“What the pupil must learn, if he learns anything at all, is that the world will do most of the work for you, provided you cooperate with it by identifying how it really works and aligning with those realities. If we do not let the world teach us, it teaches us a lesson.”

Joseph Tussman

Upon the Threshold of Spring: Reflections from Mid-February, 2016

It was but the second week of February in Bangalore, and yet the air, which once had compelled us to seek refuge in our warmest woollens, now bore an almost insolent warmth. A silent evidence, perhaps, to the casual desecration we have inflicted upon our long-suffering Earth. I found myself stepping into the plush elevator reserved for the city’s more eminent guests at Windmills Craftworks, accompanied by a dear friend. With a quiet press of the button, we ascended towards the brewery. It was then, in that most liminal of spaces—between floors and intentions—that my eyes were arrested by a poster bearing the likeness of a guitarist.

Later that evening, amidst the gentle hum of conversation and the clink of cutlery, I sipped a chilled craft beer—its bitterness delightfully softened by the richness of well-spiced kebabs. In an idle moment, the image of the musician returned unbidden to my mind. I searched for him online, found his name—Maneli Jamal—and, compelled by an instinct I could not quite name, sent him a brief message. By the following day, an earnest and gracious reply had found its way to my inbox.

Without delay, I rang the manager of Windmills—an old acquaintance who had, over the years, extended more invitations than I had ever returned. With a mixture of surprise and gladness, he assured me a table for the coming week’s performance. His astonishment was not unwarranted, for I had long been known to politely decline such engagements. The idea of blending into a crowd had, to me, always seemed oddly dissonant. If I had wished to hear a musician’s voice, I thought it no extravagant conceit to ask for a private performance, where spirit could speak to spirit without the interference of a thousand rustling programmes and wine-fuelled whispers.

A few evenings hence, over dinner, I informed the same friend—he who had accompanied me on the day of that first accidental discovery—that we would be returning to Windmills for the performance. I had, with due presumption, included his name on the guest list. He smiled and nodded, as if I had merely fulfilled a prophecy. “I knew you would,” he said.

Mildly intrigued, I asked what had led him to such a confident expectation, especially given my long-standing disinterest in communal festivities. “You leaned closer to the poster,” he replied simply, “and if that were not curious enough, you lingered—just a moment longer than one does for mere decoration.”

“Are you implying,” I began, raising an eyebrow, “that never before have I studied a poster with such peculiar intensity?”

He chuckled and gave a small shake of the head. “Something changes in you when you perceive a soul you recognise—whether or not you’ve ever met.”

I paused, fork in hand, unsure whether to rebuke him or thank him. “That is quite the assertion.”

He only smiled, stabbing a sliver of chicken breast with quiet satisfaction. “Delicious,” he said—not, I think, only about the food.

I mirrored the action, chewing thoughtfully. He was not wrong. There is—how shall I name it?—a vibration in the air, a shifting of the soul’s weather, when one’s path is about to cross that of an allied spirit. Call it energy, or the design of nature, or—if you are inclined to such language—a celestial arrangement. Destiny, as Shakespeare wrote, may indeed render us players upon a stage, but some encounters feel less like scripted scenes and more like homecomings.

The eyes of a person, even glimpsed in ink upon a poster, can beckon with a familiarity beyond explanation. And I have found, through some quiet prudence, that each time I have dared to follow that strange tug of the heart, I have never been met with regret—only with connection, and the quiet, unfolding miracle of tribe.

On Wheels and Whims: A Recollection of the Motorcar Affair

The keys to the motorcar were placed in my hand with a certain reverence, as though I were being entrusted not merely with a vehicle, but with the emblems of some fabled knighthood. And indeed, it was no ordinary carriage, but the very sort that a cinematic James Bond might commandeer—sleek, composed, and altogether too confident of its own charm.

I drove it home through the lanes I had traversed a thousand times before, parked it in the garage beside the potted plants and stray cricket bats, and returned to the quiet rhythm of the day. There was no celestial fanfare, no sudden realignment of the cosmos—only the kettle boiling, the emails piling, and life proceeding as it ever had. That evening, like the one before and likely the one to follow, folded itself into the ordinary.

The next morning at the gym, however, the atmosphere was charged with a curious electricity. Word of my acquisition had spread like fire through dry bracken, and several companions—whose regard I never quite learned to take seriously nor lightly—gathered around with wide grins and theatrical disbelief.

“One of those?” one of them exclaimed, scarcely believing his own eyes. “You’ve got yourself the sort of machine men dream of, and then wake up disappointed!”

I smiled, unsure whether to laugh or apologise, and offered—perhaps too sincerely—to let them take it for a spin. “Drive it,” I said, “until you own one of your own.” It was the kind of invitation one makes when one hopes to quiet envy with generosity.

At this, a chap from the weights section let out a derisive chuckle. “We weren’t all born with silver spoons, you know—no, wait, in your case, make that platinum!”

I felt the heat rise to my ears and rolled my eyes—not in disdain, but in that peculiar mixture of amusement and discomfort that often accompanies misplaced assumptions. For heaven knew, and I along with it, that my life followed a pattern as reliable as a train schedule—hardly the wild improvisation others seemed to imagine. My days moved forward on rails laid long ago by effort, discipline, and—if I may be permitted a whisper of honesty—more monotony than miracle.

What puzzled me most was not the jest itself, but the unspoken conviction behind it—that wealth, or style, or access to such a car, implied a life of effortless privilege. As though grace had selected me arbitrarily, bestowing favour without my having so much as lifted a finger. Yet I have found that envy often sees only the fruit and never the root—only the gleam and not the grind beneath it.

In truth, the possession of fine things brings with it less transformation than we suppose. A new car does not alter the contours of one’s solitude, nor does it renovate the soul. One remains—blessedly or regrettably—the same creature within, albeit now accompanied by the soft purr of German engineering.

Thirty Days Hence: On the Ownership of a Motorcar and the Subtleties Therein

My old professor had turned ninety-four. A sprightly soul wrapped in a time-worn frame, he had, over the decades, grown less cautious with words and more extravagant with truth. I arrived at his home that evening with a modest offering—one bottle of fine whisky, one cake, and no small measure of reverence.

The professor welcomed me with a grin that still bore the mischief of his undergraduate years. He remained, against all medical expectation, a devotee of both tobacco and spirit—consuming, with almost religious regularity, a packet of cigarettes and half a bottle of anything that bore the faintest trace of alcohol. His lungs, it seemed, had either made a secret pact with mortality or forgotten to die altogether.

We had barely exchanged the expected pleasantries when he turned, eyes twinkling with familiar insolence, and struck me with the force of his candour:

“Tell me,” he barked, “are you still letting that cold, insufferable machine sit on your lap top—or have you, at last, got yourself a woman to warm that which hangs between your laps?”

I burst into laughter, startled as always by the brute force with which he dragged one into honesty. He had never been one to polish his sentences for comfort.

He leaned back, exhaling a cloud of smoke that coiled like a grey ribbon above his head. “I am truly alarmed,” he declared, “by your ability to live a life so tediously routine, so lamentably beige! One must taste new cuisines, break bread with one’s comrades, and—yes—shag every beautiful creature willing along the way!”

I smiled, unmoved by the extremity of his counsel, and offered to take him for a spin in my new motorcar. His gaze floated toward the window, toward the driveway where the Aston Martin gleamed under the dying sun.

“If you keep running after cars,” he said with a snort, “you’ll find the women are always running away from you.”

“I thought they chased men with cars,” I said, playing along.

“Ah, those women!” he laughed. “Yes, the superficial ones do. But the real ones? They don’t want bank accounts or bulges or horsepower. They want this—” and he tapped his temple, “—a man who can make her feel on top of the world, not with his wallet, but with his verses and his hands.”

I bowed my head in mock humility, acknowledging his irreverent wisdom.

“We shall return to the matter of your boring ways later,” he said with a wink, “for now, let us drink.” He motioned toward the side table, where three glasses of whisky already stood waiting—such was his foresight.

I sank into the embrace of a rattan chair, circling my fingers around the rim of the stubby glass, when his voice rose again, cheerful but suddenly intent: “Tell me—have you ever waited for something?”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, uncertain if I had heard him correctly.

“Let me rephrase it,” he said, lifting his glass to his lips, “has there ever been a time in your life when you couldn’t have what you wanted? When desire had to sit with longing for a while—like a letter sealed but undelivered?”

I grinned. “Not that I recall, sir. No.”

He leaned forward and produced a box of cigarettes. We lit one each, and as the smoke curled into the dimming air, he gestured toward my wrist.

“What make is that watch you are wearing?”

I looked down. “A family heirloom. My grandfather gave it to my mother, and she passed it on to me.”

“May I?” he asked, extending a frail but steady hand.

Reluctantly, I held it out. “Patek Philippe,” he murmured, the name rich with history and suggestion. My cheeks warmed as I withdrew my hand, knowing well what this revelation would incite.

“And how did you feel,” he asked, pausing for effect, “when you bought your Aston Martin?”

The room fell still.

I searched within, as one gropes in the dark for something they suspect should be there. I found no fireworks, no exaltation—only the vague memory of a transaction completed, a door closed, an engine started. The car had been beautiful, yes—but in the way a sculpture is beautiful: admired, not felt.

“I’m not sure I felt anything,” I admitted.

He nodded, as if this confirmed something grave he had long suspected.

“There it is,” he said. “Such and such a wristwatch. Such and such a car. Such and such a suit. Such and such a city to live in. And then what?”

I shrugged, the universal sign of one who has run out of vocabulary.

“You see, my dear man,” he said gently, “you do not yet know the flavour of true joy.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“A man from the middle class,” he continued, “cannot walk into a store and buy what he wants. He dreams. He delays. He sacrifices. He waits. And when, at last, he lays hands upon the thing once held only in imagination, it is not merely possession—it is triumph. The joy of having earned what one once only hoped for is a joy that cannot be replicated by mere acquisition.”

He paused to sip his whisky and took a long draw from his cigarette. The room settled into a respectful silence, as though even the furniture understood the weight of his words.

“Not that—” I began, but he cut me off with a wave.

“No. You were searching for a word that never arrived,” he said, “and that is exactly my point. You aristocrats—you men who were born at the summit—are alike. You have tasted everything and savoured nothing. The world is yours, and so it means very little. Unless, of course, you plan to develop real estate on Mars or buy the rings of Saturn, but even those would soon become dull, I imagine.”

I knew he was being theatrical—age had granted him not only wisdom but the license to perform it—but I also knew he was right. There was a truth, bitter and unadorned, in what he said. I could not remember a single moment in my life wherein I had truly waited for something— truly hungered and ached and hoped. What I wanted came to me at my will and at my whim, and perhaps that was the very reason why nothing ever felt quite like a gift.

As February Fades: A Meditation at Winter’s Close

I happened upon a recording one evening—no more than a few minutes in length—yet possessed of a weight that would sit with me long after the screen dimmed. It was Maneli speaking, though not as one lectures or performs, but as one who invites you to the secret places of his soul. He spoke of music, but not merely as a succession of notes arranged to please the ear; he spoke of it as a map of memory, of suffering, of fleeting joys and stubborn hopes. His album, The LAMAJ Project—an inversion of JAMAL, his father’s name—was more than a clever turn of typography. Each track bore the name of a moment; each title was a gravestone or a garden, dedicated to someone or something that had shaped his inner life.

He recalled how, by the time he had turned eighteen, he had lived in five countries. How his father, once an outspoken critic of the political regime in Iran, had been imprisoned and tortured. And still, he smiled. Not a performative smile, but one born of defiance against despair. There was nothing of bitterness in his speech, no sermon of grievance—only the quiet music of someone who had suffered deeply and emerged with gentleness intact.

When we met, the thread of that online testimony unravelled further into something sincere and vivid. Over coffee and laughter, he told me how he once asked his parents why he was born in Belarus, and how they had teased him with a shrug: “You, my boy, were a happy accident.” Maneli, ever the incandescent spirit, took their humour and ran with it. He chuckled as he recounted the comparison—how so many wonderful things in this world came into being not by design, but by sheer, glorious mischance: penicillin, popcorn, the microwave, and even LSD. “If that’s the company I keep,” he winked, “I’ll wear the label of accident with pride.”

Then his tone shifted, softened. He told me of Miguel, a friend from Mexico. They had played together, laughed together, perhaps even dreamed together. A week later, Miguel was gone. The track El Cielo en Zihua was his musical elegy. Then came the story of how his family had been given a month to leave the United States. They had to sell everything, discard everything, abandon everything. And when it was done, when the goodbyes had been said and the house emptied, Maneli walked out into an unknown world carrying only what his hands could hold: a guitar and a sketchbook.

A guitar in one hand and a sketchbook in another.

The image struck me like a blade—clean, poetic, devastating. I, on the other hand, found it difficult to imagine a day detached from my comforts, my well-made shoes, my scented sheets, my hand-painted porcelain. I was not, I believed, a man possessed by materialism, but I could not pretend I was its opposite either. Where he had learned to live with the uncertainty of exile, I was still coming to terms with a hotel room that lacked the softness of my feathered pillows. That very contrast, I confess, revealed more about me than I was prepared to admit.

And yet, what stirred me was not shame, but awe. Here was a man who, by the sheer weathering of life’s storms, had come to understand something I could not learn from any book: that the true measure of possession is not what one owns, but what one can bear to lose without the self-collapsing.

I thought of my professor, that incorrigible old sage, and how he had once asked whether I had ever truly waited for anything. And I had not. Just as I had not truly suffered, nor hungered, nor longed. When I desired an Aston Martin, I acquired one. When I fancied a certain watch, I procured it. When I desired a dwelling in any corner of the world, I obtained it with scarcely a moment’s hesitation—as though the earth itself were obliged to yield me a portion wherever I pointed my finger. And yet, I often wondered whether such ease was a blessing unexamined or a quiet thief of wonder. These were not victories. They were transactions. There was no emotional ascent, no narrative arc—only the clean, sterile unfolding of wealth’s quiet power.

But let me be clear: I am not ashamed of these things. I do not prostrate myself before the altar of guilt, nor do I pretend to carry a cross I have never borne. I will not apologise for the fortune into which I was born, for such an accident—if indeed it is one—is no less accidental than Maneli’s birthplace. Providence is a mystery, and not all of it lies within the bounds of our choosing.

Still, I could not help but feel the contrast. I thought again of that moment—a guitar in one hand and a sketchbook in another—and wondered how I would have fared. I, who need life to unfold in orderly pages, who need the reassurance of a plan and the promise of structure. Would I have been able to carry the music in my soul if everything else had been stripped away?

People have often made assumptions about me—presuming, from my quiet reserve, that I am spoiled or proud. But pride was never my companion, only a certain distance bred from introspection. I never wore my pedigree like a badge, but neither did I cast it off like a burden. I have always believed that one must live sincerely within the form one has been given, and not by the anxious rubrics of another’s resentments. To resent privilege is, in a sense, to envy the fruit without understanding the root.

Yet Maneli showed me something else—something luminous. That connection, that quiet tether between souls, is the only thing that truly teaches us who we are. And sometimes a person is sent to you, not to affirm your comforts or applaud your style, but to unsettle you just enough to stir you from slumber. In Maneli, I found not an accusation, but a mirror. He helped me to release a discomfort I had long held: that vague unease of having too much in a world where so many have too little.

And no—it is not my burden to balance the inequities of the world. That is a task for gods and systems and centuries. But it is my burden to live with awareness. To be tender. To be gracious. To be generous not merely in coin, but in thought. And that, at least, I strive to do. I sleep easily at night, not because I have earned the right to, but because I seek, sincerely, to live without doing harm.

Maneli tapped my shoulder then, pulling me from reverie. “The fact of life,” he said in his unmistakably American drawl, “is that no matter what we think—everything dies.”

I turned and looked into his eyes—those deep, unblinking eyes where absurdity and tragedy shared a home. And in that silence, I knew that what passed between us was something more than words. To know a person truly is to know the silence that guards the truths they do not speak. And in that silence, we were kin.

I thanked nemesis—not just for my comforts, but for the people who unsettle them. For friends who walk into your life like divine interjections, reminding you that to live meaningfully is not to accumulate, but to receive. I thanked life for chiselling at my soul, not with force, but with friendship. And I prayed, not to be hollowed of all I possess, but to be filled—more deeply—with those whom I love and who love me. For in the end, we are not made by what we hold in our hands, but by those whose hands have held ours.