January

• NYE 2015 isn’t too rad. Beginning with walking around Powai with flatmates. House and Locality seem like the best place out of last three in past 3 years since I moved to Mumbai.
• I have gotten Montra Trance 2015. Starting to stretch my legs around. These are the best couple of months to do anything outdoors in Mumbai. Better make the best out of it.
• I have completed my 25th birthday this time around. Couldn’t sleep through the night before. Major quarter life crisis thoughts are driving me crazy. This is getting worse.

February

• Time for bi-annual home trip; part-1. There is major change happening with home situation.

• Dad is retiring after working for almost 40 years as Photographer + Public Relations with CCL. I still can’t wrap my head around this as I recall after barely completing a year of my first full time job calling him up and asking how can I go on? How do you do it? What’s the secret? Reply from other side comes out to be “It just happened”.
• Newly built house is also almost ready. With retirement, comes surrender of company quarter, the house where I grew up between year 4 – 18, which has the very first memories of mine. Construction of standalone house has been underway for some time now. Folks back home have decided on details pretty much themselves with me dropping in time-to-time with a bit of Financial Aid.

March

• Time for a quarterly adventure travel trip is here. Perfect time for a trip to snow valleys around IISM Gulmarg. I have gathered a pretty awesome Snow Skiing kit from Wed’ze / Decathlon. Another exciting new batch of people, events and nature. I’m an Intermediate skier now and the first runs from actual mountains are epic at just another level compared to baby slopes!
• Weather already seems to turning pretty hot, Screw you Mumbai. Though, This has been pretty fun set of weekends of weekend biking. Find stats on Strava.
• We have rebuilt a core strategy for desk in equity market with better scaling options of HFT and taken it live. Bunch of small portfolios put into test. Results look promising.

April

• On structured reading front, it’s turning out to be another failed attempt to keep the schedule. Barely able to do some reading around fundamental philosophy and psychology. Gotta work on this.
• On weekends, I’m taking up Financial Technology / Programming module of QuantInsti for increasing sized batches of global quantitative finance professionals.

May

• Scuba Diving time. After couple of reschedules of this awaited trip of the year, it is finally happening. I am learning to be an Advanced Open Water Diver with Barefoot Scuba, a PADI diving agency based out of Havelock in Andaman. Underwater world is breathtaking.. literally. Getting up close with Sharks, Mantas, Turtles, Snakes and a vibrant variety of fishes while just focusing on breathing in remote open sea waters hundreds of kilometers away from mainlands.

June

• A major fire has taken place in apartment besides my building. 7 people dead in this awful mishap. Lots of safety practices revisited around Lake Homes society.
• It has started to rain in Mumbai, best time for visiting mountains around. For some reasons, I’m rather bored of them, they just don’t seem as exciting as 2012 anymore. Still able to do few road trips with friends of friends. BTW, Road trips in car, not my cup of team. Please don’t invite me, I’m a terrible shotgun rider.

July

• Meanwhile, my food experiments have continued all the while. I am about to hit 200th mark of restaurants in Mumbai from where I have had a meal in past 3 years. Food is fun.
• I have been able to accomplish learning a bunch of financial concepts, jargons and techniques. Feels like I have collected major chunk from trunk of the quantitative finance tree.
• I have produced few spun-off projects too alongside. Like everything government, dealing with audits and demos with exchanges and SEBI is excruciatingly painful, which takes up a major chunk of time during releases.

August

• I have worked out a regular schedule for off time and trying to stick to it. Weekdays involve alternating between Running and Swimming. Weekends involve Squash or Cycle rides. Society facilities make a lot of sense now.
• We have taken another HFT strategy live to the market. This one involves lots of upcoming experiments of market conditions to get to sustainable profitability. 

September

• In other development, BITOSA Mumbai chapter is properly formed along with a get together of alumni from all the batches. Getting to know few interesting people from BIT.
• Annual review has finished recently at iRage. I have a long discussion with team regarding firms’ future, my role in it and differences between my ideal work scenario vs reality. During recent past, this sense of irreparable mismatch in goals has been sinking in me. Alongside, desire to build something, not sure about specifics, from ground up has been spreading in my head. Putting some more thought into it.

October

• After lots of simulations, one thing seems certain at the moment: leaving the firm. After some discussion, we decide on end of month to finish up appropriately with knowledge transfer and finding a replacement. This 15 month stint, though short, gave me dozens of productive weeks and has come to a natural end and separation.
• Now what? Ever since graduation, as I have kept learning more, set of options seem to broaden continuously. At this point, it seems like there is a wide array of choices I can choose to pursue. I am trying to reason out the most amenable one.

November

• Time for bi-annual home trip; part-2. New house looks all set now. We have bought the first car for home. Diwali at home is good. Mom decides to take up Chhath making this an extended trip. Got a chance to meetup with bunch of friends from 2006 graduating batch of class Xth in Ranchi too.
• I have brainstormed a list of problems worth solving with available resources and working on finding intersection with present interests. After weighing options, I am finding it hard to start the process single handedly in Mumbai. I decide to move to Bangalore for now in the hopes that being closer to ecosystem is going to keep the spirit up while working out details.

December

• Amidst all the confusion, I have decided to take next 2 months to learn all things to make a decision if startup is the right option for me? I am meeting with people, I have worked or studied in past with whom a meeting can be scheduled. And, learning the crux requirements and skills needed to build a company from ground up.
• Family is scheduled for 10-day Maharashtra-Goa tour and I am joining them briefly around NYE in Goa. First time at a beach on the NYE and it didn’t disappoint. Lights, music and vibe is pretty awesome. And, the counter hits 2016.

Hope you all have a great year 2016 ahead!