All the random thoughts

“I took care of you,” I said, voice thick with betrayal. “Met your every demand all these years. And yet, all I get in return is certain death — and the looming possibility of disease. You are the greatest traitor.” “Death is my destiny,” the body replied calmly. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know that. As for disease — that’s your doing. Not mine” “My doing? I fed you the best. Gave you not just water, but every drink you desired. Took you to places of beauty, treated you to the grandest of dramas and music. Weren’t these your demands? How did they become my deeds?” “When did I ever ask for those? I asked for little food when hungry, water when thirsty, rest when tired. That’s all. You — you — piled on the rest. Desires I never uttered, and yet bore in silence, because you’re the master. So yes — disease is just another name for your deeds.” “Traitor! Isn’t the mind a part of you? It was the mind that led me, suggested what to do, what to offer. I stressed myself to ensure you...

Purely seen from the eyes of an average Indian family, the H1B visa has always been a paradox — a blessing on paper, but in reality, often a home breaker. For decades, young Indian students have set their sights on American colleges. Many of them were not toppers or prodigies; they were ordinary students from middle-class families, often going to colleges that were also, by every measure, quite ordinary. Yet, the dream was never about the degree itself — it was about what came after. The H1B. The golden ticket. The promise of a well-paying job, the allure of the dollar-rupee differential, the belief that those borrowed lakhs of rupees could be repaid with ease once America opened its doors. Parents signed loan documents with trembling hands, mortgaging futures for the possibility of a brighter one. Mothers filled suitcases with masalas and memories. Fathers stood silently at airport gates, calculating silently when the first repayment installment might get covered. The gamble was alway...

I drove to the ashram with a restless mind. The road was quiet, but my thoughts were anything but.   “AI will take away all the jobs and make human lives miserable,” I kept telling myself. It had been years since I last saw the Guru, yet today I needed his clarity more than ever. When I arrived, he greeted me with a gentle smile.  “So, what troubles you?” he asked. “Artificial Intelligence—these new Large Language Models. They are mechanizing everything. People will lose jobs, livelihoods will vanish. How will humanity survive?” He raised an eyebrow. “My job too?” “Perhaps,” I said, half in jest. “The way these models structure language, they might even replace you.” The Guru chuckled softly. “Well, I don’t have a job. And I don’t need one. Look around—what do you see?” I glanced at the humble ashram: a clay pot of water, a few mats spread on the floor. Nothing more.  “Nothing of significance,” I replied. “So,” he said, “you do the same. If machines are taking...

The Guru was seated at his usual place. The Ashram was empty for a change. I walked in straight, without having to wait for a short darshan. "You seem to be in a hurry," the Guru smiled. "Not really. But I am a little agitated. You see, after that post on LLM, people started calling me a very good writer and even a philosopher." "Is that bad news?" "Indeed it is. Now I feel the pressure to keep up with that reputation. It’s as if I must churn out something deeply insightful every other day. I’m not that smart—I know it. But how do I keep looking smart? That’s stressful." "No one gives two hoots about who you are. They liked your post and said something nice. That’s it. The matter ends there." The Guru had this effortless way of grounding people. "I give more than two hoots about who I am," I blurted, my foolishness refusing to bend to his simple reasoning. "See this picture?" The Guru held up an ordinary ...