A lazy Saturday afternoon flipping through the print pages of Wall Street Journal. I chanced upon the article “Faster, Higher, Stronger—and Full of Drugs. The Billionaire Quest to Hack Sports. Is Competitive Doping The Future of Athletics?” It touched upon a subject both fascinating and unsettling. A subject once hid behind closed doors of speculation—now…
Tariff Everything
On the coast,Each wave that broke on the rockswas assessed 25% per splash,though the foam dissolvedbefore we could collect. Storm systems were next.Cyclones entering airspacewere dinged at 40% per swirl—more if they carried rain.Hurricanes, with their heavy rotation,were penciled at an extra 60% .No one explained how to bill the wind.The files simply piled higher….
The Body Speaks
I’m the great equalizer.I’m the Human Body.Rich or poor, scholar or not,I come shaped by same quiet plan.Thirty-two teeth,for chewing ambition.Two lungs,for sighing at morning alarms.No exception, no upgrades. I keep two hundred and six bones—though you treat them like stunt props.My ribs? Twelve pairs,a flimsy picket fence around the heart.And yes, I gave you…
Sip by Sip
Testy twenties it was…The first cups were always too hot,steam rushing against my face on Shimla’s Mall Road.Books pressed to my chest, laughter spilled too easily,boys roared past on motorbikes as if noise were a language.I drank greedily, let the burn sting my tongue—wasn’t that what being young meant?To mistake heat for certainty,to sip before…
Ten Years, One Journey
Tenth year. It feels strange even writing that out. On August 19, 2016, I tapped “publish” for the very first time without the faintest clue of what I was setting in motion. I wasn’t aiming for an audience or chasing any grand plan. It was simply a quiet corner I built for myself—a place to…
The Oval Turnaround
Where Grit Outshined Glory By the time the sun set on the final day at The Oval, London, something quite extraordinary had unfolded—something that reminded us why we, some of us in the western hemisphere, still wake up at odd hours, bite our nails through five days, and believe in the unpredictable theater of Test…
Echoes of Nilan
1. Smell of Jasmine I wasn’t looking for anything that day.Just air that didn’t reek of engine smokeand maybe a decent filter coffee,and silence on a quiet bench at the beach. But I saw her—mid-argument with a fruit vendor,mango in one hand, disdain in the other.Something about the way she stood there—elbows sharp, eyes laughing—it…
Just Wove
What she wove thenMira lifts the cloth from her lap,lets the morning sun pass through it.The threads catch the light—not gold, not silver,but something warmer.She does not speak.There are no mantras here,only breath, only cloth. The room smells like old cotton,fresh cooked rice,cardamom,memory baked into the walls.Her granddaughter sits on the floor,sketchbook open, pencil forgotten.“Is…
Reasoning
They lived in a brownstone,where silence pressed behind polished glassand Savitri worked through nightsto claim a corner of the city that never looked back.Sahana and Siya grew up in its tall-windowed light,Central Park breathing just beyond their doorstep.One chased order up glass towers,finding sense in numbers and sharp lines.The other stitched color into chaos,sketching futures…
Indistinct
“I thought you knew these hills, Muthu.”Appa always quips.Kodaikanal’s nights had a clarity,where even the cold windfelt like a familiar hand brushing past.But that was before.Before the thing that walks our streetevery other night.Before the sharp sound of ankletscut through the mist,and something cut through me. We understood nothing at first.Only that the sound camewhen…
The Thali Dilemma
“Every bit of food we waste is a chance we lose to create a fairer and more sustainable world.” – Unknown I am Health.The unseen ally in your daily skirmish,against lethargy and woes.As you embody me andI keep you sustained,We anxiously await the sacred spread,only which can satisfy our combined trigger,called Hunger from eons and…
The Unspoken
On a Thursday that flirted with frostbite,New York City crouched under its own weight—steel towers, whispered winds, and the soft crunchof snow finding refuge on cobblestones. Larry, all scarf and cane, shuffled toward the subway,his breath little clouds of resignation.The old aeronautical engineer,half-pilot of his own past,still sharp enough to spot a flawed trajectory.“What’s the…