What goes up must come down—especially in the markets. Reversion to mean isn’t a theory, it’s just how the world works. After running up for the last couple of months, when it had every reason to stop but didn’t, the market seems to have remembered that it can fall too. Why now? Honestly—God only…
I recently read Richard Koch’s The 80/20 Principle. I expected a productivity book. And that’s what it is—brisk, strategic, full of charts and capitalism. But like all sharp tools, it left me with questions far beyond the domain of work. The principle is simple: 80% of outcomes come from 20% of inputs. Focus on…
Recently I read Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut—a slim novel draped in satire, soaked in sadness. This book was on my read list for quite some time. I picked it up as a companion for a short trip with four hours of flying between cities. It is a slim book, and I thought I’d…
Five years ago, I wrote a post called The Beginning. It was quiet, but clear: I was returning to an old dream. One I had set aside for career goals, financial security, and the subtle ease of a comfortable life. I had taken six months off—to pause, to think, to write. To see what…
This year has been an eventful one. Since I started this series in January, every month has seen something new. In the first month update, I mentioned that there were three events that could’ve moved the market positively – the budget, the rate cut, and BJP winning Delhi; still the market didn’t budge. We…
This was one of the rare comics where the title carried two names—Nagraj aur Shango. Not hero and villain. Two heroes. You didn’t see that often. Much later we got Nagraj aur Super Commando Dhruva. But this came first. And it made sense. Because after how Nagraj ki Hong Kong Yatra ended, it couldn’t be Nagraj aur Chango. The story had moved…
After bringing down Bulldog in Assam in the previous book, one might expect Nagraj to rest. Maybe reflect. But this is early Nagraj—still young, still figuring out his own myth. There’s no time for recovery. No arc of healing. He boards a flight to Hong Kong, unannounced and uninvited. No mission. Just a hunch,…
Over the weekend, I watched the first season of Criminal Justice on Jio Hotstar. This was largely thanks to the YouTube algorithm, which has started putting snippets from the latest season of the web series in my feed. I ignored for a while, but then Pankaj Tripathi is hard to ignore. And then, with…
You Look Like a Thing and I Love You by Janelle Shane is a book about artificial intelligence. But it is also a book about animals, dreams, loopholes, and misunderstandings. And it is, most surprisingly, a book full of affection. I came to it long after its publication, as a way of learning and…
Another eventful month. The biggest news of this month was that we had a war with Pakistan. The war was short, and the ceasefire arrived in just three days. From the market’s perspective, it mostly held during those three days. And once the ceasefire was announced, it bounced strongly. The below chart shows the…