Category: Op-Ed
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Beyond Vanilla; Maybe Blueberry?
I have a small circle of very close friends. At best, it’ll be a metre across if we stood holding hands. Er. That would be an awkward sight. Of this circle, one is Kunal. He’s a regular chap with simple needs and doesn’t obsess over much. Other than maybe gadgets. He’s been a tech developer,…
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Bare Essentials
WhatsApp. According to the latest figures, over 1.6 billion people use it. And that’s discounting China where it is largely blocked. Based on several social media reports, it is also the first thing that a huge chunk of people check on their smartphones. For an equally preposterous percentage of people — almost 80% of total…
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Stuffed Toys & Silly Crossovers
I have blurry recollection of a small stuffed bear back when I was a tot. It was grey and had a gloomy face — not something you’d call an attractive toy. Neither my sister nor I had great fondness for it. It was always neglected. But it had the great distinction of being a stuffed…
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Too Much Power? Really?
It’s only happened once — I walked out of a movie barely half an hour in. I’d had enough of it. The performances were fatigued and the plot was scattered. I couldn’t muster enough courage to sit all the way through.
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I Need Space. Ok, Maybe Not.
Why exactly? Are you a married guy or one in a bit of a spot in your relationship that you need more ‘space’? Space is a strange thing. If it’s too less you feel claustrophobic; if it’s too much you feel lost. And while there can’t be such a thing as the perfect space, it’s…
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Idiot Incoming?
Because you’re reading this, I assume you’re an actual person. And because you are an actual person, I assume you’ve got actual friends. Unless of course you’re Donald Trump, in which case you bribe people to say they’re your friends. Friends exist to make life whimsical. Have you ever been to a police station? I’ve…
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Bloody pain in the neck!
The influence of computers, and the digital world in general, started showing in our lives around the mid-90s. Getting a desktop computer was a huge deal in the house. Back then, clock rate of 300MHz was considered to be meteoric and the ‘Pentium’ sticker was a big flaunt item.
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Best car I’ve driven? Oh God, not again!
I attended — was made to, more accurately — my fair share of social gatherings last year. Ones where your enthusiastic family elders make it socially discomforting for you by telling other equally enthusiastic elders about what you do. It’s a strange fetish.
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‘Feel’ is most important
I host a motoring show on an India-headquartered global English news channel that you might have heard of — it’s called WION. If you haven’t, do look for it on your television; you may actually like it. It’s not the typical shouty news-telling deal — the voice pitches are fairly calm, the views are balanced.
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Lighten up, guys!
I’ve been doing this a fairly long time now — this business of writing about cars (and a fair bit about bikes). Over the years, the different brands I’ve worked for helped me develop different writing styles. It ranged from casual flow of words where I’d make the readers feel like they know the team…
Ashish Jha 