Dear Abhi, Wonderful talking to you early this week. I can understand your predicament. As a supply chain executive working for a global port management company, you fumed that truck drivers at JNPT, where you and your team interact with them, are cagey and uncommunicative. You asked how to make…

Bad weather, don’t step out, warns Suman, my maid, as she sweeps away kachchra (waste) at home. True, dark clouds and intermittent rains. Regular power disruption but managed thanks to diesel generators in the housing complex, not minding the unstoppable fuel price-induced inflationary pressure on the electricity bill. The Chennai…

A few film songs lift me from my deep mental agony grip. Not depression, but sporadic mood dips that are normal in the lives of ordinary human beings like you and me. One such song, pardon me, is in French. Language is no barrier to enjoying good music or song…

I suffer from arithmophobia. Yes, the fear of numbers. Simple addition, deduction, multiplication, and division pose no challenges. Yet, beyond that, esoteric subjects such as trigonometry, algebra, et al., are poisons. How I scored 70% in mathematics in the school final examination remains a mystery! However, maths cannot be brushed…

బ్రహ్మమొక్కటె పర — బ్రహ్మమొక్కటె పరబ్రహ్మమొక్కటె పర బ్రహ్మమొక్కటె Can you read this? You can’t. No issues. Okay, try this Romanized version: Brahmamokkate Parabrahmam okkate Parabrahmamokkate Parabrahmamokkate. (1) Still, you’re unable to comprehend. No worries.

Naya biwi. Naya desh. (New wife. New country). Still gummed to social media. Entire Saturday. The only saving grace is that this bearded UP bhaiya is “counseling.” …

One of the common denominators at the Driver Training Institutes (DTIs) in India is the presence of ex-Service men as trainers. Their induction into DTIs does not surprise me. They are like hardboiled eggs. Poora pakaa hua professionals. …

Let us, first, understand “respect.” आदर (aadhar), as they say in Hindi. Or इज़्ज़त (izzat) in Urdu. There are several ways to explain it. One, for instance, says, “the feeling that you have when you admire or have a high opinion of somebody/something.” Another defines it as “polite behaviour or…

For decades, economists have been discussing threadbare the concept of “full employment,” the ideal situation for overall prosperity. But never in economic history, no nation has achieved that status. Desirable but unattained. This inability to boast of such a romantic status has not deterred any nation from pursuing that “holy…