The House That Time Forgot


A Masai Welcome dance

During our recent safari trip in Kenya, a visit to a Masai village was part of the itinerary. We went with curiosity, but also with the expectations of people accustomed to a very different world.

The Masai Mara is extraordinary not merely because animals still roam freely across its vast savannah, but because the Masai have, for generations, lived alongside that ecosystem without attempting to conquer it. They tend cattle, depend on them for milk and sustenance, and have retained traditions that seem to belong to another age. Yet, paradoxically, they appear to understand something that our supposedly advanced civilisation often forgets: Nature is not a resource to be consumed; it is a system to be lived within.

Masai Mara

The village itself was fascinating. A circular settlement, protected from predators by a dense perimeter of thorny shrubs, with homes around the outside and cattle occupying the central space. The houses were constructed from soil and cow dung. The village, we were told, eventually moves when termites begin destroying the structures. There was no attempt to make the place look modern for visitors. It was what it was. And then came the most revealing part of our visit.

A Masai elder invited us into his home. We entered through a tiny doorway into a dark, compact space. There was a fireplace for cooking, some firewood, a few simple utensils and a single light bulb powered by a solar panel provided for the village. There were small cots for the children. His bedroom had two tiny windows for ventilation and, remarkably, a little peephole through which one could see the outside world. He jokingly called it his television. I smiled at the simplicity of the joke. But it stayed with me. For us, television means hundreds of channels, streaming platforms and a world delivered instantly into our homes. For him, television was a small opening in a wall through which he could watch life unfold.

Then we heard a frail voice from behind a closed door. It was his elderly mother. She had to be kept inside because, having lost her sense of direction, she would wander away and not know how to return. We left the house quietly. Seven people lived in a space smaller than a room in many of our apartments. There was little comfort, almost no privacy and virtually none of the conveniences we consider essential to modern life. And yet, something troubled me about the easy conclusion that this was simply a primitive way of living.

The Masai knew about our world. Their children went to school, spoke English and understood modern technology.  But they rejected coal because in their own words, it would harm the environment. Perhaps, just perhaps, they were not living in the past. Perhaps they were reminding us of something we had left behind. Progress has given us comfort, convenience and extraordinary choice. But has it given us wisdom?

Standing inside that small Masai home, I wondered whether civilisation should be measured only by how much we accumulate—or by how little we need to live responsibly. The Masai may have much less than us. But perhaps, in one important respect, they have understood much more about life and living.

In musing…..                                                                           Shakti Ghosal

Acknowledgement: Masai Home photos (2) by my friend and fellow traveller Partha Banerjee.

What if…


….. a city allows danger to become normal until tragedy makes it visible.

August 2026

The fire in the Free School street building which housed hotels, offices and homes may have started with a short circuit. But tragedies of this magnitude are rarely caused by a single spark. Nine people died in a building where hotels, offices and homes had somehow learnt to coexist within a maze of cramped spaces, narrow passages and questions about fire safety.

Times Of India report

I kept wondering: who allowed this to become normal? Perhaps that is the more uncomfortable question. A city does not become unsafe in one day. It becomes unsafe one ignored violation at a time. One certificate not checked. One inspection postponed. One illegal alteration overlooked. One warning that nobody thought was urgent. And then, one night, the building catches fire.

We will now demand accountability. There will be investigations, committees, audits and perhaps arrests. All these are surely necessary. But does governance have to begin only after people die? The real test of a city is not how efficiently it rescues people from a burning building. It is whether it had the courage to prevent that building from becoming a death trap in the first place.

As I folded the newspaper, I wondered whether we have become too accustomed to calling preventable tragedies accidents. Perhaps the most important responsibility of governance is not to manage disasters better. It is to make fewer disasters possible.

— Rudra Bose, The Last Writer of Kolkata

When Leaders Rise, do they lose sight of those below?


I happened to read a thought provoking piece on Friedrich Nietzsche and a quote of his in Times of India. It led me to ponder on the Leadership in the Political and Organisational arenas we see today…..

“The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.”

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote these words in 1881. They were never meant to suggest that those who rise are superior to those who remain on the ground. Nietzsche was speaking about perspective—the strange way in which distance changes how we see one another.

But I wonder whether there is another, more uncomfortable lesson hidden in those words for leadership.

Whether in politics or in organisations, leaders often begin their journey with the trust, hopes and aspirations of the very people they lead. Success follows. Power increases. The circle around them becomes smaller, more selective and increasingly insulated.

And something subtle begins to happen.

The leader starts seeing the world from a higher altitude. The people below start seeing a leader who is increasingly distant. This is where the slow deterioration of faith begins.

A view from above

Employees who once felt heard begin to feel ignored. Citizens who once believed begin to question. Honest feedback gets replaced by carefully filtered information. Dissent is interpreted as disloyalty. The leader hears more applause and less truth. Ironically, the higher the leader rises, the greater becomes the need to remain connected to the ground.

Leadership is not merely about vision, achievement or the ability to soar. It is about ensuring that people can still see you, trust you and speak to you when you are up there.

The danger is not success. The danger is success without humility.

Political leaders need to remember that electoral victory is not a permanent certificate of public trust. Corporate leaders need to remember that business success does not automatically translate into employee loyalty. Both are temporary mandates, renewed every day through credibility, fairness and connection.

Perhaps the real test of leadership is therefore not how high we can rise, but how many people we can take with us—and whether, while rising, we remain capable of listening to those who are still on the ground.

Leaders must deliberately create spaces where uncomfortable truths can travel upwards. They must reward candour rather than compliance, dissent rather than sycophancy, and substance rather than applause.

Because once people stop believing that their leader understands them, they may continue to obey.But they stop believing. And when belief disappears, authority may survive for a while.

Leadership does not.

The challenge before every leader, therefore, is simple but profound: **Rise. Achieve. Soar. But never become so distant that the people who helped you rise can no longer reach you.**

In musing…….               Shakti Ghosal

 

When the River Said “Not Yet”


There are some days when nature does not merely show you its beauty. It allows you, for a fleeting moment, to witness its very soul. Today was one such day in the Masai Mara.

We began before sunrise with a hot air balloon ride over the vast Mara savannahs—an experience I shall write about separately. But the real drama of the day was waiting for us at the Mara River, inside the Mara Triangle.

We watched, almost spellbound, as hundreds of wildebeests came thundering down the slopes, accompanied by a sprinkling of zebras. They moved like an army on the march. Then, without hesitation, they plunged into the river.

Continue reading “When the River Said “Not Yet””

Amboselli: Where the Wild still writes it’s Own story….


Amboselli National Park

There are some journeys where you return with photographs. And then there are journeys where you return with a changed sense of perspective. Yesterday was one of those days.

We spent an entire day driving through Amboseli National Park, and for hours the landscape seemed to reinvent itself. One moment, there were vast open plains stretching towards the horizon. Then came a wetland, a cluster of acacia trees, a dusty track disappearing into the distance, or a herd of elephants appearing almost magically against the landscape.

Amboseli is often described as the “home of the African elephant”. It is easy to understand why. We saw elephants in different groups, some quietly grazing, some walking purposefully across the plains, and others simply standing there with that extraordinary, almost contemplative presence that elephants seem to possess.

There were hundreds of zebras and wildebeests, moving across the grasslands in groups that seemed almost endless. Gazelles appeared in the distance, alert and graceful. Giraffes rose above the vegetation like living sentinels. Baboons went about their business with an irreverence that was almost human.

Wilderbeests

And then there were the birds. Some were familiar, others completely new to my eyes. Their colours, shapes and calls added another dimension to the landscape. I came to know that Amboseli is, in fact, an important birding destination, with more than 400 recorded bird species.

What makes this place particularly remarkable is that it is not simply a collection of animals. It is an ecosystem, delicately interconnected through water, grass, wetlands, migration and seasons. We came to know that the seemingly dry landscape also has wetlands and springs fed by water originating from the slopes and underground systems associated with Mount Kilimanjaro. That water sustains an astonishing abundance of life.

And somewhere in the distance, when the clouds allow it, stands Kilimanjaro—Africa’s highest mountain—watching silently over the entire drama.

That contrast stayed with me. A mountain that appears timeless. Animals that seemed to live entirely in the present. And we, the human beings, who spend much of their lives worrying about tomorrow.

For me that seemed to be one of the quiet lessons of yesterday’s safari. The zebra does not know it is part of a magnificent ecosystem. The elephant does not pause to admire the landscape. The giraffe does not contemplate the sunset.They simply live in the here and now. We, on the other hand, are constantly rushing through life while trying to capture it.

Yesterday, sitting in a safari vehicle and watching one landscape after another unfold, I found myself wondering whether wilderness is really about seeing animals. Perhaps it is about seeing ourselves differently.

Amboseli did not need to tell us that life is precious. It simply demonstrated it—silently, continuously, and without asking for our attention. I  only had to be quiet enough to notice.

In musing…..          Shakti Ghosal

What if…


……societies change not because they have become wiser but because they become preoccupied with different anxieties.

August 2026

Nineteen years.  That is long enough for a child to become an adult. It is also long enough for governments to rise and fall. Long enough for a city to forget the sound of its own anger.

The other day, the newspaper told me that Taslima Nasrin has returned to Kolkata after nineteen years. The same city that once burned over her presence now seems to have greeted her mostly with routine, security cordons and a curious indifference.

Talima Nasrin report in the Newspaper

It made me wonder. What has really changed? Did we become more tolerant? Did we finally learn that books and what is written within need not be answered with barricades? Or have we simply acquired newer fears that leave us with less energy for old ones?

Perhaps every generation chooses its own battles. Yesterday it was identity. Today it is jobs, examinations, inflation, technology, security and an uncertain future. The loudest outrage of one decade quietly becomes yesterday’s headline.

As I folded the newspaper, I realised that a mature society is not one where everyone agrees. It is one where disagreement no longer needs to be escorted by violence. If Kolkata has truly changed, the victory does not belong to any government, any ideology or any writer.It belongs to the simple belief that ideas should be answered by better ideas, not by frightened crowds.

That is how civilisation grows—almost unnoticed, one quieter street at a time.

— Rudra Bose, The Last Writer of Kolkata

Nature Never Reads Our Rulebook


A newspaper report I read the other day literally stopped me in my tracks. It spoke about an unexpected consequence of the geopolitical tensions around the Strait of Hormuz. As ships remain berthed for prolonged periods, marine scientists are warning of an increased risk of invasive organisms hitching a ride across oceans, disrupting ecosystems thousands of kilometres away. At first glance, it appeared to be a story about shipping and marine biology. But as I read further, I realised it was really a story about something much larger.

A Times of india report

Nature rarely responds in straight lines. A political conflict can become an environmental risk. A delay in maritime traffic could alter the movement of microscopic life. Human decisions in one corner of the world quietly reshape ecosystems in another.

While writing 2056: The Year of Water and Fire, I had found myself returning repeatedly to this thought. We often imagine climate change as a sequence of visible catastrophes—cyclones, floods, rising seas. Yet the more profound transformations are often quieter. Species migrate. Rivers redraw themselves. New ecological relationships emerge. Life adapts in ways we neither anticipate nor fully understand. Toward the end of the story, after a devastating cyclone had rewritten the geography of the Sundarbans, the first instinct of the survivors was despair. But when the dronobots began mapping the devastation, they uncovered something unexpected. Amid the destruction, nature was already experimenting. Islands were shifting. Mangroves were finding new footholds. Wildlife was adapting. The ecosystem, scarred but alive, was quietly reorganising itself for a different climate. It was neither revenge nor redemption, it was recalibration.

That thought had stayed with me because it challenges one of our deepest assumptions. We often speak of “saving nature,” as though it were a fragile object waiting for human intervention. History suggests something more humbling. Nature has an extraordinary capacity to reinvent itself. It is we who struggle to keep pace with the consequences of that reinvention.

Perhaps the real lesson is this. The future will not unfold as a neat extension of the present. It will emerge through countless interactions we barely notice today—between politics and ecology, technology and biology, human ambition and planetary resilience.

In 2056, Nayanjol, the sentient boat, eventually becomes more than a machine. He becomes a guardian who understands that survival does not lie in resisting nature, but in learning to listen to it.

Maybe that is the question our own times are quietly asking. Not whether nature will adapt. But whether we will.

In musing….. Shakti Ghosal

#ClimateChange #Nature #Resilience #TheLastWriterOfKolkata #2056TheYearOfWaterAndFire #SpeculativeFiction #FutureOfHumanity #Sundarbans #EnvironmentalChange #ShaktiGhosal

What if…


…. we do not really know the people who live beside us?

August 2026

When I was a child, every neighbourhood had an unofficial security system. It was called knowing one another. Your mother knew who lived next door. The grocer knew whose son had returned from college. The postman knew which house had a new baby. The stranger was noticed because everyone else was familiar.

Today we have CCTV cameras, biometric gates, visitor apps, facial recognition and digital identities. Yet we often do not know the person who shares the lift with us.

The newspapers tell us that a young man, described by neighbours as polite and ordinary, is now accused of living a different life of a terrorist behind an ordinary face. If the allegations are proven true, it is a chilling reminder that the greatest disguises are no longer masks. They are routines. Terrorism succeeds long before any explosion. It succeeds the day suspicion replaces trust, when every unfamiliar face begins to look dangerous, and every ordinary neighbour becomes a question mark.

That is precisely why a civilised society must refuse both complacency and paranoia. Security agencies must remain vigilant. Citizens must remain alert. But neither should surrender the humanity that allows communities to exist.

As I folded the newspaper, I wondered whether the greatest security failure of our times is not merely that dangerous people can hide among ordinary citizens. It is that modern life has quietly taught ordinary citizens to live among one another without ever truly knowing those around us. Perhaps the strongest wall against terror is not built of concrete or surveillance. Perhaps it begins when a society rediscovers the forgotten art of being a community.

— Rudra Bose, The Last Writer of Kolkata

#thelastwriterofkolkata, #rudrabose, #shaktighosal, #communitylife

Has Gen Z Become Less Intelligent—Or Are We Measuring Intelligence the Wrong Way?


The recent discussion surrounding the reversal of the Flynn Effect has generated understandable concern. For nearly a century, psychologists observed a remarkable trend: each successive generation appeared to outperform its predecessor on IQ tests. Better nutrition, improved healthcare, expanded education and increasingly complex environments seemed to produce steadily rising cognitive performance.

Now, according to research presented by Dr. Horvath before a Senate Committee in January 2026, that trend appears to have reversed. Generation Z is reportedly the first generation in modern history to register a decline in average IQ compared to those who came before it. Researchers have also noted reductions in reading comprehension, sustained attention and memory performance.

If these findings are robust, they deserve serious attention.

But before concluding that an entire generation has become “less intelligent,” perhaps we should ask a more fundamental question.

What exactly are we measuring?

An IQ test is not a thermometer that measures intelligence in the way a thermometer measures temperature. It evaluates performance across selected cognitive domains—logical reasoning, pattern recognition, verbal comprehension, working memory, processing speed and spatial reasoning. These were chosen because they were believed to predict learning ability, productivity and success in an industrial and later knowledge-based economy.

That assumption itself deserves scrutiny.

Every civilisation defines competence according to the challenges it faces. The skills that made an exceptional engineer in the 1970s (That was my generation!) are not identical to those required of an AI architect today. The competencies that distinguished an outstanding accountant thirty years ago are very different from those needed in an age where algorithms perform much of the routine analytical work.

Perhaps intelligence itself has not declined as much as it has changed its centre of gravity.

Today’s young adults navigate digital ecosystems with remarkable ease. They process multiple streams of information simultaneously, learn unfamiliar software intuitively and adapt rapidly to technological change. These abilities are not trivial. Yet traditional IQ tests may capture only a small part of this emerging cognitive landscape.

This is not an argument for dismissing the reported decline. Reading comprehension, sustained attention and memory remain foundational human capabilities. Civilisations are built upon the ability to think deeply, read patiently, remember accurately and reason independently. If these capacities are genuinely weakening, the consequences could be profound.

But neither should we confuse what is measurable with what is meaningful.

Throughout history, societies have periodically redefined excellence. Education evolved. Work evolved. Technology evolved. It would be surprising if our understanding of intelligence remained frozen in time.

The reversal of the Flynn Effect may therefore be asking us two questions instead of one.

The first is whether some essential cognitive abilities are indeed declining.

The second—and perhaps the more important one—is whether the very framework through which we define and measure human intelligence is keeping pace with a world that is changing faster than at any previous point in history.

The future may not belong to those with the highest IQ as traditionally measured. It may belong to those who combine analytical thinking with creativity, adaptability, emotional intelligence, ethical judgment and the wisdom to know when technology should assist the human mind—and when it should never replace it.

In musing……. Shakti Ghosal

The Invisible Architecture of Success


We often admire people’s discipline, without ever seeing the structures that quietly support it.

Some months back, during my morning walks, I started noticing an elderly gentleman doing his exercises in the central garden of our residential complex.

He was there every day, almost at the same time and doing the same routine. For many mornings, I simply admired his discipline from a distance but one day, curiosity got the better of me. I wished  him ‘Good Morning’ and soon we were sitting on a nearby bench, I remarked, “I see that you have incredible willpower.”

At that, he laughed, “That’s what everyone thinks. But it isn’t really true. Not really.”

As I looked at him, puzzled, he pointed towards his wristwatch, “My alarm rings at five-thirty.”

“So does mine,” I smiled.

He continued, “My walking shoes are beside the bed every night. My exercise clothes are laid out before I go to sleep. My doctor expects to see my blood sugar readings every month. And my granddaughter has made me promise that I’ll be healthy enough to dance at her wedding.”

He paused, “Now tell me… where exactly does willpower come into the story?”

For a few moments, I didn’t have an answer. I seemed to have mistaken discipline for determination. What I was really seeing was structure.

As we got up to walk back to our respective towers, he said something that has stayed with me ever since, “Most people wait to feel motivated. I prefer to prepare my environment.”

That single sentence shifted my perspective. How often do we rely on willpower alone? We promise ourselves we’ll read more, exercise regularly, spend less time on our phones, learn a new skill. In my case, it is even, write that book. In your case, it might be to start that business.

Then, when our enthusiasm fades, we conclude that we lack discipline. Perhaps the problem isn’t our commitment. Perhaps, it’s our architecture. It became increasingly clear to me that our lives are already full of structures. Some quietly support the future we want. Others quietly support the habits we’re trying to leave behind.

Success is rarely built on one heroic act of determination. More often, it is built on dozens of small decisions made long before the moment of action arrives.

Before we parted, I thanked the gentleman for the conversation. He smiled and said, “People spend too much time trying to become stronger. They spend too little time making the path easier.”

As I walked home, I realised that remarkable lives are not held together by extraordinary willpower. They are held together by ordinary structures, repeated with quiet consistency. Perhaps that explains why success often looks effortless from a distance.

We see the destination.We applaud the discipline.But we rarely notice the invisible architecture that made the journey possible. And perhaps that’s the first structure worth building.

In musing…….                           Shakti Ghosal