Love

 

Why Even Smart Leaders Avoid Difficult Conversations ~ Junie George Varghese

 Why  even smart leaders avoid difficult converstation? Junie George Varghese

The 5th Mantra : The communication Fitness Studio. 

Perception

Problem

Cost

Cause

Way forward 

Why avoidence happen and what happens if we continue?

Know the Architucture of difficult conversation, bring focus back on clarity and timeliness. 

Perception - What really is happening?

Strength becomes weaknesses. Note down the strengths  on LHS and then discuss the weakness out of it. 

Intelligence - Overthinking_Justification

Experience - Pattern Bias, Consequences

Authority - Reputation, 

Empathy - Hesitation

Skills that build leadership is threatening when it comes to communication

Problem

Judegment Distortion - Silence confused with patence, maturity and respect, not always skill gap. 

Abstract trap - 'Radical Condor' book emphasising on clarity - Compromising clarity . Give guidemap on how to improve.

Ping-pong effect - competing version of reality, objective gap.

Power increases avoidence - filtered feedback, truth becomes expensive.

Leadership training focusing on:

What to say

How to structure feedback

Which model to use?

Question is not can you handle difficult conversations? 

Question is What has your intelligence helped you avoid?

Leadership doesn't remove fear. It just gives fear better vocabulary. 

Cost : The invisible Tax of Avoidance. 

Leadership think they are buying time, but they are buying damage at compound interest. 

The Multiplier Effect: Shadow narrative, ambiguity. Clarity is important, not just the language. 

Cultural Erosion: Standars blur, erosion of psychological safety and accountability

Innovation blockage: Echo chamber

The Human Sustainability Crises: Delegation to HR (identity & Credibility issues, 65% burnout)

Micro failure: 'Job hugging', 'quiet cracking', 'Mediocrity' accelerating turnover - (Chipko movement)

Galiups State of Global workplace 2025 report.  21% of employees are really engaged. 

Significance of lack of communication is leading to serious consequence. 

Cause - The 'why'.

The Amygdala Hijack - 'Word can change your brain' limbic system overpowers. Fight, Freeze Flight mode. Handling failure is important, but even important is handling success. Are you becoming defensive when put in a tight spot?

Cognitive Callibration - Preempt worst outcome, Decision paralysis. (People have positive and negative experience - but some pick either first. There is a pattern, without realising)

The 'Nice vs. Kind' trap: 'Crucial conversation'. Nice vs. Kind talk. Leader need to say what is needed. Truth vs. Bonds, Protect identity. 

Complex cultural, regulatory and legislative landscape: 'Saying the wrong thing'

Asynchonous Friction - Channel failure, matching complexity to richness of medium

Not mapping the conversation - Improvise vs. Architecture

Presence of AI: Pressure to be 'perfectly human'. 

Way forward - Not approches or models, but few pathways.

 Decrease your 'Conversational Latency', Rely on the structure of clarity. 

Identify a specific conversation you have been 'saving for later'.

Ask "What meaning will my silence create"

Reframe "How do I say this?' to

"Which identity am I protecting by staying silent?"

"What identity do I strengthen by speaking clearly?"\

Will you lead the conversation, or will it lead you?

"Communication is judged not by intent, but by what is understood" ~ Peter Drucker.

Dont confuse intent with impact. 

Take stand without thinking too much of what others would think. Communication begins in the mind. Our thought process, mindset, belief all of this is going to have an impact in the way we understand and impact. Communication is not just talking and listening or verbal and non verbal. 

Ratan Tata - lift story - asking let the guest take lift. He knew how to do it well withoug belitting others. 

Integrate Gen Zee and Gen Alpha. 

People want to be respected and seen. There needs to be trust. There should be human connect. 

Vulnarability, is what makes us real. We are going to come with flaws. It is a part of us. Same is the case with people in power. Bring back focus on having conversation. 

Former PM P.V. Narasimha Rao. Silence is golden. You have to know the difference between silence being a strategy, and silence being a default. 

Perception is a very dangerous game to play. You cannot go around doctoring minds. 

You should know when to keep quite and when to speak. Know when to be quite and when to be expressive. 

In a meeting everyone agree, but outside mostly disagree, real issue is misalignment.

Onto a New Chapter, New Year

 

*"An individual human existence should be like a river—small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being." — Bertrand Russell*

Russell’s image of the river really resonates with how I view the narrative of our lives now. In our ‘early chapters,’ we are often obsessed with pacing.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of treating reading like a scorecard, focusing on how many books we finish in a year rather than what we actually absorb.

However, as the story progresses, the prose slows.

We realize the goal isn't to race to the ending or to rack up a higher count than the person next to us, but to understand the broader theme. Like a classic novel, the resolution comes not from speed, but from connection.

I’m done with speed-reading through books—or life. I’m learning to enjoy the slow-burning chapters now, accepting that profound pleasure doesn't come in an instant; it unfolds.

And since every day is truly the first day of the rest of life, I see no reason to make a fuss just because the calendar turned a page.

So far so good. Cheers while it lasts.

As 2025 ends, may we close some chapters with courage, leave the empty pages behind, and step into the next story a little wiser, a little kinder, and far more hopeful.

Loved Bindus post and agree:

What I’m taking forward from 2025. 

This year taught me again, “if your gut raises even the smallest of alarms, listen. Listen deeply and well.”

Also, the year of truly ‘Letting go and Letting God’. Praying there is no relapse 🙏

Wishing all of you peace, joy and dreams 🙏😍

-----

With a heart full of gratitude, I thank this year for its lessons and grace.

May 2026 unfold with peace in our minds and joy in our everyday moments.

Wishing you abundant health, steady prosperity, and gentle strength.

May the coming year bring happiness that is deep, lasting, and shared.

As yet another calendar year comes to an end, let us infuse every moment with hope, every day with gratitude and every night with dreams. 

May all our needs be fulfilled, and our wants awarded as per God's will. 

Wishing all health, happiness, and prosperity in 2026!

Wishing you a profusion of happiness and success in New Year !

 Happiness Humesha 😊

Illusions ~ Richard Bach

 

If you liked JLS, you’ll love Illusions. It’s basically the same philosophy but with pilots instead of birds! It’s a lighter, funnier read, but the ideas hit hard.

The 'changing the past' concept is my favorite. With a brain holding 50 years of un-pruned memories, I’m convinced that the past only exists in our 'remembering self' (to use Kahneman’s term). It feels very close to the Vedantic View—the idea that our world is a mental projection. Even the intense memory of a 'first love' is often just an image we created. If we change the narrative or emotion attached to it, we literally alter the past."

Illusions revolves around two barnstorming pilots who meet in a field in the Midwestern United States. The two main characters enter into a teacher-student relationship that explains the concept that the world that we inhabit is illusory, as well as the underlying reality behind it:

'What if somebody came along who could teach me how my world works and how to control it? ... What if a Siddhartha came to our time, with power over the illusions of the world because he knew the reality behind them? And what if I could meet him in person, if he was flying a biplane, for instance, and landed in the same meadow with me?'

Donald William Shimoda is a messiah who quits his job after deciding that people value the showbiz-like performance of miracles and want to be entertained by those miracles more than to understand the message behind them. He meets Richard, a fellow barn-storming pilot. Both are in the business of providing short rides—for a few dollars each—in vintage biplanes to passengers from farmers' fields they find during their travels. Donald initially captures Richard's attention when a grandfather and granddaughter pair arrive at the makeshift airstrip. Ordinarily it is elders who are cautious and the youngsters who are keen to fly. In this case, however, the grandfather wants to fly but the granddaughter is afraid of flying. Donald explains to the granddaughter that her fear of flying comes from a traumatic experience in a past life, and this calms her fears and she is ready to fly. Observing this greatly intrigues Richard, so Donald begins to pass on his knowledge to him, even teaching Richard to perform "miracles" of his own.

The novel features quotes from the Messiah's Handbook, owned by Shimoda, which Richard later takes as his own. An unusual aspect of this handbook is that it has no page numbers. The reason for this, as Shimoda explains to Richard, is that the book will open to the page on which the reader may find guidance or the answers to doubts and questions in his mind. It is not a magical book; Shimoda explains that one can do this with any sort of text. The Messiah's Handbook was released as its own title by Hampton Roads Publishing Company. It mimics the one described in Illusions, with new quotes based on the philosophies in the novel.

"I WILL NEVER FORGET THIS"

You tell this and the mind would not forget. 

Sarojini Naidu

 She wrote love poems that made the British Raj weep—then used that fame to help bring down their empire.

Sarojini Naidu was 13 years old when she wrote her first poetry. By 16, she'd published her first collection. By her early twenties, British literary critics were calling her work "exquisite" and comparing her to Keats and Shelley.

She wrote in English—the colonizer's language—with such beauty that the colonizers themselves couldn't help but admire her. Her poems about Indian gardens, temples, and festivals introduced British readers to the India they'd occupied but never understood.

They called her "The Nightingale of India."

They had no idea she was about to use that voice to demand they leave.

Born in Hyderabad in 1879 to a progressive Bengali family, Sarojini was a prodigy. Her father was a scientist and educator who believed daughters deserved the same education as sons. At 16, she won a scholarship to study in England, first at King's College London, then Cambridge.

In England, she fell in love with a man from a different caste—Govindarajulu Naidu. When she returned to India and married him in 1898, it was scandalous. Inter-caste marriages were socially unacceptable. Her family supported her anyway.

She could have spent her life writing beautiful poetry, being admired by British literary society, living comfortably as one of the few Indian women welcomed in elite circles.

Instead, she met Mohandas Gandhi.

It was 1914. Gandhi had returned from South Africa and was beginning to organize resistance to British rule. When Sarojini met him, something shifted. The poet who'd charmed British audiences realized her real audience should be the Indian people fighting for freedom.

She didn't stop writing poetry. She weaponized it.

In 1917, Sarojini co-founded the Women's India Association, organizing Indian women into a political force. She traveled across India giving speeches that combined her poetic eloquence with revolutionary politics. British officials who'd once praised her poems now watched her nervously.

She became one of Gandhi's closest allies—and one of his most effective speakers. Where Gandhi spoke with moral authority, Sarojini spoke with wit, charm, and devastating humor.

When British officials tried to intimidate her, she'd respond with lines so sharp they'd become legendary. Once, when told that organizing against the British was "unladylike," she reportedly replied that she'd learned everything about being unladylike from watching British governors' wives.

The British didn't know how to handle her. She was too famous to simply arrest without consequence. Too eloquent to dismiss. Too well-connected internationally to silence easily.

So they arrested her anyway.

In 1930, Gandhi launched the Salt March—walking 240 miles to the sea to make salt illegally, defying the British salt tax. Sarojini walked with him. When Gandhi was arrested, she took over leading the march.

She was arrested multiple times throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Each arrest made her more famous. Each imprisonment made more Indians realize that even the most privileged, educated, internationally celebrated Indian woman was still just another colonial subject to the British.

In 1925, Sarojini became the first Indian woman president of the Indian National Congress—the main organization fighting for independence. She was leading the political movement that would eventually force Britain to leave India.

Think about the audacity of this arc: British literary critics discovered her as a teenage poet writing in their language. They celebrated her. They brought her to England. They praised her exquisite verses about Indian life.

And she used that platform, that fame, that access to their language and their admiration, to help dismantle their empire.

During World War II, when Britain demanded India's support against fascism while maintaining its own colonial rule, Sarojini was among those who said: You want us to fight for freedom in Europe while denying us freedom at home? The hypocrisy is unbearable.

She was arrested again in 1942 during the Quit India Movement—the final major push for independence. She was 63 years old, imprisoned with other elderly freedom fighters, and she used the time to write and organize.

August 15, 1947. India gained independence.

Sarojini Naidu was 68 years old. She'd spent more than thirty years fighting for this moment. She'd been arrested, imprisoned, given up comfort and safety, turned her fame into a weapon against the empire.

And she wasn't done.

When India needed its first woman governor, they appointed Sarojini to lead Uttar Pradesh—the most populous state in the newly independent nation. She was the first woman governor in Indian history.

She served for two years, until her death in 1949.

Here's what makes Sarojini Naidu's story so powerful: she could have chosen comfort. She was internationally famous, personally admired by British intellectuals, financially secure. She could have spent her life writing beautiful poetry and being celebrated in both England and India.

Instead, she chose revolution.

She used her poetry to make people feel—then used those feelings to fuel political change. She used her fame to gain access to power—then used that access to challenge power. She used the colonizer's language—then used it to demand decolonization.

And she did it with wit, humor, and devastating effectiveness.

There's a famous photograph of Sarojini laughing with Gandhi and other independence leaders. She's in the center, head thrown back, clearly in the middle of telling a story that has everyone amused. She looks joyful.

That's the other thing about Sarojini: she never lost her joy. Even while fighting empire, being imprisoned, risking everything—she maintained her humor, her warmth, her ability to laugh.

The British could imprison her body. They could never imprison her spirit.

When she died on March 2, 1949, India mourned. The Nightingale had stopped singing. But the nation she'd helped birth was just beginning to find its voice.

Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, said at her funeral: "She was a great Indian, a great woman, and a great human being."

But perhaps the best tribute came from the thousands of ordinary Indians—especially women—who saw in Sarojini proof that women could lead nations, that poets could be revolutionaries, that beauty and strength weren't opposites but allies.

She wrote poems about palanquin bearers, wandering singers, and Indian dawns that made British readers weep for a country they'd never truly seen.

Then she helped ensure they'd have to leave that country.

She was 13 when she started writing poetry.

She was 68 when India became free.

Fifty-five years of turning words into weapons, fame into power, poetry into revolution.

The Nightingale of India sang many songs. But the sweetest was the one she sang on August 15, 1947, when her country finally belonged to its own people.

She wrote love poems that made the British Raj weep.

Then she made them leave.

A Christmas Carol ~ Charles Dickens (63 0f 2025)

A Christmas Carol ~ Charles Dickens was Published: 1843

Main Characters

• Ebenezer Scrooge – A miserly old man who despises Christmas and generosity.
• Bob Cratchit – Scrooge’s underpaid, kind-hearted clerk.
• Tiny Tim – Bob’s frail but cheerful son.
• Jacob Marley – Scrooge’s deceased business partner, now a ghost.
• Three Spirits – Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

Ebenezer Scrooge is cold-hearted, obsessed with money, and dismissive of Christmas cheer. He refuses charity and treats his clerk poorly.

On Christmas Eve, Jacob Marley’s ghost visits Scrooge, warning him that his greed will doom him. Marley says three spirits will come to offer redemption.

The Three Spirits

Christmas Past: Shows Scrooge his childhood and lost opportunities for love and happiness.

Christmas Present: Reveals joyful celebrations and the struggles of the Cratchit family, including Tiny Tim’s illness.

Christmas Yet to Come: Shows a bleak future—Tiny Tim’s death and Scrooge’s lonely grave.

Horrified, Scrooge vows to change. He wakes up on Christmas morning full of joy and generosity

Scrooge helps the Cratchit family, becomes kind and charitable, and embodies the spirit of Christmas.

Themes

Redemption: It’s never too late to change.

Generosity vs. Greed: True wealth lies in kindness.

Social Responsibility: Dickens critiques poverty and inequality.

Audere est facere @250th Birthday of Jane Austen

“Audere est facere” is a Latin phrase that means:

“To dare is to do.”

Word by word

audere — to dare

est — is

facere — to do / to make

Meaning in simple terms

It expresses the idea that having the courage to attempt something is itself an act. Action begins the moment one dares.

Common usage

Used as a motto encouraging bravery and initiative

Famously associated with Tottenham Hotspur Football Club

Often quoted in motivational or philosophical contexts

Example sentence

“She believed in audere est facere—that daring was the first step toward achievement.”

It was a dream come true moment to talk about one of my favorite authors. 

What I spoke about was 

Austen's Memory, 

Austen's Magic and 

Why Austen Matter even today. 

Unveiling the Enchanted Realms of Jane Austen’s Fiction

Thanks to the literary community of the Chinmaya school for this opportunity. 

 

The French Lieutenant's Woman ~ John Fowles

 

*The French Lieutenant's Woman

*by John Fowles* ~ Nandakishore Varma 

It's very rarely that a much-touted piece of literature lives up to its hype. And it's even rarer for it to exceed one's expectations.

But John Fowles managed it with this book.

Where do I even start? _The French Lieutenant's Woman_ is such a magnificent _tour-de-force_ that one is left speechless.

The story is very ordinary - your usual Victorian love triangle. The impoverished (not exactly - but definitely, not rich) aristocrat, enters into a marriage with the daughter of an upwardly mobile rich draper - only to realise later that his affections lie elsewhere; that too, with a "fallen" woman. Great recipe for a love tragedy.

But the author here decides to use this framework to make a broad commentary on the Victorian Age, on male-female relationships, on patriarchy, and on the human condition in general. He is the very antithesis of the "invisible narrator" in favour nowadays - he is not only visible, but omnipotent. He is telling you the tale, not showing it. Throughout the novel, you are listening to the voice of John Fowles.

The backdrop to the story is the Victorian age: an age of huge contrasts:

> What are we faced with in the nineteenth century? An age where woman was sacred; and where you could buy a thirteen-year-old girl for a few pounds - a few shillings, if you wanted her for only an hour or two. Where more churches were built than in the whole previous history of the country; and where one in sixty houses in London was a brothel (the modern ratio would be nearer one in six thousand). Where the sanctity of marriage (and chastity before marriage) was proclaimed from every pulpit, in every newspaper editorial and public utterance; and where never - or hardly ever - have so many great public figures, from the future king down, led scandalous private lives. Where the penal system was progressively humanized; and flagellation so rife that a Frenchman set out quite seriously to prove that the Marquis de Sade must have had English ancestry. Where the female body had never been so hidden from view; and where every sculptor was judged by his ability to carve naked women. Where there is not a single novel, play or poem of literary distinction that ever goes beyond the sensuality of a kiss, where Dr Bowdler (the date of whose death, 1825, reminds us that the Victorian ethos was in being long before the strict threshold of the age) was widely considered a public benefactor; and where the output of pornography has never been exceeded. Where the excretory functions were never referred to; and where the sanitation remained - the flushing lavatory came late in the age and remained a luxury well up to 1900-so primitive that there can have been few houses, and few streets, where one was not constantly reminded of them. Where it was universally maintained that women do not have orgasms; and yet every prostitute was taught to simulate them. Where there was an enormous progress and liberation in every other field of human activity; and nothing but tyranny in the most personal and fundamental.

This world is soon about to collapse, with the Representation of the People Act 1867 about to be introduced in Parliament, which will give suffrage to all males in the country and not just the gentry; Karl Marx is already at work on his revolutionary book; and Darwin has forever banished man from the position of the Lord of All Creation. He is now just a life-form descended from monkeys (well, not exactly, but that was how Victorians understood Darwin).

It is during this tumultuous period of history that Charles Smithson, the nephew of baronet, engaged to be married to the charming Ernestina (Tina) Freeman, meets Sarah Woodruff - known locally as "Tragedy" or "The French Lieutenant's Woman". She has apparently been jilted by a French soldier and spends her days scanning the sea, hoping for her lover's return. And in the tried-and-tested formula of romance novels since they were first conceived, he falls for the unsuitable, “fallen” woman.

Charles betrothal to Tina reeks of a marriage of convenience, even though he tries to convince himself that it’s a love match. His prospective father-in-law is a successful businessman, and is trying to push himself upon the social ladder. His daughter’s marriage to a prospective British Lord would do nicely to further his cause – and his wife’s money would help Charles, who is not too rich to begin with, to live a life of luxury. Note how Fowles marks the aftermath of Charles’ proposal:

> No words were needed. Ernestina ran into her mother's arms, and twice as many tears as before began to fall. Meanwhile the two men stood smiling at each other; the one as if he had just concluded an excellent business deal, the other as if he was not quite sure which planet he had just landed on, but sincerely hoped the natives were friendly.

By falling for the French lieutenant’s woman, Charles is risking his future: but Sarah is too attractive because she is different from the usual female in the highly stratified Victorian society.

> Given the veneer of a lady, she was made the perfect victim of a caste society. Her father had forced her out of her own class, but could not raise her to the next. To the young men of the one she had left she had become too select to marry; to those of the one she aspired to, she remained too banal.

> ***

> She was too striking a girl not to have suitors, in spite of the lack of a dowry of any kind. But always then had her first and innate curse come into operation; she saw through the too confident pretendants. She saw their meanness, their condescensions, their charities, their stupidities. Thus she appeared inescapably doomed to the one fate nature had so clearly spent many millions of years in evolving her to avoid: spinsterhood.

Charles is “enlightened”: he believes in evolution and is an avid fossil collector. It is while he goes on these collecting expeditions on the limestone cliffs of the town that he meets Sarah, hears her strange tale, and falls for her.

But now, the Godlike novelist has to make an appearance.

> You may think novelists always have fixed plans to which they work, so that the future predicted by Chapter One is always inexorably the actuality of Chapter Thirteen. But novelists write for countless different reasons: for money, for fame, for reviewers, for parents, for friends, for loved ones; for vanity, for pride, for curiosity, for amusement: as skilled furniture-makers enjoy making furniture, as drunkards like drinking, as judges like judging, as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy's back. I could fill a book with reasons, and they would all be true, though not true of all. Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.

The story is getting away from him and he has to bring it back on track! So Fowles does the unthinkable: he inserts himself into the novel, and provides the reader with multiple endings. Take your pick…

***

If you are a fan of the conventional story with a beginning, middle and end, this book is not for you. It’s convoluted, verbose and disjointed. Some may feel that it is overlong. You need a lot of patience to plod through the story, taking all the detours and enduring all the stoppages that the author throws at you. But if you distance yourself from the tale (remember the Brechtian technique), you will suddenly start to find it enjoyable. Because this is a novel of ideas; and the idea includes the idea of the novel itself.

Sarah Woodruff, the woman who sets out to “spoil” herself so that she will have an identity, is a masterly creation. And the two possible endings that the author provides at the end allows the reader to appreciate her more. With Sarah’s choice, one could really say that the Victorian Age has ended.

How to write like Tolstoy? ~ Richard Cohen 61 of 25

Yesterday, had a family get together, though unwell, wnated to attend it. But did not want others to be troubled by me. Event being in an author's house filled with books, picked this from his collections and I couldn’t put this one down.How to Write Like Tolstoy is a thought-provoking journey inside the minds of the world's most accomplished storytellers, from Shakespeare to Stephen King.Behind every acclaimed work of literature is a trove of heartfelt decisions. The best authors put painstaking--sometimes obsessive--effort into each element of their stories, from plot and character development to dialogue and point of view.What made Nabokov choose the name Lolita? Why did Fitzgerald use first-person narration in The Great Gatsby? How did Kerouac, who raged against revision, finally come to revise On the Road? Veteran editor and teacher Richard Cohen draws on his vast reservoir of a lifetime's reading and his insight into what makes good prose soar. Here are Gabriel Garcia Marquez's thoughts on how to start a novel ("In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book"); Virginia Woolf offering her definition of style ("It is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words"); and Vladimir Nabokov on the nature of fiction ("All great novels are great fairy tales").Cohen has researched the published works and private utterances of our greatest authors to discover the elements that made their prose memorable. The result is a unique exploration of the act and art of writing that enriches our experience of reading both the classics and the best modern fiction. Evoking the marvelous, the famous, and the irreverent, he reveals the challenges that even the greatest writers faced--and shows us how they surmounted them.