Today, as I finished Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, and looked up more of her works online, I came across this quote from her journals: “I want to taste and glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain; and never shut myself up in a numb core of nonfeeling, or […]
The last week or so, I have been learning lessons on honesty. Over the years, nothing has annoyed me more than lies and deception. Yes, we all lie. We lie all the time. We tell a friend who we are meeting that we are just around the corner even though we might be stuck in […]
I wanted to write more about the Philippines today. But I found that I couldn’t. I got an email notification to renew the hosting of a friend’s website, which I had gifted last year. I clicked on the link for renewal even though I had absolutely no wish to renew the hosting, as the friend […]
When I wrote the Art of Emotion many weeks ago, I was surprised at the visceral and emotional reactions that post evoked. “How is it that you, who claims not to be good at dealing with emotions, can bring out the deepest emotions in others?” I was asked. I didn’t have an answer. I usually […]
I started writing this from the Gujarat Tourism’s office at the Bhuj airport. The air was sweltering and the heat enervating. The airport in Bhuj operates only three flights a day at the most, all to Mumbai. I hadn’t been in an airport this quiet. And I should know, having slept in many airports while […]
The other day I happened to read this article. The post was wise, looked at reality, and made me think. But what the post also had was a fair extent of bitterness. It might make a person with fewer wings think less of flying. Don’t be that person, I thought after reading the post. These […]
There’s a photo of me on the wardrobe in my room, in my parent’s house. My Dad has taken some of the photos of my childhood, and stuck them on the wooden wardrobe that spans the floor to the ceiling here in my bedroom. One of me as a baby, grinning delightedly, sepia-tinted with my […]
Have a problem? I can solve it. Have something on your mind? I can listen to it. Want to talk about the deepest, darkest corners of your soul? I can empathize. Ask me to do the same. I freeze. I realized that today at work when I was faced with an outpouring of emotion when […]
The other day I was reading an article, yet another interview, with the world’s happiest man. Matthieu Ricard, a 69-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk, is not called the “world’s happiest man” without reason. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin found that Ricard’s brain, when meditating, “produces a level of gamma waves – those linked to consciousness, […]