Hmmm...

Rajesh was never a man who wanted too much from life. He had a good corporate job, a decent salary, a house on EMI, a car that ran well enough, and a wife he loved. He was the kind of person who could sit with a cup of tea on a Sunday evening and genuinely feel happy. Not because life was perfect, but because he never measured happiness through bigger houses or bigger designations. Radha was different. Not wrong. Just different. She was ambitious. Very ambitious. For her, life was about growth. Growth meant moving forward. More money. More responsibility. More recognition. More success. She wasn't particular about how it came. A promotion. A business. A side hustle. An investment. Anything was fine as long as she was moving ahead. Many people would say opposites attract. Maybe they do. Because somehow their marriage worked. Like most corporate couples, weekdays belonged to office calls and deadlines. Weekends belonged to restaurants, movies, family visits, and the occasional holida...

And Srikanth died. It was nothing major. Just a simple heart attack. One minute he was arguing with the cable operator over a bill of ₹143. The next minute he was standing in front of a giant gate wondering what had happened.   Now Srikanth was not a bad person. He believed in good deeds. He donated clothes. Fed stray dogs. Helped neighbours. Attended weddings even when he didn't want to. And most importantly, he firmly believed all this good karma would one day earn him a direct ticket to heaven.   His image of heaven was very clear. Everybody would wear white. Soft music would play all day. The weather would be pleasant. Food would be unlimited. No traffic. No bills. No politics. No relatives. And definitely no housing society meetings.   At the entrance, an officer opened his file. Looked at it. Looked at Srikanth. Stamped it. "Approved." "That's it?" asked Srikanth. "No interview?" ...

Ramesh was 48 years old, happily married, had two children, a stable job, a growing belly, and enough WhatsApp groups to keep him busy till retirement. Life was busy. Office calls started before breakfast and ended after dinner. Friends had slowly disappeared into family responsibilities, children's education, loans, health issues and endless WhatsApp groups where nobody actually talked. Ramesh was always a balanced person. He was not loud with his opinions. If somebody gave a foolish suggestion, he would simply smile and move on. No arguments. No debates. No proving a point. He was also reasonably logical. Not perfect. There was a time when he bought a bright beach shirt because he liked it and proudly wore it to a formal dinner. His wife Radha laughed. His children laughed. Even the waiter looked confused. The photographs still existed. But over the years he had become more careful. More thoughtful. Every major purchase involved research. Every investment involved reading...

Of late, after moving to Kerala, I have been getting a lot of calls and messages. Not just from friends, but from their friends, and sometimes even from people I have never met. And almost every conversation starts the same way. “We are planning a Kerala trip for 4–5 days… can you help us cover it properly?” Then comes the list. Munnar, backwaters, Guruvayur, Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Wayanad… and if possible, a beach also. On paper, it sounds perfect. In reality, that is exactly where the trip starts going wrong. Because Kerala is not a place you “cover”. It is not one destination that you tick off and move on. It is a collection of very different experiences, each one asking for its own time. I have been travelling across the south for years now, and even today I feel like I have not “covered” it. In fact, I still find myself wanting to go back to that one small village, or that random stretch of road, or that quiet corner which is not even on a tourist map. That is the thing about Ker...

I have always been telling my kids something, and honestly I am still figuring it out myself. Business success is not just about how intelligent you are. It has a lot to do with the environment you grow up in, the conversations you hear at home, and the way you are taught to look at money, risk, and people from a very young age. Over the years, through work and personal interactions, I have had the chance to observe people from different business communities. Jain, Marwari, Gujarati, Kulkarni, Reddy. Different languages, different regions, different lifestyles on the outside. But when you sit with them, watch how they think, how they take decisions, how they talk about money, you start seeing a strange similarity. It is not about the community. It is about a mindset that gets built slowly over years and then passed on without even being formally taught. I remember sitting with one such businessman. Nothing fancy. Simple office. Old furniture. But the clarity with which he spoke about c...

 The other day I was invited to a college to speak about career opportunities. The room was full of young faces. BCom, BA, BBA, MA, LLB. Sharp minds. Curious eyes. Students who had done everything the system told them to do. Study well. Pass exams. Get a degree. They asked me just one question. What job will we get? And how much will we be paid.? That question stayed with me long after the session ended. Because I know the real answer. Most of them will start with inside sales. Customer support. BPO night shifts. Tele calling. Back office processing. Academic counselling with targets. Data entry. Sales Executives. Some will move to gig work when this burns them out. All this after spending years in classrooms. And lakhs on education. Take home salary. Somewhere between 20000 and 30000.That too in cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai or Pune. Now do the real math. Shared room rent. Food. Transport. Phone bill. Basic life. What remains is not saving...