Boarders in school are always hungry

 “The 9 O’Clock Knock: Boarding Life, Hunger, and the Art of Finding Food”

Memories from The Bishop’s School, Pune, where boys were always active, always hungry, and somehow always fed

A quarter of a century has passed, but somehow it still feels like yesterday for me.

Those were the days at The Bishop’s School, Pune – the boarding years from the mid-80s through to 2000 – when life on campus moved with a simple, steady rhythm that only really makes sense when you look back.

I stayed in the staff quarters in Lunn Block and later in Simba Block. Both homes were beside the dormitory, with the house door and dormitory door very close to each other, so you were constantly part of what was happening inside. You could see it, hear it, and feel it all the time, and that closeness also meant responsibility never really switched off – discipline, safety, routine, and everything that went on in the dormitory. In both places, I was the dormitory in-charge as well.

In Lunn, the middle school dormitory had around thirty-five to fifty boys, while Simba had a similar number of senior boys. Lunn was younger and more restless, always on the move, while Simba was older and more settled, with head boy, prefects, and senior prefects forming the structure of order and daily life.

Life was always active, with hockey, badminton, volleyball, table tennis, boxing, and football filling the days as boys moved from one game to another with endless energy. Even when formal games ended, that movement never really stopped, as if the day itself was not ready to slow down.

Then night would settle.

And with it came a familiar pattern.

Hunger.

Not something dramatic, just that steady feeling after long days of study, sport, and routine, when supper was done, lights were dim, and yet the day still felt unfinished for many of them.

And then came the knock.

Soft, hesitant, never rushed.

My wife would usually go to the door, and there would be a boy standing there, sometimes alone, sometimes with another, speaking softly: “Ma’am… can I have some coffee or milk?”

Then slowly the rest would come out – bread, butter, eggs, Maggie noodles – simple things, never demanded, just what was needed to get through the night or a long stretch of study.

It became a rhythm, especially during exams, when sleep was pushed late and the dormitory had already gone quiet. The knock would come again and again through those nights, always soft, always familiar.

And somehow, there was always something – bread, butter, a warm drink, an egg quickly made – enough to carry them through the night into morning.

It was never only in our home. Across The Bishop’s School, Pune, in staff quarters close to the dormitories, the same thing happened again and again. Different blocks, different doors, but the same exchanges – the same knock, the same soft voice, the same simple request. It was simply part of boarding life then, unspoken but understood everywhere on campus.

Somehow, we always felt a quiet sympathy for the boarders, because life in a boarding school was never easy. There were cold winter mornings when geysers didn’t work and baths still had to be taken, hot days in dormitories without fans in those years, constant movement between games, study, and routine, and all the small things boys had to manage on their own. Above all, there was the distance from home – for many, just two visits a year, sometimes even less.

Life in boarding was tough, but within that toughness there was something deeply human. Those of us who lived on campus – masters, teachers, and families – shared a close bond with the boys. It was not formal, but lived every day through presence, familiarity, and small acts of care, and over time it became mutual respect and, quietly, affection.

We knew the boys well over the years, many from their earliest days right through to Grade 10. We knew their families, their strengths, their habits – who ran hardest on the field, who lived for hockey or badminton or volleyball, who spent hours at table tennis, who took to boxing with focus, who never missed a football game – and we also knew the steady ones, the restless ones, and those still finding their way.

They grew up in front of us, slowly and without drama, until one day you realised they were no longer children.

Many are still in touch with me, and I have met them in different cities across the world. Each meeting brings those days back for a moment – the dormitories, the fields, the routines, and those quiet evenings – and although time has changed their faces, it has not changed the connection.

Looking back, what remains is not any single moment, but the feeling of it all – the closeness, the shared responsibility, and the everyday humanity of that life.

Simple days. Full days. Real days.

And in those soft knocks on the door, there was a quiet trust that never needed words, and somehow still lingers to this day.

A few Modest Requirements for food bloggers

 

A Few Modest Requirements for Food Bloggers

I've been watching food bloggers for some time now and have concluded that there should be a few minimum qualifications before anyone is allowed near a camera and a plate of food.

1. Have Some Idea How Food Is Cooked

You don't need to be a chef with a Michelin star, but a basic understanding of cooking would help. Anyone who cooks regularly can tell within thirty seconds, whether you know what you're talking about or not.

2. Learn to Pronounce What You're Eating

If there's something on the menu you can't pronounce, look it up. We live in an age where AI can answer almost any question. Surely it can help you not mispronounce the name of the dish you've just ordered.

3. Taste It Before Declaring It Life-Changing

The food arrives. The camera appears. The gasping begins.

"Oh my God!" "Wow!" "Incredible!"

But the fork is still on the table. Please taste it first.

4. Not Every Restaurant Is a Hidden Gem

If it has three branches, valet parking and thousands of online reviews, it is certainly not a hidden gem. Maybe you have just heard about it,

5. Everything Cannot Be the Best

Every burger cannot be the best burger in town. Every dessert cannot be insane. Sometimes food is simply good. Try and be honest – its not too difficult

And finally, remember what you're doing. You're eating a nice burger- that’s it

But it’s still a burger and it’s not going to make a difference to humanity.  

(With apologies to all food bloggers. Well... most food bloggers.)

Do you remember when it rained

 

Do You Remember When It Rained?

A memory of rain across places and time

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As a young child in Allahabad, rain was mostly something to worry about.

It usually began with the sky changing early in the morning—dark clouds gathering low and heavy, making the day feel uncertain before anything had actually happened. I used to go to school by rickshaw, watching the sky and trying to read it.

Because the concern was simple. If it rained, the rickshaw might not come back. If it didn’t, I might be stuck at school. And in childhood thinking, that wasn’t inconvenience—it was being left behind in a large, dark school with no food, no water, and the occasional imagined ghost moving through empty corridors.

Even before the rain came, the sky kept us busy. Clouds became animals, faces, shifting shapes that never stayed still for long. As children, we pointed, argued, corrected each other, watched them form and disappear within minutes. A daily argument with the sky.

Then the rain arrived.

In India, rain did not just fall—it changed the day. When it came heavily, people gathered under trees, bus stops, tin roofs, anywhere with cover. But what stood out was not shelter. It was waiting.

Nobody really left. Minutes stretched without noticing. And waiting became normal.

Even then, nothing really stopped. People kept looking up, reading the sky, offering predictions. Someone said it would pass. Someone disagreed. Someone else studied the clouds as if they knew better. Nobody was certain, but everyone spoke.

In that waiting, strangers became briefly familiar.

Tea and coffee appeared—small, strong cups passed around, heat cutting through the damp air. And then bhajiyas or pakoras.

Potatoes, onions, chillies in spiced gram flour, fried crisp at the edges. Nothing special otherwise. In rain, they felt necessary.

School days had their own rain stories. The “rainy day holiday” was never official—just something that spread faster than fact. You would be on your way when boys cycled back shouting, “It is a holiday!”

And the day split. Turn back and risk being wrong. Continue and risk being alone in school. The ones announcing it always looked pleased, as if they had found a shortcut in the system.

In boarding school in Pune, rain often arrived with returning students—trains, heavy trunks, tired faces—and then, almost immediately, the rain itself. Arriving soaked stays with you longer than the journey: clothes that never fully dry, socks that stay cold, a dampness that seems to settle into the place.

And yet rain was never the same everywhere.

In the UAE, it interrupts rather than disrupts. Children run into it shouting, as if something rare has arrived. Even adults pause longer than they expect to, looking up as rain briefly changes the rhythm of the day.

Of course, here too, rain can become serious. Heavy downpours once turned roads into channels and underpasses into pools, stopping movement in places that usually never stop.

And still, it feels familiar in a way that is hard to explain.

Because somewhere in it is the same moment—standing still, waiting, looking up, not quite sure when it will pass.

The same rain. The same pause. Just different places.

I don't know

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Whatever Happened to “I Don’t Know”?

In a world of instant answers, we may be losing the simplest form of honesty.

“I don’t know” used to be an honest beginning. Today, it feels almost like an awkward pause we rush to fill.

Somewhere between ambition and authority, we quietly pushed “I don’t know” out of our vocabulary. It was once simply honesty. Today, it is often mistaken for hesitation.

As a young teacher at The Bishop’s School, Pune, I first taught Grades 5 and 6. A year later, I moved to Grades 7 and 8, and then, almost without ceremony, straight into Grades 9 and 10—the board classes. I hesitated, not out of reluctance, but from that familiar early-career doubt of whether one is truly ready for what is being asked.

But I took it on.

There was no Google then, no ChatGPT either—only Encyclopedia Britannica and a willingness to learn while teaching. It was a simple rhythm: teach, learn, adjust, and teach again. Slowly, confidence settled. The classroom became familiar, though never entirely predictable.

Then came poetry, Shakespeare, and questions that didn’t always offer neat answers. That is when I realised something simple but important: it is perfectly fine not to know.

If I didn’t understand something, I would tell the class, “I don’t know. Let me find out.” I never felt the need to pretend. The boys were sharp—they would have known anyway. More importantly, honesty mattered more than performance. And strangely, those were often the moments when the classroom felt most real.

Sometimes Britannica helped. Sometimes it didn’t. And when it didn’t, there was Mr Beeman.

Mr Beeman was a retired principal of Sherwood College, Nainital—a man of discipline, precision, and quiet authority. One did not simply walk in and meet him; one asked for time properly, as though stepping into a space where thinking itself had order.

At the appointed hour, I would climb the wooden stairs of Cambridge Block, knock on his door, and wait. He would have just finished corrections or listening to the BBC news, sitting in a short window of quiet.

I would ask my questions—often about poets, authors, or Shakespeare. Sometimes a line that resisted meaning, sometimes the background of a text, sometimes the world behind a word.

“Excuse me, Mr Beeman, I am trying to understand this—could you help me think it through?”

He would listen first—properly listen—and then respond with a clarity and patience that no textbook ever managed to replicate. I would take notes, go back, reflect, and reshape the lesson. The next day, I would walk into class and say, without hesitation, “I checked this with Mr Beeman, and here is what I understand.” No pretence. Just learning.

I still meet some of those boys now—working professionals, many far more worldly than we were then—and we often look back on those school days with fondness, amused at how life has unfolded for all of us.

Over time, I have noticed something subtle in professional life. Language has become more indirect—not to hide meaning, but to manage uncertainty. We “circle back,” “take it offline,” “align internally,” or “park it for now.” We “move things forward,” even when clarity is still forming. None of this is wrong, but it often replaces something simpler: the ability to say we don’t yet know.

This becomes most visible in interviews and professional conversations. Answers are structured and polished, which is important, but even when the question invites uncertainty, people rarely pause to acknowledge it.

Perhaps it is because information is so easily available today that we are expected to always appear prepared. In that process, social pressure quietly makes it harder to simply say, “I don’t know,” even when it would be the most honest response.

And I often wonder how it would land if someone simply said, “Sorry, I don’t know that yet—but I am willing to learn.”

Somewhere along the way, we began to equate certainty with competence—as though doubt weakens capability, instead of being the first stage of understanding.

But in real work—especially in education—certainty is rarely where things begin. It usually comes later, after thinking, trying, and sometimes failing.

It makes you wonder: when was the last time we, as professionals, said quite simply, “I don’t know”?

And when someone younger in a team or classroom says it, how do we receive it? Do we see it as honesty in the process of learning, or do we, even unintentionally, expect a more polished answer?

We rarely notice how quickly certainty gets rewarded—and how quietly openness gets pushed aside.

This matters deeply in schools. Children should feel comfortable saying “I don’t know” without hesitation—not as failure, but as thinking aloud. When received well, it is often the most honest starting point of learning.

Of course, honesty does not need an audience. Learning does not need declarations; it needs space, trust, and patience. Most understanding begins in that quiet space where thinking is still forming, not yet fixed.

Education, at its core, is not only about correct answers. It is about building the confidence to sit with not knowing, without rushing to fill the gap.

Which brings me back to those three words.

“I don’t know.”

Perhaps they have not disappeared. Perhaps they have simply gone quiet—waiting to be welcomed back into classrooms, workplaces, and conversations where they are not judged, but understood.

Because in education and leadership, the goal is not to remove uncertainty.

It is to create environments where it is safe to think, safe to question, and safe to be unfinished.

And sometimes, real learning begins right there—with the courage to simply say:

“I don’t know.”

When did life become a system

When Did Life Become a System?
A reflection on how life quietly moved from being lived to being managed.

I grew up in a rather simple world.

We didn’t call it a system then. In fact, we didn’t call it anything at all. There were no manuals, no frameworks, no structured ideas telling us how life should be lived. Life simply happened, quietly and without explanation, and we moved with it without any fuss.

School was just school—a bell ringing somewhere in the distance, a dusty playground filled with constant movement, classrooms with strict teachers, and a small infirmary, often without a doctor, where you went when you felt unwell. You showed up each day, and the day unfolded on its own. Nothing felt measured or managed; simply being there was enough.

Meals carried the same simplicity. Food was food. Coffee was coffee. Ghee was ghee. Lunch often meant sitting under neem trees or in open courtyards, sharing whatever had been packed from home. It wasn’t an “experience.” It was just lunch. No one spoke about nutrients or balance or protein or fiber . You ate, you were full, and that was that. Health, too, was straightforward. You were either unwell or recovering. Terms like cholesterol or hypertension rarely entered everyday conversation. The same clarity extended to emotions. Stress, sadness, pressure existed, but not as categories to be analyzed. They were felt, not framed. Support came directly—parents or teachers corrected you, sometimes very  firmly, sometimes quietly, with a steady expectation: adjust, continue, try again.

Family life had its own rhythm. Homes were full, noise was constant, play was aplenty  and responsibility was shared without being assigned. Even routines like vaccination were simple—once a year, no reminders, no alerts. Things were done because they had to be done, not because they were scheduled.

The world outside home and school felt equally unlabeled. Environmental change, pollution, melting glaciers—these were not part of everyday vocabulary. Trees were cut, and over time, they grew back. Consequences existed, but they were not organized into systems of thought. Even animals were simply part of life, not part of structured care. Pets lived within homes, not within schedules.

Movement was just movement. Walking to school, cycling through streets, running, jumping ,  climbing stairs, playing until dusk—that was simply how bodies lived. It was not called exercise, and it did not need to be named. Self-care, too, was unstructured. There were no routines built around optimization, no wellness calendars, no quiet pressure to improve the self. Care was practical, not packaged. You lived in your body without constantly observing it through data or devices.

And yet, life was full. People studied, worked, travelled, raised families, fell sick, recovered, argued, laughed, and continued. Life did not need to be explained to function. It simply unfolded.

But over time, something subtle shifted. Life began to be described more than it was lived. Sleep became data. Work became structure. Health became monitoring. Habits became tracking. Even emotions started to be arranged into frameworks designed to make them easier to understand and manage.

Please don’t get me wrong . It’s not that life has become worse but  It has certainly  become much faster, more connected, smarter, more informed, and more efficient—but also more demanding of visibility than human memory can comfortably hold.

Still, a quiet unease remains.

We now measure so much of life that we often experience it in fragments—tracked, labelled, optimized, reviewed—as if living itself feels incomplete without evidence that it was lived properly. And yes we do seem to be living for approval !

So the question lingers: when did our lives  stop being something we simply lived, and start becoming something we constantly managed?

 

When Everything Becomes a Reward

 

On praise, expectation, and what children learn to take for granted

Children do not simply achieve — they announce it.

Yesterday, my granddaughter came running to me, eyes bright, over the moon with pride, holding out two small stickers she had received from her piano teacher. She was ecstatic, and so was I, in that quiet way adults sometimes are when a small moment stays longer than expected.

Now, she is not the next Beethoven — at least not yet.

But that was never the point. In her world, those stickers meant something simple and powerful: she had tried, she had improved, and someone had noticed.

It took me back, quite suddenly, to my own school days at St Joseph’s in Allahabad, where acknowledgement looked very different. There were no stickers or smiley stamps, no colourful charts celebrating small steps. We did not grow up in a culture of frequent rewards. What we did receive, on rare occasions, was a pat on the back from a teacher — brief, understated, and for that very reason, memorable.

What we had instead were coloured report cards. Above 80 per cent meant a pink card: “Very Good.” Between 65 and 80 was blue: “Good.” Between 40 and 65 was yellow: “Fair.” Anything below that was red — the dreaded “Unsatisfactory.” The colours were few, and they were not handed out lightly, which is exactly why they carried weight.

Today, the approach has changed, and rightly so. We now understand far more about confidence, wellbeing, inclusion, and the importance of children feeling seen while they are learning. A well-timed word of encouragement can genuinely shape how a child sees themselves, and most parents and teachers are now far more conscious of that responsibility.

Yet somewhere along the way, something subtle has shifted. Acknowledgement has become more frequent and immediate, and it has begun to lose its sense of distinction. As with many things in life, too much of a good thing can quietly dilute its meaning.

“And when everything is marked, very little feels earned.”

This is where leadership quietly enters — not as instruction or motivation, but in shaping what people come to see as normal. People do not grow only through reassurance; they grow through clear, calm expectations, without too much noise.

Good leaders understand this balance. They know we must be careful with praise and reward — not stingy, but deliberate — so that it remains meaningful rather than routine. They also know when to step back, allowing effort to exist without constantly turning it into acknowledgment.

Because not everything that is done needs to be immediately seen.

Over time, it is rarely what is formally communicated that shapes people most. It is the quieter signals — what is noticed, what is overlooked, and what is allowed to pass without comment. These signals slowly form a person’s understanding of effort, value, and success.

My granddaughter’s joy brought this into focus. The issue is not the stickers themselves. It is what they quietly begin to train us to expect — that effort will always be noticed, and quickly returned.

Once they step out of the cocoon of school, the world feels different. It is less responsive, less generous with feedback, and far more silent than many are prepared for. When that familiar reassurance no longer comes, the reaction is often uneven — frustration for some, and for others a quiet dependence on external validation that no longer arrives so easily.

And perhaps that is the real question. Not whether we should stop acknowledging effort, but whether we are preparing children for a world that constantly marks everything they do — or one that quietly expects them to keep going even when nothing is marked at all.

Because in the end, the most lasting form of approval is not the one that is repeated often, but the one that is earned once — and stays long after the moment has passed.

I am a priority customer

 Priority Banking: A Short Story

“Thank you for your patience. As our priority customer, we are happy to serve you.”

Haven’t we all heard this before—and for a second felt a little elated? Especially the first time we were told we’d been promoted.

I’ve been trying to fix a simple issue with my bank in India for about a month now.

I thought it would be simple. How wrong I was.

It’s a straightforward problem. Nothing complex. The kind of thing you assume gets sorted in a few minutes if someone just looks at it properly.

I’ve mailed. I’ve called. I’ve followed up—again and again.

Every call starts the same way.

First five minutes: card number, account number, date of birth, address, OTP… my entire life story, lightly interrogated and cross-checked. Somewhere in between, they start using my first name too—like we’re old friends catching up instead of going through security clearance.

And while I’m typing all this in, the automated voice just keeps going—calm, robotic, almost indifferent—slowly frying my brain in the background.

I’m going cross-eyed trying to enter everything before the system times out.

I’ve spoken to so many call centre agents across India now that I genuinely worry one day someone will recognise me—by name, account number, or just the sheer frequency of my suffering.

A close friend even tried to help.

He got nowhere.

Quietly. Politely. Efficiently. He did everything right—but it just came back to me and the whole thing started looping again.

And now I’m locked out of my own account, which is where all of this started. I’ve spent hours—days—fretting, fuming, pacing around like I’m negotiating a hostage situation, breathing like that’s somehow going to fix the system.

Then comes the familiar line:

“Thank you for your patience. As our priority customer, we are happy to serve you.”

To be fair, the call centre people are polite. Almost too polite. Always calm, always composed.

They’re somewhere in an office I can’t even place on a map, doing their best inside a system that doesn’t seem very clear even to them.

And that’s the strange part—everything is polite, everything is patient… and nothing really moves.

It’s like watching a very well-dressed orchestra in slow motion, where everyone is smiling and nodding, but somehow playing completely different songs.

And still, they say it again:

“You are a Priority Customer.”

Priority? Seriously ? 

And you just pause at that word.

Because you can’t help wondering—what does non-priority look like?

If this is priority, what on earth is normal service? Smoke signals? Carrier pigeons? A letter that arrives next financial year?

Or maybe the real question is simpler: shouldn’t everyone already be priority if they’re a customer?

Because right now, “priority” doesn’t feel faster. It just feels… nicer words around the same waiting.

Same delays. Same escalations. Same loop. Just better manners.

The issue is still not solved. I’ve been fully verified, repeatedly thanked, reassured, and officially prioritized. And yet, as I finish writing this, I’m told it’s resolved—again as a priority customer.

It hasn’t.

Somewhere in the background, it feels like a bugle is being played off-key—confidently, loud, and completely out of sync with reality.

If everything is a priority, what does priority even mean?