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The Bank Manager, the Rationalist, a Boat, and a Ghost.
(2900 words, 11 minutes) The manager of a village branch of the country’s largest bank was about to start his morning bath when his wife banged on the corrugated metal bathroom door. “Your bank’s attendant is here!” she said. “I’m late for school. Hurry up and have your breakfast before you go.” The bank manager Continue reading
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Maleickal House
(4654 words, 17 minutes) Halfway up the hill, the young lawyer regretted taking the car. Not only was the climb steep, the road was narrow and its surface pockmarked with loose metal. The old Alto was hardly the vehicle for these roads. At around thirty minutes after he left the Main Central Road and began Continue reading
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A Family Portrait
The old man turned the key to the door slowly so that it would not make any sharp noise. Yet, he couldn’t prevent the annoying clack at the end of the turn. He stepped inside to find his wife fast asleep on the sofa-cum-bed with the the TV on mute. He took the remote from Continue reading
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Rage Baiting Campaigns are here to stay
Rage-baiting is technically defined as a deliberate “the manipulative tactic of eliciting outrage with the goal of increasing internet traffic, online engagement, revenue and support.” This behaviour is on steroids these days, thanks, but no thanks to Elon Musk’s tactic of shoring up engagement on twitter, presently marked with X, by sharing meagre revenues with Continue reading
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Liberation
The day started bright and sunny. The MET department said no rain was expected as did my intuition. So I left the umbrella at home – managing a backpack and a handbag in the Mumbai trains was bad enough, I thought, As it turned out, by mid-morning, it was so bad that the principal opted Continue reading
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JioHotstar and the Zen of Domain Name Management
TLDR: Full version Ever since l’affaire jiohotstar.com broke out, there has been a lot of discussion on domain names, squatting, gen Z chutzpah and the dozen ways Reliance could have used the issue for PR and made themselves look like saints. If you missed the whole story, this is what happened: An unknown young man Continue reading
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Happy Birthday Babu Bhai!
This is a rant that I posted recently on LinkedIn. Nothing great about it; I’ve ranted often but what I like about this one is that I typed this entirely with my right thumb in stalled traffic at Chheda Nagar Junction while staring at these ‘chamcha’ banners, of mostly unknown faces wishing random politicians on Continue reading
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The Open Door
We must have been on the fifth slide. The presenter stopped mid-sentence with his mouth open and his face white as a sheet. He was staring at me as was everyone else in the room. I wondered if I fell asleep or something. I mumbled a sorry, and asked him to continue, only to find Continue reading
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The Barber’s Assistant
Once upon a time, in a kingdom that once stood near where you are right now, there lived a king and a queen. The kingdom was small enough for a man on a horse to cross in a week, but large enough to have everything its people needed. To the north and east were mountains Continue reading
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Who’s Afraid of GenAI?
With OpenAI’s announcement of Sora, it seems as if the conquest is complete: text is done and dusted, images too, and now video. Generative video has been in the works for some time, but with Sora, OpenAI has taken a leap and shown us the possibilities. There is no looking back from here, is there? Continue reading