By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam I discovered my gift for satire entirely by accident, the way most useful things in life are discovered. I wrote something in my college days about a particularly pompous professor who delivered forty-minute lectures on the virtue of brevity. My classmates laughed. The professor did not. I immediately understood that I…

By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam Let me tell you something brutally honest — because that’s my thing and also my curse — being authentic in today’s world is like showing up to a masquerade ball with your actual face. Everyone else is gliding around with their glittering masks, smiling sweetly while mentally calculating how much social…

By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam A friend called last week. He was breathless. Not because of age, but because he had just returned from bungee jumping. He is sixty-two. I made the appropriate sounds of admiration. Inside, I was mostly wondering whether his life insurance was updated. Another friend went surfing in Sri Lanka. A third…

By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam There is a particular kind of madness that grips Indian families when a child announces they have been accepted to a foreign university. It is not the madness of joy, though joy is certainly present. It is the madness of preparation. Within forty-eight hours, the household transforms into a focused logistics…

By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam My friend Ganesh posted an AI-generated presentation about fast fashion killing the planet yesterday on Instagram. Ten slides of curated statistics and moral outrage. I browsed through it at lunch while he sat across from me wearing an expensive hoodie bought last month to replace the one he purchased three months…

By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam There is a particular moment that every South Indian experiences within the first week of arriving in Delhi. It is the moment you confidently order something in Hindi or when the autorickshaw driver stares at you with the kind of pity usually reserved for the terminally confused and then responds in…

When life hands you lemons, they complain about the pulp By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam We all know one. The person who can spot a dark cloud in the middle of a fireworks show. The one who watches a puppy video and wonders why the dog isn’t on a leash. He is ‘The eternal critic.’ That…