Alone or not .. here's a few entertaining items ...

Podcasts - best heard on the car radio but really anywhere

1. Modern Love - A Kiss Deferred, He's Going Back to His Former Wife and so many other really good ones

2. American Life - Heard some really funny podcasts over the holidays about Christmas, etc

3. Teacher's Pet - a gripping story from down under .. Australia .. somewhat similar to Serial

4. To Live and Die in LA - another whodunit

5. Dr. Death - your faith in surgeons will be shaken to the core

6. Serial - It all started with Serial which I still think is the best of them all!

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/12/50-best-podcasts-2019/604165/

Movies - You just must watch

1. Separation, Past .. by same Persian director - Separation was best foreign film one year

2. The Party - Peter Sellers is a bungling Indian Actor at a Hollywood Party

3. Its a Mad Mad Mad World

4. Mr Rogers Neighborhood

5. On Golden Pond

6. Chariots of Fire

7. Wild

8. Do Sitarey Zamin Per

9. The Wave

10. Love Story

11. 2001 Space Odyssey

12. Raiders of the Lost Ark

13. Saving Private Ryan

14. Forrest Gump

15. ET

16. Matrix

17. Star Wars

18. Jaws

19. Night of our Souls

20. French Connection

21. Bourne Identity series of movies

22. Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons ...

23. Sholay

24. Bicycle thieves

25. Cinema Paradiso

26. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

27. Dangal

28. Godfather

29. Lagaan

30. Casablanca

31. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

32. Gone With the Wind

33. A Few Good Men

34. Hell or Highwater

35. Shaurya (the story is taken from A Few Good Men but still does a great job in the context of India's brutal suppression of Kashmiries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_best

TV Series (need to work on this one)

1. Seinfeld

2. 13 Reasons Why

3. Stories by Rabindranath Tagore on Netflix

4. Manto TV Series and Manto Film

5. Ankahi

6. Virgin River

7. Delhi Crime

8. Friends

9. Breaking Bad

10. Big Bang Theory

11. Everyone Loves Raymond

12. The Walking Dead

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000076420/

https://www.indiatoday.in/television/soaps/story/10-landmark-pakistani-shows-that-were-hugely-popular-in-india-lifetv-345116-2016-10-05

Books - Currently Reading or Recently Read

1. Sapiens by Yuval Hariri - an anthropological history that challenges the traditional conceptions and makes you think and read and think and continue reading

2. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - an epic story of a Korean family spanning three generations

3. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens - If you love nature and the outdoors with a bit of love thrown in

4. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri - Such a delightful novel by this Bengali author who raised a boy in the USA

5. Bey Misaal Afsaanay (Incomparable Stories) compiled by Roohi Kanjahi - a collection of 50 short stories by writers from Pakistan and India - has been a favorite book for years!

6. Communism in Pakistan by Kamran Asdar Ali (professor of anthropology at University of Texas in Austin and my friend)

7. Fifty Places to Hike by Chris Santella

https://thegreatestbooks.org

https://www.listchallenges.com/bbcs-top-100-books-you-need-to-read-before-you-die

https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml

Authors - These guys almost never let you down

1. Bertrand Russell - Why I am not a Christian, Conquest of Happiness

2. Saadat Hasan Manto - Mozelle and Ten Rupees are English translations also

3. William Dalrymple - The Last Mughal

4. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment

5. Tolstoy - War and Peace

6. Herman Hesse - Siddharta

7. Ernest Hemingway - Old Man and the Sea

8. JK Rowling - Harry Potter series

9. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One hundred years of Solitude

10. Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet & Broken Wings

11. Salman Rushdie - Satanic Verses, Midnight Children

12. Naguib Mahfouz - Midaq Alley

13. Rabindranath Tagore - The Collected Works of Rabindranath Tagore

14. Guy de Maupassant - The Entire Original Maupassant Short Stories (translated)

15. DH Lawrence - Lady Chatterlee's Lover

16. Plato - The Last Days of Socrates

17. John Grisham - Pelican Brief, Firm, A Time to Kill

18. Mario Puzo - Godfather

19. Frederick Forsythe - Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File

20. John Crichton - Jurassic Park

21. Alistair Maclean - Where Eagles Dare, Guns of Navarone

22. Erich Segal - Love Story

23. Julian Baggini - Atheism

24. Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Poets

1. Pablo Neruda

2. Rumi

3. Li Po

4. Ghalib

5. Faiz

6. Sahir Ludhianvi

7. Jalib

8. Nasir Kazmi

9. Parvin Shakir

10. Jaun Elia

Newspapers/Magazines

1. New York Times

2. LA Times

3. Merip Report

4. The Economist

5. Le Monde Diplomatique

6. Dawn

7. Guardian

8. Granta

9. Arizona Highways

10. National Geographic

11. Express Tribune

12. India Today

https://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/2012/12/17/the-best-english-newspapers/

Ohh The Great Outdoors!

1. Gimmelwald - Come down from Mt Schilthorn, Bernese Alps, Switzerland

2. Rim to Rim or just to Phantom Ranch for 2 nights with revelry in the cantina!

3. Havasupai Falls - walk in the shallow turquoise colored pristine waters of the creek and under the waterfalls

4. Sierra Nevadas thru Pacific Crest Trail/John Muir Trail - Go to Rae Lakes from Onion Valley Campground

5. Spur Cross Ranch - Loop through Elephant Mountain or go to Skull Mesa or towards Seven Springs

6. Mount Olympus, Greece

7. Cinque de Terres, Italy

8. Table Top Mountain - Cape Town, S Africa

9. Annapurna foothills, NepalBattleship Mountain and Flat Iron, Superstitions, Arizona

10. McDowell Mountains: Tom's Thumb (short way thru north side or longway thru Gateway, Bell Pass, Telegraph Hill and Viewpoint, Arizona

11. Picacho Trail, Casa Grande, Arizona

12. Chiricahua, SE Arizona

Cities/Towns to Romance

1. Sienna

2. Seville

3. Cape Town

4. Paris

5. London

6. Prague

7. San Francisco

8. Sarajevo

9. Dubrovnik

10. Dinkelsbuhl and Rothenburg

11. Lahore

12. Khujwa (ancestral village in Bihar, India)

Volunteer with the Best People Ever

1. Amnesty International

2. No More Deaths

3. Kashmir Coordination Committee

4. Local to Global Justice

5. Irtiqa

6. St Vincent de Paul

7. International Rescue Committee

8. Local to Global Justice

What Else?

1. Friday lunches with a couple of friends since 1990s - others are welcome and do drop in

2. Visit elderly people and provide cheer

3. Call friends/family across the world

4. Visit friends/family all over the world

5. One on one happy hours with people one knows

6. Hang out with out of the ordinary folks .. people with quirks and who don't follow the society's norms

7. Long drives with the music or podcast or just your own thoughts