But this time, I got to be with the family I am born into. Diwali hasn’t been a very spectacularly pleasant affair at home since years. It was a festival where it always some sort of a push and pull with parents with their endless list of to-dos and rituals; whilst me and my sister not giving up our little time off within a very loud house which felt like it was always preparing for something - either guests or pooja or gifting.

This time around we had the full set with me and my husband, my in-laws, my husband’s brother, my sister, my sister’s in-laws etc. We celebrated my mom’s birthday together because she wanted her 60th to be special so she pre-poned the celebration by about three weeks because the whole family was together.

Over time the festival has come to mean only a day when we meet them minus the rituals because for them meeting us is sort of an elaborate festivity in itself. And formal rituals have been cut out fully, my parents agnostic of a God/religion, have embraced they are not devotees at heart.

It is Diwali night today and at 1.30 am I still can’t sleep for some reason. For Diwali I decided to camp at my parents place rather than my in-laws, which they graciously accepted because of the loud kids of the neighborhood and I got to spend Diwali with my folks at their place. It is not the house I grew up in, so obviously nostalgia does not run amok like for others but it is a place which they have beautifully created for themselves like a cocoon, 80 kms out of the city and this peace and quiet, even though I complain about it — because I have to travel more but I like it, once I’m settled in.

I look at my parents and I feel they are growing old. Yet it is also a privilege to see your parents grow old as also you do with them. I feel extremely blessed that my parents are fit by the grace of God. I feel my badgering them to take care of their health is only a selfish reason only because I want to be around them. I feel bittersweet as I said in the beginning because being around them I feel complete. I feel cared for, loved but at the same time I feel a sense of responsibility that I have to take care of them. I feel like I am drawing from a resource which is finite and I am not treating it as such. I feel from parents we keep taking without giving much ever back. Even when I ask them if they need anything or if I would like to gift them something what would it be? They don’t demand much. They just say spend your valuable time with us. Just a harder ask and they know it. But it’s the only actual valuable thing in life. Time. Everything else can be traded. I don’t want to sound morbid yet this feeling — I would like to keep, so that I know that I am not exploiting this very finite resource which nourishes me, loves me, cares for me and yet demands nothing back. Over time that’s all that’s left between relationship between a parent and a child. When we are growing up we are full of little battles in our mind. What could they have done better if they had let us make our choices back then? If they let us come home late at night or support our choices more? But I realize I’m not just a sum of my parts. I have agency now and my choices are only my own. They were trying their best from the limited resources, fears, thought processes they were born into.
I don’t ever want to settle into the complacency or give in to illusion of infinite time.

This is the first question that comes to mind when I plan a vacation (often on a whim). The answer might vary every time based on how productive the past few weeks were, or how productive “I felt” the past weeks were.

Completely disregarding how I feel which takes an opposing kind of force, against yourself.. I plan my vacation. Looking up Airbnb, mode of transport etc. Luckily, I don’t have to apply for leaves because I work for myself and not for a company, so planning becomes easier, if not non-existent. Again, a conscious choice I had to battle myself to take, but that’s a post for another day.

This impulsivity is a habit I have seen repeated so many times over that I no longer judge it, or be surprised by it. People around me also happened to have adjusted to it, having grudgingly made peace with this irrational behaviour that they have to settle with.

So, after my ‘proposal’ of a short getaway, they comply after briefly complaining about such short notice. Oftentimes, realizing it was also the kind of break they were not allowing themselves to have. The internal battle I won it for them, in a way.

Or, I go alone — something I have learnt to do happily now, in my 30s after realizing this behaviour is a feature, not a bug. And it does not break its pattern. And cannot and should not be borne by someone rational. The duration or destination hardly matters. It is great to visit new places, for the sense of wonder, but I visit some places like a devotee, as if they were a pilgrimage, or like a wildlife sanctuary to an animal.

One of them being my beloved, Goa.

So many movies have been made about it. And they are quite right about capturing its spirit.

Places are like people; they leave a scent behind. The right people change you for good, so do places. When you have the itch to visit a particular place, you want to meet the version of you whom it touched upon and transformed. It is like meeting an alter-ego, or an old friend. But places definitely are like people.

And my love for Goa endures. Despite things me and my husband disagree upon, it is not love for this place. Just when I thought, it’s over. Right that night, either me or my husband would have a dream about it.

It can’t be described why we love Goa exactly. Lush greenery or vibrant beaches. People have suggested exploring other parts of western Ghats. But when our soul is tired, we make a run for Goa. There is a particular mood that describes us, almost like a verb. It’s a long three-word mood and it’s almost uncanny how both of our moods are synchronous on this one.

“We miss Goa”.

It is so synchronous when we feel this mood, that nobody ever dare says to the other — let’s explore someplace new. Like Khichdi is a comfort food for some, Friends a comfort sitcom, for us, Goa is our haven — something we made ours for two years.. and it lovingly made us its own.

Whenever we revisit, we go see our old friends — where we were stranded for half an hour because of an absolute torrent of a rain Goa decided to bring upon that day; the place where we had our first Ros Omelette, the place where we did our routine grocery runs in pre-Instamart days. The same places where we ventured countless times, on many rainy days, on a scooty under our raincoats. We still get sad when our favourite restaurants close down.

Nan Shepherd, a Scottish woman of immense literary talent and a mountaineer wrote in her last and final book, ‘The Final Mountain’ -

“Place and a mind may interpenetrate till the nature of both is altered”.

Visiting places is a form of touching your own soul.

Until 5 years ago, I was an avid trekker, a happy coincidence which was brought about, along with my love for running.

I remember in trekking circles they used the phrase ‘one foot after the other’ a lot. That lends a rhythm and a beat, a different kind of music which makes you lose yourself and gain yourself at the same time. One mindful step at a time connects ourselves to us, like no trauma healing, chakra healing, sound baths can give us.

We don’t know of nature the same way a sailor knows the winds, a shepherd knows the best kind of grass for its sheep-folk. But wherever we are, we know a little bit better of ourselves when we surrender, one foot at a time.

And what is travel for — Social media or for your soul? For your soul, you might not even click a lot of pictures. For social media, you want to be at the most picturesque places, chasing auroras in the winters, tulips in autumn. Everyone has these goals and bucket lists. But when travel means recharging your soul, you don’t look at locations as much as you track your calendar and ticket availability.. You are a rebel without a map.

For the same reason, the itch to leave everything behind comes on so strong that I venture on, unplanned, in every few weeks. And this habit is not going anywhere :)

Don’t know where to start. I’ll start by saying when I am feeling under pressure due to whatever reason, self-imposed, or from outside, of delays, or looming expectation/deadline. Somewhere of some upholding. Upholding a word or quality. There is pressure. A warrior from inside of me emerges, but goes back inside.

The big picture goes missing. Why am I doing this? What is the bigger goal? There is some level of excusing out, that ok, I don’t need it bad enough because it is not so aligned. This is our way of diminishing the opportunity in order to feel better. Or something similar along the lines. But these small steps towards a general direction count a lot. And “I uphold”— from becoming this identity, it is strayed.

Giving myself something so big that these small things don’t look to me that they add up. When I am looking at something small with a narrow view. That this is only what I want — either this or nothing. It helps to see from a bigger point of view at the same thing.

“I am being conditioned”.

Like lifting some weights, sometimes, does not condition the body. The occasional lifting of heavy weights beyond known capacity builds strength but does not condition it. But do it for long enough, it conditions the body. All of the new strengthened muscles work in tandem to give increased capacity and lift all of the minor muscles working alongside them too.

Nobody trains forearm muscles but they bulk up on their own when you train shoulders and arms.

Giving a positive spin to things, each day remember you might be feeling increased strength in smaller muscles . I will list my own first — better focus, better concern for work, a new focus window unlocked, working while slightly hungry, learning how to work fully alongside fitness — all of these lessons got unlocked, right?

So, what stops us from deriving motivation from all of our own very achievements?! Bizzare how mind invalidates to stay small.

And when growth happens, it pains. There are no two ways about it. This pain you chose, you jumped at the opportunity, you waited waited waited for this big break. It is going to be hard, accept it for the time being. Release yourself from other expectations — calling parents on time, meeting people regularly, planning travel, organized home, replying to messages.

Let yourself be absorbed. Submit yourself to your work. And mind will take a back seat. It knows trying to frighten you would not work anymore. Ego knows submitting, not surrender. When you are in flow, you are surrendered.

Submit.

Be grateful for the opportunity.

Embrace the pain and dive in.

There are always words that get added to our dictionaries. Hard to imagine now but abbreviations like ‘DM’, ‘Lol’, ‘Tbh’ were also new sometime.

But vibe gets to me for some reason. No pun intended, whatsoever.

It is short for everything that can’t be described. Two kinds can’t be described well. One, when they are so beautiful, it almost feels spiritual, like a Sunset or a morning kiss that there are no words to describe. And the other kind arises only when there is not enough vocabulary.

I reckon it is the second kind, in most cases. Like tell me about your “vibe”. What is happening here? Use more words.

Kids pick up language from TV all the time. From Aussie parents worrying about their kids picking up American slang to Indian kids replying in sophisticated English sentences, it happens everywhere. Media shapes our language, what words we use, how we pronounce, how we form sentences etc. Could it also be true that due to social media generally the vocabulary could be going down? Seems plausible, right?

And this ‘vibe’ generation is just a symptom of it?

I’m not saying this from the usual perspective where every new generation claims they are the superior one. That’s an easy, low-hanging insult. No but! Genuinely… isn’t it possible that our vocabulary is shaped by the books we read, the people we meet, and the number of times we attempt to communicate in ways that stretch beyond our usual templated word-pool. And where sentences don’t just auto-complete themselves? And yet — maybe the new generation doesn’t really need to go through that anymore?

Social media has generally brought down the number of books a person reads in a year. Books, like any long-form content, require sustained focus. Many bookstores are being shut. On the metro, public parks, among shopkeepers, drivers, everywhere you look, you see people with their faces buried in their phones. Mostly watching Reels. It is a striking sight, sometimes. When you go browsing through shops in your local market, you see all these shopkeepers on their stools, shoulders stooped, faces aglow with screen-light, sitting side by side, while you drift past them, browsing the mannequins hanging above.

The ability to sit idle or simply strike a conversation with a person next to you has gone down. Small talk is replaced with people looking into their phones. Eye contact feels almost like cutting through someone’s privacy.

The Missing Piece — Third Places

On top of all of the above, there are no third places to speak of (first and second places being home and office, respectively) where we connect with people freely. Historically, places like the neighborhood tapri (tea-house), bookstore, a common bus back home etc have served as places where people exchanged casual banter, gossiped and got to know what was going on in each of their lives.

They were our fathers’ and grandfathers’ safe spaces where connections formed and friendships bloomed. The kind without agenda, personal branding or a sales pitch.

In fact, salons as we know them today did not exist in earlier times. During the Enlightenment period in 17th and 18th century Europe, they served as centers of intellectual exchange among aristocratic families, where people discussed philosophy and built communities.

The question I am exploring here is simple — In the age of social media, a bygone idle-time and modern cities devoid of third places, how does even one develop these social cues, or wonder about the intricacies of spoken language woven in our societies.

One cannot miss the peculiarity of this generation — they are the first ones to have mobile phones right from they were in the womb, likely the mother did have a Moto or a Nokia, if not a Samsung or Apple. They were raised on and with mobile phones.

The Missing Piece — Social Intelligence

The language needs of an individual are fed, by our Social Intelligence, which is a factor of how many people we interact with. And kinds of people who are different from us. Basically, some friction.

There is a lot to be read here but it all somehow makes sense if we put three key insights together which will help us answer the question that we set out to answer -

1. As per a statistic, an average person in India checks his/her phone 80 times a day. Friction is met with a quick glance on the phone, even if there is nothing there.
2. Communication is effort. An easy-dopamine-laden brain does not put in the same effort that gets the hard-earned-dopamine, the one you get after a long, deep, heartfelt conversation. Essentially, doing hard things. The latter arises from putting consistent effort and not seeing instant results.
3. Our brains are plastic, a commonly known fact about out brain which means the neurons that fire together, wire together; the rest wither to save energy because brain takes up a lot of energy. To conserve energy, the neural pathways that get used often, stay and the rest don’t. It could be the same with social intelligence (The good news is our brains are plastic, and so it can be learnt).

Social Brain

A person incessantly checking their phone would not read the room enough. Any awkward silence, any accidental meeting of gaze with a stranger, and instead of a nervous laughter, a sigh, or unaware scratching of brow- there will inadvertently be a quick check on the phone.

All of the above being involuntary forms of non-verbal communication.

The result of this new world devoid of organic non-verbal communication might be becoming an unintentional recluse. Being in the world is a practice of its own kind, and this fidgeting for escape might be making us lose our ability to see the world without demanding anything different from the moment.. and being fully in the world.

Our brains are plastic means our abilities extend to the capacities we exercise them and communication is no different.

Especially, as research goes, adolescence is an extremely important time for the development of social interactions. Stressors during this time scar us for life. The average baseline mental health throughout life shifts downward, if gone without an intervention. This time is so significant in terms of how we operate socially for the rest of our lives, that there is a term that really stood out — the social brain.

Adolescence decides how we navigate our social connections, how we talk to ourselves, how empathetic we are to people, how well we read people around us and adjust our own behaviors around them.

Communication on Social Media

Does this mean, we dismiss this generation as a lost cause? And accept that our world has been changed forever, every new generation would be more reclusive with ever shrinking communication abilities.

Hard to say.

Because before being a labelled a generation — Gen Alpha or Gen Z, we are humans first.

And if not interacting face-to-face with different people, they sure are interacting online. Especially third-world countries especially post-Jio India has seen a massive internet penetration into the interiors in the last 10 years. The result is that we still can’t stop talking.

Social media, on the other hand, is a world of its own. It kind of has evolved its own native vocabulary. To slay on social media, you don’t really need that much regular vocabulary. Memes evolved for the same reason. Emojis ditto. And strikingly, you would see that both these words — memes and emojis, only came into existence in the last two decades.

Yet for a moment, consider this — they maybe smart too, in a way.

Evade the actual vulnerability required to convey your emotions, yet do it in the shortest word count and the briefest exchange possible. Maybe these mediums have evolved to bring a better context to complex emotions.

Imagine our surprise, or almost relief, when we discover a German word or a Japanese word which exactly describes what we are feeling.

Now compare that to a photo or a small clip, referenced to our favourite movie. That is memes for you. In a way, they can be considered a brilliant mode of communication, too.

Look at it this way — The medium has adapted itself to the average attention span of the audience. And emotion is part of it too.

What if, just what if, our modern third place is none other than our very own Inbox.

Oh, the joy of finding that exact meme that resonates with what you are going through — priceless.

Any communication, at the end of the day, is built on one hard climb: self‑awareness. It’s the mountain beneath every conversation, or every DM, in the modern sense. It is the ability to understand what we experience, believe, and think without relying on any observational inference.

It is directly dependent to how much friction we face in life and further, reflect upon. This friction is not just limited to a social context. This kind of friction is part of our lives by way of just existing. And there is no guarantee, that a person who evades social friction in the real world might not be self-aware enough to develop their language skills, communicate better and find a communion. Our brains being plastic, can evolve to the abilities we stretch them to, as per our will.

But one thing cannot be answered for sure — whether the withdrawal from real-world friction arises from a lack of emotional depth and self-awareness thereof or a lack of willingness to put an effort?

That is, if instant gratification available, would we really put in the effort? Do we really crave intimacy and depth enough in relationships to go the distance and bring up the hard conversations full of friction? Or choose to strike a conversation with an unknown person, leaving the comfort and safety of our phones behind?

The statistics don’t seem to affirm. Intimacy and instant gratification do not go hand in hand.

As per an analysis, 57% of all conversations on Tinder were just 1 word/emoji conversations and average days per conversation, just 1.

Casual swipes on dating apps aside, more and more people are choosing to stay single. In India alone, in 50 years from 1970–2020, the marriage rates for women from 15–49 has dropped 10 percentage points from 82% to 72%. That is the outlook towards marriage has gone down from Boomers to Gen-Zs.

Not saying marriage is a substitute for intimacy, but it sure is a trend which can be observed to equate how much social and emotional stimulation we need from outside.

The decline is even more steep for countries like Japan, where only half the women in the same bracket are married in 2020. There is a term called Hikikomori in Japanese for people who remain reclusive and refuse to step out of their homes because they don’t really need to go outside for anything.

Why we became the ‘vibe’ generation?

This ephemeral language change speaks of a deeper current of change happening underneath. It is hard to describe yet starts making intuitive sense when we put the other cues and the social environment together. And maybe, the language change is pointing to a way of finding belongingness in an attention-deficit world, built for mediums that value relatability over depth.

In all, this whole gamut of Reel-playing and meme-exchanging audience is changing what we see as Culture, this inconspicuous phenomenon of societies.

But, one thing does not change: if we want to find connection in this new era, the world is our oyster. We are hyper-connected and the surface area of finding our niche, friends who resonate with us, as Aristotle called the third kind of friendship, is so much greater than ever before.

If a sense of belonging was a metric, we might be sitting at the top of its probability. But merely having a higher probability in one, does not yield a relatively higher probability in other independent metric — The willingness. To venture out. Have real-world experiences. That is still.. questionable.

In life, if you are lucky enough, you go through the tropes of school, college and job without batting an eyelid. It mostly works out well, for most. What follows next, is a house, car and kids. And the cycle continues for the kids as well. And this is the track most follow and you are conditioned to do the same. Some argue that this is the path of least resistance and money is a necessity. Both of these arguments are valid, but do you want to?

I have a soft spot for writing, always have. I have been keeping a diary since I was 15. Did not know it was called journaling back then. It just came out of a need to let my feelings out on a paper so I could navigate school and the pressure of exams without having sudden outbursts and raising an alarm in the house. Then came college, and the diary became an online blog. And the same process followed — navigating hormones and self-doubt of late teens with few strangers online. (I did not share the link of my blog with anyone in the family). I did not have much readership but that also kind of gave me solace. I felt I was swimming naked in an ocean and there were no passers-by. I felt safe.

Cut to jobs and job-switches. You are also balancing new-found love in your life and for the first time, feeling accepted and seen. Writing either fell off the grid completely or was restricted to only few difficult months here and there. In your 20s, emotions become much more nuanced. As a newly turned adult, you have tasted some career success, and as a result, you don’t feel you need a medium to navigate life. You have friend(s) at your disposal who are also similarly going through the same things.

Now looking back at my 20s, I realize my life was taking new turns every 2 years. So there were major shifts 5 times over. I tend to gaze at my life in a rewind-mode a lot actually. I don’t know how common that is but nostalgia is my poison and I get drunk on it very often. In this slur, I sometimes tend to believe, I am going to keep circling around until something major hits, and turns life into an outward spiral. So, the radius of the circle then keeps increasing.

Now having been married for 2+ years and comfortably settled in, I think I have the time and the bandwidth to take a look at events again. And plan my radius increasing outward-spiral event. And coincidentally, it is again the figure of 2 years that makes me want to do it.

However, the difference is now planning my future or my next career move gives me more goosebumps than ever, even though I am more experienced. In the last 3–4 years, during and post the pandemic, I have become quite of a recluse. There is a term called ‘long covid’ for any symptoms extending far out in the future, if there was any term for that in the social sense, then I would like to know. I stop myself from analyzing too much in the same gaze-y sense I look at parts of my life.

Navigating ‘finding your passion’ backwaters fueled by dispassion for jobs in general, mired in an identity crisis, couple of city moves, living with a permanent roommate and balancing a long list of things I have learnt for my new career — last few years have been hard emotionally is an understatement. On the upside, I have felt and known a feeling I had only heard about — what it is to live with a best friend. That too, in a laid-back touristy, slow-life kind of a way. Experiences that are, if not once-in-a-lifetime but definitely few-in-a-lifetime. We obviously chose those experiences deliberately as our life choices and might choose them again. I am eternally grateful.

For the radius increasing life-event, my fears wash me over sometimes. I come back drenched and tired. I refuel and navigate the waters again. Sometimes, when I let go completely, I am able to float. But relaxing, in the midst of the same water which time and again throws you out, is well.. hard. They say ‘enjoy the process’, ‘beginner’s mind’ and a lot of other terms that well-wishers put forth to help you keep going. Thank God for these people too, even though what they say does not help directly, it definitely helps to (re)build a confidence, you have only discovered in the same gaze-y way, that you are building for the first time, on your own, without the desire to look good in front of others.

While short-term desire and goals help you succeed and give you external validation. Ultimately, you have to face the fact mastery does not just take time, it is hard. To keep alive your love for something and to see it as art, is what evolution is all about. And the boundaries of your past, the endings and the beginnings of events, are all a blur when you look from a distance.

“Maybe I was good then, I am not good enough anymore”.

These kind of narratives which partition time from the beginnings and endings of things don’t represent a “whole” you.

Because all of these past experiences shape you but you are not an incomplete piece. You are “whole” you.

Disclaimer — This piece describes the nature of storytelling arcs in writing journalistic pieces. An arc is sometimes a consequence, not something the author was getting at while presenting investigations, sources etc. But sometimes when we trace back, an arc emerges, maybe completely unintended by the author originally. My article is for my own learning self, who wants to understand how a story, replete with too many sources and details are laid out. Happy reading!

Katherine Boo, a renowned Journalist says in the book, “Telling Good Stories” -

Not choosing a Narrative means not being read at all.

Knowingly or unknowingly we are all a bunch of storytellers. Storytelling, as an art-form is prevalent in whichever field we work in, but varies with the medium. From movies, to novels, advertisements, marketing campaigns, product pitches or even sitting around with friends recalling school days.

I am intrigued by how various worlds come together in the form of stories. So through this article, I will be focussing on how journalism makes use of stories through the Three-Act Structure and explaining what it is in the process. Here, I am covering key events in an article published by Newslaundry here (a screenshot below) which is a brilliant piece on Investigative Journalism. But don’t worry you don’t need to go through the original article to understand this article. :)

I will look at major events as they occur in the article. Covered in the order in which they occur. This will help us decode how journalists tell a story. Please note that the original article is done without visuals. However, without visuals it is difficult to showcase the Storytelling Acts. So, to help break down the story progression, I will do it with visuals in an illustrative manner.

The Three-Act Structure

Look at the above picture closely once. Do not be afraid if you understand nothing. I will help uncover each of the Acts above by using the article as an example, as it is used in the context of Journalism. This is the grand talisman of every story told in the world. This is borrowed from Freytag’s pyramid, a German storywright.

Why should you care?

This will guide writers or people who do storytelling of any kind in their work to lay out the narrative. The second bonus of this article is to showcase how any kind of explanatory articles can do much better with visuals :)

The Story

The whole article is centered around one Main Character — Isha Foundation. What provides the story its movement is the alleged illegal construction of its campus in the hilly region of Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore. Various events lend the story its moments of Rising and Falling Action, as seen in the Freytag’s pyramid above.

Isha Foundation constructed a 150-acre campus in this eco-sensitive area over 15 years starting from 1997 to 2011, without due permissions from HACA (Hill Area Conservation Authority), the regulatory authority for construction on hilly areas. What ensues is a tussle between the government and the foundation.

The timeline of major events in the article is from 2011 to 2020. Prior to 2011 when the approval was sought, the Construction of Campus had been almost 65% complete.

The following is the timeline of events as they unfold in the article, in the order in which they occur. Respective to each, the year is also written below, in paranthesis —

As we see the events in order of the article as shown below, we can divide the whole story into its respective Acts. Along with that, the Plot points 1 and 2 are also shown above. Details below-

Act 1:

Act 1 sets the background, the context of the place where Isha Foundation is constructed and introduces all the main parties including HACA.

It shows how most of the construction of Campus had already been done by 2011, and the approval was only sought afterwards.

Plot point 1- First evidence when the main character, Isha Foundation, faces a Conflict — legal scrutiny by the Forest Officer. The conflict here is that the Forest Officer finds out that the construction was indeed done on an Elephant Corridor. And no such approval was sought.

The officer is transferred, a temporary solution to an impending disaster. Sets the tone and gives the readers a glimpse of what is to come.

Act 2:

The middle section comprising Act 2 has the most coverage. Here, 2012 has the most action. So, it has the most number of pages and subsequently the most coverage in Act 2.

Through Act 2, it is shown with relevant evidence how tension was mounting:

1. Stop Work Notice, and Sealing Notice are sent to the Foundation in 2012.
2. Another set of parties involved, who endanger Isha’s argument are also introduced here. Poovulagin Nanbargal, an NGO sends out multiple petitions.
3. An Adivasi farmer, whose crops are damaged also files a petition.

The Reader still doesn’t know how the problems would be solved, yet. Unless, Isha finds a way to resolve the problems, its existence is under a massive doubt.

Plot Point 2 — The PM himself inaugurates the Statue on Mahashivratri festival in 2017, despite Isha’s murky legalities shown so far. It was the kind of stamp of approval Isha needed. It allows the reader to get the resolution of the Conflict which was introduced at the end of first Act.

It also sets the stage for all the subsequent resolution of legalities which marks the second Act.

Act 3:

Resolution of legalities happen as follows -

1. HACA states Isha campus was not built on an Elephant Corridor but it was situated “adjacent” to an Elephant “Habitat”.
2. It regularizes the plot in 2020, owing to the fact that it did not lie in the corridor anymore (allegedly).
3. NGT (National Green Tribunal), the statutory body for environmental protection says no pollution is caused on the Mahashivratri festival, in reply to the NGO’s petition.
4. Isha Foundation claims it got the approval in 2017, the same year PM inaugurated the Statue.

HACA head does not invite any more questions on it and says, “You can write anything you want”. There is no more resolution needed to the story. So, the story began with HACA disapproving the construction to finally giving it a green signal, making the contrast evident which is present in every good story.

Conclusion

The format of Storytelling is different with varying mediums. In journalism, or in any writing mediums, unknown to the reader, some devices of storytelling are always used.

1. As you can see in the Middle Section, how the drama escalates by unfolding events quickly. It begins with the forest transfer of officer to PM Inauguration.
2. The middle Section has the most coverage, that is going from years 2012 to 2017.
3. Contrast this with the First Section (years — 2011 and 2012) and the Third section (years — 2017 to 2020).
4. In addition, it can be seen below each event in parentheses how years are jumbled up. It bunches together pieces that are relevant for each other and together, move the story forward.

This article is a pure creative endeavor as I was curious as to how storytelling pervades our life. As in every piece of writing, whether fiction or nonfiction, a movie or stand-up comedy, even classical Indian dance form of Bharatnatyam!

To conclude, I will leave you with a Yuval Noah Harari’s quote,

Homo sapiens is a storytelling animal that thinks in stories rather than in numbers or graphs, and believes that the universe itself works like a story.

PS — If you are a comedy aficionado like me, you’d love the ‘Journey of a Joke’ series on Youtube, which talks about storytelling in stand-up comedy. This was also a spark of an idea for me to build on.

Nah!

What establishes our long-term command over our life and eventual so-called “success” are easily the most boring of topics.

Read Consistency, Discipline and Routine. These are all self-anointed games you play like a monkey. A monkey who is under training to jump hoops day in and day out. Until the day when it is finally fully trained, finds a full-fledged audience which.. well, claps and pays for the act.

And this is a painful reminder of the all the movies you might miss, Reels on the phone you will be doom scrolling at night, squeezing in an extra hour or two post the usual bedtime or complaining why you can’t get anything done.. that last one takes the cake..

IN SHORT, if you are not currently winning in life. It is time to take responsibility. You can’t win all the time but you can always win at the self-anointed games, well because you just made them up. There is no magic here. Luck maybe. Nothing more, nothing less..

For the life of startups, in order to build trust, it is important to have consistent wins. It keeps things going for you and your spirit stays intact. But this particular thing seems challenging for me because to view your small victories as specific points in the lifetime of a freelancer/entrepreneur thing doesn’t make the imposter feeling you get any less. It almost kind of feels vain to brag about them to other people too.

And while its so natural to feel pride at things you do. I can picture children running to their parents with their sketches and drawings in their tiny hands. However, as an adult, this particular thing gets slowly ostracized, especially in times of totally unnecessary LinkedIn posts.

I can talk about my own personal anecdote. I remember a girl in school with whom I used to hang out. Everyone thought we were best friends but infact, we were hardcore competitors. I used to be top of my class or second at max during most of my school years. She was in the first five. Obviously this invited a lot of envy from her. One time, I remember she did not turn up with a mini guide we had to submit for our 10th Boards practical exam. It was odd, given we both were quite rule-abiding. I had obviously brought it. While packing our bags at the end of the day, I saw it slip out of her other book, which she hushed and put it back inside. I did not mention it. She did not clarify either. Do not reveal your cards, as they say in negotiation tactics. I remember it was a very pretty little notebook, better than mine. If she were secure, she would show it off. I remember, I used to be so cautious and insecure around her myself back then. Now, I pity her and the values which she was brought up with. I used to be good in studies, sometimes not out of interest but purely out of competition. How I wish I was more self-assured and little less worried back then.

How things you struggle with as an adult, have seeds in your childhood. I still can’t stand competitive people around me. It turns me into a person I don’t want to be. I can see little tricks people are playing, to not disclose what they have been up to and it drives me mad. So maybe piling on wins doesn’t come naturally to me but I am learning to take pride and making amends at this twisted psychology. Because obviously, world is also filled with friendly collaborative people who fuel your learning and make your path easier too. There is so much to learn either ways.

It is fascinating how just admitting that we are full of imperfections releases us from the guilt, confusion that arises from Ego — The Ego of Knowing.

What is the Karma for, if done solely to meet a desire like a command. There is no ‘perfect standard’ that if we abide by, there is only satisfaction on the other side. No process so dissatisfaction-proof. No outcome ever imperfection-proof. And, hence no passion dispassion-proof.

Without committing what comes in the ride, no journey can be undertaken. There can be upper limits of work done and lower limits of pain taken, and vice-versa… but to surrender is to be.

In moments of being, without being anybody’s anybody, even if the pain arises, there’s a need to see. See like a doctor diagnosing, handing out a prescription at the end. When a connection to yourself is established, sometimes emotions spring up. That in turn the world sees. Love yourself and love radiates. Confusion in the mind, confusion outside.

So, just do what is needed. Surrender. We have no control over situations that make us hard and no control over situations that remind us of our vulnerable softness either.

The thirst for knowledge is insatiable. Any thirst outwardly is insatiable. I believed a new job will satiate me, or a new career would satiate me. And believe me, I have changed both many times. From starting off from studying and working in financial markets to now. But none have.

People are at the heart of EVERYTHING

I thought a state of flow is reaching God. But what to focus on is easy. It takes effort but it is doable. Figuring out how to make stuff work, finding your way out of tutorials is easy. In the last one year alone, I have learnt how to cook, ride a scooty, swim, learnt how how to make maps, learnt complicated technical softwares. But the list can ever go on. Always getting to the why you want to do is something hard.

I have numbed my part which said why I wanted to do something. Why I wanted to do something completely transformative. Why I wanted to see how my work is reaching someone directly. Today, I was reflecting a farmer makes a ton of food, but never sees where that food is going, whose stomachs it is filling. I don’t want to be that farmer. Today, I want to see. Because people are at the heart of everything.

I would share a recent anecdote. I helped my father-in-law shed 10 kgs of weight. He was very motivated, but didn’t know how to get started. So I told him about the concept of ‘Calories In, Calories Out’ and said to target x number of calories by weighing his food in grams and calorie-counting. Yesterday, I received this message from him.

The joy that you feel, actually bringing an impact in someone’s life is where true happiness lies.

As a concept of a career per se, I am getting more and more away. Because, money might have its lure. It does not satiate the soul in you. For the most part, career is just a means of getting money. Most jobs are useless. They spin-off money from money and make for a way to earn rungs of this ladder in this status-driven society. There is very little to no human value in most jobs. And even if there is, most jobs are too away from seeing the ‘stomachs actually getting filled’.

It is a hard concept and I have gulped many times feeling this. Because I have and still subconsciously try to climb the ladder, not a corporate one but one that every society has. Every society has a ladder, with various rungs. The inequality of rich and poor, fat or slim, educated or not, young or old.

But what really is my place in the world without the ladders? Why do I do things, if I continuously, with full awareness, reject these ladders.

I just want to be ordinary. Content in my life. Probably live to be the farmer who knows whose stomachs are getting filled. I don’t want extraordinary or people to know about me. Is that too much at 30?