Diagnosis Has Excellent Branding If I asked you to describe a narcissist, you’d probably have an answer before I finished the question. Ask you to describe a psychologically healthy person with the same precision and something curious happens. The vocabulary evaporates. We know every red flag. Green ones remain strangely elusive. This may be one…
“Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho, kya gham hai jisko chhupa rahe ho?” It is often remembered as a song about hidden sorrow, but I have come to hear it as an ethical invitation to look beyond appearances. Few lines in popular culture ask a more courageous question. Not Who are you? But What is…
Serving in the Corps was, for me, a masterclass on isolation and its consequences. The average person has their fair share of assumptions to make whenever they meet someone in service. There’s a degree of removal which allows a certain mythos to exist, helped by the glamorised (and often politically-charged) branding plastered throughout entertainment. Though…
Introduction Human beings never choose the circumstances into which they are born. We do not choose our parents, our genes, our natural abilities, or even the environment that first shapes us. Some people are born with extraordinary intelligence, musical ability, athleticism, or creativity, while others inherit different strengths and weaknesses. Scientific research suggests that these…
Up to 150 species go extinct daily. The acquisitions of businesses, housing units, and family heirlooms on Facebook marketplace transpire every minute. Class-action lawsuits are decided with impunity, giving life sentences, severe fines, or nothing at all. Flowers bloom. A girl laughs. Scientific discoveries regarding free, unlimited energy, rising sea levels and long-term psychological effects…
Domesticate culture. Doemesticate identity. The ideal wife in India is seen running around in circles at her husband’s house and then continuing her rounds at the temple while circling Gods like Krishna, Rama, and Hanuman chanting mantras for the wellness of her husband and children and never once for herself. While they bathe Lord Shiva…
Freedom is seldom peaceful or even more rare for explanations. We speak of it as if it were path Or a ray of light— as if it were expansion,individaulity or possibility. But freedom does not arrive like a gift, wrapped in a pretty wrapper or guarded to be unbroken. It tears. It confounds. But what…
There is a certain type of magic involved in the process of uprooting your entire life from one place and resettling into another. It is a quiet, nondramatic, even ubiquitous type of magic. Romantics would probably call it ‘the magic in the every day’. Which is weird, because the months leading up to the few…
The medieval danse macabre is often understood as a moral allegory: a skeletal Death leading kings, maidens, priests, and peasants alike in a grim procession toward the grave, reminding viewers of mortality’s universality. Yet this interpretation, while accurate, is incomplete. The power of the danse macabre lies not merely in its didactic insistence on equality…
No longer is it enough to simply meet a deadline or pitch a piece: almost every aspect of the literary world requires extra qualifications, strong networks, or ideally both in abundance. The younger and emerging generation of writers feel frustration when we look at the older generation. “Just try harder! Hard work will be rewarded”…