World View

Creativity needs selfishness and selflessness.  Most people are familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s rule for success discussed in his book, Outliers: ten thousand hours of work spread over ten years (the work of late Professor Anders Ericsson).  Although evidence is mixed about the holy grail of ten thousand hours – even Ericsson cautions about the role […]

Get out of your head’s gilded cage.  When people ask me to describe the view from my NYC high-rise apartment window, I say I see “perspective.” I see other buildings occupied by people like me, going about their day wrapped up in their thoughts, each the master of the kingdom created in their heads. We

Indians need chicken biriyani, not chicken soup, for the soul. While it is no secret that Indians love chicken biriyani, it became official when chicken biriyani topped the list of most ordered items in India during the pandemic. The biriyani’s origin story is debatable; it either came to North India from Persia with the Mughal

Don’t waste your gift of sight for just looking at your phone.  At a recent show, a comic’s joke that he liked panhandlers who ask him for money because they are the only ones who “look” at him, and make him feel visible, barely elicited a laugh. But it got me thinking about the statement’s

Death is the only failure-proof event in life.  The fear of failure’s success rate in making people lead regretful lives is unmatched. But not all failures are born equal. What is failure? Failure can be tangible or intangible. Tangible failure involves measurable losses, like going bankrupt, losing a home, or failing an exam. On the

Choose complex emotions like joy to guide your life. Osho, the late Indian godman, says labeling emotions is dangerous because it makes you only seek out the ones you like. Instead, he suggests we observe emotions like someone sitting atop a hill watching the weather change. Is that sage advice (pun intended)? Mindfulness techniques also

You, too, can learn to wield shame, the double-edged sword.  Shame, that universal emotion, is a double-edged sword. Shame overlaps with the law to some extent. For example, being arrested is shameful. But human nature is too complex to be entirely governed by law, and shame is useful in keeping society humming along. The fear

Get yourself an Ivy League education about life. When asked about his film education, famous Malayalam Director Dileesh Pothan, whose films are exemplars of character studies, sheepishly admitted he doesn’t watch too many films. However, he quickly added that he spends hours talking to people from all walks of life, asking them about their life

Live performances are the best reality shows. Today we order entertainment like take-out. My Netflix and Prime accounts are a carnage of half-watched shows, most of them rejected because I am no longer in the mood. Entertainment is becoming a condiment for our meals, like hot sauce. Or a well-paired wine in the best-case scenario.

Count to ten before you speak.  The phrase blah-blah is now part of our everyday vocabulary after Greta Thunberg used it to admonish world leaders for talking about sustainability without doing anything. As an introvert who rarely speaks until spoken to, seeing the sheer volume of blah blah around reassures me that, it’s better to