Category: Human Nature

Nora Ephron, Carl Bernstein and the Sleepless Art of Love


Carl Bernstein and Nora Ephron were the ultimate US media couple in the seventies.

He was the celebrated Washington Post investigative journalist who, with Bob Woodward, helped unravel Watergate and bring down a presidency. She was the sharp, witty writer who would eventually become one of Hollywood’s most distinctive voices.

Then came the irony. Bernstein, a man famous for uncovering other people’s secrets, had a secret of his own. Ephron discovered his affair while pregnant with their second child.

Years later in 1993 , something extraordinary happened. Nora Ephron made Sleepless in Seattle.

At its heart, the film is almost absurdly simple. A widower in Seattle. A lonely journalist in Baltimore. A radio confession overheard by millions. Two people who have never met, yet somehow begin to feel that they are meant for each other. The audience knows what the characters don’t. They belong together. And that creates the delicious torture of the film.

You keep waiting for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan to meet. They don’t. Not at the airport. Not on the phone. Not through the countless near-misses.

They finally meet only in the closing moments, on the observation deck of the Empire State Building — after the audience has spent nearly the entire film longing for a meeting that the protagonists themselves cannot quite make happen. The film deliberately draws on An Affair to Remember, whose romantic mythology is woven into its story.

And perhaps that is why Sleepless in Seattle feels more poignant than the average romantic comedy. It is not really about falling in love. It is about longing for the possibility of love. About believing that somewhere, somehow, there may still be a person who will understand you.

I sometimes wonder whether, after what happened with Bernstein, some part of Ephron understood that longing differently. Not necessarily autobiographically. Not as confession. But perhaps emotionally. She had experienced the collapse of a relationship she had believed in. And now she was creating a story in which two people, separated by geography, circumstance and fear, somehow find their way towards each other.

The irony is almost too perfect. Bernstein’s betrayal had given Ephron a story about a marriage ending. Sleepless in Seattle gave the world a story about the possibility of love beginning. Because sometimes the most moving love stories are not about the people who are together. They are about the people who are still searching.

And sometimes, the writer who has known heartbreak is the one who knows exactly how much the audience wants to believe in a happy ending.

In musing……. Shakti Ghosal

P.S. ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ is now playing on Netflix but leaving on 30th September 2026. I watched it last night.

THE UMBRELLA THAT NEVER FOLDED


Today is my Ma’s first death anniversary. She left us last year, at the beginning of her 93rd year.

Since yesterday, memories of her have been coming back—not as one coherent story, but as fragments of a life. Faces, places, gestures, little acts of love. And somewhere between those memories, I have been trying to understand what my Ma really meant to me.

She was born in Kolkata in 1933. The fifth child and third daughter in a conservative Bengali family, she never went to school. In those days, boys went to school; girls stayed at home and were educated within the family. Perhaps that is why it is strangely ironic that she became one of the greatest teachers of my life. She was nicknamed ‘Chaini’—’unwanted’. Yet the small girl who was given that name grew up to be sharp, intuitive, positive and remarkably resilient. She inherited her father’s deep faith and took naturally to religious rituals.

Ma… before her marriage

At nineteen, she was married to my father, thirteen years her senior, and left Kolkata for a distant Delhi—trustingly holding the hand of a man who was, in many ways, still a stranger to her. And then she did what she seemed to do throughout her life. She adapted. She learnt a new language, a new city, new customs, new people and a completely different social environment. And over the next six decades, she built a home and a family there. For my father, for my brother and me, for all of us.

Ma as a new bride
Ma with her first born- Me!

Ma had an extraordinary ‘can do’ spirit. Problems were meant to be dealt with, not worried about. Her positivity was infectious. Looking back, I realise how much of that quality I have inherited from her. She was our protective umbrella. And I remember the small things beneath that umbrella. The fresh orange juice she would get for me every afternoon from the neighbourhood juice shop. Her familiar assurance—“All will be well”—whenever I was feeling low or disheartened. Her cooking my favourite dishes when I returned home from the hostel. The countless little acts of care which, at the time, seemed so ordinary that I never stopped to think that they were, in fact, expressions of an extraordinary love.

Ma at home…
Ma with her family

Memories have a strange way of returning when someone is no longer there. And with them comes a painful realisation. I provided for her needs and comforts as she grew older. But did I give her enough of myself? Enough time, enough companionship? Enough of the simple presence that a mother perhaps seeks from her son as the years advance? I don’t think I did. Life became busy. Work, responsibilities, my own family, the endless hurry of everyday existence. And somewhere in that hurry, I perhaps forgot that while I was moving forward with my life, my mother’s world had gradually become smaller. Yet, even then, she never complained. Even till her last days, whenever I asked her how she was feeling, her instinct was to reassure me. As if even at the end, she did not want to burden her son with her troubles.

That was Ma. The umbrella remained open. Till the very end. There was one ritual that stayed with us almost till her last day. In the evening, when I went to sit with her for a while, she would blow her conch shell. That sound has stayed somewhere deep inside me.

Today, a year after she left, I sometimes imagine that she has finally met Bapi, my father, again. Thirty-two years after his departure. I imagine the two of them sitting together somewhere, having a cup of tea after such a long separation. And perhaps, every now and then, looking down at me. I don’t know whether there is such a place. But I like to believe there is. Because some bonds are perhaps not broken by death they simply become invisible.

A quintessential mother……

My Ma came into this world as a little girl called ‘unwanted’. She left it having spent ninety-two years giving love, strength and blessings to everyone around her. And perhaps that is the deepest irony of her life.

Today, I don’t mourn only the mother I lost. I would like to celebrate the woman she was. And I remain deeply conscious of the greatest blessing she left me— a lifetime spent under an umbrella of unconditional love. Ma, the umbrella may no longer be visible. But I still feel its shade. And I always will. ❤️

In musing……. Shakti Ghosal

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

 

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

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

What if…


……when a generation no longer asks for privilege, but for credibility.

July 2026

A few mornings back I learnt that an entire movement has chosen to call itself the ‘Cockroach Janta Party’. I smiled. Not because the name is amusing. But because history has always had an odd habit of allowing the insulted to reclaim the insult. (I recall many years back, the Chai-wallah epithet had provided a positive momentum to Prime Minister Modi’s persona)

There was a time when young people marched carrying flags. Today they march carrying memes. Yesterday’s slogans have become today’s hashtags.

Yet beneath the humour, I hear something painfully familiar. It is not anger; it is disappointment.

Every generation believes the next examination will open the next door. When that examination itself becomes the subject of doubt, it is not merely a paper that leaks. Trust does.

The young are often accused of being impatient. Perhaps they are. But there are few things more dangerous than asking an entire generation to wait while uncertainty becomes a way of life.

Governments may negotiate. Oppositions may protest. Television studios will certainly debate. But none of them can afford to overlook the quiet question echoing through millions of homes, ‘If merit itself begins to look negotiable, what exactly are young people expected to believe in?’

As I folded the newspaper, I realised that the greatest examination before our nation is no longer the one written by students. It is the one our institutions are writing every day. And unlike the students, they will not be judged by the answers they give. They will be judged by the trust they restore.

— Rudra Bose,
The Last Writer of Kolkata

#WhatIfWithRudraBose #RudraBose #TheLastWriterOfKolkata #ShaktiGhosal #PoliticsAndSociety #Democracy #Justice #HumanNature #ReflectiveWriting #WritersOfInstagram