“How was 2019 for you?” a good friend asked me. That was when I realized that this year is really coming to an end. I didn’t have an answer to my friend’s question. I hadn’t thought of this year ending. I hadn’t even thought of this year beginning. For some reason, I feel that I […]
Every now and then, I come across moments that shine with irradiance, that mock my cynicism, that glitter with the fragile wings of lost hope, that move me even when I think I have ceased to feel. Saturdays are usually my long run days. I hadn’t gone on a really long run since running the […]
The other day, a friend dropped in from Mumbai and asked if I could meet him the next day. My answer was curt and unlike what I usually respond with. I said, “No. I am busy.” After I sent the message, I sat a while, looking at it. The message looked rather forbidding, casting a […]
I am always baffled when someone says I inspire them. I simply can’t believe that. How can you not know what a fraud and impostor I am? But unlike me, I want to share with you those genuine people who inspire me. The Happiness Series, I hope, will chronicle what I see in you and […]
We live in a world where hope seems dry; where the dreams of our lives flutter like dusty rags; where we flounder in the decay of our putrid emotions. And then…you see this. I had just gone to the hospital to get my monthly injections when my Dad told me to stop by at a […]
I am sitting on Marina Beach, Chennai on an upturned canoe sometime in 2004. Next to me is a guy – Suresh. I watch the waves recede. Ebb. Flow. Recede. Relentless. Suresh turns to me and breaks the silence. “So, let’s talk about you and me.” I almost fall off the canoe and hurriedly clamber […]
If you go to Bhutan, and you must because it’s my favorite country, then you will find that for a nation that pursues ‘Gross Domestic Happiness,’ its people are curiously obsessed with death. And since I am obsessed about happiness, then it follows that I am obsessed with death too, right? So, one day, I […]
My friend and I look forward to Saturdays. That’s our long run day. That’s the day I write in our workout worksheet: Long run at a conversational pace only. After a week of pushing each other to run faster, we love our Saturday when we run at our own pace with nothing else but the […]
Of all the movies I have seen (probably more than 1,000 by now), this is the opening scene I remember the most. Reese Witherspoon, who plays Cheryl Strayed in this movie, is shown sitting on a rock. The sweat is pouring down her shirt, as she slowly removes her shoes. The camera pans to her […]