Good morning, dear reader, I’m back after a brief vacation last weekend. I met a bunch of former classmates and good friends on the eve of the 25th year of our graduation.

I returned to Bengaluru and promptly fell ill, catching one of the various end-of-the-year flus circulating through cities, airports, taxis, and restaurants. Guess my flu vaccine defenses did not account for this variant, or its strength.

The skies are thankfully visible and bright, though still painted in dull shades of white and blue. The sun has been warm and kind. The mornings are chilly—we even had one day this week where it was cold enough to see our breath turn to vapour.

Attendance at The Ken’s office has been uneven. The traffic, tolerable (though this is just me making peace with our city’s terrible traffic). Our post-lunch coffee walks have found two new Indiranagar destinations: the wonderful Café Plume, a French pâtisserie that serves the most delectable pastries too, and the newly relocated Infinitea, a restaurant I’ve been eating and drinking teas at for over two decades!

Meanwhile, closer to home, Gabru has taken to just about tolerating Bribo accompanying him on walks. The trick, I’ve realised, is to not allow more than five seconds of close contact. That’s when Gabru’s un-neutered defensive-aggression mode gets triggered (most instances of what look like “alpha” aggression in dogs are really fear-based). Bribo seems to understand this much better, so he gives Gabru a nice and submissively friendly berth while accompanying us.

2025 has been a great doggo year for me because of Bribo. He didn’t just make me fall in love with him; but also helped me really start “seeing” all the other street dogs in our neighbourhood. Over the year, I’ve befriended at least seven or eight of them. It started as a way for me to bribe them to avoid getting into a barking match with Gabru (usually the one to initiate most matches), but over time, I have started looking forward to seeing them each day.

Some of you might remember how Bribo’s very name came from the First Principles community. Reader Jude D’Souza was the one who called him “Brindle Boy” (because of the leopard-like patterns in his fur) in an email to me.