Nikhil's Blog

You cannot be happy if you have only one dimension to your life, one personality and one source of validation. People who dedicate their entire existence to their business or job are worse off than people who have stumbled upon many things in life. The definition of success then becomes subjective. When you are young and full of energy you want to make a lot of money. Nothing wrong with that. But as you grow older you start to realise that money is important, and so are other things. We fall…

A joke can make the world feel lighter. But most people worry too much to lighten the moment. They are too caught up in everything. Their own thoughts. What others think of them. What impression they would leave if they said something. Nothing is plain and simple. The mind is always on the defensive. Cracking a simple joke requires your mind to be free. From all inhibitions. From all worries. From all the what-ifs. The only requirement is decency. Read the room. Read the person. Read the…

We have destroyed all the beautiful things in the world by turning them into a performance for social media. Every ritual, every piece of memory, every moment we once held sacred has been converted into a spectacle to be showcased online so we could prove to the world that we were truly alive. Weddings used to be the most important day in two people's lives. The camera used to capture the moments as they actually felt. When you looked back at those photographs, they brought smiles to your faces…

There comes a time in everybody's life when you have to deal with hate. The intense loathing that someone has reserved exclusively for you. You can intuitively sense it because it reflects in every fibre of their being and every one of their mannerisms towards you. The way they speak to you, the way they direct their jokes at you, the sheer bitterness that permeates everything they do in relation to you. It manifests in bullying, the subtle jibes, the feigned camaraderie that masks a deep…

One of the simpler ways to judge people is observing how they value your time. How much they value your time reveals how much they value you. People rarely show up late on dates with women they have fallen for. Even when they do, they apologise profusely and vow never to repeat it. The same courtesy rarely extends to their wives or friends. Punctuality is not a tool for bragging. It offers a precise window into how someone manages their entire life, including their routine. The more organised a…

It's always better to be hated than pitied. If there is one feeling I absolutely abhor, it is pity. Pity is the most useless of all emotions. It neither helps nor offers any real comfort to the person in grief. Nor does it even have the decency to emerge from empathy. Pity implies hierarchy. When you pity someone, you are indirectly asserting that they are beneath you — all your help then flows from benevolence, not empathy. It differs from empathy because there you are stepping inside the…

There is a certain relief in being unprepared and yet arriving at your destination with grace. It feels rebellious — as if you have defied the very fabric of nature, as if you have vaulted over your mental barriers rather than inching around them. The best stories, after all, involve a bit of unplanned shenanigans. There is nothing wrong or inappropriate about being organised. Certain things reward planning — investments, insurance, your career, your overall wellbeing. But you shouldn't place…

Forbidden fruit always tastes sweeter because it carries no regulations that could make it bitter or spoil its flavour. It remains tempting precisely as long as it stays out of reach. The moment it becomes attainable, the spell breaks. Human psychology is a strange cocktail of wonder and absurdity. We want what we cannot have. And once we have it, we don't know how to treasure it. This has been true since antiquity. Religious texts and human history are littered with examples of it. And yet,…

There is a delicate balance between being there for people and being there just long enough to add value — without losing yours in the process. As you grow closer to someone, a point of comfort arrives where you want to express more of yourself. You reach a certain ease with them that strips away your inhibitions. And if that inner side turns out to be too much, the risk of being left alone becomes very real. So no matter how close you get, the prudent approach is always to open up in measured…

The reason people acquire knowledge is to outsmart others. Or win political and historical debates online. They collect facts like trophies, ready to brandish in an argument. But that is the antithesis of why you should acquire knowledge. It appears the more facts a person accumulates, the more insufferable they become to everyone around them. If you have no inclination to gain the upper hand over others, there seems to be no reason to acquire knowledge at all. I say this because every time I…

We all love to travel, especially after the advent of social media, where drone shots make us believe we could stand in that exact frame ourselves. Travel has surged tremendously post-Covid — salaries have exploded for some, and for others, the influencer economy has erupted into a viable livelihood. But amidst all this fanfare, we have forgotten the essence of travelling. When we move from our home to a different place, we forget that for the people living there, that place is their home. We…

One of the most beautiful feelings in the world is when you are dreading something — truly dreading it — and then it turns out perfectly, and you emerge from it victorious. This includes everything: that awkward conversation you were dreading, that presentation, that journey, that difficult task. Underlying all of this is a common anxiety. But it's not simply about anticipating the worst possible outcome — this is a different kind of anxiety. One where you are dreading the task more than the…

We live in the age of alliances. Everybody is part of one group or another, and everyone classifies the others as belonging to some camp. You are seen as either with them or against them — never the neutral. The centrist, the uncommitted one, gets punished brutally, labelled by both sides as wicked. At the broadest level as well as the most intimate, humans are tribal by nature. They find their tribe everywhere. They adopt the same views, hold the same opinions, and despise the same kind of…

What makes some relationships go from casual to deeply personal? We all have them — people we met by chance, started talking to, and somewhere along the way realised had quietly become a part of our lives. Now we can't imagine not speaking to them. These are the friendships that are both beautiful and enduring. Not everyone has them. But there is a discernible pattern to how they take root and flourish. All friendships require a shared environment — somewhere you can engage with many people at…

When you observe people at their peak physical fitness versus people who are struggling with theirs, you will instantly see the impact of physical health on the mindset. A person at peak physical health complains less, focuses on opportunity, and is overall more disciplined in life. The struggle doesn't unsettle him because he has the capacity to overcome it. He doesn't hesitate to make long-term plans because he trusts that he will see them through. He doesn't shy away from experiences that…

How many times can you try before you give up entirely? How many times should you try before giving up becomes acceptable? Nobody has arrived at a fixed number of iterations one must endure before giving up becomes normal or necessary. I have been writing for a long time, yet I do not know how consistent I need to be. Sometimes a first-time author becomes a bestseller, while someone else writes ten books and still manages to sell only a thousand copies. The contrast is stark, and the advice…

It’s late at night on a weekend as I write this. I’m craving whiskey and a cigarette, but I have black coffee instead. I like the bitterness of black coffee. It reminds me of the rare, true things in my life. There aren’t many things I consider honest, except black coffee and the words I write on this page, including the stories. I like this blog because almost everything I’ve written here is a product of how I felt in that moment. Some days you overcome your emotions; on others, they overcome…

We should all count our experiences instead of our achievements. I have read and heard it so many times — that when you are lying on your deathbed, counting your breaths, wondering which one will be your last, your life flashes before you. And when that happens, I am certain the achievements don't surface. Sure, one may think about their convocation ceremony, their wedding, their firstborn, their first great adventure — but all of these are also experiences that brought genuine joy into our…

The strongest person in the room is the one who doesn’t need the room to exist. They exist on their own terms, by their own will. They move through the world as if they belong to it, yet can walk away from it at any moment. If the room didn’t exist, they would still be equally happy, equally content, and equally independent. Your greatest weakness, and your idea of strength, both originate in the mind. What you believe shapes what you become. If you think you cannot do something, you won’t be…

We have all been misunderstood at some point in our lives—sometimes to the extent that no matter what we say, how we say it, or the context in which we say it, it is still interpreted incorrectly. Misunderstanding is essentially a gap in context: the distance between the intent behind what is said and the way it is received. Several factors come into play when someone misunderstands us. One of the most important is how we deliver our message. Something said harshly in the middle of a quarrel is…