The Space Between

I almost punched a classmate once, over a pen.

My teacher stopped me.

He pointed to the board:

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

He asked: "See the space between the two words  ‘pen’ and 'is’?  Without it, what would be the meaning?"

I was just ten.  Years later, I understood:

Space matters.

We don't write much, anymore.

We type.  We tap.  We post.

Handwriting once forced space between thoughts and words.

Ink slowed us down long enough to shape what we actually meant.

Now everything runs together.

We no longer write to think.

We type to respond.

I don't own a pen anymore.

Not because I lost it.

Because I stopped needing one.

A doctor friend once told me:

Children who write by hand score higher on comprehension tests, because they slow down to think what they are writing.

Yes, the pen thinks.

The keyboard reacts.

Somewhere in between we lost the space that made meaning possible.

I explore these quiet shifts on Instagram. 

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When Mind Freezes and Body Fails to Respond

The gate creaked open.

Her golden retriever, desperate for affection, leapt from the second-floor balcony.

A heavy thud.

She froze.

She wanted to run to him. Her legs wouldn't move.

She wanted to scream. No sound came out.

Someone had pressed pause on her life forcing her to watch every painful spasm.

This is helplessness.

Not weakness. Not cowardice.

Just the mind meeting something too huge to process.

Your brain doesn't shut down because it's failed you.

It shuts down because it's unable to process.

The body goes still.

The soul steps back.

And you stand there - fully present, yet completely absent.

The worst part isn't the freezing.

It's watching yourself freeze.

Knowing. Wanting to move. Yet unable to move.

Maybe that's what helplessness actually is.

You aren't alone. 

Others have been here before, and have moved on.

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Everyone Promises. No One Keeps.

"Everyone promises. No one keeps."

His words carried scepticism.

I wrote out the recommendation then and there, and placed it in the out tray.

He still looked unconvinced.

So I picked it up, sealed it, and handed it to him.

"Go, give this to the CEO's secretary yourself."

He stood there, stunned.

Someone had finally broken the cycle of broken promises.

He walked out, not with a piece of paper, but with trust.

Making a promise costs nothing.

Keeping it costs effort.

That gap tempts people to over-promise and under-deliver.

Ratan Tata, at the Nano car launch said: 

"A promise is a promise." 

He meant it, delivered despite heavy odds.

Promises are rarely demanded.

Yet we offer them freely, then quietly forget them.

We don't honour the fact that every promise is a loan,

borrowed today, repaid with action tomorrow.

A society doesn't collapse when promises are broken.

But it does, when nobody expects them to be kept.

When did someone last surprise you by keeping their word?

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The Art of Elegant Insults

"Some people bring joy wherever they go; others whenever they go."

A farewell party.  My boss's parting shot at the guest of honour.  A subtle hint at what a pain he had been.  No confrontation.  Just a smile and a sting.

That sent me hunting for "The Book of Insults" by Nancy McPhee,  a corporate rage in the 80s.  Two gems of insults in disguise still stay with me:  

"His confidence outpaces his competence by a considerable margin."

"There is nothing so bad as a good man who does not know when to stop."

That brings to mind "Shankar's Weekly", a satirical publication that taught democracy to laugh.  Its cartoons were merciless on Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru!  Yet Nehru admired Shankar and had some of these cartoons framed.  Politicians then could laugh at themselves.  Today?

Insults are like fire.

• Cruel insults leave scars.
• Wise ones cut clean.
• Humorous ones warm a room.

The best fires don't roar; they only glow.

Who came to mind just now?

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Rethinking Role Models

“My dad.”

Everyone giggled.  Some smirked.

The teacher shook her head: “No. A role model must inspire others.”

I was downcast, my dad didn't meet the criteria.

Decades later, things started to click.

What you admire isn’t the person.  It’s the narrative, the glamour.   

Not genuineness.

Like politicians, like gurus who preach virtue but conceal vice. 

We see the myth, not the mess underneath.

And when they fall?  The betrayal feels personal, because you defended an image, not a person.

People fade.  Patterns don’t.

So, what if, instead of role models, you admired moments?

A stranger’s dedication.

A competitor’s grace under stress.

A child’s innocent curiosity.

Grab the lesson. Let go of the legend.

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