2025 Recap
2025 is over, and honestly, it's been one of the best years I've had so far. This is my last post of 2025 and the first of 2026, since it's going out tonight. Think of this as my yearly journal. If you're reading this, it genuinely means a lot that you care enough to know how my year went.
The biggest change this year was my new job, which I've already written about in a previous post. Another big shift: I moved to Bangalore. I really love the vibe of the city, even though most days are split between the office and quiet time at home. All things considered, it's been a great year, made even more special by the fact that Neosapien raised a $2M seed round.
What Went Well in 2025
Career
In February 2025, while applying for Product Management roles in fitness and healthtech, my ex-colleague Arun reached out about NeoSapien's Product team opening. He was persistent and nudged the team to check out my profile.
It wasn't an easy decision. AI wearables didn't have the best reputation globally, and building a hardware-first company out of India felt ambitious. Still, something about the vision, the product, and the challenge pulled me in.
NeoSapien's $2M seed round announcement that made 2025 even more special
The months that followed were a blur, in the best way. From seeing the first devices ship, to stabilising the product, to hitting metrics that once felt distant, it's been a proper ride. I ended up doing a bit of everything: customer support, QA, shipping features, and the usual product and design work. We shipped fast, fixed issues as they came up, and redesigned the app completely from scratch.
From here, I'm hoping it's only upwards.
Journaling Every Day
I've been journaling for about five years now, but 2025 is the first year I managed to write every single day without missing one. The hardest part of journaling every day isn't the act itself; it's keeping it from becoming repetitive. Initially, that bothered me. Over time, I realised I needed to loosen up and not take it so seriously.
Showing up every day mattered more than writing something profound. Somewhere along the way, it became a habit I genuinely look forward to, and one I fully plan to continue into next year.
Becoming a Better Artist (Sketching Every Day)
Alongside journaling, I also sketched every day this year. I'd struggled with things like Inktober in the past, but this time I wanted something simpler: just sketch, every day.
It sounds intimidating, but it really isn't. Most sketches take just a few minutes, sometimes longer, like when I joined Urban Sketchers Bangalore. This has easily been one of the most satisfying challenges of the year. My lines feel more confident now, and sketching without any specific goal helped me let go of my obsession with perfection. I'm drawing more freely, without worrying too much about how things turn out.
This is another habit I want to carry forward.
What Could Have Been Better
Reading More (and Reading Better)
2025 wasn't a great reading year for me. I wish I'd read more books, but it just didn't happen. That said, I've slowly gotten back into reading again, and I'm hoping to read more in 2026, especially classics. Reading helps me slow down, stay present, and step away from social media and long work hours.
Health and Fitness
I started the year strong by running my first 10K at Bangalore Tuffman 2025. After that, work took over and fitness slipped down the priority list. I did get back into weight training for a couple of months, but that routine got interrupted again.
Running my first 10K at Bangalore Tuffman 2025
In 2026, I want to be far more intentional about my health and fitness. I started using the Whoop 5.0 this year, not so much for workouts, but it genuinely helped me understand my sleep better and manage it more consciously.
Tech Updates (Because I Love This Stuff)
The Year of FOSS
I've used a MacBook for work and college for years, but 2025 is the year I finally uninstalled Windows from my desktop. Having already fallen in love with gaming on the Steam Deck, going all-in on Linux felt natural.
Life on Linux has been great. I'm running Arch (yes, btw i use arch) with the Cosmic DE, and most of my non-Apple machines now run Linux. This was very much my year of FOSS.
This was also the year my first, and probably last, favourite smartwatch, the Pebble Time, went open-source. It can now connect to a new official app. I used Rebble earlier, but it always felt like a workaround. I'm genuinely excited to daily-drive the Pebble again in 2026.
Trying My First Foldable
I've been using the Samsung Galaxy Fold 6 for work, and it's been impressive. Both the praise and criticism around foldables are valid. For me, though, it confirmed one thing: I'm not joining the foldable bandwagon anytime soon. That said, I do appreciate the design and those rare moments where the foldable screen feels genuinely useful.
The Year of Form Factors
This year, I spent a lot of time thinking about device form factors and reducing friction in everyday use. I've optimised this setup as much as I reasonably can.
I still love talking about handhelds like the Miyoo Mini Plus. This tiny Linux-based device is a fantastic gaming machine and a much better everyday carry than the Steam Deck, which can feel bulky.
I also finally said goodbye to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, one of the heaviest iPhones ever, and switched to the iPhone 17. The difference in weight was immediately noticeable. My hands genuinely thank me every day, and I felt it during the very first phone call I made.
Most Impressive Tech of the Year
Nothing impressed me more this year than Claude Code. Easily the best tech product I used in 2025. It's changed how I work, whether it's building websites or doing analytics. I still love designing in Figma (this blog was redesigned there first), but most of the heavy programming work has been handled by Claude Code, with me stepping in for the finer details.
Hands down, the most transformative tool I've used all year.
Favourite Media of 2025
My Song of the Year
Ma meilleure ennemie
Pomme & Stromae
After Arcane Season 2, Episode 7, the first thing I did wasn't queue the next episode—it was searching for "Arcane French song." I'd heard this track before, but this year it stayed on repeat the longest. The way Pomme and Stromae's voices complement each other, the orchestral build-up, and the emotional weight it carries in that dance sequence between Jinx and Ekko; it all just works. There's something about French that makes heartbreak sound beautiful, and this song leans into that completely.
Listen on Spotify →.png)
My Album of the Year
Lux
Rosalía
I rarely love albums front to back. The last one was Solar Power by Lorde. I've been a fan of Rosalía for some time—I love tracks from Motomami and El mal querer. But Lux is the album I kept coming back to in full. It's orchestral, piano-heavy, and surprisingly classical. Unlike Motomami, there are no obvious hits here; the focus is entirely on her voice and these sweeping arrangements that demand your attention. Perfect for slow, quiet listening, just sitting and appreciating her voice. The kind of album where you put your phone away and actually listen.
Listen on Spotify →
My Game of the Year
Chrono Trigger
1995
I did start Silksong, but work got in the way. The game I finished, and loved every minute of, was Chrono Trigger. If not for Lux, its soundtrack would've been my album of the year.
Despite being older than me, the game feels timeless. The dream trio of Hironobu Sakaguchi, Akira Toriyama, and Yuji Horii created something special. The time travel, multiple endings, and the music by Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu all come together perfectly. What surprised me most was how light and warm it feels compared to other JRPGs; Toriyama's art gives it a personality that never takes itself too seriously. Playing it for the first time in 2025 felt less like catching up on history and more like discovering something that had been waiting for me. Easily one of my all-time favourites now.
My Book of the Year
Heart Lamp: Selected Stories
Banu Mushtaq (translated by Deepa Bhasthi)
An International Booker Prize winner, and even more special because it was originally written in Kannada, my mother tongue. Part of the Bandaya Sahitya movement, the book captures the struggles of Muslim women in Karnataka. It's raw, painful, and deeply human.
The repetition in themes across the stories isn't a flaw; it's intentional, showing how these struggles echo across lives and communities with only superficial changes. A difficult but essential read.
My Movie of the Year
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Aardman Animations
I've always loved stop-motion animation, Aardman and Laika especially. My grandmother owned a video rental store, and that's where my love for movies started. Chicken Run was one of my favourites growing up.
Vengeance Most Fowl feels like an extended episode, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable watch. The plot involves Wallace's AI-powered garden gnome getting hijacked, and watching a hand-crafted stop-motion film gently poke fun at our tech dependence felt perfectly timed. Feathers McGraw remains one of the coolest villains in stop-motion history; there's something genuinely unsettling about how much menace those expressionless beady eyes can convey. It doesn't reinvent anything, it just delivers exactly what you'd want from Wallace and Gromit, and sometimes that's enough.
Final Words
That's it for the year. If you've made it this far, thank you—it genuinely means a lot. I hope you had a great 2025 too, and I wish you the very best for 2026.
If this post introduced you to something new or gave you a few media recommendations, I'm glad. I also published two other posts this year, one about coming back to writing after a break, and another on summarisation. If you enjoy my writing, feel free to subscribe to the blog.