When I think about 2025, I don’t remember it as a year of achievements or milestones first. What comes to mind is something far less dramatic but far more permanent, a change in how I experience life itself.
This wasn’t a year where everything suddenly became easy, successful, or sorted. It was a year where I stopped fighting life unnecessarily.
For a long time, I had been living inside routines, screens, work calls, responsibilities, and self-created pressure.
2025 became the year where I began stepping out of that internal cocoon slowly, awkwardly at times, but honestly. Talking more. Traveling more. Sitting with people without agendas. Sitting with myself without judgment.
This year didn’t teach me how to win at life. It taught me how to carry life.
This blog focusses more on my personal life. To check my work year-in-review, read this.
January – Grounding Before Movement
January began quietly, the way I prefer to begin any year, near the Ganga. These places have never meant “religion” to me in the conventional sense. I don’t go there to ask for things, bargain, or perform devotion.
I go there because they recalibrate my sense of importance. Standing near something that has existed far longer than personal ambition has a way of humbling you without humiliating you.
It sets the tone: you are part of something larger, and that is relieving.
Back home, life eased into motion. Gym routines restarted. Familiar streets. Familiar faces. Festivals came and went. On the surface, it all looked ordinary. But internally, I had made a decision without announcing it to myself too loudly this year, I would stop being selective about human connection.
I would talk to people even when it felt unnecessary. I would allow conversations to happen without controlling their outcome.
Travel began soon after.
Ahmedabad was the first major stop, and it carried something deeply personal for me. Coldplay. My first concert. Music that had lived with me since childhood, through phases of learning guitar, long nights, and quiet moods, suddenly became real in a crowd of thousands.
Experiencing that with my brother mattered more than I expected. It wasn’t about the band alone it was about time folding in on itself, about remembering who you were before life started demanding answers from you.
From there, Somnath followed, a visit that has become familiar over the years. Not dramatic, not emotional, just steady. Some places don’t need intensity; they need continuity.
Rajasthan came next for a team meetup. On paper, it was about work, bonding, activities, and collaboration. And yes, there were games, laughter, shared meals, and long days. But something important happened on a night that had nothing scheduled.
After the bonfire and activities, when most people had settled in, I went out for a walk alone. No destination, no phone obsession, no purpose.
Somewhere along that walk, a stranger joined me. We started talking not in the way people “network”, but in the way humans sometimes do when there’s no script. We spoke for hours. About nothing important and everything meaningful.
That night marked something subtle but significant for me. It showed me how much connection I had been postponing simply because I didn’t initiate. How many conversations never happen because we assume they will be awkward.
January ended with that realization quietly settling in me.
February – When Movement Became the Teacher
February did not give me time to settle. And in hindsight, that was exactly what it needed to do.
I returned home briefly after January, but there was no sense of “being back.” Life already felt in motion. Bags were barely unpacked before they were packed again. Somewhere in this constant movement, I began noticing something important when you don’t give your mind too much idle time, it stops manufacturing unnecessary problems.
The month began with Mahakumbh.
Mahakumbh is one of those events that cannot be understood from the outside. If you approach it with the lens of convenience, logic, or modern efficiency, it will feel overwhelming, even absurd.
Millions of people gathering at one place, moving slowly, waiting patiently, bathing in a river it doesn’t fit into today’s idea of “optimized life.”
But Mahakumbh is not about optimization. It is about continuity.
Standing there, surrounded by people from every background, age, and condition, something very specific happens internally. Your personal narrative loosens its grip. The identity you carry so carefully your work, your worries, your ambitions, your timelines suddenly feels negotiable. Not meaningless, just… not urgent.
I went with my family, without planning, without staying overnight, without trying to extract some grand experience from it. And that simplicity was the point. You don’t conquer Mahakumbh. You briefly step into it, allow it to wash over you, and step out slightly rearranged.
What stayed with me was not the crowd or the ritual, but the quiet realisation that human beings have been gathering like this for thousands of years, long before personal success or failure mattered. It shrinks ego without attacking it. It humbles without humiliating.
Soon after, without much pause, I left for my first international WordCamp, held in the Philippines.
This trip stretched me in a very different way.
For years, a large part of my professional and community life had existed online especially on X. Conversations, debates, learning, humour, disagreements all of it happened through screens. Over time, you begin associating people with their opinions, their writing style, their confidence. They become “voices,” not humans.
WordCamp dismantled that illusion.
Meeting people in person whom I had known digitally for years was quietly disarming. Hierarchies dissolved instantly. The person you thought was intimidating turned out to be warm. The one you assumed was loud turned out to be thoughtful. Everyone suddenly became human again, imperfect, curious, open.
What made those interactions meaningful was that they weren’t transactional. No one was there to “extract value.” X had already done the groundwork familiarity without intimacy. WordCamp added the missing layer: presence. Conversations flowed easily because there was already shared context. They extended beyond conference halls into walks, meals, jokes, and unplanned wandering.
It reminded me that online spaces, when used honestly, can build real trust and that real relationships don’t need dramatic beginnings. They grow naturally when curiosity replaces performance.
Of course, real life left its mark too. An ice-skating attempt ended with an injury one of those moments that hurts physically but later becomes part of the memory you laugh about along with my CEO Sagar Patel. That, too, felt symbolic. When you actually show up in life, you collect marks. Clean journeys rarely teach much.
Instead of returning home after the Philippines, I flew directly to Coimbatore for Mahashivratri at Isha.
By then, the body was tired. But something else was alert.
Mahashivratri has been a yearly ritual for me, but this time it felt sharper. More intimate. Maybe because I arrived without rest, without buffers, without transition time. It showed me something important exhaustion of the body does not necessarily mean exhaustion of the being.
That night, surrounded by scale, silence, and intensity, I felt a familiar grounding. Not excitement. Not emotion. Just a steady inner alignment. A sense that life does not need to be managed aggressively it needs to be participated in consciously.
When February finally ended and I returned home after nearly ten days away, it marked the longest stretch I had spent away from my parents. What surprised me was not relief, but expansion. The world felt slightly less intimidating. People felt easier to approach. And movement no longer felt like escape it felt like education.
March: Letting Go Without Drama
March was emotionally heavier than I expected, but not in a loud way.
This was the month we sold our old house. As last year we purchased our 1st new house.
A house where so much of my childhood lived. Not in some cinematic sense, but in very ordinary ways. Morning routines. Corners you sit in without thinking. Walls that have heard conversations you don’t even remember anymore. When we sold it, there was no big reaction from me. No sadness, no tears, no nostalgia overdose.
And yet, something quietly shifted.
It felt like closing a chapter that didn’t need closure rituals. Just acceptance. Life moves. Spaces change. You don’t hold on just because something once held you.
At the same time, we were settling into the new house. A completely different energy. First Holi there. New walls. New routines. A new sense of permanence. For the first time, it felt like I had a base that wasn’t temporary. A place I could leave and return to without feeling unsettled.
March was also the month when something internal changed very clearly.
I completed Shambhavi Mahamudra from Isha Foundation. I have been in connect with Isha & Sadhguru since 6+ years but this was the 1st attempt to get connected from Yoga Kriyas.
I’m careful when I talk about this because it’s easy to make it sound mystical or exaggerated, and that’s not what it was for me. It was practical. Functional. Almost mechanical in how clearly it showed me the relationship between body, mind, and emotion.
What changed was not life outside.
What changed was how my intelligence behaved.
Earlier, my mind would turn against itself without me noticing. Overthinking. Creating unnecessary friction. Holding on to emotions longer than needed. After Shambhavi, that resistance softened. I didn’t become emotionless. I just stopped clinging to emotions.
I remember crying after the initiation. Not out of sadness. Not even happiness. Just a release. Like something that had been held tightly for years finally loosened its grip.
From that point onward, many things that earlier felt heavy simply stopped demanding attention. Not because I was avoiding them, but because they didn’t deserve the importance I had been giving them.
Around this time, after moving into the new house, I took a sankalp to visit Kashi every month.
Not as a religious vow. More as a personal rhythm. Shiva has always been my ishta, and Kashi has always felt like a place where I don’t need to explain myself. Since January and February were chaotic due to Mahakumbh crowds, March became the starting point.
My first Kashi trip of the year was with people who were almost strangers. Two women from my gym who were curious about the place. I planned the entire experience carefully, not as a guide, but as someone who knows how overwhelming Kashi can feel if you don’t ease into it.
What stayed with me was not what we saw, but what they felt by the end. When someone tells you that a trip changed something inside them, you realize you can quietly impact people’s lives without trying to be significant.
March ended with that realization sitting calmly inside me. I didn’t feel powerful. I felt responsible.
April: When Depth Arrived Without Forcing It
April began with Navratri.
For me, Navratri has never been about celebration alone. It’s about understanding Shakti. The feminine aspect of life, creation, movement. I decided to do a full nine day fast i.e. without eating, not as deprivation, not to please any deity, but to observe what happens when the body is not constantly busy digesting, craving, or reacting.
Fasting, when done consciously, is not punishment. It creates space. And in that space, you start noticing how restless the mind actually is.
Midway through Navratri, I traveled to Bangalore again.
This time, the focus was Soak in Ecstasy at Isha.
I’ll say this carefully. This was not happiness. It was not joy. It was not excitement.
It was ecstasy. Raw, unfiltered, overwhelming.
During those twelve hours, something inside me opened up in a way that didn’t need interpretation. I wasn’t trying to understand anything. I wasn’t trying to reach anywhere. I was simply there. Fully.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. Not because my mind was racing, but because my system felt too alive to shut down. It was almost confusing how full everything felt without a reason.
What shifted after that was subtle but permanent.
Ambition didn’t disappear. Goals didn’t vanish. But the desperation behind them dissolved. I still want to grow. I still want to build. But I don’t want to use success to escape myself anymore.
After returning home, April turned into my birthday month.
Just two days before my birthday, I went to Kashi again, this time with my parents. I’ve traveled with them before, but this felt different. I knew the place better now. I knew how to pace it. I knew where silence mattered more than movement.
I barely slept those days. Made sure they were comfortable. Watched them experience Kashi not as tourists, but as participants. Seeing them feel the depth of the place was deeply satisfying. It felt like offering something that had shaped me.
I returned, and friends surprised me with cake & gifts. Simple, warm, unplanned. That was enough.
Around this time, something small but meaningful happened. I bought a big TV for the new house. A childhood wish, finally fulfilled. It might sound trivial, but completing old desires has a strange calming effect. They stop occupying mental space.
Fitness struggled this month. Travel, fasting, movement made routines inconsistent. I didn’t judge myself for it. I just noticed it.
May: Learning to Be Alone Without Feeling Lonely
May was quieter.
I went to Kashi again, mostly solo this time. I’ve realized that I enjoy Kashi most when I’m alone. Not because I dislike people, but because some places are meant to be met one on one.
Solo trips there feel intimate. You walk more. Sit more. Observe more. There’s no pressure to explain what you’re feeling or where you want to go next. You just move when it feels right.
I returned and focused on work, fitness, and friends. Nothing dramatic happened this month. And that was the beauty of it.
I noticed that I no longer needed constant stimulation. I could sit with myself without restlessness. Conversations felt easier. Silence didn’t feel empty.
May felt like integration. Like everything that happened in the first four months was settling into place.
I wasn’t chasing experiences anymore. I was absorbing them.
June: Familiar Ground, New Ease
June did not arrive with drama, and I was grateful for that.
By this point, life had found a rhythm that felt sustainable. Work was steady, travel was still happening, but I was no longer reacting to movement. I was choosing it. There is a difference between running and walking with purpose, and June felt like walking.
I visited Kashi again this month, but this time with friends. Traveling with friends changes the texture of a place. Conversations are lighter, laughter comes easily, and silence is shared rather than held privately. We stayed for a few days, wandered without rigid plans, ate at odd hours, walked a lot, and spoke about life in ways that only happen when people are away from routine.
What stood out to me was how different Kashi felt depending on who you are with. With friends, it becomes playful without losing depth. You joke one moment and find yourself in a serious conversation the next, without consciously shifting gears. It reminded me that spiritual depth does not require seriousness. It can coexist with laughter.
Back home, June was about returning to basics. Work, fitness attempts, catching up with people, and letting the year breathe a little. Nothing major happened, and that itself felt like progress. I was no longer chasing intensity. I was allowing steadiness.
July: Monsoon, Family, and Quiet Devotion
July carried a different energy.
It began with something deeply personal. My mother’s birthday. Instead of gifts or celebrations at home, I planned a surprise. I told her we were traveling, without explaining much. We went to Kamakhya, one of the most significant Shakti Peethas.
For me, it felt like the most meaningful gift I could offer. Not because of belief, but because of experience.
Watching her there, absorbing the place, feeling calm and present, was grounding. Sometimes, giving someone an experience that stays with them is far more valuable than anything material.
Around this time, I also became more involved with the local Isha community. Guru Purnima came up, and I volunteered to help organize the program. It felt good to serve quietly, without being visible, without expectation. Just showing up where needed.
Then came Sawan – the month of Shiva.
This was my first time visiting Kashi during the monsoon, and it changed my relationship with the city again. Rain softens everything. The ghats look greener, the air feels closer, and the pace slows naturally. Kashi in Sawan feels intimate, almost personal. Like the city is speaking more softly.
I traveled with my brother this time. We walked in the rain, spoke little, sat silently at places where words felt unnecessary. One evening, I visited a very old temple quietly around sunset. Later, I walked through Manikarnika at night. There was no heaviness, no fear, no drama. Just acceptance. Death there does not feel tragic. It feels factual.
That night, hunger hit late, and we ended up having tea and a sandwich at an odd hour. Small, unremarkable moments like these stay longer than planned experiences.
August: People, Play, and Feeling Held
August slowed the year down in a very human way.
By now, Sundays had taken on a different meaning. I started visiting my sisters house alot – Anushree Di and her family regularly. Not for an event, not for obligation.
Just to be. We played board games, talked endlessly, laughed, argued over Mafia rules, and spent time without checking clocks.
What made this special was the ease. Her family was welcoming in a way that doesn’t make you feel like a guest. These gatherings did something important for me. They gave my mind rest without isolation.
Raksha Bandhan happened again in August, and it felt fuller. Tying Rakhi was not about tradition alone. It was about acknowledging relationships that had formed organically over time. Chosen family matters as much as the one you’re born into.
August was also intense professionally.
This was when our AppSumo campaign began for Nexter. It wasn’t just another launch. It was a validation moment. Two months of intense work, user calls, feedback loops, pressure, and responsibility. Crossing milestones that many products take years to reach was surreal.
What mattered more than numbers was trust. I was given space to manage things end to end, and that responsibility changed how I saw myself professionally. It wasn’t about marketing anymore. It was about ownership.
August taught me that work can be demanding without being draining if you’re trusted.
September: Quiet Upgrades and Subtle Shifts
September did not shout. It whispered.
I went to Kashi again early in the month, this time with my father. Originally, someone else was supposed to join me, but plans changed. Asking my father to come felt natural, almost obvious. The trip was calmer, slower, and deeply grounding.
Walking with him through the ghats, sitting quietly, not rushing anywhere, felt different from all other trips. It wasn’t about showing anything. It was about sharing space.
Around this time, Sadhguru visited Kolkata after a long gap. Going to the airport to see him felt like closing a circle.
September was also when I started paying attention to smaller personal details. Skincare. Dressing better. Being more presentable. Not for approval, but because I was traveling more, meeting more people, and I wanted my outer life to reflect the inner clarity I had been building.
Fitness struggled again. Travel disrupted routines. I noticed it without frustration. Awareness came before discipline.
September ended quietly, with the city glowing for Durga Puja. The air changed. Anticipation built. And I could feel that the year was entering its final, festive stretch.
In Kolkata, this month always feels different. The air changes, the city wakes up, and everything moves toward Durga Puja. It is not just a festival here. It is a collective emotion. Streets change character, conversations get warmer, time stretches in strange ways.
Durga Puja this year felt gentler for me. I did not keep all nine days of fasting like some years before. I listened to my body. I walked through pandals without urgency. A friend visited from Bangalore, and we spent long evenings wandering lanes, talking, observing, and simply being part of the city’s rhythm.
Right after Dashami, I travelled with both my parents.
October: Celebration, Pride, and Becoming More Open Without Trying
October arrived with a shift in energy.
We began with Vindhyachal, one of the Adi Shakti Peethas. The place carries an old, settled energy. Nothing dramatic. No rush. Just a sense of continuity that does not demand explanation.
On the journey from Vindhyachal to Banaras, I met a dog that stayed with me for a while. I have always been conflicted about pets. I love animals, but I also believe they deserve freedom more than emotional dependence. That brief interaction felt honest. No ownership. No projection. Just coexistence for a moment.
From there, we reached Kashi again.
This trip was different. I wasn’t discovering the city. I wasn’t curating experiences. I was just present. Somewhere during this visit, I reached out to someone I had only known online, someone fairly well known in their space, and asked if they wanted to meet. We sat at Kedar Ghat for hours, talking without structure. No agenda. No performance. Just conversation flowing naturally.
It struck me how effortless meeting people had become. Earlier, this would have required mental preparation. Now it felt normal. That change didn’t come from confidence. It came from repetition. From simply talking to people again and again until fear lost relevance.
The trip extended to Lucknow, where I stayed with my uncle for a day. Nothing extraordinary happened there. And yet, those ordinary pauses often balance intense months.
Mid-October brought one of the most grounding moments of the year.
I received a message from my college. They wanted me to come and speak. Not for a casual talk, but for a dedicated session. Standing on that stage, in the same place where I once sat as a student trying to figure things out, felt surreal. Teachers who had guided me were there. The director was there. My mother sat in the front row.
I spoke for hours. Not to impress, but to share honestly. There was no performance anxiety. Only gratitude. When I was facilitated on stage. How many people had trusted me before I trusted myself.
My mother’s quiet happiness that day meant more than any applause.
Diwali followed soon after. Our first Diwali in the new house. Decorating it, arranging lights, making rangoli, shopping, and preparing for guests made the house feel alive. At a Diwali gathering, I noticed something subtle. I was more open. Talking more. Cracking jokes. Moving through conversations without self-consciousness.
It wasn’t forced. It wasn’t intentional. It was simply who I had become this year.
October ended with visits to a gaushala, feeding cows, and later participating in a dog-feeding drive with over a hundred dogs. Service did not feel like charity. It felt like participation.
November: Dev Diwali and Seeing the World From a Boat
November was anchored around Dev Diwali.
Fifteen days after Diwali, Kashi transforms. The city prepares itself quietly, and then, on that night, it becomes something else entirely. Thousands of diyas line the ghats. The river reflects light endlessly. Boats fill the Ganga. The city does not celebrate loudly. It glows.
I travelled solo for Dev Diwali. Hotels were expensive. Boats were scarce. But familiarity helps. Connections help. Somehow, everything aligned.
Sitting in a boat for hours, watching the ghats pass by slowly, something unexpected happened. A stranger sat next to me, and we started talking. The conversation lasted almost the entire ride. No introductions that mattered. No labels. Just two people talking while the city lit itself up around us.
I remember thinking how strange and beautiful life is. You travel alone, but you are never really alone if you are open.
That night felt unreal. The river, the lights, the silence between conversations, walking through the city afterward, visiting Kashi Vishwanath, meeting people from Mexico, Spain, and different parts of India who spoke about Kashi with a depth that surprised me.
Dev Diwali did not feel like an event. It felt like perspective. A reminder that beauty exists without needing to be owned or explained.
After returning, November slowed down. I tried getting back into fitness routines. Winter winds arrived. Mornings felt calmer. Work continued. Black Friday preparations took over a significant part of the month. Planning, coordination, pressure, execution. The team handled it well. Results were solid. The effort felt collective.
November carried quiet confidence. Nothing needed proving.
December: Ending the Year in Motion, Not Closure
December did not arrive gently.
I travelled to Kashi again on the fourth of the month, solo. Dorm stays, late-night conversations, strangers becoming friends, exchanging numbers and Instagram handles, casual comments going viral without effort. By now, talking to people felt natural, almost necessary.
A few days later, another friend joined me. On a whim, we decided to go to Ayodhya. The Ram Mandir had recently become a focal point nationally, and visiting it felt like witnessing a historical transition. It was crowded, but calm. Emotional, but grounded.
We returned to Kashi, and soon after, my brother joined, along with Anushree and her friend. What followed were some of the longest, most exhausting, and most alive days of the year. Working during the day, roaming at night. Hardly sleeping. Walking endlessly. Sitting by the river. Visiting cafes. Watching aartis. Talking until words ran out.
Time behaved differently during those days. It did not rush. It stretched.
Toward the end of the trip, we went to Mirzapur. Visiting an old ancestral house, once associated with the British era, felt like stepping into another time. Stories filled the space. Food was shared generously. Laughter echoed through rooms that had seen decades pass.
That day felt like the last page of a chapter. Not because the year ended, but because something inside felt complete.
I returned home mid-December.
No urgency. No sadness. No dramatic reflection yet.
Just a quiet awareness that something meaningful had unfolded across twelve months.
What 2025 Left Me With
When the year finally slowed down enough for me to look at it as a whole, I realised something important.
2025 didn’t give me answers. It took away unnecessary questions.
For a long time, I thought growth meant adding things. More discipline. More ambition. More goals. More urgency. This year showed me the opposite. Growth also happens when you subtract. When you remove fear, hesitation, unnecessary seriousness, and the constant need to validate yourself.
Talking to more people changed me more than any book or plan ever could. Every conversation chipped away at the invisible wall I didn’t even know I had built around myself. The more I spoke, the less I feared being misunderstood. The less I feared being misunderstood, the more honestly I showed up.
Travel did not distract me from life. It anchored me into it. Moving through different places, sleeping less, walking more, meeting strangers, sitting in silence, watching death and celebration exist side by side made one thing very clear. Life is not fragile. Our ideas about life are.
This year also taught me responsibility in a very grounded way. Not responsibility as burden, but responsibility as freedom. I realised that every emotion I experience is my own creation. Sadness, anger, frustration, jealousy. None of them are imposed on me. Once you see that clearly, blaming the world becomes pointless. You stop asking why life is happening to you and start asking how consciously you are participating in it.
I don’t remember the last time I felt angry in a consuming way. Not because nothing went wrong, but because reacting stopped feeling useful. The intelligence that once turned against me slowly started working with me.
Work, too, changed shape this year. Managing products, people, expectations, and pressure showed me how much I am capable of when I am trusted. Validation came, yes, but more importantly, confidence came from knowing I could carry responsibility without losing myself. That is a quiet kind of strength.
I also became more aware of my gaps. Fitness suffered. Discipline slipped at times. Doom scrolling crept in. And instead of judging myself for it, I noticed it. Awareness came before correction. That itself felt like progress.
The biggest takeaway, if I have to name one, is simple.
Life does not need to be taken seriously to be lived deeply.
The more I understood life, the more humorous I became about it. Not dismissive. Not careless. Just lighter. laughing more, reacting slower, listening better.
How I Want to Move Into 2026
I am not entering the next year with rigid resolutions.
I am entering it with clarity.
I want to become physically stronger, not for appearance, but for endurance. Travel and intensity demand a body that can support them. By mid-year, I want to feel fit in a way that is sustainable, not forced.
Financially, I want to grow more deliberately. Not out of insecurity, but out of possibility. More financial stability gives me more freedom to travel, to host people, to take others along on experiences that have shaped me. I want money to become a tool, not a metric.
Career-wise, I want to take more risks. Integrations, experiments, building things that may or may not work. I want to lean further into product thinking, leadership, and creation rather than staying safe inside roles I already understand.
I want to show up more consistently online. Writing, sharing, speaking, recording videos. Not because everyone will like it, but because people already resonate when I do. Hiding helps no one. Visibility, when done honestly, builds connection.
I want to keep talking to people. At work. Outside work. Strangers. Friends. Users. People with different views. Conversations have become one of my greatest teachers, and I don’t want to lose that openness.
I want to stay close to people who care about me, and be more responsive to them. Work can make you efficient, but it can also make you distant if you are not careful. I want to choose presence more consciously.
Spiritually, I don’t want more labels or identities. I want continuity. Sadhana, travel to places that ground me, and a life lived with responsibility rather than belief. Understanding my culture, history, karma, and death has removed fear rather than added meaning. I want to continue on that path quietly.
Most importantly, I want to live with the same reminder that stayed with me all year.
If today were the last day, I should not feel unfinished.
Not because everything is done, but because I showed up honestly.
Closing This Chapter
2025 did not make me extraordinary.
It made me real.
It took away unnecessary heaviness and replaced it with participation. It showed me that you don’t need to escape life to live well. You just need to stop resisting it.
When I look back at this year in the future, I don’t want to remember where I went or what I achieved first. I want to remember how I felt inside my own life.
And right now, that feeling is simple.
Grateful.
Grounded.
Open.
That is enough to move forward.