Writing

Notes from the classroom, the clinic and the street

Essays on education, childhood and national development — written where the argument actually meets a person.

Latest Essay · · 14 min read

The Common Man Is the Real Hero

A family of four on one scooter is not carelessness. It is arithmetic.

India's median worker earns about ₹9,000 a month. Run ₹10,000 through a month for a family of four and you reach ₹9,200 before a single school shoe, one festival, a scooter repair or any hospital visit at all. A first-person essay on why zero margin is a different condition from poverty, why no medicine has ever healed anybody — the body heals, and a drug only removes an obstacle or lends a capacity — and why that makes every foundation, scheme and NGO the medicine rather than the healer.

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Earlier essays
Essay · · 37 min read

The Bleeding Entrepreneur

A forged experience letter costs ₹7,500 and arrives in 48 hours. That single price explains why India's small businesses cannot hire — an evidence-led argument that this is not a character problem but an information problem.

Essay · · 12 min read

Nobody Wants to Be Here

Ten people in a goods vehicle at a Bengaluru signal, the arithmetic that pushed them here, and why invisibility is a deeper injury than poverty.

Essay · · 33 min read

The Trust Deficit

Indian trust in other Indians fell from 38.9% to 16.7% in the decade of the boom, and stayed at the floor. An evidence-led argument that money is not the cause of the trust deficit but the compensation for it — tested against six objections.

Essay · · 8 min read

Dharma, Pantha, Mata

Three words we have collapsed into one — and most of the conflict that follows. A principle, a path and a rule are not the same thing.

Essay · · 5 min read

The Child Who Does Not Wake

A scene at a Bengaluru signal, the two possibilities behind it, and the question that neither government nor charity can answer on its own.

Recurring themes Education reform Childhood & poverty Character & civilisation Teachers Social trust Community Nation building Migration & dignity Welfare policy MSME & enterprise Employment & skilling

More essays are on the way

This page collects the longer pieces — the arguments that need more room than a post allows. For the shorter, more frequent notes, follow along on LinkedIn.