My Now | 14th Apr | Dharamshala

It's spring season here and weather has been quite unpredictable - from sunny to rainy to cold and then back to sunny!

Settling after 45 days of travel, Home almost set up, Deeply connecting & Hosting friends

We just got back from a week in Yamunanagar, a week in Delhi for my cousin's wedding and a month in Vietnam - Han's hometown for Tet, a resort in Moine, long stretches of travel with a baby. Beautiful and exhausting in equal measure. Coming back to Dharamshala felt like exhaling for the first time in weeks.

We've shifted to our new rented house in Tapovan area in Dharamshala for a month now and I think this is the most "home" I've felt in years.

There's my spot halfway up the stairs, a small window where I've put the camping chairs and from it I can see the mighty, mighty Himalayas. Snow on them right now. Some mornings I just sit there with a chai and do nothing, and that feels like the richest thing.

The rooftop is my other sanctuary. Eagles floating above. Big mountains, clouds, birds, sheeps, trees. I go up there to breathe, to journal, to remember to surrender. Those eagles just trust the wind completely. I'm learning to do the same.

The best part of being back has been the people. From hosting our friends to picnics, laughs, shared meals, sat together in the kind of quiet that only happens with people you actually trust. These connections have been nourishing in a deep way - some inner untanglement happens. I really need this. A home base. A tribe.

Letting the helper go

In India, it's fairly common to have helpers for cleaning dishes, sweeping, mopping and some other odd jobs. From letting go our cook 1 month ago and making our own meals - I am now, slowly, let the cleaner didi go too. A dishwasher & robot vacuum are coming. And I have genuinely mixed feelings about this.

Part of me loves the independence - our space fully ours, no schedules to match, no one to navigate, no emotions to hold on. But I sit with the other side of it too. The whole system of domestic help in India is its own complicated thing - what's a fair wage, what's exploitative, what's "normal" by local standards. I never fully resolved that tension. There's a real divide embedded in the whole arrangement, and machines sidestep it without solving it.

📱 WhatsHappening is becoming what it was always meant to be

The big thing I'm most proud of: personalized metta meditations. You share what you're going through, and the app crafts a meditation for it - right there, for you, for this moment. A lot of people tried it and loved it. I personally felt something move in me - like it shifts from brain to the body. This is becoming the soul of the product. Something that gets you back to yourself.

I also added a photo feature to the journal. AI makes a photo for you. The journal is now colourful. Streaming is working. Improved the prompts so it synthesizes instead of just reflects. And I said no very clearly - and felt good about it - when someone tried to buy the WhatsHappening domain for money I didn't need enough to trade my art for.

Long-term memory is next. The architecture is done in my head. Once that's in, the app will truly know you. I also wanna add a chat with journal in it and post that when I'll start sharing it with the world. Shift the hat to a marketer! Right now the builder artist in me wants to have his time and I wanna give it that. Trusting the gut more than brain.

🧸 Athena is 8 months old

She has a whole personality now. She's curious, demanding, loud in the best way — knows exactly what she wants and is not shy about it. She has started going on walks with me in the mountain villages, and the school children, the paths, the cows - all of it absolutely captivates her. I took her for a walk yesterday and I think we both needed it.

The question I'm sitting with is: how do I give her lavish presence without disappearing into the role? I'm realizing I don't have to hold her every second to be a good father. Some of my best Athena moments are just being near her, in the same room, being myself. She senses that. She always knows.

🏸 Badminton, moving to three times a week

With Gobind. He's going through some real grief right now and I love how honest he is about all of it. We play, we sweat, we talk. The muscle memory came back faster than I expected — stamina is building. This is one of those things that's simple and good and I don't want to complicate it.

🪞 The "good boy" has left the chat (mostly)

I went back to therapy after a five-month break. 1st session, I found something important: I have spent a huge part of my life performing goodness. Not being good - performing it. Wearing the mask so that I belong, so that no one leaves, so that everything stays smooth. The good boy part of me is exhausted and, honestly, he's been causing more problems than he's solved.

I'm learning to slow way down - slow in eating, slow in responding, slow in giving opinions. When I'm slow, the good boy calms down. He doesn't have to manage everything. And from that slowness, I'm actually more present. More me.

📖 Read the book "Siddhartha" - sitting with it

There's so much in it about the river. About how you can't learn from a teacher what you have to learn from life itself. I'm underlining things and then forgetting what I underlined and that feels right. I want to explore more of the healing arts this year - astrology, mantras, tarot as psychology - not as belief systems but as tools for meaning-making. The bridge between spirituality and psychology is slowly coming.

💰 Still on savings. Still trusting.

The safety net is real and so is the voice that watches it. The scarcity part of me is not quiet. But I've started to talk to him differently - not dismissing him, not letting him drive. He's afraid. He loves me. He wants Athena to be safe. I get it. I really get it. And I just keep telling him: we're doing the real thing. Universe has been very generous with us so far.

What I'm not doing

• Rushing to share the app before it's ready.

• Shaming any part of myself for what it needs.

• Treating parenting like a chore to manage.

• Saying yes when I mean no.

• Watching people drown in chaos and jumping in after them - I can be a good witness without losing myself.

• Being a headless chicken when I should be watching the mountains.