The Box Makers. There is a curious habit humans have developed over centuries: the need to classify first and understand later. A profession becomes a personality. A title becomes an identity. A single event becomes a permanent definition. Once the label is attached, observation quietly stops and assumption takes over. The entrepreneur is expected to …
Minor Characters in People’s Stories. We imagine ourselves as the protagonists of our own lives. And we are. What we forget is that we are simultaneously minor characters in hundreds of other stories. The woman watering plants at six in the morning becomes “the lady with the jasmine balcony” to a stranger she has never …
Bengaluru After Rain. Bengaluru after rain and two days of sunlight is a different city altogether. The trees look as though they have taken a bath and dressed for a festival. The old trunks stand darker and prouder. The bushes look freshly combed. The greens become greener than what memory allows them to be. And …
The Smell of Paper and Time. After many years, life forced me to travel far away again. The city moved past the bus window in its usual hurry until suddenly I saw them. Book stalls. Books on carts. Old books. New books. And for a moment, time folded. I was no longer travelling through the …