The thin line between pride and desperation
We have all come across incidents of publicly expressed bitterness from professionals after retirement. Sehwag and his openly vocal insistence for some national award, the way Aamir Khan questioned the credibility of film awards when the National Film Awards committee chose not to honor him for ‘Dangal’, and Kathak dancer Sitara Devi declining the Padma...
Words, Wordle, and Intuition
Words, Wordle, and Intuition Arvind Passey 28 February 2025 Those who know what the Wordle is about will also know that one gets only six chances to reach that 5-letter word that the creators of this game have decided for the day. Those of you who will now mutter, ‘That seems easy enough’ have overlooked...
Spam calls and predatory deceivers
One of those catchy headlines in online news clips that caught my attention was one where a man mistakes an international recruitment call from Amazon as spam and does not receive it. This man missed an opportunity all because of the deep-seated fear and hatred that we have all begun to have for spammers. This...
The monsters that surround us
What does one do with farts? One option is to let them announce their arrival and then let them disappear into nothingness. This could be disconcertingly dizzying when your fart makes a lot of noise during a meeting in office… or if that fart is determined to destroy expensive perfumes that people spray to impress...
It is time to say goodbye to rituals
Writing is a lot like conjuring. It is a ritual. You need to disallow any other activity that you may try to invite into the room as writers love to distract themselves for as long as it is possible. If you think writing isn’t a ritual, it runs the risk of being labelled a chore...
The battle for clean water and clean air can no longer be postponed
Sanitation, building toilets, sewage in cities, urban water management systems, and river pollution exist together. For instance, sanitation is not just about the number of toilets constructed all over the country but more about the will to create an entire system that looks after both disposal and treatment. One may ask how water management is...
Revisiting Rituals: The Outdated Relevance of Feeding Cows
Mornings in India are hardly about calmly watching the light of the sun slowly feeding shadows. It is all about watching unknown men and women stop wherever and whenever they spot a cow. They furtively glance all around to first make sure that there is no one watching them. Without delay they then untie a...
Parallel platters that no one serves
It is easy to fall in love with the notion of parallel universes and I am no exception. This love story began way before I had read ‘Dark Matter’ by Blake Crouch and thus my imagined multiverses never had much to with regrets. They were full of titillating stuff as vacuous as imagination can ever...
Unparliamentary words are so entertaining
Entertainment is the only reason why reading a newspaper or vegetating while watching TV debates are so popular despite all the hype about people going into depressive states and wanting to switch to becoming a home chef with the single aim of clicking pictures for Instagram. It is the words and expressions used and the...
Forms are always funny
Our RWA, like any other RWA in our universe, is like a circus where even acrobats strive to tickle the funny bone of residents. If you think this is untrue, let me tell you about the day they asked me to complete a form. Form? – I asked – What sort of form do you...
The importance of being different
‘I don’t like kindle. It doesn’t smell like a book,’ tweeted a friend, and the words left me wondering if a kindle must really smell and feel like something that it is not. For instance, a book never adopts the smugness of a smartphone, and it doesn’t bother me. Our obsession with making everything seem...
Stray thoughts, stray comments, and stray dogs