When thoughts become things..

I recently met an 84-year-old lovely lady by the pool at a friend’s apartment complex. I was sitting there watching my friend’s son swim when she approached me and asked if she could sit next to me. Neither of us asked the other’s name. We spent the next hour together, and I found myself completely fascinated as I listened to the stories of her life. Although her family was originally from Kerala, she was born and raised in Chennai before moving to Noida, where she spent most of her adult life. She studied for a BSc in Mathematics and got a job with the Department of Defence. But life had other priorities for her. On her way to her very first day at work, her husband told her she could not work. She resigned that very same day, against her wishes. She began tutoring children up to the sixth grade. She smiled as she said she wasn’t like her sister, who had completed an MSc in Aviation Medicine. I didn’t even know such a field existed. “Had I studied more,” she said, “I would have taught...

\ ​ Over the past 10 days, it has occurred to me that people have been asking, “Millennials chup baithe the?” or “Millennials ne apne time mein kiya kya?” The honest answer, as a millennial, is: “Not Enough.” We were not a generation of revolutionaries on the scale that your generation has been. We are a generation that grew up at a time, when life, from our perspective, seemed relatively normal. Personally, I do not remember an incident that demanded a collective voice of action. But in hindsight, perhaps we could have spoken up. We were taught to put our heads down, listen to our elders and keep quiet. Don’t talk back. Respect anyone who was older than you. We could not question our teachers for fear of being reprimanded. Our biggest act of rebellion was coming home at 6:15 p.m. when our curfew was 6:00 p.m. We had to study, find a job and live our lives. Never challenge the status quo. That’s why many of us didn’t even know how to negotiate a salary or ask our bosses for leave. We w...

​We live in a nation where student protestors are deemed anti-nationals. The truth is masked way too much and the narrative has been spun.  We live in a nation where a simple ask has become a movement and little do people care about the hundreds of students who were brutally assaulted. Mainstream media is encouraged to get creative with hashtags and fake narratives.  This is beyond politics and you may be completely agnostic and that’s okay too. It’s simpler than that - the difference between right and wrong. You don’t have take action , you don’t have to pick a side. Injustice will unfold. History is being written and it will judge this moment.  Silence shall fade and the truth shall have way of enduring. This will spoken about and forgotten. We will look away and humanity will lose its conscience. 

​I have always been a fan of the FIFA World Cup and every four years I try to learn as much of the game and then I forget the players and the rules . Over the last 2.5 decades (that is when I may have started watching the game) - there have been countless star players . Everytime we watch a FIFA  game we are witnessing something of importance, something historic.  I have always has my emotions drawn to Germany but this time Lionel Messi has hit me different . Undoubtedly he is gods gift to humanity just like Maradona, but there should be no comparisons drawn. You should not compare Messi and Ronaldo either because they stars by their own right . This little boy from Rosario, who accidentally came to touch a football at the baby age of 4 has gone on to become footballs biggest icons. He is human and he is divine. There almost seems like a divine intervention when he is foot touches the ball.  His team mates and country love him like none other. I am amazed by the awe and a...