Why do we educate ourselves? The broad answers are all future oriented, with the prime one being that we need to make a living. We live for earning a salary that can be spent on our supermarket binges. And what happens to that shopping a few weeks later – most of it lands up in … Read more

Am recording a very interesting conversation that happened on the IIM Calcutta Pune Alums group in Sep 2023. Disclaimer – my contribution to this conversation was zero. But I liked it enough to paste all of that together and mark it for future use by putting it in a blog post. Thanks to 15 of … Read more

Peepal Tree School organised a chai pe charcha on ‘Understanding Diabetes ‘ on 17-Dec-23. The keynote speaker was Dr Subodh Pandit, a surgeon who ran his own hospital in Devlali, Nasik for 30 years. Dr Pandit believes that healthcare’s real role is in prevention, not cure. Vegan breakfast of poha, sprouts, fruits and green tea … Read more

Arun Sharma started off as a farmer. His first three years of farming saw three droughts and his crops failing. His next venture was a brick kiln. The years that he ran the kiln, it rained like crazy and his bricks got regularly washed away. To compound matters, there was a strike at cement factories. … Read more

Businesses seem to be following a 20:80 rule in the lockdown. It takes a lockdown to realise that my business of education has always been a non-essential service!! Businesses that are essential report a 80% drop in business. The funny thing is that medical services, though declared essential, are not as essential as you thought … Read more

Not many of those who know Sachanand D will associate him with religion. But for many years, in the peak of winter, Sacha takes a 10 day holiday. He travels to the hills of Uttarakhand, sans his laptop and mobile phone. The laptop gets replaced by a kamandal – as Sacha lives the life of … Read more

Good doctors believe that an annual health check up is a must, not just for patients, but for doctors themselves. All of us know this, the problem always lies in compliance and systems. Was chatting over dinner with Tanmay Panchbhai, who is a lung replacement specialist in the US. To quote: ‘Systems is a defining … Read more

My daughter’s classmate at college quit midway to join NDA. At 6 ft 7 inch, he was someone that the entire batch at NDA had to look up to. Incidentally, he was not eligible to become an IAF pilot, as there are minimum and maximum height norms based on a fighter jet cockpit ergonomics. One … Read more

YK Hamied is the Managing Chairman of Cipla, a company that has made its name in the low cost AIDS treatment for poor countries. During his travel in South Africa, Hamied came across the Lung Institute at the University of Cape Town, an institute doing stellar work in the field of pulmonary health for Africa. … Read more

Read ‘The Story of My Life – My Experiments with Truth’ by MK Gandhi. When you read the autobiography of a person who is exactly 100 years your senior, it makes for interesting comparison. Gandhi was born in 1869, yours truly in 1969. As I type this out, Gandhi was starting on his experiments in … Read more