Flow state

The fish packet vanished from right in front of my eyes — how the hell did that happen, I wondered! This happened a few months ago: Sitting in my living room, as I was intently working on my blog, the fish delivery guy rang the doorbell. I absent-mindedly...

Bouncing back from failures

In week-2 of the 1st semester at IIT Kanpur, I got my first big life shock – the physics quiz. This quiz was pretty nasty: An ant was supposedly crawling on a rotating disc and we were expected to figure out its motion in polar coordinates, or something like...

Finding Happiness

20 years after we first met, I ran into Mr. Michael Siromani, a retired IAS officer, under curious circumstances — he was collecting roadside weeds in a plastic pouch. After the initial greetings, seeing a quizzical look on my face, he explained, “These are...

How to win in an unfair life

It was an unequal race — not fair. During my 6th grade, our sports teacher announced an impromptu bike race to celebrate the end of the annual sports day. The near-certain winner was the son of the Commanding Officer of the local air force station, who had an...