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The past is a strange thing. It can never be relived even though we often carry it with us. We’ve all been down paths of nostalgia remembering with fondness even that which had, in the past, felt like tough times. And then, there are pieces of the past we visit every day without giving them much thought. For instance, you may tie the laces of your left shoe before the right because a kindergarten classmate told you that it was lucky. Now, decades later, you continue to do so subconsciously. Come to think of it, it’s likely the only remnant of the friendship you once shared. I think of these as little legacies. It could be anything at all – a friend’s remedy to avoid a hangover, an oft-repeated phrase, a recipe passed down by a family member, a lesson imparted by a favourite teacher or a superstition created on a day when things worked out well for you. I know someone who support a sports team she was introduced to by a friend. Time and circumstance eroded their bond but not before loyalty to the team took root in her heart and now, it’s her team. But if you look closely, it’s a legacy of their friendship. It is said that the tragedy of human life is that we are loved more than we will ever know. And that love is reflected in our adoption of the traits, habits or gestures of the people we like. We carry these little legacies with us for years, if not the rest of our lives. In that way, so much of what or who we are, is a gift from those we’ve known. Sometimes, the association may be brief but the impact is lifelong. Perhaps, we are all like giant jigsaws with pieces borrowed from people who crossed our paths and walked beside us for a while until the next fork in the road. A friend of mine, Reema taught me the basics of badminton on a makeshift open court with what only someone very kind would call a threadbare net. We went on to play on beautiful, indoor wooden courts and also, improved as players. Reema and I lost touch but my love for badminton persists and I continue to play. That’s another little legacy. The quirks and affinities we pick up without ever being able to pinpoint their original source fascinate me the most. I like to believe that my writing the digit 7 with a pen stroke slashing through its torso or using a hair comb pin in my hair are souvenirs from places and people that lay dormant in my memory. Their origins are lost to me and yet, they’re a part of my life today. How poetic it is that a quote about such legacies is attributed to Anonymous, “What you leave as a legacy is not what is etched in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” Another friend of mine, Raj is a stickler for checking the air pressure of his vehicle’s spare tyre before a long trip. It’s a habit he picked up from his father and it’s served him well over the years. There’s a journey metaphor in there which I will spare you! You may start to ponder about the little legacies littered throughout your days and life and yet, barely any come to mind when you think about them actively. I know it to be so because I’ve tried it. When it finally strikes you, drop me a line in the comments. In the meantime, here’s another of mine. Teresa, the owner of the salon in Delhi where I like to get a haircut, showed me how to blow-dry my hair for extra volume and bounce. I use her technique whenever I want my hair to look extra-nice. I’m certain Teresa didn’t give any thought to the value she was adding to my life and yet, here I am—writing about something I learnt from her. Little legacies are just gestures, habits and ideas assimilated into our lives through a kind of unconscious osmosis. And yet, the alchemy of memory burnishes the most ordinary of things with the lustre of value and charm. Only that which is continued by another, persists. Everything else ends with us. So, may you never minimise the value of little legacies and the role they play in all our lives.

Award-winning author, Andrew Taylor sets this historical crime novel,  The Scent of Death , in the year 1778 in British-controlled New York during the American War of Independence. His protagonist, Edward Savill is an English clerk from the American Department in London arriving in New York to aid Americans loyal to the Crown. However, America is a country at war and there are many who are settling personal scores in the midst of civil unrest and strife. On his first day in New York, Savill is taken to the murder site of a Mr Pickett. His murder raises some intriguing questions which are temporarily and conveniently answered when the testimony of an informer concludes in a black man being hanged for the murder. Yet, there are some loose ends.   Thanks to the connections of his superior at the Department, Edward Savill lodges in New York with the Wintours, a family of American aristocrats with their fortunes in decline. The patriarch of the Wintours is a former judge. His wife suffers from ill-health and has all but withdrawn from public life. Their only son Captain Wintour is missing, presumed dead. Their daughter-in-law, Arabella hails from old money and possesses the kind of enigmatic beauty that enchants all that come in contact with it. The majority of the characters we encounter are British loyalists and cling to the notion of an eventual victory for King George III. In the kind of unwritten dramatic irony possible only in historical fiction, the reader is well aware that this is not how the cookie will crumble, giving the plot an underlying tension. The New York of 1778 depicted in The Scent of Death is a melting pot for loyalists, rebels, slaves, financial and moral decay. It is a place rife with murder, persecution, betrayal, looting, shadowy attackers and buried secrets. It’s tough to know what or whom to trust. Taylor’s The Scent of Death  is a slow burner yet keeps one riveted with plot twists and a sense of foreboding. The writing is atmospheric and makes the scenes come alive. Andrew Taylor injects enough historical detail to illuminate the stage but not so much as to distract from his story or slow down the pace. The landscape of the novel is populated with grey characters – not the kind that are likely to have you rooting for them. Most of the characters aren’t what they appear to be. Their motivations are complex and layered and it’s not easy to figure them out. Arabella is a prime example. Savill and through him, the reader, hardly knows anything about her. What little we know is what she chooses to reveal. It’s like seeing a mirage in the desert. And yet she holds sway over the narrator and the novel. Both her presence and absence are note-worthy. This air of hidden motivations and stealthy machinations permeates every chapter of the book. Taylor emphasises the unsteadiness of the ground his protagonist stands on by using the first person narrative. Savill, the narrator doesn’t have access to the thoughts and feelings of anyone other than himself. Neither does the reader. As a result, the sense of unease, shifting loyalties and other characters’ personal agendas feel more visceral. In contrast, using a third person omniscient or even a third person limited point of view would have provided a more distant perspective. Savill’s first person narration adds to the sense of the reader meandering alongside the protagonist in a maze of hidden truths and misdirection. The themes of race, justice, revenge and loyalty are woven into the plot along with the imagery of light and dark. Taylor writes, “For some people, loyalty is a commodity.” This applies to the ties of loyalty between American subjects and their British rulers across the ocean and to the loyalty that the rebels feel towards their countrymen and their revolution to throw off the yoke of British rule. The plotline of family members having divided loyalties, on the basis of their political moorings or perhaps more practical considerations, also plays out. Taylor slips in a historical reference of just such a split between Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the American Revolution and his son, William Franklin, a British loyalist who was the Royal Governor of New Jersey. The Scent of Death opens with the lines, “This is the story of a woman and a city. I saw the city first.” Perhaps Taylor meant for them to be metaphors for each other with their mirroring states of ruin, ripped loyalties and multiple suitors. Ultimately, the novel paints a convincing portrait of the ravages of war and how, in the midst of a conflict, there are no heroes. Each side partakes in its share of cruelty, plunder and terror. Historical fiction like The Scent of Death strips back the patina of one-sided history that most of us take for granted – one that is painted in the colours of the victors and viewed with a false sense of inevitability that hindsight engenders. I enjoyed this novel enough to add Andrew Taylor’s much-acclaimed novel, The American Boy  to my reading list.

This is a novel about ghosts of the past haunting one’s present. The protagonist of A Stain on the Silence is James who has a good job and a wife he adores. The story is narrated in first person by James takes us through his comfortable suburban life being jolted by a revelation made by Lily Murthington, a former lover whom he hasn’t heard from in 24 years. Lily tells him that their affair from when he was a teenager and she, the step-mother of his school friend, Carlo, resulted in a daughter, Kate. Laid up in a hospice, practically on her deathbed, Lily pleads with James to help Kate avoid going to prison for the murder of her boyfriend. Does James help? Yes, of course, else this would be a very slim book. But there’s a weightier reason for his assistance. James has a secret of his own - one he’d like to take to his grave. However, Lily has evidence that would destroy that plan. As far as set-ups go, this is fairly sufficient but somehow, the unlikeable characters and the unnecessary running about makes A Stain on the Silence feel like a wasted opportunity. It’s a story that is unable to choose between being plot-driven and character-driven. With its bleak outlook and almost every major character from James, Lily, Kate to Carlo being either a liar, manipulative or violent, A Stain on the Silence lacks an emotional centre which readers would identify with. In addition, there are parts where the action in this story comes across as solely a means to etch out a character profile and perhaps, justify the end. The theme of broken families, childhood friendship and deceit in everyday life are never fully explored. I’ve read one other novel by Andrew Taylor called The Scent of Death  which is an atmospheric and layered story set during the American Revolution with characters who, though complex have real-life motivations and are decidedly more relatable. Unlike characters in A Stain on the Silence  who do cruel things and yet carry themselves with the air of injured sparrows. The constant flashbacks in James’ narrative are overwrought and feel false since he holds back crucial pieces of information from the reader for no reason other than to spring a somewhat soggy surprise in the final chapters. Taylor manages to drum up some pace towards the end of the novel by revealing a twist in the final lines of almost every chapter but they left me cold. Arguably, the ending or pay-off at the end of the story in a thriller or mystery, more than any other genre perhaps, is what makes the book. And that is, sadly, A Stain on the Silence’s greatest letdown. It’s an ending so timid and half-baked that I was left looking to turn a few more pages. It’s open-ended with no real resolution of guilt and the reader is left wondering about the real motivations for certain characters’ actions in the climax. The last chapter of A Stain on the Silence  left me with a sense of reading a book which has had its last few pages ripped out.

As the year draws to a close, I look back to see which blog posts received the most views from you, my readers. I hope you enjoyed and found value in what you read. And, in case you haven’t had a chance to read a few of these posts, here’s a list. And for everything else, there’s our All page. LITTLE LEGACIES The past is a strange thing. It can never be relived even though we often carry it with us. We’ve all been down paths of nostalgia remembering with fondness even that which had, in the past, felt like tough times. And then, there are pieces of the past we visit every day without giving them much thought. For instance, you may tie the laces of your left shoe before the right because a kindergarten classmate told you that it was lucky. Now, decades later, you continue to do so subconsciously. WHY RATAN TATA'S PASSING FEELS LIKE A PERSONAL LOSS I never met Mr Ratan Tata. Nor have I ever worked for a Tata-owned organisation. Yet, his passing left me in tears. It felt like we’ve been robbed of something very precious. I spoke to a longtime friend, Smriti last night. She said that she’d been poring over videos of Mr Tata’s funeral and articles chronicling his life since she heard the news. She wondered if being so affected by the death of someone who is technically a stranger made her a ‘freak’. I told her I felt the same way. To this she said, “I’m so glad I’m not a freak. Or that we are freaks together.” SEEKING SYNCHRONICITY In January 2013, I visited Chennai on a professional assignment with a few team members. One day, we had the morning to ourselves. A colleague asked me to accompany him to buy a saree for his wife. Amongst the ones we saw was a muted gold silk saree with a rhomboid weave of golden and silver thread. My colleague considered purchasing it but eventually preferred another. That night, I spoke to a friend who told me about a dream he had the preceding night. He lived in the US and so his night was my day. He’d dreamt of walls covered in wallpaper made of silk. And it was the colour of muted gold, covered in rhombi. Taken aback, I told him about having seen a saree that morning, very similar to what he described. We laughed it off but the incident has stayed with me. Over the years, I wondered if it had been a synchronicit y BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS TO OVERCOME A READING SLUMP From my extensive experience of such slumps, I know that one of the important elements of achieving the requisite momentum to get out of a reading slump is to pick the right book . Something that is fast-paced or soothing (depending on what you need) but mostly, something that reads like a letter from an old friend… easy-going, fun and with bits that make you chuckle or sit up in surprise. THE MYTH OF MULTI-TASKING It costs us our ability to focus, our concentration and perhaps most importantly, our time. Time is irreplaceable even if you were willing to pay for it. Think about it. Something you think is practically free i.e. internet access, robs you of a thing so valuable that, once lost, even the richest person on the planet can’t buy back—Time. Add to that, another precious commodity, Focus. And yet, you think it costs you nothing. This is perhaps the greatest mind trick of our times – a kind of mass hypnosis.   Confession: I’m guilty of unlocking and scrolling through some or the other app even when I can see that I have no notifications whatsoever. Not even the non-urgent kind. This is pathetic behaviour but I know I’m not alone in this dome of dopamine-addiction.   ON FRIENDSHIP Who is a friend? Most of us refer to all manner of people as our ‘friends’. Everyone, from a long-lost schoolmate to a colleague you get coffee with and the guy at the local squash court, is a ‘friend’. And of course, there is that ubiquitous and odd breed called the Facebook friend.   Distinguishing between relationships takes time and effort, and could result in a most unsettling finding - that one does not have many friends and worse still, that one is not a true friend, even to a few. ALL QUIET ON THE WAR FRONT: QUIET QUITTING, QUIET FIRING & QUIET HIRING This is a story about a great plague and how it brought the battle between workers and employers to a head. Every few months, a fresh salvo is fired. And because we live in the times of the mighty hashtag, each of these barrages has a catchy caption. It all began with a little virus in early 2020.   Thousands of people realised that they were working jobs that weren’t doing anything for them, and they would much rather use the pandemic to study and change tracks. Or at least, resign from jobs that they’d been at for years just because they were stuck in a toxic comfort zone. I suppose you could say the pandemic jolted them out of their inertia. That’s what led to the Great Resignation which became something of a movement in 2021. COMFORT TV SHOWS THAT HELP ME UNWIND A long day calls for some couch therapy! This is my list of Comfort TV shows which never fail to soothe.   Comfort TV can be a series, show, sport, or anything you like watching after a long day, looking to unwind before bed. I’ll go first. ONE COFFEE, PLEASE. AND A PORTION OF PEOPLE-WATCHING The barista called out the name scrawled on the venti cup, “Cappuccino for Aditya.” I smiled, a gentle wave of satisfaction washing over me. That was close enough, I thought to myself. My guess had been Abhishek, Abhimanyu or some other common male name starting with the letter A. Sorry for the abrupt   opening. Let me start at the beginning. THE ALLURE OF SIMPLICITY Simplicity has a ring of truth about it, an elegance and resilience that beats trends and momentary peaks and troughs. If you’ve ever seen a belt of sand dunes, you know what I mean. Functionally, it’s just piles of sand shaped into crescents by the wind and yet, one can keep looking at them, mesmerised.   Perhaps, this applies to our lives as well. Yes, we live in consumerist times and there are unending mounds of stuff everywhere we look. And yet, the call of the classic and understated is eternal and cuts through the clutter. WORKPLACE TIPS: WHAT THEY DON'T TEACH IN SCHOOL Chronic stress, mental health issues  and other indicators of ill-health have become too common amongst corporate employees to warrant comment nowadays and yet, the ruinous effects of work stress multiply silently, till a case like Anna Sebastian Perayil’s hits the headlines, rousing us all.   So, what’s the solution? Well, the answer lies within the person reading this post – you. You need to make the choice about how you want to work and live. THE CHARM OF WHIMSY Every now and then, burrowed into the prosaic paths of the commonplace is nestled something whimsical. Amazing and amusing in its quaintness and imagination, it makes us smile and adds a sparkle to the humdrumness of everyday life. I’m very easily charmed by whimsy – a quaint café, an interesting bookmark or a delightful hobby or trait is all it takes. And thus, we conclude the list of the most popular blog posts of the year on Tamed by the Fox. Do leave us a comment on which one was your favourite. Have a great 2025!

A Slow Fire Burning  is true to its name. It’s a slow burn mystery built around a pernicious fire of resentment and pain. This is Paula Hawkins’ third novel in the thriller genre following Into the Water (2017)   and her smash-hit debut psychological thriller, The Girl on the Train  (2015) which was also adapted into a film starring Emily Blunt. Akin to The Girl on the Train , this novel too has a host of complex and broken characters. The primary thrust of the story is the search for the murderer of Daniel Sutherland, a 23-year-old man stabbed to death on a houseboat. The cast of suspects include: Laura Kilbride, a troubled 20-year-old girl who spent the preceding night with the victim; Miriam Lewis, a nosy, middle-aged loner who lives on a houseboat moored close to the victim’s; the young man’s aunt, Carla Myerson; and Daniel's uncle, Theo Myerson who appears to have his own secrets. Hawkins tosses in the additional element of the accidental death of the victim’s lonely alcoholic mother, Angela, just two months before his own. It will have you pondering connections between the two deaths and whether they could be related. I found the opening of the novel is a bit bumpy with a new POV character being introduced in each of the initial three chapters without giving the reader any real sense of who they are. If Paula Hawkins was looking to create an air of dissonance and confusion, she succeeded. Stylistically, this is a story with multiple POV characters (Miriam, Laura, Carla and Irene) giving us an insight into their mindsets and emotions while also setting the stage for deception, lies of omission or at the very least, varied perspectives of the truth. The back and forth in the timelines of the characters' stories reveal past pain, trauma and perhaps, more crucially from the standpoint of the mystery at hand, motivations to commit a murder. The constantly bobbing narrative structure and the twists in the plot are reminiscent of a boat rocking in shallow waters. Hawkins is clever in her use of stock characters like the harmless, confused old woman in Irene or Laura, the mentally-unstable young woman with a history of physically lashing out. It’s the sort of stuff that encourages jumping to conclusions based almost solely on assumptions and stereotyping, allowing the author to use our minds to create red herrings out of ordinary character traits. Paula Hawkins employs the technique of nesting a story within another to flesh out part of a character’s backstory, set up a portion of the climax and raise questions about plagiarism in literary circles. The nested story and its implications work well enough and add to the tension in A Slow Fire Burning . The frayed threads of family torn apart by a tragedy in the past which changed for ever the lives of everyone involved is an idea running through the novel. Speaking of the past, trauma is part of almost all the characters’ life stories and very much informs their personalities and choices in the present. Even so, none of these characters came across as particularly likeable or even sympathetic. Not even Laura who, by far, has the worst luck of the lot. I put this lack of sympathy down to her lack of agency and her constant sense of her own victimhood. She never seems to take responsibility for her own actions. It’s always someone else’s fault. As a result, her misfortunes fail to evoke the kind of sympathy a more likeable character would have received. The theme that comes across most strongly in this novel is that hurt people hurt people. You might think I’m giving away a clue. I’m not, because this is a novel packed choc-a-bloc with damaged characters who end up hurting other people. A Slow Fire Burning explores the destructiveness of trauma and how it ends up snowballing into even worse consequences. Is A Slow Fire Burning worth a read? That’s for you to decide. If you do pick it up, be prepared to read on through a sluggish opening which may leave you wondering what’s going on. Don’t expect a great deal of pace until the last few chapters, which have rather convenient revelations falling over each other to help the reader arrive at the identity of the killer. Which, in itself, is not that surprising. You’ll probably see it coming.

This is a story about a great plague and how it brought the battle between workers and employers to a head. Every few months, a fresh salvo is fired. And because we live in the times of the mighty hashtag, each of these barrages has a catchy caption. It all began with a little virus in early 2020. Well, not all of it, because workers have been exploited for centuries now, albeit in different ways, in the pursuit of profit. Someone else’s profit, not theirs, silly! I’m not going to explain how the coronavirus pandemic unfolded and the whole business with the numerous lockdowns because even if you were living under a rock this whole time, it was probably with a mask and a bottle of sanitizer. So, you know how it went. The lockdown forced most people to either risk their health and well-being because they were part of essential services or work from home with almost no boundaries between work time and rest. And then, there were those who lost their jobs. It was a challenging time to say the least but it was also a time when people got down to thinking about what they wanted from their lives. THE GREAT RESIGNATION Thousands of people realised that they were working jobs that weren’t doing anything for them, and they would much rather use the pandemic to study and change tracks. Or at least, resign from jobs that they’d been working for years just because they were stuck in a toxic comfort zone. I suppose you could say the pandemic jolted them out of their inertia. That’s what led to the Great Resignation which became something of a movement in 2021. It had other aliases like the Big Quit and the Great Reshuffle but they were all about the same things – a pushback against poor working conditions, low pay, skewed work-life balance and a lack of benefits. QUIET QUITTING Not everyone could resign during the Great Resignation even if they wanted to. For most people, resigning and taking a break or studying full-time wasn’t feasible. After all, bills demand to be paid and not everyone is sitting on a nest-egg. That’s when Quiet Quitting, the Great Resignation’s passive-aggressive cousin, arrived on the scene. Quiet Quitting is an approach to work where employees meet the stated requirements of their job description. No staying back at work without overtime or taking on extra projects. So really speaking, they were performing the duties explicitly stated as their responsibility at an acceptable level of competence (else, they would probably be sacked). At its core, quiet quitting was a sign of the growing disconnect between employees and employers – a lack of understanding for the burnout that many employees were experiencing, a communication gap regarding key areas of responsibility, scarcity of growth opportunities for workers and a dearth of connection and alignment to the organisation’s mission or purpose. When you think about it, if these quiet quitters are still doing their job, it shouldn’t be such a hassle, should it? I mean, it’ll just affect their career prospects because they’ll probably lose out on a promotion to the guy who doesn’t mind working a few hours extra every day. But that’s where reality strikes. The truth is that most jobs today call for employees to push harder to achieve goals that their management sets. Imagine I give you a task that requires about 10-12 hours to complete and then complain that you left it unfinished when you leave at the end of your mandated 8-9 hour shift. What if this is the standard operating procedure? You worked sincerely for the hours that I pay you for and yet, have to explain your choice to have a life beyond work because you’ve finally seen the cracks in the hustle culture. That’s another hashtag, by the way. MOONLIGHTING / FREELANCING / CAREER CUSHIONING Now, I’m not trying to portray quiet quitters as innocents. They aren’t. In fact, no one is. Not in a marketplace as unstable as one we are in now. Several countries are already in a recession while others are headed that way. The rest, have other issues like jobless growth. Quiet quitters know this, and they choose not to be in a position where they are out of work and with no prospects of finding suitable employment. I suppose you could say they agree with the legendary stand-up comedian George Carlin when he said, “Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.” That’s how it’s always been. The only difference now is that there’s a hashtag to go with it. And when the air is thick with talk of job cuts, people feel like they need to take precautions. That’s where career cushioning comes in. Career Cushioning is to create a buffer or some kind of protection from a recession or job cuts, if and when they hit us. Actively searching out opportunities and interviewing for them, side gigs or freelancing and moonlighting are some of the means to cushion one’s career. Aside from being an ‘80s era American show starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd, moonlighting is a term that refers to holding multiple jobs without the knowledge or permission of your primary employer. However, to do any or all of these requires time. That’s what quiet quitting provides. The time to improve your own lot instead of solely contributing to your employer’s market share only to be told, at appraisal time, that you haven’t earned 100% of your performance-linked incentive. It's the kind of hustle most corporates don't appreciate. It's not hard to guess why. The American polling company, Gallup polled around 1,20,000 global employees and arrived at the conclusion that more than half of the world’s employees are engaging in quiet quitting (59%) while only 23% of survey respondents consider themselves to be thriving at work. Given the reasonable sample size, these numbers are pretty concerning. Or at least, should be concerning for the management of every large organisation. Perhaps, they were concerned and had a plan. THE QUIET QUITTING BACKLASH The first part of the plan was unveiled on social media. Sample this. “Quiet quitting isn’t just about quitting on a job, it’s a step toward quitting on life,” wrote Ariana Huffington, one of the founders of HuffPost. For those who are unfamiliar with HuffPost, formerly known as The Huffington Post, let me do the needful. They’re an online news portal and made news when it was reported that they swept under the carpet, allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace against its managing editor, Jimmy Soni. They did, however, post him to New Delhi to launch Huffington Post India soon after. As you can imagine, Jimmy Soni was part of Ariana Huffington’s inner circle. Did I mention that Ms Huffington is also the founder of a health and wellness startup, Thrive Global? And yet she speaks out against people looking to lead healthier lifestyles. Oh, the hypocrisy! All we need now is Jeff Bezos weighing in on worker rights and how his struggling business needs to steal tip money from Amazon delivery workers to keep the lights on. Anyway, the point I am making is that many corporate types unleashed uninspired stereotypes by calling Quiet Quitters ‘lazy’ and ‘entitled’. This strategy works well on contemplative and sober debating grounds like Twitter and Reddit but something more insidious was required for the real world. QUIET FIRING Corporate top bosses came up with Quiet Firing. Clearly, imagination is not their strong suit. Quiet Firing is a management approach in which managers forego the best practices – such as providing frequent and constructive feedback, mentoring and accountability. Instead, they do the opposite, leaving out-of-favour employees with little choice but to look for new jobs. This tactic has the additional benefit of saving on notice period salaries and most crucially, avoiding unflattering media headlines of job cuts. QUIET HIRING Now we come to the bit about keeping the growth and revenue numbers moving in the upward direction even when your workforce is diminished due to quiet quitting and quiet firing. After all, somebody’s got to do the work that isn’t being attended to. One way would be to hire new staff. Sadly, that costs money and because we are in a recession , there are hiring freezes in place in many organizations. What’s the solution? Remember the 41% of global employees that aren’t part of the gang of quiet quitters? Some of those folks can be recruited in an exercise imaginatively named Quiet Hiring. What did I tell you about creativity and corporates? They don’t mix. But you’ve got to give them credit for staying on theme! Anyway, what does quiet hiring mean? Quiet Hiring is when companies move workers from one function or department to another in lieu of hiring new employees. Sometimes they even dangle the promise of a promotion or a pay raise to sweeten the deal. Many people take that option because they see it as a means to scale the hierarchy or because they’re smart enough to know that rejecting quiet hiring can also turn into quiet firing. For the corporate in question, the cost of training and the pay hike, if and when delivered, is still more cost-effective than hiring a new person. So, that's that. Now you’re up to speed on the quiet clash that has unfolded over the last three years in the hashtag battleground of the timeless war between employers and the employed. I doubt it's done though. Keep watching this space.

Who is a friend? Most of us refer to all manner of people as our ‘friends’. Everyone, from a long-lost schoolmate to a colleague you get coffee with and the guy at the local squash court, is a ‘friend’. And of course, there is that ubiquitous and odd breed called the Facebook friend. Perhaps the gradual dissolution of social formalities, which had previously required people to think in more defined relational constructs, has resulted in this ‘friend’ boom. Or maybe, this abundance of friends is a result of dropping all manner of amorphous equations into one handy little basket. Distinguishing between relationships takes time and effort, and could result in a most unsettling finding - that one does not have many friends and worse still, that one is not a true friend, even to a few. If you were a fly on my bedroom wall that one night about a decade ago, you would’ve seen me journalling (it was a sporadic exercise). This was back in my insomniac era when I considered 4 am a reasonable time to go to bed. It was late enough for even late-night traffic to have been lulled into silence. Except for the wind. It was a cold night and gusts of wind made it colder still. Through that night’s journalling, I came to the realisation that while I had friends, I didn’t feel close to any of them. These friends, on the other hand, considered me a close friend. But I never confided in them. And when I thought about it some more, I realised that they made a greater effort to do stuff together than I did. My approach to friendship was more laissez-faire – easy come, easy go. That got me thinking. THE FACETS OF FRIENDSHIP What creates that warm, fuzzy feeling of having a friend? Is it just an amalgamation of time spent hanging out, catching movies and the usual shenanigans? Over the next few months, the question hung around the backrooms of my mind. Here’s what I figured out. Acts of service (small stuff like calling to check up on them or more substantially, picking them up from the airport), authenticity (following through on the things you said you would do and not faking coolness) and vulnerability (this is a tough one if you like to shelter behind a hardened outer shell) are essential to a genuine friendship. The kind which makes you feel seen and understood. I'm sure there are others who have expressed the idea of how the effort you make for your friend is what makes them special. However, I don't recall any who've done it better than Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in The Little Prince . In that section of the story, the Little Prince encounters dozens of roses that are as beautiful as the snooty little rose he adores on his home planet. All this while, he’d thought of her as one of a kind. Saint-Exupéry writes as the much-travelling Little Prince who has just realised that roses are very common flowers, “You’re beautiful, but you’re empty… One couldn’t die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under glass, since she’s the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she’s the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose.” My epiphany aided by The Little Prince was all very well. But life isn’t a one act play. There is always an antagonistic force. In this case, it is that sometimes you start watering the wrong rose and then feel wounded when it turns out to have thorns. Come to think of it, that’s just the nature of things. At least, roses. All of this caused me to ponder about friendship some more. My two cents on the subject is that there are many kinds of friendship and they are all valuable. Human interaction is crucial to mental and emotional well-being. Its degree and quantity depend on your personal inclination. Why then have many of us, at some or the other point in our lives, either felt disappointed by someone we thought of as a friend or been at the receiving end of a cold shoulder and suffered a somewhat confusing end to what we thought of as a good connection? Unmatched expectations would be the short answer. Since I (and perhaps you too) do not practise Buddha-like detachment, when I invest in a relationship, I tend to, unknowingly, build in a degree of expectation of similar affection or concern. And when it doesn’t materialise, it’s disappointing. That’s why it helps to know where you stand with the people in your life and where they stand in yours. CLARIFYING CONNECTIONS Analysing our connections can help achieve clarity in terms of the depth of emotion involved and the expectations built into each relationship. And no, I don’t serve this up with a side order of judgement or condescension, as some may assume! A few of my friends (I use the term as a catch-all here) balk at my penchant for what they consider "grading" interpersonal equations and by extension, "grading" people. They view it as me creating a static pecking order with me looking down at everyone in it. This runs completely contrary to my intention. Human relationships are dynamic and require two or more people. So, while I’m free to recognise a certain equation as a workplace friendship, my work friend is equally capable of doing the same. And probably does, even if they do so unconsciously. So, there’s no question of anyone looking down on anyone else. We’re all in the same boat. Also, equations can and often do change. After all, even our closest buddies were once strangers, and that changed. Purely from a practical standpoint, investing in relationships requires us to take out time for that person. And there’s a lot of stuff that wants or needs our time. How do we prioritise? That’s where my idea comes in. Its real objective is to navigate the complexities of human interaction with minimal hurt feelings on either side. To see each association for what it is - in terms of its roots, sustaining factors, purpose and emotional investment. Being aware of these aspects often gives me an insight into the type of relationship it is, and allows me to enjoy it while it flows, and let go when it naturally ebbs. FRIENDSHIP OF CIRCUMSTANCE OR TRANSIENT FRIENDSHIP Painted in broad strokes, there are three types of friendship. First on the list is friendship of circumstance or transient friendship. It has many aliases - work friend, activity friend, hangout friend, etc. Take, for example, a friendship that grows out of someone being a colleague with a schedule similar to mine, with more or less similar views on the things that absorb us at work. This common ground is the root of the friendship. This relationship is likely to usually last until either office dynamics cause a rift or one of us quits the workplace. A work friend leaving the shared workplace creates distance wherein earlier, there was easy accessibility. Understandably, this often proves to be a hindrance to the continuance of the friendship because now, it takes effort to meet and sustain the relationship. This is where two other elements come into play - the purpose of the friendship and emotional investment. They will now dictate the direction in which this connection moves. The purpose of most office friendships, in my experience, is to blow off steam and have someone to hang out with, have a few laughs, making the prospect of a routine work day a little more enjoyable. In terms of emotional investment, these equations don't call for much. Predictably, my friendship with my former work buddy subsides into infrequent phone calls which end with indefinite plans to meet or the exchange of the odd forward or joke on WhatsApp. You could ask why my office pal and I don't make more of an effort to stay connected? Well, the blunt answer is that there is neither a good enough purpose to do so any longer nor the sort of emotional bond that warrants the extra effort. HANGOUT FRIENDS Another variant of transient friendships are hangout friends who are part of one’s wider circle. The only qualification required is the mutual enjoyment of each other's company, even if only in small doses. These relationships are generally more social than emotional. Plans made with hangout friends are, for the most part, quite fluid and materialise only when mutually convenient. However, there are no hurt feelings as a result of this because the relaxed level of engagement doesn't engender high expectations on either side. So, it all works out just fine! SEASONAL FRIENDSHIP That brings us to the second category of friendship - seasonal friendship. The term is not literal, obviously, since most of these equations do manage to outlast a change in weather! I use the term "seasonal" as a metaphor for the nature of this kind of bond - it engages you in the current moment and you can't imagine it changing. Just like it seems unimaginable, during the summer, that you would ever want to be packed into a thick, fleece-lined jacket coupled with a pair of woollen trousers and three pairs of socks. And yet, there comes a day when you're doing just that! In fact, even throwing a muffler into the mix. Anyway, I digress. In a nod to chronology, perhaps I should speak first of the Spring of seasonal friendships rather than their Winter. They usually begin as transient friendships which grow deeper, organically, due to a combination of favourable circumstances and overlapping spheres of interest. This rapport is further strengthened by the passage of time, joint experiences and shared confidences. Seasonal friends are an integral part of our lives and often, one cannot foresee these bonds fizzling out. And yet, they often do. Even the most durable seasonal friendships tend to run out of steam between year one and year seven. For some reason, that someone a lot smarter than yours truly would have to decipher, seven years is something of a watershed moment in most close friendships. If the relationship manages to make it past the seven-year mark without dissolving into a casual connection, you’ve most likely found yourself a lifelong buddy. Take a moment and think back to some of your pals from years ago - the ones who seemed like they would stick around. My guess is that a majority of those friendships dissipated before they crossed the seven-year milestone. However, the ones that did make it past the mark, are probably still around. This brings me to the last form of friendship - lifelong friends. LIFELONG FRIENDSHIP Lifelong friends are the folks you've known for so long that it seems pointless to keep track of the years. More often than not, you meet them early in life. This seems to me like the Universe's devious plan to make sure you can never forget about all the idiotic stuff you got up to! Or maybe, the people you meet in school, college or in the trenches at your first job get to know you while you're still figuring out who you are, and before you start taking yourself too seriously. Growing up in a shared environment certainly is a good glue but even that is likely to come unstuck unless the friendship is backed by a strong emotional bond, common core values and a sense of being invested in each other's lives. It is these factors that induce you to stay up way past your bedtime to call a friend in a different time zone or move past an argument that would've ended a lesser friendship. It’s the effort that you put in that makes the friendship special. Of these three factors that help sustain a lifelong friendship, an emotional bond is fairly self-explanatory. As for investment in each other's lives, let me attempt an explanation. It’s when your friend’s success or failure feels like you have a share in it because you’ve seen their struggle even though they may shrug it off as inconsequential in front of others. That leaves us with common core values, by which I mean a shared or complementary view of ideas such as integrity, trust, family, life goals, et al. Having a similar outlook on these subjects leads to an understanding that deepens, and perhaps goes beyond, shared experiences and an emotional connection. It is this common value system that makes one's old friends such good advisors when we’re faced with life’s important decisions. They know how you think and what's important to you, especially in times when you may need reminding. They care enough to point out your mistakes in the gentlest way possible so that you can grow. The best part though is that you can count on your friends to pull your leg and make you laugh. Sometimes, that’s all you need – someone to be silly with. Above all, it is the unwavering belief that despite busy schedules, the natural crests and troughs of life and the arrival of new friends, a lifelong friend will always show up, in your corner, when you need them. A friend inspires you to be a better version of yourself even though they know where the bodies are buried (hopefully, only metaphorically. If not, you better hope they’re a great friend!), someone who builds you up while keeping you grounded and is the person you never want to let down. To know there exists such a person, whether next door or two continents away - who knows all your stories; listens to the bizarre nonsense you come up with, calls it nonsense but listens anyway; is your moral compass in a topsy-turvy world -- is that rare luxury called friendship. BE A FRIEND Ultimately, to have good friends, you also need to be one. How does one judge that? Effort. That’s the truest measure. If you talk a good game but repeatedly fail to show up when it counts, then you need to work on that. It’s not enough to say that you had the right intention. It’s like Stephen Covey, the author of The Speed of Trust puts it, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions.” As time passes, good intentions alone fail to pass muster. The ones who matter make the effort and those who don’t, don’t matter as much. Though I’d still catch a movie with them.

India has probably the cheapest mobile data in the world. Practically everyone with a smartphone has 1 GB of data available to them every day. Some of us also have a broadband connection at home and at our workplaces. All this inexpensive data allows us to scroll for hours through free social media apps – consuming several hours of mostly inane content, keep up with friends, family and sadly, even work emails. Except that it’s not as inexpensive as we think it is. It costs us our ability to focus, our concentration and perhaps most importantly, our time. Time is irreplaceable even if you were willing to pay for it. Think about it. Something you think is practically free i.e. internet access, robs you of a thing so valuable that, once lost, even the richest person on the planet can’t buy it back - Time. Add to that, another precious commodity, Focus. And yet, you think it costs you nothing. This is perhaps the greatest mind trick of our times – a kind of mass hypnosis. And I’m not even going into the costs of data mining and the ways in which the companies that own our data manipulate us, mostly because I don’t know all the ways. But what I know is scary enough. Some of you may think I’m being alarmist. Read on and then you can decide. Here’s what I’ve observed in my own life. I’ve been a reader for almost as long as I can remember. However, I believe that I used to read faster when I was younger than I do now, mostly because I keep getting interrupted by a bing or a ping. And when that doesn’t happen, I reach for my phone to check if I missed a beep. Confession: I’m guilty of unlocking and scrolling through some or the other app even when I can see that I have no notifications whatsoever. Not even the non-urgent kind. This is pathetic behaviour but I know I’m not alone in this dome of dopamine-addiction. THE MYTH OF MULTI-TASKING Even though I stand under this dome, I’m at least part of the group of people that admit their addiction instead of pretending to be a multi-tasker. The myth of multi-tasking is a seductive one. It paints the incessant phone-checking, email-responding, text-sending while we work, converse or read, as the pinnacle of productivity. It soothes us into propagating the idea that somehow, we've evolved into beings that are able juggle all these balls effortlessly. But truth be told, that’s the kind of stuff that only shows stupendous results in a movie montage set to uplifting music. FOCUS IS INDIVISIBLE In real life, multi-tasking splits your focus and concentration leading to slower progress in whatever you’re doing. Let’s assume I’m writing a report while simultaneously, responding to emails and text messages. While I may want to believe that 80% of my focus is devoted to writing the report and only 20% is spent on responding to a colleague with a brief mail or a quick exchange over text with a friend. Sadly, that’s not how it works. Every time I shift from one task to another, 100% of my focus moves to it. Focus is a currency of sorts. We can choose where we invest it but it differs from money in one very significant way. Unlike money, your focus cannot be invested in two or more areas at the same time. As a result, while I’m sending a meme to a friend, I’m no longer working on my report and my focus is wholly concentrated on the text message. Ten seconds later, I might turn it back to the report but the shift in gears isn’t quite as smooth as we like to believe. I will need to collect my thoughts all over again and read the last few lines I wrote to get back into the flow of things. And just as I do, my phone will buzz with a response to the meme I sent. And the whole cycle begins again. Don’t take my word for it. Basing its conclusions on research findings , the American Psychological Association states that, “shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40% of someone’s productive time”. Which means that if I could’ve written this post in an hour of uninterrupted time, it’ll probably take me at least an hour and 40 minutes to complete if I continue texting, emailing and checking my stock portfolio while I write this. So much for productive multi-tasking! THE AGE OF DISTRACTION I know generational stereotyping is annoying but unfortunately, I meet a lot of people who believe that they are somehow better-equipped to multi-task simply because they grew up in an age where cell phones and the internet are as ubiquitous as pen and paper. Perhaps, even more so (Try borrowing a pen from someone and you’ll see what I mean). And yet, unless Millennials and Gen Z have managed to re-engineer their own pre-frontal and parietal cortexes in all the free-time they gained due to multi-tasking, all this talk about being natural multi-taskers is just wishful thinking that doesn’t have any facts supporting it. But again, this fig leaf isn’t used only by Millennials and Gen Z. Anyone who doesn’t want to be parted from their devices usually uses some or the other form of this argument. But the facts remain the same, regardless of your age or argument. We know that it takes longer to complete a task if one is distracted. I know this without any help from the American Psychological Association because I’ve been writing this blog post for more than two hours and I’m still not done! MULTI-TASKING DIMINISHES QUALITY The other aspect of productivity is the quality of the work done. Is quality impacted by multi-tasking? A study conducted at Stanford University on their students, found that self-proclaimed chronic multi-taskers made more mistakes and remembered less than those who multi-tasked less often. Another Stanford study found evidence to support the conclusion that chronic multi-taskers are worse at analytical reasoning as well. David Jones, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology observed similar patterns amongst his students who, he believed weren’t doing as well as they should be. Jones explained, “It’s not that the students are dumb. It’s not that they aren’t trying. I think they’re trying in a way that’s not as effective as it could be because they’re distracted by everything else.” It goes without saying that students who have made it to a premier institution like MIT aren’t ‘dumb’, which means that perhaps the lack of focus caused by distractions in the guise of multi-tasking is the problem. TRY IT YOURSELF Ultimately, we all need to take a minute and ask ourselves if our minds are more or less focussed when we are being interrupted by our devices. If you can’t answer that, try an experiment. Like I did. It took me about three hours to write this post. I also responded to several messages, monitored the share prices of four to five stocks and bought shares in two, ate lunch and checked my LinkedIn account. Without all these secondary tasks, I could most likely have written this post in little more than an hour. Next time, I’ll keep my phone aside and write on days when I don’t want to buy any shares. Let’s see how that goes. I’ll be sure to report back. And I’d love to hear about your conclusions if you do conduct a similar experiment.

Every now and then, burrowed into the prosaic paths of the commonplace is nestled something whimsical. Amazing and amusing in its quaintness and imagination, it makes us smile and adds a sparkle to the humdrumness of everyday life. I’m very easily charmed by whimsy – a quaint café, an interesting bookmark or a delightful hobby or trait is all it takes. A few months ago, a friend, Shruti sent me a link to something called a literature clock . It’s a website that operates as a clock, telling you the time. It updates every minute without the user refreshing the page. Before you judge me as particularly simple-minded with a roll of your eyes, let me clarify that while I am easily amused, it is not quite that  easy. This online clock’s beauty lies in its revealing the time as part of a quote from a piece of literature.   Which means that someone searched for quotes from thousands of works of literature that would represent every minute of a day. To me, watching it change from one timely quote to another is gratifying. Is it strictly necessary? Of course not. But then, neither is dancing. To the best of my knowledge, nobody dances to cover the distance from point A to point B! Speaking of going from A to B reminds me of a company that goes from A to Z, Amazon (check out the logo and you’ll see that the arrow travels from A to Z). It’s a multi-billion-dollar corporation with a dismal reputation for profit-gouging and fostering a toxic work environment for a majority of its employees. I’m certainly not a fan. Even so, I came across a page on its site quite by accident which managed to humanise this global profit-squeezing, mega-corporation. The humanising effect didn’t last long but given my opinion of Amazon, even that ounce of goodwill generated was no small achievement. The page in question is an Error 404 page which basically pops up only when Amazon can’t find whatever you’re searching for. Except that this page has a picture of an employee’s dog and a little write-up about it. Apparently, Amazon has a Dogs at Work program allowing employees to bring their dogs to work. The whimsical charm of this webpage was enough to make me forget for a while what I was searching for in the first place. That is the power of whimsy. It fires up our imagination, emotions and turns the run-of-the-mill into something memorable. And sometimes, it can also turn into a lifestyle and a business. Like it did for Zack MacLeod Pinsent , a 29-year-old British man who, at the ripe old age of 14 ditched his denims for bespoke 18-Century clothing. He chooses to dress like a Regency gentleman every day, regardless of quizzical looks from strangers and the effort required to tailor his own clothes in a fashion that has been out of fashion for a couple of centuries. But it’s obvious that it makes him happy. And frankly, he cuts quite a figure. More power to him. We can all sprinkle some whimsy into our lives in whatever manner we like. Most of us already do, I’m sure. It could be a playful pair of spectacles, reading Wuthering Heights or Harry Potter every winter or gifting hand-made dreamcatchers to friends and family. It’s quirks like these that spark joy even if nobody else understands the point of them. Carry on regardless. As did Edwin Hubble, the brilliant American astronomer who is often credited with having revolutionized mankind’s understanding of the Universe. He has the rare distinction of having an asteroid, a crater on the Moon and a space telescope named in his honour. Here on Earth, the planet of his birth, a planetarium, a stretch of highway and a school were named after him. His was an exceptional mind. However, by most accounts, he was also quite eccentric. After a stint at Oxford University in England, he adopted a fake British accent and began to go about dressed in a cape and carrying a cane. I suppose you could call it an affectation but I find it both droll and delightful! To me, whimsy is like stardust. Even a dash of it catches the light, making everything shimmer.

The barista called out the name scrawled on the venti cup, “Cappuccino for Aditya.” I smiled, a gentle wave of satisfaction washing over me. That was close enough, I thought to myself. My guess had been Abhishek, Abhimanyu or some other common male name starting with the letter A. Sorry for the abrupt   opening. Let me start at the beginning. I was nursing a frappe at the Starbucks outlet at the Mumbai airport, killing time before checking in for a flight to Delhi. I was travelling alone and, as always, carrying a book. I settled into a cushioned cane chair, placed the book next to my drink but chose to watch people instead. While I wouldn’t describe myself as a Peeping Tom or an eavesdropper, I admit that I enjoy trying to guess the details of strangers’ lives from what I can observe. I’m no Sherlock Holmes but it is fun to try. Starbucks is especially helpful with regard to an added element of my pastime - guessing the names of strangers. Unlike most other coffee chains in India, Starbucks doesn’t bring their customers’ orders to their tables. Instead, they prefer to call out the customer’s name along with their drink order. Which works out perfectly fine for me, the name-guessing people-watcher! My little game rests on the theory that certain people suit their names to a T and studying their appearance and body language can sometimes help one intuit this stuff. At other times, it’s just fun to watch people in public spaces and imagine what they’re like. So, this Aditya from paragraph one was tall, fair, with a lankiness to his frame, and a certain affability to his body language. There was a casualness about him that made me think of parents who want their child to have a roll number in class that comes somewhere near the top. I’ve known parents who believe that a single-digit roll number will somehow turn their lackadaisical offspring into a competitive merit-lister. Anyway, a name beginning with an A usually lands a spot in the top ten. At least, alphabetically! If you’ve persisted with this post till this point, I commend your patience. Or perhaps, you too are a people-watcher. If yes, do leave a comment on what you consider the best places to watch people. I'm partial to coffee shops. I like my creature comforts, you see. Comfortable couches, the fragrance of coffee brewing, the trickle and spurts of moody coffee machines spewing hot and bitter liquids, the hissing of the milk steamer, punctuated by the bings of the cash register and the hum of conversation. This is my preferred setting with its soothing symphony of sounds. There’s something about the informality of a cafe that allows for people’s personalities to step out. Also, there is an element of waiting or solitude involved. Unlike restaurants, where people usually arrive together for a meal, a coffee shop is a place with many purposes. One could walk in there to work, to catch up with friends, for first meetings – whether dates or interviews, to savour a beverage while reading a book or to buy a drink on the go. To watch a person while they wait is a whole different ball game. Touching up their make-up or glancing at the door every few minutes, clicking a selfie (at times, a whole portfolio), making phone calls, texting or scrolling through social media or glancing through the week-old newspapers lying around. And then, there are also those who come prepared with a book. Like yours truly! Airports and railway stations are considered by many to be great places for people-watching. I differ on that front. The anxiety and rushing about of travel can cause most people to depart from their true nature. Almost nobody rushes to a café in a state of urgency. Apart from me, that is! And that’s what makes watching folks, as they settle in with a drink or a muffin, so entertaining. That is, until you catch someone’s eye who is doing exactly what you are. In a moment of shared confidences, you smile sheepishly, look down and open that book lying next to your coffee.

We’re well into the second month of the year and if you’re like me, you have a reading target for the year. And if you’re really like me, you’re lagging behind so miserably that the whole idea is beginning to look impossible. But I’m an optimist. I usually wake up looking to turn into a new leaf almost every other day. Some people call that delusional. I call it Tuesday! My usual reading target is 24 books in a year. I have achieved that target only once in the last five or six years which is when I began keeping a count of the books I read. Mostly, I end up reading 17-18 books in a year. Therefore, with a renewed spurt of afore-mentioned optimism with real-life data shaking its head in disbelief, my target for this calendar year is 36 books. For the mathematically-oriented, this translates to 3 books a month. It's the 9th of February and I’ve read one book. So clearly, something’s got to change. I need to get out of my reading slump. And from my extensive experience of such slumps, I know that one of the important elements of achieving the requisite momentum to get out of a reading slump is to pick the right book . Something that is fast-paced or soothing (depending on what you need) but mostly, something that reads like a letter from an old friend… easy-going, fun and with bits that make you chuckle or sit up in surprise. I hope to stumble upon such a book recommendation but for you, dear reader, I bring a list of books I’ve read in the recent past that should help jumpstart your reading battery. THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by GARTH STEIN The Art of Racing in the Rain  is the story of the Swift family narrated by the half Labrador and half either Shepherd, Poodle or Terrier protagonist, Enzo. At the centre of Enzo’s life and the story, is Denny Swift, an aspiring professional race car driver dealing with family and financial issues. Enzo’s perspective as narrator is what makes this novel shine. If you’re looking for a heart-warming book about family, loss, resilience and hope, this may be just what you’re looking for. THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by MATT HAIG Have you ever wondered how your life would’ve turned out if you’d done a few things differently? The Midnight Library  by Matt Haig is a novel about the decisions we make and how every choice we are offered is both a fruit of previous choices but also a seed for future possibilities. The Midnight Library is a charming little book to curl up with. It reminds us to value our small victories and joys in a world that glorifies the flashy. THE READING LIST by SARA NISHA ADAMS Between the pages of a library book lies the List – a handwritten catalogue of eight novels with no obvious similarities- written out for no one in particular just in case they need it. For reasons of their own, the protagonists, Aleisha, a teenage librarian and Mukesh, an elderly widower who has until now kept his distance from books, start reading the novels on the list, forming an unexpected bond with books and each other. A MAN CALLED OVE by FREDRIK BACKMAN The protagonist of A Man called Ove  is a grumpy and rigid old man. He decides to end his life, seeing no point in carrying on. Ove has a plan and the tools to achieve it. That’s when a couple moving into the neighbourhood ruin his design. This book will warm the cockles of your heart while reaffirming the inescapable truth that few things are more essential than the belief that one is loved and needed. MORE BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS AHEAD If mysteries and thrillers are more your speed, here are a few more recommendations that will keep you engaged without getting too complicated. Remember, easy-peasy is the vibe we’re going for. THE PLOT by JEAN HANFF KORELITZ The Plot  is a novel about Jacob Finch Bonner, a struggling writer who steals a riveting plot narrated to him by a student who dies before completing his novel based on the same plot. Jacob’s book ends up becoming a blockbuster and he, a celebrated author. There is, however, one tiny fly in the ointment - someone knows his secret and is threatening to reveal it to the world.  The writing is engaging and the narrator’s turn of phrase and ironic tone elevates the story, injecting it with humour and insight while keeping you turning pages to discover the identity of the murderer in Jacob’s novel and the blackmailer in his own life. A DEATH IN THE HIMALAYAS by UDAYAN MUKHERJEE Set in the hilly environs of an idyllic little village in the Himalayas, this novel sets the stage early when an English activist found murdered in the nearby forest. Clare Watson is a victim with many supporters, quite a few enemies and a secret or two. Neville Wadia, a suave, former policeman is the primary but unofficial investigator of the case. He carries the baggage of his past as do most of the suspects. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HARRY QUEBERT AFFAIR by JOEL DICKER The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair  is a cold case whodunnit delivered with a literary flair. It’s a novel about two authors – Harry Quebert, a celebrated senior writer who is arrested for murder, 33 years after a fifteen-year-old girl that he loved goes missing; and Marcus Goldman his protégé who, struggling with writer’s block after his successful first novel, resolves to clear his mentor’s name. With a host of suspects, fading memories and looming deadlines, Marcus is up against many challenges in this twisty page-turner. Joel Dicker’s style and narrative technique make it even better by imbuing a thriller plot with literary allusions, three-dimensional characters and social commentary without letting up on the pace. Happy reading, folks!

Walking on a trail along the fields near my home, I clicked some pictures of the reeds and wild flowers that sprout in the winter months. Nature’s variety seems boundless. Who knows how many kinds of flowers and plants there are in the world. How Nature creates such bounty, beauty and functionality while eschewing superfluousness is an absolute wonder. Of course, none of it happened all at once. It usually takes thousands of years for evolution to erode the pointless and perpetuate the essential. But then, Nature is never in a hurry. After all, it has a lot of time and space. (Yes, this is my idea of a Physics joke!) Simplicity has a ring of truth about it, an elegance and resilience that beats trends and momentary peaks and troughs. If you’ve ever seen a belt of sand dunes, you know what I mean. Functionally, it’s just piles of sand shaped into crescents by the wind and yet, one can keep looking at them, mesmerised. The same is true for sitting on a beach and watching the waves roll in and recede, and then do more of the same. Perhaps, this applies to our lives as well. Yes, we live in consumerist times and there are unending mounds of stuff everywhere we look. And yet, the call of the classic and understated is eternal and cuts through the clutter. I’m reminded of two photographs that were in the news a few years ago. One was a picture of a meeting between the Emperor of Japan and the Saudi Crown Prince in September of 2016 while the other was from the Saudi King’s visit to Japan a few months later. The coverage of the Saudi King’s visit was overrun by headlines of golden escalators, silk carpets and luxury cars. In contrast, the Japanese Emperor met with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in a room with screen walls, two wooden chairs and a small table with a flower arrangement. Even though the visits took place months apart, my mind has collated them into a single conversation of ideals and highlighted the distinctly Japanese trait of winning an argument by speaking the softest. Wherein lies the appeal of simplicity? Is it only functionality and lack of embellishment that win us over? Or does simplicity strum a chord within us that longs to live unpretentiously with adequate belongings to make our lives easier but not smother our surroundings with everything ever invented. Clutter stresses us out, on a sub-conscious level. Which is why it feels good to live with less. Not everyone needs to or can be Marie Kondo , arguably the world’s most famous tidy-upper, but it’s helpful to recognise that acquiring possessions must have a cut-off point. After all, there are only so many mugs, rugs, clothes or vases that a person needs. This is something I like to remind myself as well. A few years ago, when I moved out of Delhi to our farm in Belgaum, I packed one large trunk of clothes I had never worn. Most still had their tags peeping out of the bags they came in. It shocked me and I was ashamed of my hoarding ways. I’m working on correcting that by cutting down my purchases and discarding before I buy. Which is why I find the story about the Zen monk who welcomed a traveller into his dwelling is so impactful. The Zen monk had only a sleeping mat and a few wooden pots in his room. His visitor asked why he didn’t have any furniture. To which the monk said, “Where is your furniture?” Taken aback, his guest responded, “I don’t have any furniture. I’m only passing through.” The monk smiled and said, “So am I.” Travel light – that’s the message. And that doesn’t mean giving up on aesthetics. Instead, one can focus more on quality if the pressure to collect quantity is deducted from the equation. The one and only Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” He absolutely hit the nail on the head with that. Except that he too had trunkfuls of clothes, given his dandy ways. Aah well… so da Vinci wasn’t perfect, but at least he was working on it! So can we.