| Sunday, 07 September 2025 |
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Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
Hello, the rains this year in India just won’t let up. The landslides and floods in north India are really tragic and heartbreaking. It’s pouring on Saturday evening as I write this to you, too.
We’re also approaching flu season in Bengaluru. I got my annual flu vaccine last week but seem to have still caught the bug yesterday. I hope its intensity is softened due to the vaccine’s effects.
After many years of trial and error and reading, I’ve come around to getting vaccinated around mid-August to build immunity in time for the flu season. This article offers some reasoning, though from the US seasonal perspective. Do you have a different logic? Write in and tell me. I’d love to know!
One area the rains have helped is our fledgling avocado tree. It has shot up by a few feet in just the last two months.
And finally, from the wonderful world of street indies, I’ve made a few new friends. On our daily morning walk to the nearby lake, there’s (of course) a set of local “guardians” every 500 meters or so. I’ve managed to befriend most of them by bribing them with a few treats every morning.
The oldest among the guardians were two handsome black indies who lived near a collection of small tenements and a private water tanker filling station. One of them passed away recently, so the folks running the water tankers brought in two brown puppies as the new guardians.
The first few times they saw Gabru, they yelped and barked a lot. But you won’t believe it, all it took was one day of giving them a few treats to turn them into BFFs. Now, they hop on their hind legs and ask me for treats each morning.
Seeing me indulge them must have prompted the man who takes care of them to walk up to me last week. He asked in Kannada if I could give him some medicine to get rid of ticks. I bought and gave him two packs of Fipronil some days later, happy knowing that we shared a common love for street indies despite not knowing each other’s names.
Anyway, here’s everything we have for you in First Principles this week:
1.
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Executive Chairperson, Biocon Limited
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