The Quiet Thinker

I feel like I am cheating on Nike, if I even browse the Adidas website. That's the amount of loyalty this brand inspires in me. And this is rare. Since I started running- one and off- in 2016, I havent worn any other shoes. Sometimes I wait endlessly for a better pair of shorts from Nike, rather than hop into the next store and buy something from Adidas. Somehow the brand represents sport to me. It speaks to me and what I hear is- we understand what you want. We know when you wear a zipped up sweatshirt and run, the zip bouncing up and down irks you, so we've created a pocket to tuck the zip in. We know your clothes need SPF because you only remember your sunscreen once you are out on the road, halfway through your run. We know how chafing ruins runs so we made shorts with the softest fabric that feels like cotton candy against your skin and flies in the wind, staying away from your body.  If you think of Nike as the Gods (or Goddesses) that they are, this book does not disappo...

  Is “good enough good enough?”  Just finished reading ‘the day I became a runner’ - an anthology of 10 lives of women athletes and their rise to stardom followed by an eventual (and sometimes crashing) decline into oblivion. I was hoping to find motivation in their stories, a reason to get out of bed in the mornings as I yawn and crawl towards my own running journey.  But sadness was a surprising by- product of this book.  In the stories I read, every athlete’s dream seemed to be to nab the lowest hanging fruit in front of them- the promise of a steady income offered by a government job. Some wished only to make it to the Olympics- winning aspirations were reserved for US, Europe and Russia they said. Interesting how dreams also have a glass ceiling.  Most of them came from rural India. Outcast as Dalits, I read some stories of young girls who would stand outside wedding venues or temples waiting for leftovers to be doled out so their family could have one dece...

  Loneliness bites some of us harder than the rest, without a real explanation. We learn to accept it, work around it and with practice, become adept at it. Tsukuru Tazaki was one of us.   Without much prelude, he is embraced by the warm friendship of his fellow classmates. And yet, he questions his right to belong. He sees the rest of his friends as superior, colourful beings while he himself stays colourless (hence the book title). Like a misinformed immune system, Tsukuru’s subconscious constantly shorts down signs of validation, choosing instead to find familiarity in self doubt. And so, when his friends abandon him without explanation, he unhappily accepts it as the fate he has been waiting for,    And there begins young Tsukuru’s journey towards complicated adulthood. Marred by four failed friendships, he steels himself against the world by crawling into a deep dark hole. He stays there willingly waiting for imminent threat to pass. Except with time, the deep d...

  “I envy those who live unguarded”- Chanel Miller   Sometimes, a single incident can change the course of your life in unthinkable ways, splitting your soul right down the middle into two halves- the innocent and colourful "Before" and the scarred and bereft "After".    Chanel Miller’s story was one such. As victim of a straight-forward rape case, Chanel is engulfed in a 5 year long legal battle against her perpetrator. In these 5 years, she has to move on with life and yet keep revisiting these haunting memories. As she does so, she takes the reader with her on this journey and we get a front row seat to her mental health struggles.  As you read this book, you build a strong understanding of what it takes to live with a secret that's slowly eating you up from the inside. A secret so big and so convoluted, if you had to tell your friends about it, you wouldnt know where to begin. Facts and judgement are so horribly entangled, just the thought of sharing tires y...

  “Pain demands to be felt.”- Fault in our stars. x Empire of Pain is the story of capitalism; and much like capitalism, at its core, it begins with greed. The Sackler family for decades, whitewashed the blood money from the sale of their opioids by donating liberally to arts, education and philanthropy. Quite like zealous despots, they bought their place in history. Until it all came crashing down through the work of few gritty, investigative journalists.  The book makes me question what to believe in. Advertisements are obvious vehicles of promotion but is the research they quote also fake? An independent pain society claiming how Oxycontin is groundbreaking turns out to be paid promotion. The FDA approvals for this wonder drug have also been bought with bribe money. The whole premise of “breakthrough pain” was nothing but plain English. I walked away thinking if someone- with money, power and influence in the right places- wants me to believe in something, do I stand a chan...