Just like that

Football World Cup time and everything around you is Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappé, cheers, tears, shouts and celebrations. Amidst all this din, one small news item suddenly caught my attention. It was about the way Japanese football fans celebrated. Their definition of fandom and frenzy seemed unique. Videos showed fans pouring onto the busy Shibuya Crossing after a match, cheering, singing and celebrating with unbridled joy. But there was one detail that stood out. The celebrations happened only when the traffic signal was red for vehicles. The moment the signal turned green, it was as if someone had flipped a switch. The crowd quietened, stepped back into the pedestrian zones and allowed traffic to pass unhindered. People heading to work, meetings or other commitments continued their journeys without disruption. That tiny news item stayed with me. It sent me reeling down memory lane, about four or five years back. I remembered a four-year-old creating a ruckus in a supermarket be...

  Last afternoon, around 3 PM, I opened the tap only to hear air hissing out instead of water. No warning. No dramatic crisis. Just silence… and air. And strangely, my mind immediately drifted back to a conversation I had the previous week with a friend. She told me she had almost gotten into an argument with her teenage daughter after casually asking her to generate a congratulatory image in ChatGPT for my book release. Apparently, the daughter threw a fit. She argued passionately that generating AI images in ChatGPT was endangering the future of her generation by depleting water resources. Flabbergasted, my friend asked her to explain further. The teenager went on to describe how AI systems use massive data centres that consume enormous amounts of energy and water for cooling. My friend understood very little of the explanation but wisely decided not to argue with the teenager and simply let the matter rest. She shared her experience with me later that day. I had la...

As I was scrolling through the internet, looking for videos to include in my Calmversation Camp 2026 , I stumbled upon something that stopped me in my tracks. A child—no older than the ones I work with every day—was speaking passionately about the political leader, Vijay. But it wasn’t the passion that caught my attention. It was the language. The child went on to say that if their parents didn’t support this leader or vote a certain way, they would harm themselves. I paused the video. Not because I disagreed with the opinion, but because I couldn’t ignore the weight of those words coming from someone so young. There was something about it that didn’t sit right. And as I sat with that discomfort, I was reminded of Maria Montessori, who spoke about a simple but profound responsibility we hold as adults—to prepare the child for life, not just for outcomes. Preparation doesn’t mean telling children what to think; it means helping them build the emotional strength to handle any outcome. Ar...

Some days you wake up feeling low for no particular reason. Nothing dramatic has happened. No catastrophe. No earth-shattering news. And yet, there is a heaviness you cannot quite name. You feel irritable. Slightly unreasonable. Ready to pick an argument over absolutely nothing. I was having one of those days. My son sent me one of his latest stories to read. On any other day, I would have read it with interest, maybe even pride. But that day, all I could focus on were the ads popping up every few lines on the website — flashing, blinking, interrupting. They annoyed me more than they should have. So I messaged him about it. Instead of explaining or defending the platform, he sent me a Rajinikanth GIF — folded hands, fingers pointed upward, that unmistakable calm expression. And I laughed. Just like that, the heaviness shifted. One tiny animated image altered the emotional temperature of my entire day. It made me think. We underestimate words. We underestimate tone. We under...

When my husband announced an orange and red weather alert for Chennai and nearby areas, with schools shutting down, my brain didn’t go to “emergency prep” or “stock up on snacks.” No. My first thought was:   “Ah, perfect. Time to wash the bed sheets. They’ve been waiting forever.” He stared at me, baffled. “When they predict rain,” I added casually, “it’s definitely going to be sunny.” The science reporter in him gave me a death glare and walked away. But am I really wrong? How does the Tamil Nadu Meteorological Department so often miss the mark? Sure, the weather is unpredictable — always shifting, just like our thoughts and emotions. Still, I can’t help but wonder: if mindfulness helps me manage my emotional storms, what would it take for our weather experts to predict the skies? Being a K-drama fan, I recently watched Forecasting Love and Weather . A young meteorologist joins the national weather bureau and ends up predicting typhoons perfectly, saving countless lives. If ...

This morning, I made a grand declaration: “I’m going to write a book!” My husband, deep in his weekly-column trance, mumbled something without lifting his eyes from the screen. I don’t know if he heard me — his automatic, half-conscious response sounded like pure gibberish. I’d like to think it meant, “Mind-blah-blah-blah…” For the past few days, I’ve been consumed by an unstoppable urge to write. I left journalism because I was tired of turning in stories every single day — and now here I am, planning a book . Oh, the irony. But somewhere beneath the irony, I sense a quiet calling — maybe this urge to write is less about producing something and more about pausing long enough to listen to what wants to be expressed. A mindful whisper from within, perhaps. Two ideas are swirling in my head, both aimed at helping educators. Having shifted from journalism to elementary teaching, I have enormous respect (and plenty of empathy) for this tribe. My first idea is a practical phonics work...