Blogging Divides Family

I was surprised to find out that Heleena reads my blog and took one of my posts personally—thinking it was about her. To be honest, she never crossed my mind when I wrote that piece. However, convincing her of that has been tough. She tends to hold a grudge for a couple of months and waits for the right moment to give back to me!

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Malayalis may not have valued Nedumudi Venu, but ChatGPT did

Back in the late 1980s (exactly in 1988, according to some searches)—there was a much-loved Malayalam serial called Mandan Kunju . Ever since then, our family developed a deep appreciation for Nedumudi Venu. His acting was often compared to that of Sivaji Ganesan, who was widely celebrated at the time. There were even debates about how Nedumudi was surpassing Sivaji with his unmatched natural style. Even in his 30s, Nedumudi would appear with grey hair, convincingly portraying elderly characters. About 35 years ago, I happened to watch a film in which Nedumudi Venu actually played the lead role—something quite rare in his career. I couldn’t remember the plot or the supporting cast, but what stayed with me vividly was the setting. The film had been shot in Munnar’s Madupetty Estate, with the estate school serving as one of the locations. I also remembered a Carnatic-influenced song filmed outdoors in the estate, which left a strong impression on me. For years, I tried to rediscover ...

Solved: "Ports" Tab Not Visible in VS Code (WSL2)

None of the solutions I found on Reddit or GitHub worked, and most of the related GitHub issues were locked. So I'm documenting this here for future reference. Problem When using WSL2 in Visual Studio Code, the Ports tab—needed to access your application in Windows browsers like Chrome or Edge—doesn't appear. Even the Ports-related options are missing from the Command Palette. Solution After a lot of trial and error, here's what worked: Run npx serve in the VS Code terminal. It will output a URL such as http://localhost:3000/ . Click the link (or use the Follow Link option). This will open the app in your default browser. You may notice that it opens on a different port (for example, http://localhost:64198 ). At this point, the Ports tab becomes available in VS Code. After this initial trigger, the Ports tab seems to remain available in future VS Code...

Gaslighting & Emotional Manipulation Among Kanyakumari Parents

Lately, I’ve been noticing a curious pattern in the behavior of many parents from Kanyakumari, particularly mothers. There’s a recurring tendency to project emotions—anger, sadness, happiness—onto their children, not because the child is actually feeling that way, but to communicate something about the parent’s own desires or discomforts. It’s a subtle form of gaslighting. For example, if a mother doesn’t want to accompany her husband on a social visit, she might say, “Our son is in a bad mood today, let’s stay home,” even when the child is perfectly fine. The child becomes an emotional excuse, a buffer used to influence someone else's behavior without direct confrontation. Sometimes, these projections go deeper. If a mother-in-law dislikes her daughter-in-law, she may subtly portray her own son as short-tempered or unstable. The goal isn't to protect the child, but to create distance between the couple—without ever saying so explicitly. Why do I frame this as a Kanyakum...