Colonel's Random Thoughts

The Great Illusion of Wealth There is a scene in Margin Call that stays with you long after the film ends. I am appending below a few relevant excerpts of a monologue, at a crucial juncture, from an important character from the film named John Tuld. ...."It's just money; it's made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat.  It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different today than it's ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987-  Jesus, didn't that fuck up me up good-92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over; we can't help ourselves.  And you and I can't control it, or stop it, or even slow it.  Or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot money if we get it right.  And we get left by the side of the side of the road if we get it wrong.  And there have always been a...

Neha Bora: The Making of a New Student Leader There are moments when a young political figure ceases to be merely an activist and begins to become a symbol. Neha Bora appears to be approaching such a moment. Whether she ultimately becomes a lasting force in Indian public life or remains a powerful chapter in the country’s current student ferment is too early to say. But her significant rise to prominence deserves both attention, and adulation. The temptation to call Bora this generation’s Bhagat Singh & Rani Laxmi Bai rolled into one is understandable. Like the two revolutionary icons, she has chosen confrontation over quiet accommodation, public protest over private complaint and conviction over convenience. Yet history should resist easy comparisons. Bhagat Singh and Rani Laxmi Bai belong to a particular revolutionary age, and Bora belongs to a fiercely different democratic India. The comparison is useful only as a metaphor for youthful courage, not as a declaration of hist...

The Moments I Wish I Could Keep Forever There are moments in life I would give almost anything to live again.  Not to change them. Not to make them better. Just to feel them once more: a voice I have not heard in years, a hand I once held, a laugh that filled a room, a face that meant home.  Perhaps that is why American singer-songwriter Jim Croce’s 1972 song "Time in a Bottle" has touched something deep within me. I will take a minute to narrate the tragedy of Jim. His story and the conception of the lyrics, makes this song even more priceless.  In 1971, Jim Croce, a Philadelphia native who struggled through multiple blue-collar jobs to support his singing and family, wrote the haunting melody and words for the classic “Time in a Bottle ” a chartbusting song when his wife Ingrid had informed him that she was pregnant with their unborn son, AJ - Adrian James. And l ess than two years later, Jim Croce’s life was tragically cut short by a plane crash at the age ...

The Currency of a Life At this stage of my life, I sometimes find myself looking backwards, not with regret, but with a strange sense of wonder. Sixty years have passed almost imperceptibly. I can still remember the boy I was, the uncomplicated happiness of childhood, the restless dreams of college, the urgency of beginning a career, the responsibilities of work, the arrival of marriage and family, and the years that followed, filled with duties, journeys, friendships, triumphs and disappointments. When I look back now, I realise something I could never have understood when I was young: we spend our entire lives exchanging time for things, without always asking whether the things are worth the time. That is why Haruki Murakami's words have stayed with me: “Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.” As a child, I possessed very little money, yet somehow had an abundance of what I now recognise as priceless wealth: time. ...

Indian Democracy Needs More Ritikas! Because democracy is not protected merely by casting a vote. It is protected by the institutions that safeguard that vote, by journalists who scrutinise those institutions, and by citizens who refuse to look away when legitimate questions arise. An Election Commission must be trusted not because it demands trust, but because its actions can withstand scrutiny. A government must be accountable not because it claims to be, but because democratic institutions and a free press can question it without fear. That is why investigative journalism matters. The ballot gives citizens power. Journalism helps ensure that power is not quietly taken away from them. And when questions arise about the integrity of the electoral process, the answer cannot be silence, political defensiveness or partisan accusation. The answer must be evidence, transparency, independent scrutiny and accountability. That is the republic's insurance poli...

Before the Sun Rises Without Us One morning, you will wake up for the last time.  You will not know it is the last. You will make your coffee, reach for your phone, get dressed and begin another ordinary day. You may drive to work, answer calls, sit at your usual place at the dining table, laugh with your family, kiss your children, watch a movie and make plans for next week.  Nothing will announce that this is a moment you should remember forever. That is the strange condition of being human: we are given no calendar for the moments that matter most.  We do not know the date we will arrive in this world, nor the hour we will leave it. Between those two unknown points lies an astonishing interval called a lifetime. It may be twenty years. Forty. Sixty. Eighty. Perhaps a hundred.  We simply do not know.  Yet we live as though tomorrow has signed a contract with us.  We make plans. We postpone things. We tell ourselves there will be time later. La...