What is Preeti doing now?

Last Updated: 20 July 2026

[For context, this is a Now Page and is inspired by nownownow.com and Simon Cox]

A lot has happened since I last wrote this. My South Korea visa for attending the Search SEOul got rejected. I attended the Google I/O Connect event, and as I am writing this, I am exploring Bengaluru.

What am I doing these days?

Let’s address the elephant in the room first. The visa rejection. So I followed this checklist they provided religiously and collected all the documents. People who know me know how much I was ranting about signing 200 pages’ worth of documents. Spoiler alert: none of that was needed. (I don’t even know if I should make videos or post on writing about the things I learned or what not to do for getting a South Korean visa for Indians)

I went to the VFS center in Delhi and submitted all my documents. The process was fairly easy. I got a token, and when called, you go and submit all the documents as per the checklist. I even bought this folder thing that had tabs to organize all the documents.

[Suitcase organizer image]

So they took the documents, and I submitted the fees (5330 rupees). I received my passport in 3-4 days, and I thought the process was so fast lol. I opened the passport and didn’t see any stamp. Turns out you have to go to their website to check the status. I did that, and it turns out my application got denied.

They stated these two reasons:

Your purpose of entry has not been explained in detail
Your current status (family and economic conditions) does not prove your return within the given period of stay

Like wut? So, I canceled the conference ticket and called off the visit. I suspect that it was because I should have submitted a cover letter explaining things in detail. But since it wasn’t mentioned in the checklist, I didn’t give it to them.

But funnily enough, I actually did make a cover letter in case they asked. But since they didn’t ask, I didn’t give it to them. Maybe I should have done that? I can only speculate now.

In other news, we celebrated my sister’s birthday. I did this drawing on the green board, and we decorated it with balloons.

Preeti sister birthday celebrations — Oh my god, it is so hard to blow up the balloons. My lungs were pretty empty after I ended up finished blowing all of them. But I was so proud of the drawing I made. Also, I asked ChatGPT to make this drawing, and then I hand-drew this on the board. So, is it real or AI now?

She also got her cake customized. One side was Squid Game-inspired, and the other was Harry Potter-inspired. To be honest, they didn’t make the cake exactly the way we wanted. They made a lot of their own changes, which were not nice. I will give them all the points for effort, though. But then, it was fairly expensive.

The cake itself was tasty. The decorations were made of fondant, and they were basically inedible. They made the whole thing from fondant. I thought they would have cake inside. The whole hat felt like it was made of clay. Not the best experience.

Squid Game x Harry Potter cake — Here’s a funny bit: When we were telling them that one side of the cake would have these shapes (circle, square, and triangle), they said these were part of a video game. I told them that it’s a web series, but they kept saying it’s a video game lol.

Just a few days after we celebrated her birthday, I came to Bengaluru to attend Google I/O Connect India. I caught up with the folks I know and also made three videos for the Packted YouTube channel. It was a huge deal for me because I was super nervous about asking people to film with me. But they agreed (which is very kind of them), and the videos turned out super nice.

I have met Barry Pollard a few times now. I have been to Google I/O, and this time, I took a picture with him and also made a video with him (check it out in the playlist I linked above).

Preeti Gupta and Barry Pollard — Barry is soooooo cool. He is amazing to talk to and explains things in an easy-to-understand way.

I also caught up with Rini Rikhil and met with Ajay Jose, the product manager at Alamy. We had a bunch of nice discussions around product management, SEO, and product-led growth.

Preeti Gupta with Rini Rikhil and Ajay Jose at Google IO Connect Bengaluru — Rini and Ajay were amazing. I am glad I met with them 🙂

It is my third year attending Google I/O Connect, and I am so grateful to be able to do that (thank you so much, John Mueller, for the opportunity). This year, I learned how to make sites accessible for agents, along with other cool things like modern web guidance, Chrome DevTools agent, and HTML-in-Canvas. I summarized what I learned in this LinkedIn post.

Preeti Gupta at Google IO Connect Bengaluru — Omg I had so much fun that day. Would do it again <3

And now, I present all the fancy things I have had so far in Bengaluru, in no order:

(spoiler alert: loads of food images below)

The food at Google I/O Connect.

Mini idli with coconut chutney and pancakes with pineapples syrup and chocolate chips — So there are three menus at the Google I/O Connect: Indian, Asian, and Continental. For breakfast, I chose mini idlis with chutney from the Indian veg menu and pancakes with pineapple syrup and chocolate chips. The idlis were nice, and the pancakes were 6-7.

For lunch, I had Thai green curry with rice from the Asian menu, and arrabbiata pasta with cheese from the continental menu. I also got this mango sago dessert thing. The desert wasn’t nice, but both main courses were. Also, it was my first time trying Thai green curry. It was creamy and had a bunch of vegetables.

Snacks at Google IO Connect - French fries, macarons, dumplings, lemon tart and nachos — These were the snacks we got in the evening. They have French fries with peri peri cheese sauce (the fries were cold). Then there are macarons (I found them underwhelming and found they have many similarities with Indian biscuits called Nankhatai). Then there was lemon tart, which was nice. The chicken dumplings were the highlight of the snacks. I loved them so much. The nachos were meh.

I tried Salmon Sushi for the first time. At first, I was a bit skeptical about trying raw fish, but to be honest, I didn’t taste it lol. I could describe it as tasteless, but it felt very buttery and had a nice mouthfeel. I LOVED the seasoned rice. I could eat them as is lol.

This is Shoyu Ramen, and it didn’t meet my expectations. The broth was a bit grainy. The noodles were alright, but yeah. Underwhelming is the key word here, folks.

Dorayaki was the dessert I chose at the Japanese restaurant, and it was not nice at all. It was supposed to be two pancakes, then filled with a sweet bean paste. The pancakes were dry, and I felt that the filling was too little, and it was almost slipping away from the pancakes. Overall, not a good end to the meal lol.

Speaking of not nice things, I again gave a shot at Tiramisu at the Paris Panini. The ladyfingers were so soaked that the coffee was seeping through. I felt like they had two fillings instead of just mascarpone cheese. They served it with a scoop of coffee ice cream, and that, too, was not that nice. Overall, meh.

Tiramisu from brik oven — But then I finallyyyyy had one good tiramisu in my life so far. Brik Oven served this, and now I can say I have a favorite place. The ladyfingers were soaked nicely, the mascapone cheese was sweet, and overall, it was a great Tiramisu.

Khow suey — I went out with my friend, and she made me try Khow Suey, a Burmese dish. It came with this coconut curry with chicken pieces and noodles, along with a bunch of toppings like egg whites, peanuts, fried garlic, onion, coriander, chili, and lemon. The portion size was too big for me lol, but it was surprisingly tasty. The curry was very comforting, and I believe I had a lot of protein with this one lol.

Crispy Tofu And Mushroom In Salt & Pepper — The Khow Suey restaurant also had this crispy tofu and mushroom in salt and pepper. I believe it was stir-fried, and it was soooo tasty. LOVED it.

So yes, so far I have had loads of great food. But I personally loved the Tiramisu from Brik Oven, Salmon Sushi from Harima Japanese Restaurant, and Khow Suey, Tofu, and Mushroom Stir-Fry from Misu Restaurant.

I am also prepping to make more videos for both of my YouTube channels – Packted and Preeti Gupta’s. Stay tuned 🙂

P.S. I have one empty spot for a SaaS client. If you want help understanding why users are dropping off during onboarding, are not realizing the full value of your product, or are not staying for longer, hit me up on LinkedIn or schedule a 30-minute call.

What kind of content am I watching/reading?

I am still into reading books, but ever since I came here to Bangalore, I haven’t been able to read much (at least for now). I do hope to change that and read more. Currently, I am reading Influence by Robert Cialdini and The Art of Living by Howard C. Cutler and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I also picked up Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson from the small bookshelf here in my hostel in Bangalore. I didn’t continue it, but so far, it was an interesting read.

I am also listening to a lot more podcasts here. Shout out to these:

The Product Porch by Joe Ghali, Ryan Cantwell, and Todd Blaquiere
Two Bobs by David C. Baker and Blair Enns
Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam
Lenny’s Podcast by Lenny Rachitsky

I haven’t read many newsletter editions recently, but I do keep reading them here and there. I am sorry to all the 20 million newsletters that I don’t read and just delete lol.

Funnily enough, I am not listening to many songs or watching YouTube videos. I guess watching F1 highlights counts, but I don’t watch YouTube often. I am talking about the long videos. I do watch short videos, and maybe that counts towards my YouTube screen time. But yes, I am focusing on shifting my attention from consuming content to creating it.

Anything else that’s happening/ final thoughts

I felt a bit sad when I learned that I couldn’t go to South Korea, but it’s okay. I learned that I should build my travel history by starting with easier countries. I will start doing that and will hopefully get visas to the “harder” countries.

For now, I am having fun in Bengaluru, and I would love to travel more.

I am excited and hopeful for what’s next, and grateful for what happened 🙂