Tag: awareness

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…


…. 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

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

The Future Doesn’t Arrive All at Once


A piece from the Newspaper

When I wrote 2056: The Year of the Water and Fire, I imagined a Bengal where climate change was no longer an environmental issue. It had become a way of life.

This newspaper report made me pause.

It says that Kolkata now loses around 80 hours of sleep every year because of rising night-time temperatures. Think about that for a moment. Climate change is no longer confined to distant glaciers, rising seas or violent cyclones. It is quietly entering our bedrooms, stealing our sleep, affecting our health, our emotions, and perhaps even the way we think.

The future, I have often felt, rarely announces itself dramatically. It arrives in small, almost unnoticed ways.

A warmer night.
A little less sleep.
A little less patience.
A little more fatigue.

Until one day, we realise that what we once called unusual has quietly become normal.

In 2056: The Year of the Water and Fire, I explored what might happen when rising waters, stronger storms and changing climates begin to reshape not just our landscape, but our choices, our communities and our humanity.

Perhaps the greatest lesson is this:

Climate change is no longer about saving the planet. It is about preserving the quality of human life on it.

The Earth will endure.

The question is whether we will learn to adapt before adaptation is forced upon us.

#ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #Kolkata #2056TheYearOfWaterAndFire #TheLastWriterOfKolkata #SpeculativeFiction  #FutureOfHumanity #Sustainability #ThoughtsThatMatter

The Promise We Break Most Often


The strongest form of accountability isn’t to your boss. It’s to yourself.

I still remember a conversation with a young manager many years ago. He had walked into my office carrying a notebook filled with plans.

“I don’t understand myself,” he confided, almost apologetically. “Every New Year I make a list. I promise myself I’ll exercise regularly, read more, spend time with my family, learn a new skill…” He then smiled sheepishly. “By March, I’ve broken most of those promises. Even though I had genuinely meant every word when I wrote those goals.”

I laughed at that. “So have millions of others. Including myself when I was your age.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Tell me,” I asked, “if your Managing Director asked you to submit a report by Monday, would you?  Or if your biggest customer expected you at a meeting at ten o’clock?” Or if your child was waiting for you at the school annual function?”

“Of Course! I would do all of those and on time.”

I smiled, “So you’re very good at keeping promises.”

He looked confused. “No,” he replied. “I just told you I’m terrible at it.”

I reassured him, ” I would say you’re excellent at keeping promises to other people. You just struggle to keep promises to your own self.”

He looked at me for a long moment before quietly admitting, “I’ve never thought about it that way.”

Well to be frank, neither had I, until years earlier when someone had challenged me with the same question. The truth is, most of us don’t lose confidence because we fail. We lose confidence because we repeatedly break our own word.

Every time we say to ourself, ‘I’ll start tomorrow,’ and tomorrow becomes next week… Every time we promise ourselves, we’ll make time for our health, our family, our learning or our dreams… and then quietly move them to the bottom of the list…

Something invisible starts happening. Our self-trust begins to erode. Others may still trust us. Our colleagues may admire our reliability. Our clients may praise our commitment. But somewhere inside, we begin to doubt ourselves. Not because we lack ability. But because we’ve stopped believing our own promises.

I came out of my reverie with a start; my colleague was looking at me thoughtfully. “So, accountability isn’t really about someone checking up on me?” he asked.

I shook my head. “That’s compliance. Accountability is much more personal. It is choosing to become someone whose word matters—even when no one else is listening.”

As he stood up to leave, he closed his notebook and smiled, “I think I’ve been writing goals. What I really needed was to start keeping promises.”

That conversation has stayed with me ever since. The older I grow, the more I realise that confidence is not built through motivational speeches or inspirational books. It is built quietly. One kept promise at a time. Perhaps that is why integrity is such a powerful word. It doesn’t begin with how faithfully we honour our commitments to others. It begins with how faithfully we honour the commitments we make to ourselves.

Because the person listening most carefully to every promise you make… is you.

In musing…..                                            Shakti Ghosal

#accountability, #Integrity, #selfpromise, #goalkeeping

The Most Important Person You’ll Ever Lead


‘Leadership doesn’t begin with managing people. It begins with understanding the person in the mirror.’

I recall a conversation of several years back.

It was late evening and I was preparing to go home. Hearing a knock, I looked up to see a colleague standing outside my glass door, smiling. He was one of the bright managers from our Supply Chains division. As I gestured him to a chair, I sensed something was on his mind. After the usual pleasantries and how things were going at work, I asked what I could do for him.

“Sir, while I seem to be doing okay at work based on the feedback of my Divisional Head, deep down I fear I’m failing as a leader,” he blurted out.

” Hmm! That’s a strong statement,” I replied. “What makes you say that?”

He sighed, “I am trying to be a better leader. I’ve read leadership books. I keep trying new leadership techniques…… but somehow I feel a sense of inadequacy and a lack of being authentic.”

Pondering over what I had just heard, I asked, “When was the last time you studied yourself?”

My colleague frowned. After a few moments he admitted, “I don’t think I ever have.”

“You know,” I said, “most of us believe awareness means noticing what’s happening around us. For instance, the market. Our competitors. Our customers. Our bosses. We become experts at observing everyone else’s behaviour. We know exactly what our colleagues need to improve. We notice the habits holding others back. We can often predict how someone else will react in a meeting. But ask us why we react defensively to criticism… why certain conversations drain our energy… why we repeat the same mistakes… and suddenly the answers become less clear.”

He looked at me for a few moments before replying, “So you’re saying I’ve been looking in the wrong direction?”

“Not the wrong direction. Just one direction.”

Looking out of the window, he said softly, almost to himself, “I’ve been trying to model myself on people I’ve admired.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with admiration,” I said. “The problem begins when admiration turns into imitation. We can borrow someone’s ideas. We can learn from someone’s experience.  But we can never build our leadership by becoming a copy of someone else’s story.”

There was a silence. Then the colleague asked quietly, “So what does awareness really look like?”

I realised that we were now entering the deep end of our conversation. I said, “It is knowing your strengths without becoming arrogant. Recognising your weaknesses without becoming discouraged. Understanding your patterns before they begin to define you.”

I concluded by saying, “It is having the courage to ask not, ‘How do I become like them?’ but ‘Who am I becoming?’“

As my colleague got up to leave, he paused at the door and said, “I’ve spent years trying to improve my leadership. Perhaps I should spend more time understanding the leader.”

The conversation stayed with me. The older I grow, the more I realise that personal growth rarely begins with learning something new. More often, it begins with seeing ourselves a little more clearly.

Self-awareness is perhaps the only mirror that becomes clearer the longer we are willing to look into it. Leadership is not the journey from ignorance to knowledge. It is the journey from unconsciousness to awareness. Because the greatest breakthroughs in life seldom come from changing who we are. They come from discovering who we have been all along. Perhaps the most important meeting you will ever have is not with your team, your boss, or your client. It is the quiet conversation you have with yourself.

Is that meeting long overdue?

Reflections…..                                 Shakti Ghosal

Proud to be Middle Class Indian


There is a particular species of Indian that flourished magnificently in the decades before online shopping, food delivery apps and children who believe Wi-Fi is a fundamental human right. I refer, of course, to the Indian middle class, of which I remain a reasonably well-preserved but vanishing specimen.

We grew up in households where economy was not merely a virtue; it was a performing art.

My earliest lessons in finance came from my parents. Nothing was ever thrown away if it still possessed even a faint pulse of usefulness. Plastic bags were washed and dried like delicate garments. Glass jars enjoyed a second career storing everything from spices to mysterious screws. A rubber band could expect a working life longer than that of many government administrations.

Food was treated with similar reverence. I learnt from my mother at a young age that leaving rice on one’s plate was considered a moral lapse bordering on criminal behaviour. Leftovers were not leftovers. They were tomorrow’s menu opportunity. Last night’s dal would return disguised as parathas. Yesterday’s vegetables would reappear as a perfectly respectable breakfast. In our kitchen, nothing retired. Everything was merely transferred to another department.

Clothes followed a similarly circular economy. My elder cousin’s shirts descended upon me in stages. By the time they reached my wardrobe, they had acquired wisdom, faded dignity and collars that had survived several rounds of repair. I never considered this unusual. The idea that some children received brand-new clothes simply because they had grown seemed extravagantly aristocratic.

School textbooks were inherited too. I recall books arriving complete with underlined passages, examination tips and occasional sketches that transformed national leaders into members of a travelling circus. Education was affordable because the same books appeared to educate multiple generations.

Then there was transport. A Tonga ride cost four annas. Four annas! I had been made to believe that such a sum spent without caution could destabilise our home economy, especially during the last week of the month. Consequently, we walked. Distances that modern people would consider suitable for expedition permits were covered cheerfully on foot. If a destination could be reached in forty minutes, spending four annas to arrive in ten was regarded as reckless financial behaviour.

And bicycles! Every middle-class household seemed to possess an ancient bicycle that had belonged to an uncle, a grandfather or possibly a forgotten Mughal emperor. We too had one and it lay peacefully in the courtyard for years until the day I had become old enough to learn cycling. The relic was resurrected, repaired and polished. Following instructions from elders, I climbed aboard with great optimism and immediately fell off. I was told that this trial process needed to be repeated until either I learned to ride or the bicycle surrendered.

Birthdays were modest affairs. A new shirt. A special meal. But what I would look forward to were the gifts of the ludo and the Chinese checker sets. I remember the occasion when I received the princely sum of a ten-rupee note from my uncle, surely during one of his generous and careless moments. That ten-rupee note was treated with the seriousness of an international investment portfolio. Weeks of deliberation preceded expenditure. For me, the pleasure lay not in buying, but in deciding.

Electricity was another matter. Leaving a fan running in an empty room could summon my father from astonishing distances. He possessed an almost supernatural ability to detect unnecessary power consumption. Lights were switched off with military precision. Water taps were closed firmly. Waste was viewed as a personal insult to future generations.

Looking back, none of this felt like hardship. We never considered ourselves deprived. We simply lived with the understanding that money was earned with effort, resources were finite and contentment did not depend on owning the latest thing.

Even today, I cannot throw away a half-used notebook. I switch off lights in hotel rooms. I feel guilty wasting food. Somewhere inside me lives that middle-class boy, still walking to save four annas and still trying to balance himself on an ancient bicycle. And truth be told, I am rather fond of him. For he grew up learning a lesson that seems increasingly rare: happiness is not about how much you have. It is about how little you need.

In Musing……                                                           Shakti Ghosal

What If…….?


I recall a conversation from many years back. During an overseas visit, I was having coffee with a colleague and I found him looking frustrated and confused.

He pushed aside his tray and said, “I don’t get it. We’ve analysed the issue of increasing our business share from this market from every angle. We’ve got the data, the reports, the projections. Yet we seem to be still stuck.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” I replied.

He looked at me, uncertainty writ on his face, “How can having more data be the problem?”

“Because sometimes,” I said, “we can become so busy looking for the right answer that we stop looking for other possibilities.”

He smiled politely—the kind of smile people give when they think you have said something impractical, “So what’s the alternative? Ignore the facts?”

“Not at all. Facts matter. But facts tell us what is. Creativity asks what could be.” That seemed to catch his attention. I related a story.

“In the 1970s, a scientist at 3M was trying to create a super-strong adhesive. The adhesive was weak. By conventional standards, the experiment was a disappointment. It seemed a failure. That’s exactly how most people saw it. But years later, someone else looked at the same ‘failed’ adhesive and saw a different possibility. The result was the Post-it Note.”

My colleague laughed, “So one of the world’s most successful office products began as a mistake?”

“Or perhaps,” I said, “it began as a possibility that nobody had noticed yet.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then he said something interesting.

“You know, in our meetings we’re always asking, ‘Will this work?’ Maybe we should first ask, ‘What else could this become?'”

Now we were getting somewhere. The truth is that most organisations reward certainty. We admire people who have answers. We celebrate expertise. We fill spreadsheets, analyse trends and minimise risks. All these are important. But the future is rarely created by these certain aspects alone. It is often created by someone willing to explore a possibility that doesn’t yet fit neatly into a presentation slide.

The more we talked, the more I realised that creativity is not about being artistic. It is not about painting, music or design. Possibilities which flow out of a creative mindset is the courage to see beyond the obvious. It is the willingness to ask a different question. It is the ability to sit with uncertainty long enough for a new idea to emerge.

Before we left, my colleague said, “Maybe we’ve been trying too hard to find the right path.”

“Perhaps,” I replied. “Sometimes the breakthrough comes when you stop looking for the path and start exploring the landscape.”

A few days later he called, “We’ve found a completely different solution. We stopped trying to prove what was possible and started imagining it. Imagining the end goal, without getting enmeshed with how to make that happen, allowed new possibilities to show up.”

That conversation stayed with me. Because in a world overflowing with information, knowledge is no longer the rarest resource. Possibility is. And every great innovation, every breakthrough and every new beginning starts with a simple question:

“What if……..?”

In Musing…….                                                                       Shakti Ghosal

The Day Strength chose Silence


I paused when I saw this photograph.

A tiger—nature’s embodiment of power—lying quietly on the face of the Buddha. What struck me was not the contrast, but the harmony.

As we grow older, many of us spend years trying to get rid of our inner tiger. Our anger. Our ambition. Our ego. Our restlessness needs to prove ourselves. But perhaps wisdom is not about killing the tiger.Perhaps it is about teaching it to rest.

The tiger is still there. The strength is still there. The fire is still there. But it no longer needs to bare its teeth at every passing challenge.

I have met people who were gentle because they were weak. And I have met a few who were gentle because they were strong enough to choose peace.The second kind are rare.

Looking at this image, I was reminded that the real journey is not from power to powerlessness. It is from power to self-mastery.

When the tiger learns to rest, the Buddha smiles.

In musing……         Shakti Ghosal

Releasing Judgment- a conversation from the past


Over coffee during an office one to one meeting, a colleague—let’s call him Arvind—looked visibly irritated.

“Honestly,” he said, stirring his coffee with unnecessary force, “I don’t understand how some people get promoted. That guy in Operations is always late, misses details, and somehow everyone thinks he’s brilliant.”

I smiled. “That sounds less like an observation and more like a verdict.”

He laughed. “Come on. I’m just being realistic.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe you’re being human.”

He looked at me curiously.

I asked, “Have you noticed what happens when we judge someone?”

“What?”

“We stop being curious.”

I could immediately see that my words had landed and Arvind had a thoughtful expression. I continued.

“When we label someone—lazy, incompetent, arrogant, unprofessional—we close the case in our minds. We allow no appeal, no fresh evidence and no deeper inquiry.”

Arvind leaned back slowly, “So you’re saying judgment is wrong?”

“N, I would not say that. I think discernment is necessary as Leaders must make decisions. But judgment—the kind that quietly declares I understand this person completely, and I know why they are wrong—that’s something else.”

I could sense that Arvind was listening now. I probed, “Think about the last time someone judged you. You probably didn’t feel inspired. You felt defensive. That’s because judgment rarely creates dialogue. It creates distance.”

After a pause, he said, “But what if I’m right?”

I laughed and said, “Even if you are right, judgment often makes the other person stop listening. The issue is not factual accuracy. It’s emotional impact.”

He went quiet.

Then I asked, “Suppose his lateness isn’t carelessness. Suppose he’s caring for an ill parent. Suppose he works differently. Suppose the brilliance others see is something you haven’t yet noticed.”

“You’re asking me to assume the best?”

“No. I’m asking you to remain open.”

Another silence. Then he said softly, “So where does judgment come from?”

That was the real question. “Sometimes,” I said, “from our own insecurity. Comparison is judgment in formal clothes. When we are fully at peace with ourselves, we spend less energy measuring others.”

“That’s uncomfortable.”

“Growth usually is.”

As we got up to leave, he said, “You know, I was actually upset because I thought I deserved that recognition.”

There it was. It was Hurt masquerading as Anger. It was not superiority, it was vulnerability.

And that’s the thing about judgment. It often enters wearing the mask of certainty, when what’s really underneath is something unresolved within us.

Since that conversation, I’ve been asking myself a different question—not ‘What’s wrong with that person?’ but ‘What story am I telling myself about them—and why?’

Judgment may be instinctive. But awareness is a choice. And perhaps leadership begins there.

In musing……                                                                                                                Shakti Ghosal