Breaking the limits

On the top floor of my building, lived my friend and junior from IPS and IIT – Sunil Asnani. In the evenings, we would often hang out on the rooftop, talking about his plan to quit the IPS and do an MBA from a US business school. The plan sounded crazy —...

Overcoming language barriers

For most of my life, I went to English-medium schools where nobody spoke English. However, from grades 1-4, I attended a government school in Bangalore where kids used English even for social conversations. That is the only real exposure I had to the language. Yet, it...

The key to success lies in focus

In the first semester at IIT Kanpur, I noticed this guy whose class notes would just be half a page of tiny scrawl, scribbled with a ball-point refill. In the hostel, he would usually be playing cricket or doing bull sessions with friends. Clearly, not a recipe for...

Finding meaning beyond luxury

I realized the beauty as well as the futility of luxury during my job at a private equity fund. In that company, every few months, we had offsites at the most exclusive luxury resorts in India, some of which had suites costing a few lacs a night. Undeniably, luxury...