Category: Life

My review, take it with a pinch of salt and lime. Every civilization has an epic. India has the Mahabharata.The British have Beowulf.The Greeks have The Odyssey. After watching The Odyssey, I couldn’t help but wonder… What if Homer wasn’t documenting history?What if he was documenting the greatest drunken explanation in history? Hear me out. The Trojan War has… Continue reading The Odyssey: The World’s First “Trust Me Bro” Story

I was born a Maithil Brahmin. For fifty years, I’ve been carefully maintaining this identity. Janeyu? ???? Puja? ???? Maithili? Work in progress. Arguments with my mother over rituals? Lifetime achievement award. Then one inconvenient question arrived. If Hinduism says I will be born again… will I be reborn as a Hindu? Or has the… Continue reading Amar, Akbar… Anthony… and Maybe Me

New Delhi, July 2026. I’m not sure the readers have heard this song: India has always believed in matching the solution to the problem. Mosquitoes? Good Knight. Cockroaches? HIT. Students dressed as cockroaches? Apparently, somebody may have taken the branding a little too literally. Thousands of young Indians associated with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) took to… Continue reading Aaj Ki Taaza Khabar: Dilli Mein Democracy Ka Murder?

I have written about ATKT, pani puri, marathons and bad decisions taken with great confidence. But not enough about my mother. My report cards said: Can do better. There was potential. Evidence was limited. I got into BCS, got an ATKT, and later rebranded it as: Allow To Keep Trying. My mother may not have… Continue reading Happy 70th Kusum Thakur

I understood Brahmacharya because my parents drew the boundaries. I entered Grihastha almost on autopilot. Now, at fifty, I am trying to understand Vanaprastha—but everyone around me appears determined to become thirty again. There was a time when life came with reasonably clear instructions. Study. Find work. Get married. Build a home. Raise a family.… Continue reading Fifty Is Not the New Thirty—and may be Vanaprastha.

It’s not the same anymore,not the petrol,not the rumour.Somewhere between clean fueland clean speech,we lost the old humour. Petrol is blended,humour is blunted.Both come with a warning stunted:“Nazaar Hati, Durghatna Ghati.”Laugh too freely,and you may be hunted. We are 70s kids,from the age of leaded petrol,unfiltered jokes,and neighbours who could laugh first,and judge later,after two… Continue reading Blending!

There is an old saying: “Chaube gaye chhabe banne, rahe gaye dube.” Roughly translated: a man went out to become something bigger, and came back smaller than where he started. In my case, this was not just a saying. It became a life operating system. My educational journey started with a very simple business model: Parents… Continue reading Chaube Gaye Chhabe Banne, Rahe Gaye Dube

When I first wrote about my ATKT days, I was writing about a slightly confused boy from Jamshedpur who landed in Pune with poor marks, high hopes, and a ₹5,000 banker’s cheque. I was not a topper. I was not even a proper student. I was a survival specialist. In college, some students chased distinction.… Continue reading It’s not Cockroaches, It’s the HIT approach

My first introduction to reels was not Instagram. It was not cinema theory.It was not anthropology.It was not some TED Talk on the attention economy. It was a cassette. And most probably, the song was either “College Ki Ladki” or “Jumma Chumma De De.” There was a time when listening to a favourite song required commitment. You did… Continue reading Anthropology of Reels-From “College Ki Ladki” to Content Creators

Prologue: Part 1 Before crypto, before mutual funds, before people started saying “asset allocation” on YouTube, we had our own investment class in S-Type, Adityapur. The “City bus tickets”. Small, rectangular, coloured paper. Worth almost nothing to adults. Worth everything to us. A grown-up would finish the bus ride, crush the ticket, and throw it… Continue reading MY OG Investment: City Bus Tickets