Good morning. I hope you’ve had a good week, wherever you are. Bengaluru has gotten a few shades darker and some degrees colder, as our mild winters set in. Early mornings are dark, cold, and night-like, provoking conversations with yourself in bed each day, one half trying to convince the other why both of you deserve to skip today’s workout or run.

No? I guess it’s just me then.

Today is also the first day of December. Another year is about to have gone by. It’s the month to be reflective, tired, and perhaps even a bit nihilistic.

No again? Just me?

Okay then.

I’ll say this, this December feels different. I feel like I’ve both levelled up as well as plateaued. This was an eventful year professionally, with my wonderful friends and colleagues at The Ken pushing the envelope in so many directions. 2024 felt like the first “normal” year following the pandemic, where we went back to the freeform and collaborative style of working that we built The Ken for.

As a professional, I thought I pushed myself to learn and do new things.

Personally, I started learning Kannada earlier this year. I decided I wouldn’t rush myself, but that I’d take most of the year to get to a state where I felt comfortable conversing with others. I went through one chapter of my book (it had around 50) each day, during my office commute. After the first pass of the book, I started a second. This time I started highlighting words and phrases I didn’t remember easily.

Then, for a while I plateaued. But for the last month, I’ve been trying to converse with people in my newly learnt Kannada. I feel like I’m 50–60% there in terms of speaking (holding a casual conversation in real time), and about 70–80% in terms of understanding the other person speaking.

I’m starting a final third pass of the book, while continuing my conversations.

Once that’s over, I want to start learning Tamil in 2025. (Learning Kannada was easier since I knew Malayalam. Learning Tamil will be much easier, I hope, once I know Malayalam and Kannada. These three southern languages share a lot in common.)

Unlike my past attempts at learning languages (Indian and foreign), this time, the biggest difference for me was not being rushed.