. Holly reintegrated in the new environment pretty quickly, other than the festival noises – loudspeakers during Ganesh Chaturthi and Navaratri, and firecrackers in Diwali, a pretty consistent amount of daily noise till the end of November. Our hometown Vadodara had got greener and noisier compared to my memories from 8 years ago. In this month, I also observed the 2nd Blood Moon of the year from my home's terrace along with my mom and dad. Disneyland memories flashed by. We also celebrated Aishwarya's birthday and my Mom's birthday this month. We had quite a few family gatherings as well – good food, warm vibes and lots of people – fun times. For this month I focused on working on Exporter and finally launching it. Received a bunch of feedback and reiterated more on the app.

October was Diwali. We had more family gatherings. We drew rangolis at Aiswarya's home. There were visits to and from friends and family. I was jumping between Aishwarya's home and mine between alternate week, and this would be the case till January when we are supposed to move in to our rented apartment. Project Euphonia's speech collection efforts had also started in Africa, and the first feedbacks started rolling in from Ghana and Kenya. Oh! Almost forgot – I also bought my very first 2-wheeler by myself this month - A brand new Activa! :)

November was relatively free. We received all our belongings that we shipped from London. I was working more on Project Euphonia and Speech collection efforts. Aishwarya and I started exploring our hometown this month. We visited Crossword after a long time. It's a bookstore I used to love visiting when I was a kid. It didn't feel the same but I had fun - bought some books by Indian authors. I loved reading Solo by Indrajeet More. We also visited an old art studio nearby Crossword on our walk while on our way home - which had existed for 30 years but none of us knew about. I guess I should walk more in my city. This month I also celebrated the start of my new venture with my family - with a family dinner at one of the restaurants I wanted to try. It went really well. On the next day, we had our Pune trip planned. Aishwarya's cousin - Mihir - whose engagement we attended earlier this year was getting married. We decided to visit Pune a couple of days earlier than the day of wedding to spend some time with our relatives in Pune. Aishwarya caught a stomach bug, so she decided to delay her trip a couple of days. I went ahead as planned. I stayed at Ashish mama's place in Pune (Mama means uncle in Marathi). I was visiting them after almost 12 years. We planned a trip to Sinhagad - It's an ancient hill fortress, earlier known to me only through the battle stories of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj told by my Grandfather when I was a kid. We hiked the perimeter of the fort, visited all the well known fort gates, and had a traditional Marathi lunch on our way back. It was a great trip. The next day I visited my cousin Nidhi's workplace - DY Patil University. She's pursuing her PhD there. That evening we had a dinner with all my Puneri cousins at Ashish mama's place. When they were discussing and recommending Marathi plays to each other, I had a strong urge to move to Pune - thought it would be nice to live in a place where Art and Culture from my mother tongue - Marathi would be more accessible. Next day Aishwarya reached Pune as planned - all well and ready to attend the wedding. We moved in to an AirBnB near the wedding venue and enjoyed the wedding festivities for the next 2 days.

December was more work and less play. We started the month with yet another family dinner. This time we baked breads and prepared homemade pizzas. Later in the month we visited Mumbai again - this time to visit our flatmates from Hyderabad - Raunaq and Nausheen. They moved to California right after we moved to London, and we haven't met them in person since. It was nice catching up with them, what each of us has been up to and reminisce about good old times. After coming back to Vadodara, we visited a bunch of houses we could potentially rent, finalised one. The rest of the month I worked on Project Euphonia, was pretty pleased with how it was all going. Oh and not to forget, I flew a kite after 3 years. Getting ready for the kite festival in January 2026!

Just wanna be care free lately, yeah
Just kicking up daisies
Got one too many quarters in my pockets
Count 'em like the four-leaf clovers in my locket