It was 5:15 am. That was my regular running wake-up time, but not here, at this lovely resort in Bali. The AC was comfortable, but I woke up to a familiar feeling, my head weighing many kgs, a churning stomach,...

A six-word tragedy, often attributed to Hemingway: “For sale. Children’s shoes. Never worn.” It’s the unsaid that seeks to haunt us, and our negativity gene draws the most sinister conclusion. The above line could have many endings, the shoes didn’t...

At 4 AM in Ladakh, under the Milky Way’s ancient glow, I finally understood why my most significant transitions had felt so disorienting. The stars above me were already dead. Their light had traveled millions of years to reach my...

I needed a machine to show me how to be vulnerable with my own children. That sentence should terrify every leader who thinks AI is just about productivity. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: when I use AI tools tuned to...

A Moment of Lightness: My Daughters’ Roast, Powered by ChatGPT I was in Seattle for my elder daughter’s graduation. All four of us were tucked into a snug Airbnb, wine and beer flowing as I rambled about my AI obsession....

It began with a WhatsApp message from Anirudh, a fellow runner and tech enthusiast who sends me interesting stuff mixed with the bawdy. Try this prompt in whichever AI app you use regularly: “Now that you can remember everything I’ve...

A story of climbing less, feeling more, and finding what’s worth melting for. This essay continues the journey begun in Part 1, where frozen ambitions, buried selves, and mountain silences are first stirred awake. If you haven’t read it, you...

❄️ Thaw Begins Often, when I walk in the Himalayas, I imagine the brave souls who once set foot on the same path I now walk. While I may stop at base camp, they pushed through glaciers and crevasses, aiming...

It was just a year before he died, and we were in the Philippines. I watched a cricket match in which my father was playing. It was a friendly match, and a youngster with a longish run-up came in to...

Several billion years after its birth, a star dies. Stars do not choose when they die. They burn until their fuel runs out, collapsing under their own gravity, only to explode in a supernova that seeds the universe with the...