Why do I Post? You look at someone’s Instagram profile. You scroll through the pictures, watch a few reels, perhaps go back and look at something again. And somewhere between one post and the next, you have already formed an opinion about that person. They travel a lot. They have wonderful friends. They seem happy. They are doing really well. They have a beautiful life. We do it almost without noticing. But lately, I have been wondering about something else. When I post something, do I ever stop to think about why I am doing it? Honestly, I don’t know. Of course, I upload because I want people to see it. Otherwise, why would I put it on Instagram? Someone goes on a holiday and posts pictures. Someone spends an evening with friends and shares it. Someone achieves something and puts it out there. Someone buys something new, visits a new place, celebrates a birthday, attends an event. And we look at these little windows into their lives and make sense of the person through t...
The Teachers Behind the Teacher This Teachers’ Day, I realised something I wish I had realised much earlier. I have received countless messages from my students over the years, but I have never sent a Teachers’ Day message to any of my own teachers. I remember them. I remember what they taught me. More importantly, I can still see their influence in the teacher I became. And that made me think about the teachers behind the teacher. Mr Lewis, my English teacher, was the one who made me fall in love with language. He taught me to look at literature more closely, to analyse it, to question it and to find meaning beyond what was immediately visible. Miss Namita, my Biology teacher, made me curious about the human body and its intricacies. Because of her, I wanted to read more about human anatomy, simply because I wanted to understand it better. Then there was Anita Sood Ma’am, my Science teacher during my primary school years. She taught me something that I still use every day as a...