I recently watched the Telugu film Patang . It tells the story of two friends who form rival teams to settle a score through a kite duel. One team knows nothing about kite flying, which leads to several humorous scenes as they struggle to learn the craft. Those scenes felt deeply relatable. I flew kites during my school days and, like most of my “firsts”, the learning process was a comedy of errors. I remember trying to jam a chess pawn into the base of a piece because my cousin told me the newly bought set was “too small”. My first attempts at kite flying were much the same: I would simply grab the thread and run, hoping the kite would follow. Like a playful puppy, the kite had a mind of its own — nosediving, veering off course, or simply snapping the thread and escaping. My neighbours, who were quite skilled, eventually taught me the basics. Soon, I could fly a kite with ease. I even learned to make simple ones using nothing but old newspapers and broomsticks. Since our gate opened d...
Nails Everywhere: Whenever I walk around campus with my colleagues, I sometimes pick a colour and say, “That colour is everywhere today.” It usually annoys them. They start pointing out all the other shades I am ignoring — and they are mostly right. But that is exactly the point. Your focus shapes your reality. Give your mind a frame, and it will fill the world to match it. When you hold a hammer, suddenly you see nails everywhere. You start living in a world made almost entirely of them. Slow Recovery: In sports, ligament and tendon injuries are notoriously slow to heal. They do not receive a constant flood of repair materials through the bloodstream. There is no quick fix, no overnight turnaround. Healing is not just about closing damage — it is about careful, internal realignment. You cannot yell at a ligament to knit itself back together faster. It happens on its own timeline. — — — Life has a way of testing every part of you at once — your family, your work, your sense of sel...