The crows group

 Which groups on Facebook am I part of? 

Well… apparently, 12,000-strong Crow Lovers is now one of them. Yes, really. Twelve thousand people who wake up thinking about crows, talk about crows, and even debate whether shiny objects count as currency.

 And here I am—a former principal, seasoned educational professional, TED talker, newspaper columnist, part-time musician, and leadership coach—suddenly navigating crow diplomacy with equal parts caution and curiosity. My wife would make a far more natural member; she already feeds a few crows daily. Me? I’ve tried a handful of times… only to hear cawing and feel a crow—or two—swoop down and send me sprinting for cover. Rookie status, confirmed.

Of course, this is alongside other groups I belong to: cat lovers, guitar and musical instrument enthusiasts, old school Bishop’s alumni, and hometown communities. Each one opens a window into a world I love—music, memories, and a sense of place that runs deeper than timelines and feeds.

And yet, the crow group has me hooked. There’s a quiet thrill in realizing the world doesn’t always demand charts, KPIs, or PowerPoints—sometimes it asks for patience, attention, and humility. I’ve discovered a community that studies these birds meticulously, leaves breadcrumbs with care, and respects their intelligence. I tried again last week, cautiously holding out a handful of seeds… and for a fleeting moment, I think one crow acknowledged me. Almost accepted. 

Almost. 

Believe me, read the stories, and you’ll see how extraordinarily intelligent and loyal crows can be. It’s a sharp reminder that learning—even from creatures we usually overlook—can be surprising, humbling, and unexpectedly rewarding.

 

What Regret Can You Live With?

I’m not a natural risk-taker. I like stability, predictability, the comfort of knowing what comes next. Nor am I a purist or rigid conformist — I bend, negotiate, and adapt.

And yet, life has pushed me to crossroads that changed me. Moments where every choice felt like a gamble, where hesitation carried its own cost, and stepping forward meant leaving almost everything familiar behind. Choices that shook me, demanded more courage than I thought I had, and left me different.

Yes, there were moments of fear — anxiety, palpitations, even tears. But I rode the storms. I’m no superman, far from it, but courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s moving forward while your heart races, while doubt shouts, while nothing feels certain.

Some time ago, someone sent me an article about Søren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish philosopher. He suggested that whatever you choose, you’ll regret it: marry — regret, don’t marry — regret, leap — regret, wait — regret, stay — regret, let go — regret. Some form of regret seems to follow every choice.

At first, I thought it was bleak. Life seemed like a string of impossible choices, each shadowed by doubt. I lingered on the roads I didn’t take and the steps I hesitated to make.

Then I remembered Robert Frost and his famous poem The Road Not Taken. Two paths diverge in a wood, and we must choose one. The path we walk becomes real — messy, stubborn, imperfect. The one we didn’t take? Perfect only in memory and imagination.

That tension is the human condition. That is what it feels like to choose. And then it struck me: perhaps Kierkegaard wasn’t being pessimistic. Perhaps he was being honest.

Regret is part of life. There is no perfect decision. No step that leaves every door open. The real question is not how to avoid regret — it is which regret you are willing to carry.

I’ve faced that question twice in my professional life. First when I left Allahabad for Pune, and later when I moved from Pune to the UAE. Both decisions carried risk, and both carried quiet regret at the time. What if it doesn’t work out? What if I’ve taken a step backward?

Yet both moves proved right. They pushed me farther than I imagined. They reshaped my life. Sometimes stepping into the unknown is the only way forward. Yes, a step back is always possible. But a step forward can carry you miles beyond what you imagined.

Every yes closes doors — but every yes also opens thousands more.

I’ve seen this truth beyond my own choices: married people pretending they’re happy, bachelors quietly aching, leaders agonising over strategy, executives second-guessing every hire. The pattern is the same: all choices carry regret.

Human beings are terrible at choosing if we expect perfect clarity. But we can be remarkably good at choosing the regret we are willing to live with. That is courage. That is freedom.

Regret born from fear lingers. Regret born from courage settles. One shrinks you. The other deepens you.

Leadership, in the end, is not about avoiding regret. It is about asking one simple but uncomfortable question: which regret can I carry and still respect myself?

Can I live with the regret of trying and failing? Or will I struggle more with the regret of never stepping in? Because not choosing is also a choice — and it has its own cost.

When the season ends, and every season eventually does, what version of you will you respect more — the one who protected comfort, or the one who protected conviction?

The perfect choice never existed. The perfect road never existed. All that truly exists is the courage to say yes anyway — and the regret you are willing to live with.

Every yes closes doors. But every yes also opens worlds you could never have seen from where you once stood. You cannot see them all. You cannot guarantee success. But stepping forward — fully aware of risk and regret — is what moves life, leadership, and the self from something small and safe to something real, alive, and unforgettable.

The Chair I always choose

 

The Chair I Always Choose

Leadership, perspective, and the quiet geometry of where we sit

Have you ever noticed how you always gravitate toward the same chair — at home, in an office, or even at a friend’s dinner table? I do. Not because it is more comfortable or assigned to me. It simply feels right.

From that spot, I can often see the doorway, read faces as they enter, and catch subtle gestures before conversation begins — who moves toward whom, who hesitates, who seeks approval. Sometimes I face the door, sometimes another angle, but the view always reveals what the room is quietly saying. Those first moments often tell more than any agenda ever will.

Humans are creatures of habit, but those habits are rarely random. They trace the contours of personality — unintentional, yet deliberate — carrying a quiet signature of self.

Even as a child in our parish church, I noticed how certain pews became quietly claimed. The same people sat in the same places week after week. Over time, those seats felt theirs alone — not by rule, but by habit. I have tried to do the same myself, not always successfully, but often enough to notice the rhythm of the room and how small habits shape interaction.

For that reason, I don’t much enjoy fixed-seating invitations. They go against my grain. Sometimes necessary, perhaps, but a table arranged by expectation can limit the view — literally and figuratively.

This pattern repeats everywhere — offices, meeting rooms, even living rooms. Rooms settle long before discussion begins. Confidence announces itself in posture. Hesitation lingers at the threshold. Choosing a seat thoughtfully lets me read that choreography, to catch the unspoken currents before they are spoken aloud.

Where we sit shapes what we see. From one angle, fluent speakers dominate. From another, you notice the pauses, the ideas almost spoken, the quiet energy in the room. Position is a subtle editor, shaping what reaches us — and what remains unseen.

The most perceptive leaders I have observed are deliberate about their vantage point. Occasionally, they shift position — not as theatre, not to signal humility, but to see differently. From a different seat, new intelligence surfaces. Unspoken concerns emerge. Influence redistributes. Attention deepens. Understanding grows. Trust builds.

I still choose the seat I feel best in — often facing the door, sometimes at another angle. Of course, I don’t always get it right — some days the chair that felt perfect somehow feels completely wrong. I like to imagine the room quietly judging me as I fumble to settle.

But leadership is not only about a strong vantage point. It is about knowing when to adjust it.

Sometimes, the smallest shift — a different chair, a slightly altered angle — can reveal what was always there but unseen.

The room does not change. Only your perspective does. Sometimes, the right view is just one chair away.

What colour ink do you use

 What Color Ink Do You Use?

A journey through color, choices, conformity — and one unforgettable purple suit.

When we were children, life came in boxes of crayons — usually Camlin Camel crayons, or Luxor if your parents were feeling indulgent (and willing to spend a little extra). Twelve if your parents were practical. Twenty-four if they were generous. Forty-eight if they believed you had artistic potential.

You started by colouring a ball or a large flower — maybe red, maybe yellow, maybe a mix of both. Then came the sky, which didn’t have to be blue, and the tree, which didn’t have to be green. You experimented, blended, smudged, erased, tried again. Sometimes the grass was purple, the sun streaked with orange and pink, the clouds wearing every colour in the box. You coloured in the lines. You coloured outside the lines. You mixed shades that weren’t on the label. You did what looked good to you. Nobody complained. In fact, they called it creativity.

For me, there was a twist I didn’t fully realize until I became a teacher. I am partially color blind. One day, someone handed me a test from a book — one of those “spot the bird or the numbers hidden in a tree full of leaves” exercises. I looked… and saw nothing. The numbers, the bird — they vanished into a jumble of green, brown, and other colors I couldn’t separate. Only later did I understand why blue and purple, yellow and orange, green and brown were always tricky for me.

So my artwork was… imaginative. Yet art is subjective, I suppose, and I always scored high — like everyone else in the class. Ta da.

I drew purple skies. Gave men red shoes. Painted trees that could not decide what season they were in. My cats may have been magenta — though I still have no clue what color that actually is. My world was an odd, vibrant place, and it was mine.

Maps came later — with colored pencils. Sea blue. Mountains brown. Geography survived even when art wandered. Somehow, order and imagination found a way to coexist.

Then came HB pencils. In school, they were for notes, sketches, and tests — some schoolmates were artists in miniature, shading and blending as if each page were a canvas. And of course, they came in all sorts: 1 HB, 2 HB, each with its own personality, its own purpose. In college, pencils gave way to ballpoint pens.

Pens multiplied. Blue for homework, black for tests, red for corrections — though rarely your own. Plastic ink fillers replaced the old fountain pens, but mischief remained: boys borrowing ink from one tip to another, leaky pens ruining shirts, smudged exercise notes, ruined test papers — and, of course, the occasional splash of ink across a friend’s desk or uniform. Colour became functional, efficient… and slightly chaotic.

And then there was the wedding suit. I was instructed to buy a deep blue suit. My wife wasn’t supposed to see it — it was meant to be a surprise. So there I was, shopping alone, scanning racks, and finally choosing what I thought was the perfect deep blue suit length. Before the shopkeeper cut the material, I asked him to confirm the color, pretending I knew my blues. Only then did I realize it was… purple. Deep, rich purple. I nearly surprised the entire world instead! Can you imagine me walking down the aisle in that? My wife, her family, my friends — they would have died laughing. I would never have lived it down. A lifetime of “remember the purple suit?” jokes.

Years after I had joined the workforce as a teacher, I was appointed principal. One day, a colleague asked me very seriously, “What color ink do you use?”

“Black,” I said.

He looked concerned. “But you are the principal. You should be different. You should use green.”

Green! Apparently teachers used red to correct and blue to write. Some used black and blue. But I, by virtue of my position, was expected to express individuality through green ink.

I declined. Quietly. Permanently. Leadership, I felt, should not depend on stationery.

My driving eye test was another story. Those coloured dot plates are not designed for people like me. I saw numbers that weren’t there and missed the ones that were. My overall vision is great, so it was never a problem. The examiner finally said, “As long as you can tell red from green, you’re fine.” I passed, and I still consider it a small personal victory — a reminder that rules sometimes bend for reality, and clarity often lies in what matters most.

And yet, at the heart of it all, the real question remains: what color ink do you choose to write your life with?

Black feels firm. Clear. Final.

Blue feels personal. Friendly.

Red — even when used gently — looks like trouble.

Green? I am still not sure. Individuality? Rebellion? Or just a colleague’s enthusiasm from thirty years ago?

We begin with crayons, every color at our fingertips and no instructions. We grow into pens, each color assigned a function, every choice carefully defined. We navigate the world balancing freedom with expectation, whimsy with responsibility.

Somewhere along the way, we stop colouring outside the lines.

Yet I suspect the child who mixed shades in the Camlin Camel or Luxor crayon box is still around. He appears when I sign my name, when I almost buy a purple suit, when someone suggests I should be using green ink because I am the principal.

So when someone asks, “What color ink do you use?”, remember this: it is never really about ink. Life offers countless colors, countless choices, and endless reasons to pick one over another. Some choices are ours, born from who we are; some are shaped by tradition, expectation, or the world around us. Every line we draw — every decision we make — asks the same question: whose choice is it? Ours? Or someone else’s? And the quiet courage lies in choosing the shade that feels true, even if it is unexpected, imperfect, or entirely our own.

The Bishop's School, Pune 

The Bishop's School Alumni Association 

ALLAHABAD CIVIL LINES  NOSTALGIC MEMORIES

Linkedin

 It's about LinkedIn 

It begins with a ping.

A connection request from someone you have never met, never heard of, and are reasonably certain has never crossed your professional orbit.

No mutual connections.

No shared institutions.

No obvious reason.

No clue why.

You accept—because you are polite or just in a good mood. 

Two minutes later, the message arrives.

> So amazing to see you here!!!

Here?

I have been here for years. 

Next line:

> Heard great things about you. Truly inspirational!

From whom?

My barber?

The tailor who spoilt my suit? 

Ali my Gardner? 

The gentleman who once watched me battle a malfunctioning laptop?

Then, without warning, the conversation turns deeply personal:

> How’s life been treating you? All good? 

We have not exchanged a hello and already we are reviewing my life and being supportive ? 

Then the fan moment:

> Big fan of your work. Way to go. 

Which work?

My annual appraisals? 

The articles on my cat ? 

My ability to locate the mute button before speaking?

And finally, the blessing:

> You do an amazing job. Keep it up Mr Michael !

Keep what up?

Functioning?

And get my name right. Michael is my first name.

I glance at the profile.

No posts.

No activity.

One inspirational quote 2 years ago about  success being a journey! 

There is something impressive about the confidence—

the warmth of a long-lost classmate,

the familiarity of a family friend,

the enthusiasm of someone who has absolutely no idea who you are.

It is networking as performance.

A friendly monologue delivered to a stranger.

And it always arrives before you set off for work.

A Morning with Elvis

 

Here’s 

---

A Morning with Elvis at Dubai Mall

At 9:30 a.m., in a washroom at Dubai Mall, Elvis Presley smiled at me.

Yes — that Elvis.

I realise how that sounds, which is why I hesitated to write it.

I have been an Elvis fan all my life — not casually. I have read the biographies, listened to the recordings, argued about Vegas versus the Comeback Special. In Allahabad, I played rhythm guitar and sang Jailhouse Rock and Hound Dog. We played at all the big dances and clubs, and for those few minutes on stage we believed — completely — that rock ’n’ roll had arrived.

I had just stepped out of a stall, humming Can’t Help Falling in Love. The hand dryer roared behind me, warm air carrying the faint scent of citrus soap.

He stood beside me at the sink.

Tall. Slightly stooped. Balding at the back. Jeans. A blazer with quiet authority.

Another man waited near the entrance, watchful in a way that suggested he was not there for the soap.

The gentleman next to me washed his hands slowly, removed his mask, and looked up.

Time stretched.

The cheekbones. The curl of the lip. That half-smile that once travelled across continents faster than radio waves. Age had softened the frame, but the expression was unmistakable.

He splashed water on his face, met my eyes in the mirror, and smiled. Not broadly. Just a small, knowing smile that seemed to say: Yes, I know the song.

No one else noticed. The world carried on with complete indifference to history at the sink.

In that instant the past returned — the cracked microphone, the nervous energy of youth, the first chord ringing out to a room full of strangers who suddenly mattered. I thought of an elderly Elvis devotee I know in Pune whose room is a shrine of vinyl. I thought of how music travels — Memphis to Allahabad to Dubai — ignoring geography, obeying only memory.

He adjusted his blazer, nodded, put his mask back on, and walked out, the watchful companion falling into step beside him. My hands were still damp; I realised I had been holding my breath.

Outside, the morning bustle of Dubai Mall resumed — shoppers, coffee cups, children negotiating for ice cream. I followed at a respectful distance, purely in the interests of historical verification.

He entered the Gucci store.

A few minutes later he emerged with a sleek bag, as one does when one is the King.

Then a black limousine appeared at the curb with cinematic timing. He slid into the back seat, the door closed, and the car moved off with the smooth inevitability of legend.

At that exact moment I remembered — it was Elvis’s birthday.

Of course it was.

Just like that, he vanished into Dubai traffic, leaving me grinning like a teenager who had just played his first successful gig.

Will anyone believe this? Almost certainly not. But some encounters are not about proof; they are about recognition — a shared note across time.

And yes — Gucci bag, black limousine, birthday and all — it was Elvis.

---

IN A NOISY WORLD, SILENCE HAS ITS OWN AUTHORITY

 

Mastering the Quiet Power of Choice

It’s 6 a.m., and the day is just awakening. You glance at the clock as your morning begins, only to find your phone has already buzzed five times, breakfast lies untouched, and your focus becoming elusive. Before long, your morning is being commandeered by someone seeking your attention, and you find yourself explaining why they think you ignored a message or misunderstood a point—all while they grin as if they’ve just won Wimbledon.

One moment, you’re tying your shoelaces or centering your thoughts for the day; the next, you’re drawn into conversations that aren’t urgent, group chats that never end, or emails that could have easily  waited. Without so much as a ‘by your leave’ , your energy is gone, leaving you drained. Experience shows that those who chase constant approval rarely lead, while the quiet observer often holds far more influence. Attention is precious, and some people have a subtle way of taking it without asking, leaving everyone exhausted. Every argument, clarification, or justification exacts a cost in energy that seldom returns. You should not attempt to be the center of attention, the class clown, or the people-pleaser to get ahead; true influence comes from restraint and deliberate engagement.

The answer is deceptively simple: ignore, don’t explain, don’t justify, and let your energy return. Arguments are treadmills we never signed up for, and some people thrive on friction—don’t feed it. Save your energy for what truly matters: finishing a project that has meaning for you, making your coffee strong enough to survive Monday, or simply reflecting quietly without interruption. Notice how a single uninterrupted hour can feel more productive than half a day spent reacting to others.

Being selective changes the dynamic. The more available you are, the less impact you have. Speak deliberately, nod when needed, and let your words carry weight. Choosing when to step back builds quiet self-respect. If no one validates you, move forward anyway—and occasionally acknowledge yourself. It counts more than you think. In these small pauses, the deliberate decision not to react, we discover a sense of calm authority and discernment that cannot be challenged externally.

Think of it this way: be more like cats, less like dogs. Dogs chase everything, barking for attention, eager to please, while cats decide when they appear, when they care, and when they walk away—leaving everyone guessing. Be the cat in every conversation: deliberate in presence, selective in affection, and unhurried in retreat. Let others chase shadows if they will—close the app, mute the thread, and watch the world continue without you.

Stop replying immediately. Take a nap, read a book, or scroll through something light—your life goes on. Respond only when it truly matters, and let your silence speak. People will notice, perhaps even smile at your calm composure. Over time, you begin to notice how much lighter your days feel when you choose your attention meticulously.

The first time you try this, it can feel awkward. People will lean in, trying to pull you into drama—and that is fine. It is your quiet reset from approval, from being liked, and from thinking every misunderstanding is your responsibility. Once you move past it, silence becomes your loudest statement. Actions speak far louder than explanations.

And it’s quietly amusing watching people scramble when you go silent—like serving decaf when someone expected espresso. You learn that not every ping requires a response and not every comment deserves energy.

In today’s world, attention is under constant pull: family groups, friends, classmates, colleagues—even well-meaning pals. Some messages are urgent, some are not—but all chip away at focus. I remain fully engaged at work and in life; what has changed is how deliberately I engage. I read meticulously, respond thoughtfully, and let the rest wait. It does not slow life down—it brings clarity. In the quiet pause between messages, in the spaces we refuse to fill with reaction, we find perspective, understanding, and, surprisingly, control.

Tonight, skip a ping, leave a thread unread, and simply watch how things unfold. Step back, stop chasing, stop clarifying, and stop giving your energy away unnecessarily. Let outcomes speak for themselves, and allow people to rise to meet you—or quietly fade into the background. Guard your focus, spend it wisely, and let the rest take care of itself.

That is the art of ignoring—and the quiet authority it brings. Remember, it is not about shutting the world out; it is about choosing when to step in and where to invest your energy. That subtle discipline is where real influence lives.