24th January, 2026

What am I working on?

I was working on making a calendar for the year and getting it printed. It is a little late, yes. But better late than never :P

What am I reading?

I recently read The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen, and it’s crazy that this is his debut graphic novel. The way he weaves together the struggle of disclosing his queerness to his family with the narration of fairy tales feels fresh - I have never read something like this before. His use of color as narrative structure—yellow for the past, red for the present, and blue for the fairy tales—is brilliant. The illustrations are clean, with the blue-toned fairy tale sequences are simply mesmerizing. I was so captivated that I finished it in a single sitting. Visually stunning and narratively innovative.

What am I watching/watched recently?

I watched The Rabbi’s Cat, and it proved to be challenging since I couldn’t find an English-dubbed version and had to rely on the French audio with English subtitles. The illustrations are undeniably stunning - hand-drawn, earthy tones, but the story felt going in different directions and ended rather abruptly. The film introduces many characters—perhaps a result of condensing Joann Sfar’s series of graphic novels into a 150-minute odd adaptation—which sometimes left the narrative feeling scattered. But I liked the fact that it was not like today's animation - fluid in movement. There were irregularities and seemed fair as the idea might have been to keep it close to its graphic origins. I found myself wanting more closure and clarity about why certain events unfolded the way they did, but that resolution never came. Without revealing too much, the film engages deeply with questions of Jewish law, faith, and existence, mostly lighthearted and occasionally cynical.

New thing I learnt lately?

I came across an article about La Rinconada, the highest permanent settlement in the world, located at altitudes of up to 5,100 meters. It made me wonder how humans manage to cope in such an extreme environment as life there is incredibly harsh, with thin air, freezing temperatures, and limited infrastructure.

Further reading about this, I came across the genetic adaptations and physiological changes that people who have lived in these regions for generations have developed. For example, Andean populations often have naturally higher hemoglobin levels, increasing oxygen transport in blood.