EpiphanyMoments

A few weeks ago on these E-pages, I wrote about the difference between vision, mission and perspective, and why I increasingly believe perspective is the most honest of the three. After the piece was published, a few readers called. Some agreed with the argument. Some pushed back, especially on vision. They felt vision by definition cannot be too precise. That conversation stayed with me. This piece grows out of that exchange and a longer career spent watching how vision is communicated, sold, defended, and sometimes quietly recycled. In theory, Vision Communications exists to explain where an organisation is headed and why. At its best, it provides direction and reassurance. It helps people make sense of change and reduces uncertainty. Those are legitimate communication goals. Anyone who has worked in PR or corporate communications knows that calm is often as important as clarity. The problem starts when reassurance becomes a substitute for thinking. In many organisations, especially ...

The closer the T20 Mens World Cup gets, the less patience the system has for posturing. Holding the ICC hostage by running down the clock is not negotiation. It is brinkmanship and brinkmanship works only when the other side is afraid to call your bluff. There comes a point in international sport where adults have to walk into the room and politely ask the drama to step outside. The ICC has reached that point with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Both boards knew exactly what they were signing up for. India and Sri Lanka were confirmed hosts well in advance. This was not slipped into the fine print at 2 am. It was public, debated, contested and finally agreed upon. Participation agreements were signed with full knowledge of the political climate, domestic unrest, diplomatic discomfort and the guaranteed television-panel outrage that would follow. To pretend otherwise now is either intellectual dishonesty or convenient amnesia. Pakistan play all their matches in Sri Lanka. Defending champions I...

There are D’Souzas. And then there are DeSouzas. Some come proudly punctuated with an apostrophe: D’Souza, bold and dramatic. Others glide in with an elegant “e,” like a flourish on a wedding invite. DeSouza, if you please. Some wear a capital “S” like a medal of honour. Others settle for a lowercase cousin, quietly efficient. But make no mistake, they're all part of the same sprawling, globe-trotting tribe. A tribe that has left its stamp (and rechado-stained recipe books) across continents, cruise ships, and copydesks. Start with India, of course. Goa and Mangalore were the cradles. Then came the migration to Bombay. Not the city of glass towers and metro lines we know today, but a gritty, bustling Bombay of trams and large waterbodies, hand-written church notices, and one-bedroom chawls filled with six people, a browned flea-flecked clock, and a wall calendar from the local parish. D’Souzas set themselves up in Cavel, Mahim, Orlem, Dadar, Bandra Vasai—anywhere within striking d...

Every few years, someone tries to decode American Pie and Hotel California. Then someone else declares both songs are about America’s fall from grace, moral decay, the death of innocence, or a particularly bad hangover after the 1960s. If you were a child of that decade, as I was, it wasn’t theory. It was the soundtrack of our growing up. As I lay on our building terrace I didn’t “decode” American Pie; I sang it, trying to remember all eight minutes of it before the transistor batteries died. I didn’t “interpret” Hotel California; I hummed its guitar outro at parties and prayed someone knew the harmony. Don McLean’s American Pie (1971) was more than a song. It was a eulogy. Buddy Holly had died in a plane crash in 1959, “the day the music died,” but what McLean mourned was larger. He was writing about the loss of optimism, the way the jukebox America of Holly and Elvis gave way to the darker age of Vietnam, assassinations, and acid. His Jester was Bob Dylan, who “stole the thorny crown...

Copywriting existed long before we started attaching graphs and behavioural theories to it. In the old days, it was just called writing that sold. Today, it is described as a blend of psychology, linguistics, and marketing strategy. The modern copywriter has to be part storyteller, part analyst, and part psychologist which is a nice way of saying poor souls like me must make poetry out of a PowerPoint brief. Across history, words have shaped belief long before they sold brands. The parables of Christ, the dialogues of Krishna in the Gita, the Buddha’s calm clarity, Kalidasa's magnum opus Meghdoot all used language to persuade without pressure. They appealed to reason and emotion with a simplicity that still moves hearts. The principles that guide modern copy — clarity, rhythm, empathy, and relevance — were already perfected in those ancient texts and beautiful stories. Copywriting may serve commerce today, yet its spirit comes from something older and nobler: the art of reaching th...

Once upon a time, pop culture in India meant movie posters outside Plaza or Kohinoor in Dadar, Regal-Eros-Sterling-Metro quartet in South Mumbai, Rang Bhavan live shows, Lata Mangeshkar on Vividh Bharti, and that Saturday Date night show on All India Radio that played Elvis, The Carpenters, Pat Boone, and Connie Francis. It was slow, shared, and survived through word of mouth. Today it moves at the speed of Wi-Fi. The conversation never stops. It only changes screens. For years, the language of pop culture felt like a Western echo, adjusted for Indian sensibilities and around the maska pav-vada pav-kheema pav janta. It was harmless fun, not social commentary. That has changed. It now defines how we dress, talk, and even think. It decides what is aspirational and what is outdated. It sets the tone for how we view gender, politics, and power. The news may tell us what happened. Pop culture tells us how we feel about it. I’ll admit, there was a time when I thought “trending” was a new cut...

 Over 3,575 weeks have passed since my first breath in Dadar and inside them are about 2,360 weeks since Alka and I first crossed paths. Nearly 1,982 of those weeks have been as husband and wife. Each one carrying its own weight, its own gift. Before those married weeks began, we had already stood together through storms. Emotional storms that made us question our own courage. Financial storms that left us unsure of tomorrow. We stayed through all of it. Then Dubai happened. That single turning of the page changed the story. Our weeks filled with good life, beautiful home, travel, laughter, friendships across continents, and the joy of living larger than we had ever dreamed. Not all weeks were easy. Some stretched painfully, in hospital corridors and in nights after Alka’s stroke. Some vanished before we could catch them—airports, deadlines, hotel rooms, snow, seas and sand dunes. A few remain timeless. The registrar’s office where a borrowed garland crowned our vows. The afternoon...

Sometimes sport is just sport. Other times it becomes a mirror held to society, an anthem for change. What happened in Navi Mumbai on Sunday night was the latter. When India’s women raised that much-awaited ICC World Cup Trophy they did more than finish a competition, they opened a door. They rewrote our sporting story. They told a billion and a half people that magic is real, but it is built, not gifted. As thousands of Tricolours fluttered in the Navi Mumbai night under fireworks, I swear the air itself whispered: India, your daughters have arrived. We will look back and say we were there when it happened. When the women in blue, our women, stood tall, proud, unshakeable, and changed something deep within Indian sport. This was not luck. This was not a one-off miracle. The magic and the miracles did not just happen. They were willed into being by belief, sweat, hunger, and the quiet defiance of every girl who ever picked up a bat and said, “I can.” DY Patil Stadium was a sea of blue...

We Indians have a way with English that no grammar book can ever capture. It’s not the Queen’s English, it’s not American English, and it’s certainly not Hinglish. It’s something richer, more layered, and definitely more fun. It’s ours. We’ve stretched it, twisted it, localised it, and somehow made it fit perfectly into the rhythm of our lives. Take the way we greet people. “How are you, dear?” sounds harmless enough, until you realise we use it for everyone: from our boss to the bank clerk. It’s affectionate, intrusive, and utterly Indian. Then there’s the call-centre classic: “Hi, I’m David this side.” It’s our way of locating ourselves in the invisible world of telephony. Perfectly logical to us, completely baffling to a Brit. And my all-time favourite is “She is not on her seat.” I once saw this go spectacularly wrong in Dubai. The Communications Director of the World Trade Centre overheard an Indian receptionist tell someone on the phone, “He is not on his seat.” The director look...

Build your personal brand. Do it with honesty. Do it with clarity. But also remember this. The person behind the brand must keep growing. Keep learning. Keep stumbling. Keep rising. Your brand is only a reflection. The real you is the substance. Neither should swallow the other. I have seen both happen. People talk about personal branding today as if it is oxygen. Everyone seems to be fixing it. Every consultant claims expertise. Every young MBA student I meet in GE/PIWAT interviews wants to discuss it even before they talk about the curriculum. I understand the urgency. We live in a world where you are Googled before you are greeted. That part is fine. What worries me is that very few pause to read the fine print. We jump straight to the shiny bits. Before the downsides, let me acknowledge the strengths. Personal branding does help. I spent decades in journalism. In those years your reputation came from the accuracy of your story, the quality of your reporting, and yes, sometimes the ...

India has been beaten before. India has been embarrassed before but what has unfolded over the past weeks is not a blip. It is not a bad tour. It is not “one of those things.” What we have seen is a steady collapse that began against New Zealand and continued sharply against South Africa. This is a full system failure. The worst part is the familiar Indian habit of pretending everything is fine. That habit has ruined enough institutions in this country. It cannot ruin Indian cricket. The signals were already blinking red against New Zealand. A 3–0 whitewash. Bowled out cheaply. Senior players misreading conditions. No fight on the last day when survival was the only job. Instead of taking that loss as a warning, the system packed it away like a messy file. Nobody wanted to question it. It felt like a country that refuses to look into the mirror because it does not like its own reflection. Then came the South Africa series. Two Tests at home where India was expected to dominate. Two Tes...

There is a peculiar truth about modern travel. Aircraft fly at 35,000 feet and reputations fall at the speed of a WhatsApp forward. IndiGo’s current turbulence proves this once again. Traditional media can report a delay. Social media can turn that delay into a morality tale involving human suffering, a distraught yelling foreign national climbing the airline counter, soggy sandwiches, crying infants, philosophical despair and a shaky camera angle. This imbalance has brought more sorrow to the IndiGo brand than any technical issue. The airline’s full-page apology was sincere. I said that in my LinkedIn post 2 days ago. It was clean and unambiguous. It avoided the usual corporate trick of saying “inconvenience is regretted”, which is the corporate equivalent of a shrug. Apologies have value but are only an opening act. They cannot fix the missing pilot, the petrified crew, the confused announcement, or the sudden cancellation that turns a passenger into a philosopher. IndiGo’s problems ...

  I began reading P. G. Wodehouse in school, at an age when one does not entirely understand why English gentlemen of leisure appear so earnestly committed to doing nothing, but instinctively recognises that they are on to something important. Bertie Wooster, forever mildly baffled by life, and Jeeves, forever prepared for it, stayed with me through the years. They travelled with me through airports, lounges, hotel rooms, and long-haul flights, where Jeeves’ calm competence felt like a reassuring antidote to boarding announcements and lost luggage. So it came as no surprise that this Christmas season, now firmly ensconced within the four walls of our Pune home, I found myself slipping quite naturally into Bertie’s role. Absent-minded, reflective, faintly uncertain about what one is meant to feel at festive moments. Meanwhile, an inner Jeeves, upright, composed and unmistakably disapproving of slack standards, waited patiently for me to get on with it. “Jeeves,” I said, gazing into ...

There are rumours about heaven. Some say it is peaceful. Some say it is quiet. Some say souls float around humming bhajans, sipping jasmine-scented herbal tea, and contemplating the vastness of the universe. All lies. If you go far enough to the right of the pearly gates, just past the sign that says “Silence Please”, you will find the loudest corner in heaven. A cluster of thick, soft clouds, stacked like a makeshift bar counter. On these clouds sit Neil French, Piyush Pandey, Alyque Padamsee, and the DaCunha family in rotating attendance. They are arguing about advertising. Like always. Like forever. No one really knows what they are drinking, because the bottles keep changing shape to match the preferences of the drinker. One moment it looks like gin. Next moment it looks like whisky. By the time Neil has poured, it mysteriously resembles cutting chai from Prithvi Theatre, steam included. Such things happen when four legends demand beverages. The conversation usually starts the same...

I have never met MS Dhoni. No handshake, no photo, no obligatory anecdote about how surprisingly humble he was. Yet I’ve watched him for nearly two decades, which in India counts as a kind of long-distance relationship. From the long-haired rebel who rattled the old guard to the greying elder who makes even silence profitable, Dhoni has remained a fixture without ever becoming overexposed. That distance is deliberate. Conversations with veteran sports writers and former colleagues over the years only confirmed what the eye already knew. Ayaz Memon has given him a clean chit on and off the field while not sparing him when he fouled up, Clayton Murzello once said Dhoni’s real talent was making chaos feel optional. G. Viswanath admired his emotional insulation, the ability to stay untouched by the moment, whether it was a World Cup final or a dead rubber. Their praise was always measured, almost disciplined, as if Dhoni demanded understatement even from those analysing him. Closer to home...

Captaincy announcements are usually dressed up as moments. A reveal followed by a rationale, often supported by talking points meant to sound decisive and reassuring. Occasionally, though, a decision arrives quietly and feels right even before anyone attempts to explain it. Jemimah Rodrigues being named captain of Delhi Capitals for the forthcoming Women’s Indian Professional League belongs in that category. It did not arrive suddenly, nor does it feel experimental. Jemimah has been with this franchise long enough to understand its habits, its moods, and the silences that often say more than speeches. A central figure since the league’s inception, she was Delhi Capitals’ first-ever signing at the inaugural WPL auction. Since then, she has become one of the team’s most reliable performers and a steady presence in the dressing room. The timing of the decision also matters. Jemimah steps into the role after the franchise released former captain Meg Lanning, bringing a natural close to an ...

"Same to same barabar!" "Chal, hawa aane de!" "One jhaap dunga under the kaan!" "Cutting maar de, boss!" "Apun bola na, tension nahi leneka!" Anyone who is born and lived in Mumbai long enough like me has spoken this tongue without realising it. Not Hindi. Not Marathi. Not English. It is a cocktail of all three, spiked with attitude, survival instinct, and street-smart swagger. This is the sound of trains screeching into Dadar station, of unwashed chai glasses clinking at a wadapav-chai tapri run by a Konkan coast couple, of a Bihari cabbie arguing with a Delhi banker outside Phoenix Mills, of Tamilian dosa and Gujarati pav bhaji guys striking their tawas in unision. The city needed a way to communicate that didn’t care for religion, caste or class. So it created its own short, sharp grammar.  In the 1950s, Bombay’s docks and textile mills pulled people from every corner of the country. Marathi, Gujarati, Konkani, Tamil, Telugu and Bho...

Every New Year arrives with the confidence of a motivational speaker and the credibility of a calendar salesman. At midnight, it demands hugs, fireworks, and instant belief, and by morning it is already asking for patience. What is new about 2026, really. It is neither a rebirth nor a reset. It is simply a page ripped off the calendar, usually by someone half asleep, squinting at the date and wondering where the year went. Nothing more, nothing mystical. At 12.01 am, no cosmic software update installs itself into your life. You do not wake up with clarity, courage, or an extra sunbeam shining through your derrière. Your knees sound the same, your bank balance behaves the same, and your unresolved problems do not politely wait outside till January 2. Pune, bless its consistency, carries on unchanged. The potholes have not merely survived into 2026, they have evolved, deepened, and widened and your car suspension already knows this year is a continuation, not a celebration. Traffic remai...