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Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
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25 Dec, 8 tweets, 2 min read
After 15 years in this country, the only 2 of its holidays that I don't really celebrate "personally" are Easter and Christmas. Fourth, Halloween, Thanksgiving, celebrated personally. Maybe cos we don't have kids? No other resonance as an atheist non-Christian. Except pop culture
4th, Halloween, Thanksgiving, even SuperBowl Sunday I'll make elaborate personal plans for. Right down to the smallest item in the menu. With friends and loved ones.
Christmas and Easter are just long weekends. With fun pop culture stuff around them. But basically long weekends.
Nope, nothing. I've always enjoyed the very festive and fun Christmas phenomenon as cheering audience, not participant. Always aching to do trick or treat or carve Thanksgiving birds. But never felt like having a Christmas tree or make eggnog.

Could it be because I've known Christmas & Easter since childhood in India as "their" holidays? Whereas the other 3 had no baggage, so for me are purely "American"? I made a conscious decision to become American. Not Christian. And like the founding fathers, I know the difference
Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas time, especially in the northeast US. But I still feel like a tourist on December 25th. Whereas on July 4th, I feel like I live here.
I remember being a 5,6,7,8 year old in Bombay and Pune thrilled to meet Santa Claus and hanging up socks hoping parents would stuff something in there out of pure courtesy. So Christmas is a childhood friend. Just kept at a distance. I blame sanghis & evangelicals both.
Evangelicals have succeeded in making Christmas about Christianity again, a connection capitalism had worked hard for decades to undo. With their fake war on Christmas nonsense. In India, I'd just say Merry Christmas. In US, conservatives warned me against saying it. 🤔
More broadly speaking, 4th, Halloween, Thanksgiving are literally the only holidays I celebrate personally in general! I don't personally celebrate any hindu holidays either, unless friends or family are visiting.

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More from @gauravsabnis

Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
25 Dec
Woke up to an ear splitting alarm in the middle of the night in our bnb and I think it's Santa tripping on something.
But seriously, trying to figure out what that was. There's a power outage in the area, presumably because of the storm. But what alarm goes off for about 1-2 seconds verrrry high pitched and loud? Happened twice, about a minute apart. Silent since. Not some CO alarm?😲
If Sherlock and Joan have to make the ride up from Brooklyn to Woodstock tomorrow to investigate our corpses, tell them about the 2 alarms at 230 AM 😫😫
Read 7 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
24 Dec
Finally got Android Auto working completely and flawlessly. This one particular cable 🙄. That's there only issue we've had with the Forester so far. And from searching online, we aren't the only ones who've struggled with Android Auto being ultra temperamental.
Which means Pandora is now in play and thus we can listen to our favorite hindi oldies on shuffle. On our way to a socially distanced Christmas weekend surrounded by pine trees still in the ground. 😁
Ah, Hemanta station is the best for this misty overcast pre-storm afternoon on the Palisades Parkway, hands down my favorite Parkway. My girl driving. Sunroof open. Bliss. 😍

All that's missing is some fried fish and onion rings. And we know just the place! 😋
Read 4 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
22 Dec
One habit I've cultivated in recent travels, especially in India, is when I taste something exceptional, I talk to the chef about why. Could be a fancy Juhu place or the tiniest table selling pani puri. They feel so delighted to talk food and you learn a lot for home cooking.
For example, this kid barley out of his teens selling pani puri from a non-descript table on Paud Road seemed to have the most amazing tasting ragda. I asked him his secret. He happily told me, he keeps grating fresh ginger in it every 15 minutes. Simple food chemistry.
First such interaction was asking my favorite pav bhaji dude why home pav bhaji never tastes as good. He didn't know Maillard Reaction, but said it's because veggies get butter roasted on the hot griddle before being mashed, but at home, people just boil and mash.
Read 7 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
22 Dec
This bit from @krishashok's #MasalaLab got me thinking about what I consider are the best onion pakoras or generally the best onion based dish in the world. THE WORLD. And that's the "khekda" bhaji on top of Sinhagad, a gorgeous historic fort near Pune. Last time, I explored why. ImageImageImage
Khekda is Marathi for crab. The bhaji are so named, not because they have crab, but because they resemble crabs in appearance. Somehow even though onion bhaji in Pune city are similar, they never taste as good as at one of the dozens of food huts on Sinhagad.
So last time I visited the fort, as friends sat down to eat, I went into the "kitchen" (a simple earthen hut) and chatted with the woman and her son who ran the shack to find out more. The answer. Zero water. Zero. Yup, not a single drop of water.
Read 14 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
19 Dec
Fingers crossed for levelling at the biggest stage of them all - Melbourne Cricket Ground. It's the real Lord's of cricket, not Lord's.
Again realizing just how mind bendingly cathartic the 2018 win was for me. I'm just mildly annoyed and amused at India's collapse. Not getting into a multi week funk like previous collapses. Able to think with equanimity, like, wow this is as classic a test as any! #INDvAUS
Is 340 AM too late for the first drink of the night or too early for the first drink of the day? Asking for a friend. #INDvAUS #36allout
Read 5 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Profile picture
19 Dec
Almost made it to the end of the semester without a single student getting covid. Almost. 😑😑

One of the most driven, dedicated students I've seen. She's like even if not paper how about zoom? 😳😳 I'm like, daheck? Go rest! Forget the analysis!

Never tell me GenZ is lazy.
I told her to forget course work. Final grade will be based on everything else she's done so far and it's all A. She should set up a call next month or so to show me the analysis. And you can bet she will. She's one of those genuine learning students, not A chasing ones.
Last time she took a course of mine, she took my "if any of you want to pursue marketing analytics further, my door is always open even after the course" to heart and would frequently show up with another such student to discuss analytics for a start-up idea they had.
Read 8 tweets

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