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filed under WordPress
Last week, Faguni, a WordPress contributor from Dhaka, asked if I was writing a post about my experience as an organiser for WordCamp Asia 2026. We were catching up on WordCamp Asia and professional updates. One of my biggest regrets is that Faguni and others couldn’t attend in Mumbai due to visa problems.
This post has been in draft for about three weeks. As a lead of WordCamp Asia, I had a unique perspective. The event ran smoothly, and even a month later, I’m still tagged on various LinkedIn posts about it.
I’ve read hundreds of social media posts sharing their experiences from the event.
I’m unsure how to articulate my takeaways or leadership lessons. Each experience is unique, making much expert advice seem like survivor bias.
But I do like capturing some feelings, thoughts as personal artefacts on this blog.So make a long story short, this is not really a post about leadership and all that jazz around WordCamp Asia. It is more of a personal one!
Day One, Family Photo at WordCamp Asia 2026.
Can you find me? Hint: I am actually smiling!WordCamp Asia in Mumbai!
Last year I visited WordCamp Asia in Manila. Folks from the WordPress community team only weeks before the event had reached out to me and asked about organising WordCamp Asia in India.
My first fears were how people from Pakistan and Bangladesh travel to India, and those fears did materialise. These fears were not unfounded. Finally I do not think anyone from these two countries could manage to get visas to visit the event. It is one of those regrets I have and won’t go away!
But in early 2025, there were no other cities in the fray and the outreach to Mumbai was a bit of a SOS. So I said “YES” and off I was on this wild journey called WordCamp Asia 2026.
One important reason to sign up for this role was I really wanted to see if I could lead and manage something that just had so many moving parts, so many passionate and talented individuals.
Open source work is a bit like getting used to being under the sun. It can sap your energy, can make your feel uncomfortable. But once you are used to life under the sun, a lot of magic will happen.
This edition was happening in Mumbai, the first flagship event ever in India. There was some negativity around it at the beginning. Regardless, the organisers, all 79 of them started the journey off, excited and happy!
The year of organising this event not easy at all. We lost young Zeel Thakker, an organiser from Ahmedabad, we dealt with production delays, with visa issues, operational costs, sponsors pulling out at the last minute, stretching out budgets, and if that was not enough challenge! A freaking war broke out, which reduced participation further, speakers and some sponsors pulling out.
Several times the thought did cross my mind, that this event is jinxed and maybe it just won’t take place.
But it did!
We had one of the highest turnouts (2400+ Attendees) ever at a WordCamp and the largest ever Contributor Day (1600+). I still feel that we could have had a bigger turnout.
One of my main goals I set was to make WordCamp Asia, unapologetically Asian! This meant making editorial and other choices that reflect this. We managed to have the highest number of speakers from Asia, and I think many more in ratio than previous editions. I hope that continues in future versions too.
The energy was high, at least the feedback from attendees was everything from sessions, to the venue to the food to the after party was fantastic.
I am incredibly proud with all of everyone involved in the organising team. Here is a group photo at the Organiser Dinner!
We just looked a bit rowdy here, but we were quite nice actually! Friendships
The one thing that invariably happens at projects like flagship WordCamps, is that you become friends with people from different countries. I now have friends from Uganda to Russia, from Japan to Sri Lanka.
One of them who almost did not make it was Moses (Cursor) Ssebunya. He travelled all the way from Uganda. His visa application for India was rejected twice!
But his positivity, support and friendship is truly infectious. Both of us got on several calls and several more Whatsapp messages, and figured out how to make sure his visa application does not get rejected a third time!
Some extra paperwork, documentation and digitally signed letters later, Moses applied again the third time. I am not the most expressive person but when he got the visa and sent me a text, I punched the air as in victory for about 3 and half times. Then I noticed I was staring at the screen and no one was around. The window was open and some neighbour might have thought I was finally losing it!
Moses and I learned so much about visa applications, I semi-seriously joked that the two of us should become travel consultants! Moses has spent countless hours vetting applications for meetups and WordCamps around the world. People like him are why the community team keeps chugging along!
And here is Moses and I, eating some Dosa in Mumbai
Moses had his first taste of dosa at Mumbai. The dosa was just about okay! But since it was his first one, he seemed to be happy! Another friend I made over the last year was Regan Khadgi from Nepal. It was so good to meet someone who shares the same values and grace about the community.
I had a great time traversing through Colaba and Girgaum in Mumbai in November, with Regan. It was quite interesting to discover Mumbai through a first time visitors eyes.
During WordCamp Asia, he stayed over at my place in Mumbai. It was fun to hang out with him after the event and take him to an extremely crowded Malad station, to eat unhealthy and delicious wada paavs along with jalebis.
I suspect Regan was a bit overwhelmed with just the number of people he saw. I have made him a promise to visit Kathmandu someday and walk through his city with him as my history guide.
The other big influence on me came from Japan! One of the coolest people I know is Junko Nugaka from Japan. She lives on a small island and takes care of a library. I think people who enjoy libraries have an innate sense of internal calm and an appreciation of the commons.
While I have known Junko for several years, I only became friends with her this year. We have spoken often about the project,style of leadership and sometimes even art and culture.
This was in Pune, after the event. Junko struck a pose at the Kelkar Museum. Junko travelled with me to Pune along with her friend Shoko, after the event. I showed her and re-discovered Pune, seeing it through the eyes of a travellor. I think that will be separate post next week.
Mumbai, Pune, Mumbai!
Mumbai
WordCamp Asia is a big deal. We expected a lot of people to visit Mumbai. Mumbai’s WordPress community is one of the oldest in Asia (along with some in Japan). I have known a lot of the WordPress-ers from these two cities and for over a decade now.For the event I got to work with friends from Mumbai starting with Alexander, Meher, Vachan, Saaheel and so many more.
Alex participating was special for me. He has been visiting my house in Mumbai, planning WordCamps in Mumbai, back when both my parents were around. It was pretty cool to hangout with him sometimes and sometimes just being in the moment.
PuneWhen I moved to Pune in 2017, and I made friendships in the city, mostly with people from the WordPress community. Sheeba, Amit, Joel are all folks I have known since forever in Pune. There was also Yogesh, a good friend from Bangalore. Not only were they organisers, I personally felt they were my main support system in a way. Many of them took time out to help me tackle some things often without me needing to ask for help. They were in a way, my main support system.
That I would end up organising this thing with long time friends and collaborators, was something that was something I could imagine happening. I am very thankful and very privileged to have got to do this with them!
What I did not ever imagine happening was to work with my younger sibling Arundhati.
Mumbai
Arundhati knew some of the organisers from Mumbai but she really started to get to know the WordPress community when she attended some of the meetups in 2022.
Arundhati joined the Communications Team for WordCamp Asia last year.
I make websites, she is a therapist. Our paths never really cross professionally. So even though I know her for a good 40 odd years, it was the first time we were working together.
It was really enjoyable and pleasant to see her doing well, holding her own and bringing along her own brand of calmness and creativity to the project. She even designed the official Wappu mascot for WordCamp Asia, called Wapuulika.I am thankful and glad we both were together on this journey!
Arundhati and I – pleased as punch, posing with Kazuko Kaneuchi the creator of Wapuu from Japan. Photo taken by Junko. For me WordPress feels like Mumbai
Mumbai is a city I have lived much of my life. My childhood, my school years were all in this city. My parents have lived and died in this city. The city is changing, sometimes too fast but if I sit still for a moment, I recognise it even now and never feel like a stranger.
I remember a couple of years ago, while writing a letter to a friend, I described Mumbai as a place that feels like a place I could simply never feel lost.
In that sense, over the years WordPress is like Mumbai for me. A place where I never will feel lost, a place I could never really feel like a stranger!
I got to pose at the photo booth.
Photo taken by Junko
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So let’s imagine three separate settings. All three are uncommon and magical in a way.
First, a small forest with a few hundred old trees, cooped in the middle of an urban concrete jungle. In it a family living peacefully, feeding their over two dozen dogs and a dozen odd cats. For some entertainment, they throw a party every day for over fifty raptors that hover above the thick tree canopied roof of this forest and dive down into this forest for a good snack or two or three.
For the second setting, let’s imagine a rickety old castle that has legs and moves around the countryside, containing inside it a fire that is animated as if it is a living person, or a secret door that opens on the streets of different parts of the world.
And finally, let’s imagine finding a large friendly monster in your backyard which connects to a forest. The monster seems to travel on a red bus that could also be a cat. The bus is a cat or the cat is the bus, we are not entirely sure.
Apart from the first setting, the other two are from the films “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “My Neighbour Totoro”. Both films are animated classic from the world of Studio Ghibli and they are whimsical, funny, illogical but grounded in exploring a world that can or rather should do better. It took me down a rabbit hole of being very inspired by its creator Hayao Miyazaki.
For many years, while aware of the phenomenon of movies by Miyazaki, let’s just say I was just waiting for the right push to see these films.
Wait, what about the first setting? I will get to it towards the end. Stay with me.
An invitation for High Tea!
I was invited to my friend’s house for some tea or coffee. We jokingly called it “High Tea” at this house, because it was also going to be a bit of a meal. I wanted to take along something trivial yet meaningful for him.
He often talked about Studio Ghibli artwork and hence when I found myself at this popular bookstore called Blossoms, on Church street of Bengaluru, I picked out two postcards which had Studio Ghibli artwork on them.
The Studio Ghibli postcards form Blossoms, Bangalore. At my friend’s place, we were joined by his family and when I presented him with the two postcards, his eyes lit up with delight, that is often seen in a child. His eighteen year old son also had a wide grin on his face on seeing them. The two then seriously discussed which movies were they were from and if this was Miyazaki’s work or others from Studio Ghibli.
Now my friend is a thoughtful person and if Hayao Miyazaki had a huge influence on him, it was not to be taken lightly. So there, I did finally get my push to step into the world of Ghibli.
Miyazaki, Netflix and Chill!
Back home after my travels in Bangalore, I finally pulled out some of the Studio Ghibli movies listed on Netflix.
The first one I watched was Howl’s Moving Castle. A cursed wizard lives in a moving castle and Sophie, a young woman, reaches out to Howl. The story of a young girl, becoming a 90 year old overnight and then not despairing but instead saying “Well, atleast my joints still work” to herself and taking herself on a journey.
The story is full of vivid scenes that explore feelings of love, affection, compassion, redemption and not giving up on people you care about.
Next one I watched was “Porco Rosso”, set in a pre-WW2 era in Italy. The story really is about another cursed hero, who has a pigs snout like nose, and his story of redemption. Some of the scenes and dialogues are hilarious. And example below.
Porco Rosso on Netflix. Finally, My Neighbour Totoro, a film about two young girls living with their father in a new house. The house has a forest nearby and they are befriended by a friendly monster like spirit, called Totoro.
There are ofcourse lots more to still see.
A sketch I tried to make of Totoro from the movie My Neighbour Totoro. These were not your normal Pixar or Disney movies. No good and evil explanations, no easy answers, no paternalising children (audience) but yet remain uplifting, enjoyable, full of laughter and inspiring.
These were obviously not any run of the mill animated films, there were obviously done by someone who thought very deeply about what they were putting out in the world. And that led me to discovering Hayao Miyazaki, the director of these movies and the co-founder of Studio Ghibli.
Discovering Miyazaki
To understand Miyazaki’s world I deep dived into YouTube. He is one of the few animators in the world today, who still uses hand drawing for animation, instead of software.
Do everything by hand, even when using the computer.
― Hayao MiyazakiThere is a lot of commentary on Miyazaki’s work and interpretations but I wanted to really listen to Miyazaki in his own words. Which is not very easy, as he mainly speaks Japanese and I have to rely on translations.
I came across Hayao Miyazaki: The Life Of A Hardworking Tyrant which tracks the work ethic, his cultural impact and his biography along with his unyielding sense of integrity towards his art.
One such story was when the now infamous Harvey Weinstein from Miramax, about to release Ghibli movies, wanted to make cuts for the American audiences. He received a present. It was a Katana sword along with a note that read “NO CUTS”.
Next, I found these gems on YouTube where cinema legend Akiro Kurosawa was visited and interviewed by Miyazaki.
I could not really find part 2 and 3. If someone has an idea of the full interview – let me know.
Finally, I watched 2399 Days with Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli – a documentary that tracks Miyazaki’s world view, his philosophy. We also see an artist, not afraid of being vulnerable.
There is a whole section on the passing of Isao Takahata, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki calls him “Paku San”. The loss of his Paku San, left Miyazaki conflicted, vulnerable and restless. All caught by this documentary, which followed him for years. The pain and suffering of losing a lifelong collaborator and friend, was harnessed by him, and poured into his art. Possibly the best way to honour his friend.
Back to the first setting
I have not forgotten about the first setting I described at the beginning of my post.
My friend, the Ghibli fan from Bangalore, actually does lives in a miniature forest, in the middle of an urbanised city. The unlikely forest is filled with dozens of dogs and cats and some odd snakes.
As I finished our coffee and food, his wife walked away and got busy feeding fifty or so raptors that dived down from the rooftops of those large old trees.
I wonder, truly wonder – if my friend with his family might be living in one of Miyazaki’s wonderful worlds!
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In July, I attended WordCamp Bengaluru 2024. A day before the conference, instead of a fancy after-party, the organisers did something quite innovative. They organised a photo walk.
The plan was simple. Walk about in one of Bengaluru’s flower markets, take photos to upload them to the official WordPress photo directory. Dulcea Suresha, a first time volunteer at WordCamp Bengaluru, vividly captures the experience of a photo walk event.
This photo walk was attended by 40 attendees.
The oddness of walking in and out of parks, stopping by obscure juice shops and looking at pretty flowers, where the only thing in common for all the attendees was a particular software was thoroughly enjoyable for most people partaking.
That particular photo walk activity was led by Bigul, who has been a good friend over the years and is a prolific contributor to the WordPress photo directory. At the time of writing this post, he has 1033 photos in the directory. All CC-0 licensed or as some would like it copyright free.
Bigul Malayi – taking a photograph for the WordPress photo directory in Bengaluru. I remember he organised a nature walk at the Kozhikode WordPress meetup group about a year ago.
There have been other WordPress photo walks in Mumbai, Bhopal and Nagpur. This is not just an Indian phenomenon, I recently came across a nice writeup on organising photowalk meetup by Jos Velasco in Bogota, Colombia.
Back home in Pune the other day I suggested an idea of going on a trek to Vetal Tekdi and taking photos for the WordPress directory as a meetup activity. It instantly had people excited and interested.
All the photos on that directory are copy-left friendly – or more precisely CC-0 license.
Communities on their feet!
Communities around software or professional skill related communities quickly put people in boxes. The boxes of professional networking, brand building, learning, figuring out solutions to their website problems, career advice et al.
But let’s be honest, communities are places of belonging and people really dislike being boxed in. I suspect they want a sense of friendship and love from their community spaces that allow them to grow as people and not just as professionals or sometimes just exist as people and or feel seen.
So doing outdoor activities, talking about plants, hills, architecture, history of the city people inhabit, as a group activity is where a software community literally steps out of the constraints of the four walls to connect a bit aimlessly without an agenda and to live a bit.
I suspect all communities are really about people coming together and having fun.
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filed under WordPress
Traditional brass lamp using melted butter as fuel. by Bigul Malayi is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0 The rarefied micro-community of WordPress users who travel to WordCamps and run small to large WordPress projects around India, have been talking about an interesting project: WordCamp India!
A large multi-day WordCamp of thousands of people coming and doing cool WordPress things with maybe a couple of hundred folks from around the world, with large enterprise agencies, product companies and more.
A large event like this is probably the only chance for a lot of people in India to attend a WordPress conference of that size and stature because of finances involving a foreign trip and of course visa regimes.
It is hard to argue against the value that an event like this would unlock.
But there are also fears of consolidation of sponsor support and organiser time.Some of these things I want to write are really from my perspective. I am not suggesting this is some researched article. But I have been around the WordPress community team long enough (almost a decade now) and have seen these things happen over the years.
Costs of Consolidation
Sponsors: Sponsors would rather spend time and money on one large event once a year rather than several smaller ones. This makes a lot of operational sense to sponsors. This introduces a higher load on event organisers from smaller events to find new sponsors.
Event Organisers: Event organisers from smaller communities also end up getting involved in the large event, and if they are not sponsored (paid to work in open source) they will prioritise the larger events. In reality, even paid contributors do this, so I expect this is even harder for unpaid volunteer contributors. As a result, we will possibly see the unintended consequence of weakening local communities.
Possible Side Effects
- Stagnating Community: As the local communities struggle with events newer people might not find it as enjoyable or fun to get involved. This will lead to stagnation
- Local events fade out: While big fancy events in resorts might thrive, no one will be around to get into the weeds and help local events grow. Local communities will eventually fade out.
- The Big Event will eventually decline: Well if all the local communities feel the pressure, and a system that only takes from the smaller communities (both sponsor money, organiser and speaker talent), new things will not happen, we will have the big event finally becoming jaded and possibly also decline over time.
Okay, Are you against WordCamp India?
No, I am not.
I want WordCamp India to happen and fuel WordPress growth in India. But before we put out an order this fuel we need the engines in place and that we do not have as yet.
I would not want us to soak everything in fuel as a small misstep there on will set fire to everything.
If we are to organise WordCamp India – we should try to pick up this gauntlet that we could set out as a challenge for ourselves.
The Pre- WCIndia Challenge
- Get 50 local meetup groups active that meet in person atleast once a month.
- Have 20 active year WordCamps in Indian cities.
In reality, currently India had 5 WordCamps in 2023. We are probably going to have 7 (Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kerala, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata) and a possibly a small experimental one in Kolhapur and another one in a Tier 3 city.🤞
In meetups, we have about 22 active meetups in India and 21 inactive. So that number of 50 is not as far fetched. I do think we can add a lot more value with cross community online events but more on that in a another post.
Twenty cities big & small hosting day long conferences, and fifty hosting regular meetups groups would be powerful engines of the WordPress community which can justify and use this fuel, that an event like WordCamp India would unleash.
A Post- WCIndia Thought experiment*
*subject to community risks
Okay, lets do a post WordCamp India thought experiment. What would the world be like after we achieve those goals and organise a very large event like WordCamp India?
Fifty active meetups and Twenty active WordCamps would mean hundreds if not thousands of individuals who would be exposed to the WordPress project as possible contributors. Also that’s just a start, there is no need to stop at 50|20. 🙃New people, younger people in the community from several different parts of the country with thriving local communities would mean several more ecosystems around translations, publishing, training and skill development.
So hopefully, WordCamp India – if and when it happens, would not be “just another big WordCamp event”.
Credits
Many thanks to Pooja Derashri, Naoko Takano, Julia Golomb and Ratnesh Sonar for giving me some valuable feedback and adding more perspectives.
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filed under Tools
Antique tools on a shelf by Topher is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0 In the past, I created a page of all the tools I used. Most of these things are work-related but some are hobbies and entertainment.
So here goes a list of tools I used mostly in the past few months.
Browsers and Apps
Chrome browser is a bit bloated but it is my default browser to get things done. I also use Firefox and Safari. I see a lot of good things about the new types of browsers around but I cannot seem to stick with them and return to Chrome.
Chrome extensions
- WordPress Admin Bar Control: Allows me to quickly toggle hide or show the logged-in WP admin bar.
- Hex Color Picker: I built a couple of websites in the past couple of months – along with a redesign on this one. I find this extension great for storing some Hex codes for CSS.
- 1Password: This extension helps a lot to login to a website using 1Password.
- Cookie-Editor: Quickly create, edit and delete cookies without leaving the tab.
- Sent to Calendar: Send events to Google Calendar automagically from any webpage
- Grammarly: Helps with all those writing mistakes.
Apps for my computer and phone
Gets me through the day
- Spotify – for music (also on phone)
- Alfred 5
- 1Password
- Apple Podcasts – for podcasts (also on phone)
- Slack
Writing and Editing
Notes, Docs and Ideas
- Google Docs – I often scratch out a blog post on a Google Doc.
- Pen and Paper – Great for simple quick temporary notes.
- Pen and Journal / Notebooks – I try to write down my thoughts, not every day but at least once a week. I try not to stick to a template but just let it flow.
- Index Cards – I am trying to use Index cards to leave small notes for myself – sometimes as a bookmark in a book I am reading that I can write into, or to keep a list of things with me in my pocket.
Messaging
- WhatsApp (often)
- Telegram (medium rare)
- Signal (very rare)
WordPress
- Twenty Twenty-Four: The best theme in my opinion so far and great for using the Full Site Editor on WordPress.
- WordPress.com Hosting: The creator plan is a great option.
- Yoast SEO: A nice SEO plugin for WordPress.
- Local: To spin up a local WordPress site on my local machine.
Devices and Headphones
- My computer is a Macbook Air M1 (13 inch).
- iPhone 13
- Sennheiser GSP 300 Wired Over Ear Headphones with Mic (Blue/Black): The microphone clarity is great on this one.
- boAt Airdopes 621 Bluetooth – music, podcast.
Happiness and fun
- Chess.com – Love playing there and also keep on top of news from the chess world.
- Plum Village App – A great guided meditation app. It is free and I like their vibe of not trying to monetize mental health. I find that very respectful.
- Inoreader – Great to keep track of several RSS feeds.
Things I get right
- I avoid having Slack on my phone. I might have it for some specific things like a WordCamp, or while travelling outside the city where I live.
- I also use Instagram and Twitter on my phone sporadically and routinely delete the apps from the phone.
- Facebook is an app I have not had on my phone for several years now.
Previous versions
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Banyan Tree in Pune, India by Aditya Kane is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0 Here are some of the things I have looked up on Google recently!
Where do I find a good lemon rice recipe? What should I do to improve my sleep? What are the best ways to get to zero Inbox? What is the meaning of visual literacy?All these questions were not immediately answered and I often found several resources that led to helpful videos, podcasts and books to learn more deeply about the world around us.
Everyone does this obviously, but who is providing us with these answers? It is not a search engine that is doing it. Normal people like you and I are writing online, publishing things they know about or thoughts and ideas they would like to synthesise a bit.
Connected micro-communities with their histories around a blog or website is what makes the internet the most powerful force in our world.
All that you have read online and enjoyed, has been created by someone. Someone ready to be vulnerable enough to put out their thoughts online and invite others into their minds.
People who publish on the open web are the natives of this beautiful world.
So if you have something to share, a photo, a poem, or some thoughts on a book – blog about it and save the internet.
PS: I wrote this after reading this post by Matt Mullenweg (co-founder of WordPress).
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filed under Books
As 2023 comes to a close, I thought of sharing some books I enjoyed. This year was interesting, as I ended up reading a lot of fiction compared to previous years. I think that great non-fiction helps us make sense of the world while great fiction helps us make sense of ourselves.
Friends who recommended some of these books, thank you and you know who you are!
The ones I relished are indicated with a 🫰emoji.
🫰The Man Who Loved Islands – DH Lawrence – I was struggling to finish a story that I had written halfway (yet unpublished & not telling why) and while reading this collection by DH Lawrence on a train journey, I had an epiphany for spaces and places that literature inhabit. It helped the story was set in a coal town with a railway track.
These places that literature builds can feel different to how they are. Long story short, I read the first story, closed my eyes and then could suddenly imagine my short story in complete detail. So in a way, this book is a favourite because it unlocked my ability to imagine and see a fictional place I made up in my mind and put it to paper.
The writing is just poignant and brilliant. Some of the words tug at your senses but hold you steady.
I am turned into a dream. I feel nothing, or I don’t know what I feel. Yet it seems to me I am happy.
DH Lawrence, The man who loved islands.Smritichitre: The Memoirs of a Spirited Wife – Lakshmibai Tilak – This had been on my to-be-read list for a while. The life of the incredible Lakshmibai Tilak took me through some of the mind-numbingly terrifying routines and traditions of caste, misogyny and patriarchy in my heritage.
Laxmibai’s life was quite incredible. She was born twelve years after her grandfather was hanged in the 1857 revolt, her marriage to a man who was generous, progressive yet impractical, conversion to Christianity and then the battle with bubonic plague that had spread through western India. She often writes with pithy and humour at some terrible situations she endured.
While Tilak’s book is in Marathi, I preferred reading through the translated English by Shanta Gokhale.
🫰The greatest Telugu stories ever told – compiled and translated by Dasu Krishnamoorty and Tamraparni Dasu – Aleph Publishers have this wonderful short stories collection from different languages and regions across India.
Thanks to a friend with whom I was discussing interesting names and their meanings, the name of one of the translators “Tamraparni” stood out. Yes, I picked this book because the name of one of the translators meant “copper leaves”.
That quirk apart, the short stories all originally written in Telugu, really do give a slice of Telugu culture and tradition and society along with the good and bad of it. The book brings a slice of the culture and society, caste, class, religion and gender intersections through some stories, and I must say this was a great find.
I will probably end up reading other collections in Tamil, Marathi, and Assamese in 2024.
🫰Ghachar Ghochar – Vivek Shanbhag – The rags to riches story set in Bangalore, is really about wealth, status and society in general. The writing is crisp and clever and captures the angst and strain on relationships created by wealth and also some of the inertia caused by it. I read the English translation of a Kannada novel, and it was done well. I found reading this book very reminiscent of reading old Russian short stories by Chekov, Tolstoy and Gorky. Or maybe it just has to do with these subtleties that are lost even from a good translation yet are riveting stories of human relationships.
I am going to read Sakina’s Kiss by the same author in the new year.
Sir, you may want to wash your hand. There’s blood on it.
Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar🫰Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart – This is written with a lot of love. By a son about a very flawed mother who struggles with herself. The story at times becomes easy to guess and some of the events are heartbreaking and painful to read. The hopelessness brought about by social conditioning, alcoholism, poverty and abuse is not just captured by also explored in very grim yet at times with odd humour, that might feel out of place but is just correct.
🫰Lords of Deccan – Anirudh Kanisetti – The book is a great start to reading about the rulers of Deccan in Indian antiquity. The book starts with the rise of Pulakeshin I of the Chalukya Empire. It covers the rise of various empires from the south of India and traverses through the reign of Pallavas, Cholas, Rashtrakuts et al.
The book is great for learning about history and the cultural cauldron that is the Deccan, which spans Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Next up after this, I might pick up Manu Pillai’s The Rebel Sultans – From Khilji to Shivaji as it picks the timeline of the Deccan from where Lords of Deccan left.
🫰🫰The Paper Menagerie and other short stories – Ken Liu – These short stories by Ken Liu are some that I liked earlier but I re-read this book a month ago. The origami-filled magical reality of Paper Menagerie brought me to tears on this second read. The story is not sad, just extremely poignant and rooted. If you are reading this blog post, The Paper Menagerie story is a must-read! Hence the extra 🫰
We are defined by the places we hold in the web of others’ lives.
Ken Liu in The Paper Menagerie🫰A Way with Bea – Shanteka Sigers – A short story featured in The Best American Short Stories 2021. The story is about a teacher who connects with a student. It covers self-doubt, a sense of distance, a sense of ethics and humour with very cleverly constructed storytelling with surprises.
Why we sleep? – Matthew Walker – I have struggled through sleep and found reading this book as a good starting point for learning how sleep can be healing and critical for long-term health and cognitive abilities. I do think the author makes some dodgy claims about making the connection between Alzheimer’s and sleep. The author writes with much empathy and understanding and is not very prescriptive. The book is more diagnostic than prescriptive, which I find is very respectful to the reader.
If you want a good foundation on the importance of sleep and the quality of sleep, this is a great book to get going.
The Stranger and The Myth of the Sisyphus- Albert Camus – In the year, I went through some low, sullen phases. Some of the making sense of things led me to reading and discovering The Stranger and The Myth of the Sissyphus.
Camus’s narrative creeps onto me sometimes and it shakes me. He gives no respite while taking on the human conscience with the razor-sharp knife of an absurdist. This is philosophy done well!
Intuition Pump and Other Tools for thinking – Daniel C. Dennett – I discovered Dennett while looking up some good lectures on the mind-body problem.
This has Dennett offering some great concepts on the working of the mind, and how human beings extend their limits of thinking through tools developed through evolution and social conditioning. He also takes a few forays into the concepts of free will.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy – A short story I have read several times in the past decade. I came across it through a movie called ‘Living’ adapted from a Japanese movie “Ikiru” directed by the legendary Kurosawa. Ikuru was inspired largely by Tolstoy’s short story. The story is of an aristocratic man with means and reputation facing his eminent death. It laments some of the empathy he receives from surprising places and disappointment from more familiar ones.
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filed under WordPress
Back in 1991, VCR cassette libraries were around every nook and corner of Bombay, slightly unaware of the foreboding change that cable tv was going to bring in. These libraries introduced the latest American movies in Indian households and ours was no exception.
Growing up, I was riveted by a movie called the Karate Kid. I managed to watch it at least a hundred times.
Source Okay, maybe a dozen or so times but it still was plenty of times.
As a young child who had enough self image issues and self- confidence could oscillate from super high to non-existent, the story arc of Karate Kid resonated with me.
Okay, this is not a blog post about me taking Karate lessons and becoming a champion, and this is indeed about finding or recognizing mentors in WordPress or open-source projects.
Mr. Miyagi, the character in the movie, who teaches karate, has this very popular quote that always stood out for me.
In Okinawa, a belt means you don’t need a rope to hold your pants up. Daniel-san, karate is here [taps his head]. Karate is here [taps his heart]. Karate is never here [points to his belt]. Understand?
This very central to how I was helped by people throughout my life and especially when I started participating in the WordPress.org ecosystem.
A good mentor is someone who brings home the point that we already have what we need inside ourselves and then proceeds to be a helpful friend.
In a sense, that can literally be anyone.
The right place to start
Okay, so you are new to WordPress or a particular open-source project and want to learn things. You want to learn about code, documentation, themes, and the general structure of the software.
You want to learn skills like being able to write a project report, work at organising people, project management and more.
All these things are something you can learn by spending some time contributing to the WordPress project. And in most cases you will find people willing to help you skill up, improve and in general help you chip away all the crud to encourage a skill to develop from within.
If you think, where do I start? How do I start?
Ask for help!
The first time I decided to speak at a WordCamp, I was struggling to put together a good narrative.
I knew what I wanted to speak about, I knew the points. I knew the work that was needed to get better. But while I knew most of what needed to be done, I was not happy with whatever I was putting together. I needed some help from someone who had spoken at WordCamps earlier.
I reached out to Saurabh, a friend who I could trust. We sat for a couple of hours, working through my presentation. I trusted his process but still found my own style and ideas to speak at that WordCamp. And I did.
This happened several times over. Another person I learn a lot from watching is Sheeba, a WordPress professional from Pune. That in–person WordPress meetups exist, it is because of folks like Sheeba, who keep track of discussions, and what people are doing with WordPress and then with minimal fuss, go about helping people with their WordPress problems, finding work and network.
That is not all, from people helping me write better emails, to giving me tips on wearing comfortable footwear at conferences, to introducing me to different approaches or tweaks to my workflow with WordPress.
I have had several dozen people who I could call mentors or as I call them now “my WordPress friends”.
What I really learned from my friends
I wrote previously about why I contribute to open source and about building in the open. I find open source very authentic, and feel that in many ways it reflects our world and lived experiences.
A project like WordPress.org can feel very chaotic from the outside. It can feel overwhelming in terms of the sheer number of discussions and things happening.
Mentors are like old friends who sit next to us and help us navigate this world.
Personally, I felt my WordPress friends helped me with some of the following things.
- Finding my way around WordPress.org
- Networking
- Contextualizing my contribution with skill development.
- Displaying how to have civil discourse online and in-person via their own examples
- Discovering loads of fun and laughter
Mentors are humans
While it is easy to look at people with more experience and insights as magical wizards and yourself as a hapless hobbit.
The likelihood is everyone is often hapless and a bit lost and any mentor you look up to can also be hapless and a bit lost. Mentors are after all human beings and they are failable.
The great thing about open source culture, is it has a healthy lack of reverence for hierarchy or seniority, which encourages mentors to be viewed as friends who you can mentor back.
Finding a mentor is not finding that one true sensei, but finding enough people who help you chip away parts of you that are getting in the way, and letting your skills that are within you to come through shining.
This post is part of a series.
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filed under WordPress
I love going on long walks. It could be a long walk through a garden, forest or a busy street. I find walking for hours very meditative, even more than any meditation routine. My thoughts on walking echo those of writer and activist Rebecca Solnit in “Wanderlust”.
I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness.
I was never regular at this walking thing, until 2020. I started to go out for 5km walks everyday and knew a fixed particular time would not work for me.
I had tried and failed at it many times.
So I decided to walk whenever I felt it was most convenient. The best time for me seemed to fall around noon. And now every week, I walk for several dozens of miles in the afternoon, all under the bright sun.
Okay, What has all this got to do with building in the open?
You might ask this question and it’s a fair question. But stay with me a bit longer.
Now if you are living in India, it is not the most ideal time to go out in the afternoon sun for a walk. But over the past two years, I have managed to get comfortable walking 5km under a scorching sun. So comfortable that I have now stopped even thinking about the sun.
Building a project in the open, under the user feedback and community expectations, requires getting comfortable in that space. So comfortable that you relish it or not notice it too much.
Last month, I wrote my thoughts about open-source and why I spend time contributing to the WordPress.org project.
One of the things I mentioned that I learned was getting comfortable building in the open.
How does building in the open help?
Building a project in the open is almost sacrosanct for any open-source project. This is especially true for very large projects like WordPress. Millions of people are building on top of the foundations setup by open-source software.
Gains from an open system
Gains from an open project might seem chaotic but this chaos has significant value. One of them is there are not as many monolithic power structures, or definitely a lot lesser than closed systems. This makes open systems more likely able to last a long longer.
For example, a small town or village seems to often easily outlast the most well designed corporation often over centuries.
- Gains from size: With many eyes, we shall squash all bugs. A open system allows larger number of participants in building software, this allows diverse views and ways of testing and scaling software and making in robust.
- Validation: Got a great new idea or a new way of doing things, share it in a open system and people with different expertise will chime in and validate ideas.
- Access to Feedback: While validation is great, sometimes our ideas might not be really as good as we think. An open system encourages robust discussions and gives a good level of feedback that is educative and also often actionable. I often get advice, help and counsel from industry experts with decades of experiance, often just because I asked for feedback!
- People vs Actions: Building in the open relies on looking at a particular problem as a bug. Which means we learn to label actions, not people. Ofcourse toxic people are everywhere but it helped me put into perspective that it is better to debate actions or situations not people or their personalities.
- It is a lot of fun: An active open system often looks like a group of musicians who are jiving togeather and having a lot of fun.It is a lot of fun to collaborate, learn, teach and make friends from around the world.
Don’t forget to carry a hat!
Remember that an exposure to an unrelenting sun can be unhealthy. It helps to find some shade and sit under a tree from time to time, and also to carry a hat.
Working in open porjects can consume you and it’s very important to get some time off, some share and do some self-care and not burn out.
Last thoughts
I am now wearing my shoes and taking my daily walk under the sun, after I hit publish on this post. Being involved in an opensource project like WordPress has given me some of the best experiances of my life and great friendships.
If you are thinking of taking a tumble into an open source project especially WordPress, I highly recommend it.
It will change your life! ❤️
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Why do you like open-source? Why are you so passionate about this idea? Why do you like working on an open-source project (in my case WordPress.org)?
These are some versions of the same question I am asked, and the best answer I have managed to give them is captured by this quote from the popular sci-fi book “The Second Foundation” by Isaac Asimov.
He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution.
I love that quote as it captures what a truly great project should be all about. A continuous work in progress, an evolving thing and never finished. This is very true for open-source projects, especially very large and successful ones.
I spend some of my time contributing to the WordPress.org project and the forever evolving, iterative improvements part is pretty much a central ethos in the WordPress project. It is also the most satisfying part along with building in the open.
After sometime talking about licenses, freedoms et al, we are back to the same question. But why? What do you find so cool that you dedicate your time to this project; when you could be paid to do it.
Okay, here’s why!
Okay, let me share this right away, I have made a living with WordPress for over a decade now. But this is not about giving back or learning more or networking.
All those are valid reasons too, but they don’t sit with me as authentic to myself.Pondering over this question as to why I really love the concept of open-source, I walked to a small eatery in Chennai and ordered a cup of filter coffee. The coffee arrived in its very familiar South Indian tumbler.
And I started to wonder about the people and their lives that went about creating this filter coffee I was now about to drink.
The steel tumbler was from one of the several foundries in South India, the coffee was probably grown on some plantation, picked by someone. The warehousing of the coffee and then sourcing of it, transporting it to now someone boiling it with milk, again sourced from some nearby dairy over a stove that used an LPG cylinder and so on.
I realised the immense number of moments in the lives of several people, amount of technology and processes that went into bringing this wonderful tumbler of filter coffee in front of me.
A majority of what made this possible is common knowledge. Shared processes, some developed over the last decade or so, some over the past couple of centuries – but generally open to everyone to study, replicate and distribute. A lot like how open-source code works.
And come to think of it, a lot of our life is really just that. Filled and informed by the commons, from the first lullaby you might have slept to, to your favourite food dishes, to musical instruments you have learned to play, to clothes you wear, or to the biggest open-source project in the world which is human language. A lot of this is open for anyone to study, replicate and distribute.
Inherently Authentic
Open-source, the open web, an open culture that nourishes, informs, changes and invites participation just feels inherently authentic.
It seems to be the default setting for things that make us humans, participation in our society and changing it for the better (hopefully). The default setting is always openly sharing things with people, mentoring or being mentored by your friends or people you find interesting and instigating change.
So this is really why I love open-source as a philosophy. It seems like a good default setting or at least an inherently authentic place to start with.
It’s not that easy!
But it’s not easy at all, there is a cost to getting involved in an open-source project. Gaining familiarity and some influence to navigate through the project requires
- Showing up
- Showing up regularly
- Being able to disagree and commit.
These three things together will allow someone to get more attention, more responsibility and often get more mentoring and opportunities.
But that’s not as easy as it sounds. Showing up is hard. Showing up regularly is even harder. Privilege and luck plays a big part in being able to show up and show up regularly.
The “Being able to disagree and commit” part can be learnt but requires good mentors and possibly some early life influences that shape your personality to thrive while building in the open.
All that is great but what do I get right away without all this jazz?
I am sure there are more things we can find, but I can think of at least 5 very useful things that I got access to while participating in the WordPress community.
- Learning to become comfortable building in the open
- Finding mentors
- Mentoring others
- Community, sense of belonging
- Professional growth and personal growth
Is there more?
Obviously there is more. But for now I will sit quietly contemplating the inherent goodness of open-source over maybe another cup of coffee!
Post Script: A friend said this post is a bit mellow and still finding itself. I thought that was a fair reflection of how I feel open-source should be. Mellow and finding itself.
Thanks: Special thanks to Topher, Hari, Pranitha and Yogesh who read this post and gave me some inputs before I hit publish.
Recommended Reading:
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filed under TV and Movies
The past few weeks as the Twitter drama was unfolding, I saw some tweets about moving to Tumblr. I was curious to check if I would spend more time on my Tumblr account if I downloaded the app on my phone.
That worked! I now do spend a lot of time on it. You can follow me on Tumblr at tumblr.com/adityakane.
On it I came across several thousands of post on “Goncharov. 1973” a fictional made up movie.
via tumblr.com/20smthn This sort of humour and fake fandom is something long time Tumblr users are quite familiar with. It is afterall a website full of fan fiction, legend and myth building.
But as this NYTimes article points out it can be frustrating for outsiders peeking in to make sense of the joke. It can make someone peeking in not getting the joke feel like they are now part of the joke and being laughed at.
And that Tumblr users are avoiding really well, they are breaking character (or so to speak) informing onlookers that this is obviously about a made up fake movie and is just fun myth building, and then they get back into character.
This allows the audience to become participants and joining in the fun. This is really a masterclass at community building.
Freely accessible software should have freely accessible culture
Within open-source communities – community managers and leaders can often find themselves becoming too serious. Their language can become too specific, they in some way become bureaucratic. And let me say that this is not entirely a bad thing.
Every community that is healthy and welcoming, has a lot of invisible work that happens in private. Also a lot of this sort of work requires privacy and people feeling safe.
That said, FOSS communities often have their inside jokes, their traditions and lore that we call culture. And any open-source community should have a culture that like its software is open, hackable and shareable – so new and old friends alike can all be called in.