"CEOs can't wait to read Sunny Bindra's articles every week."

Last week I pointed out that what looks like work often isn’t, and what looks like play may be someone hard at work. Consider the lady sitting in your office, hard at work on her computer. She seems to be very busy trying to get something urgent done. Take a closer look. She’s on Facebook, […]

I sent someone an email late on a Saturday night, recently. His jokey reply asked why I was working so late on weekends. Which made me stop and think. I wasn’t working, exactly; but nor was I not working. I was doing my regular scan of my Twitter feed, and came across a link that […]

Many moons ago, a gentleman called Chege ran a food kiosk close to the main campus of the University of Nairobi. Chege’s place was well frequented by students, and was an institution unto itself. Many of these students came from relatively humble backgrounds from all over Kenya, and lacked support systems in the big, unfriendly […]

A friend was visiting Kenya from abroad recently, and I took him to visit his old high school. The place was a shambles, dirty and decrepit. Some of the desks and chairs looked like they had not been changed since my friend last sat on them thirty years ago. And yet there was gold to […]

Edgar Dean Mitchell is a former NASA astronaut. He was the sixth man to set foot on the moon. As he stood on the lunar surface and gazed back at planet Earth, he was profoundly moved. Later, he wrote this about the experience: “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction […]

It seems wherever we turn in Kenya these days, we find someone discussing their net worth. On frothy television shows, in newspaper spreads, in glossy magazines: invariably someone is on about their material achievements. Said person will be posing for the camera, expensive watch carefully placed to catch the best angle. And the discussion, usually […]

There’s been much debate in Kenya of late around the subject of skin lightening. As we know, many young African and South Asian women take this option, using skin-harming products to chase the illusive beauty myth that surrounds light skin. Many of them, when challenged, defend the practice, calling it no different from changing their […]

The meaning of life is that it stops. I hope reading that sentence placed at least a comma in the flow of your life. What did Franz Kafka mean when he wrote it? Our time on this earth ends. In all cases. There’s a full stop. For some, the full stop comes at the end […]

Who makes your mind up for you? That would be you, right? Of course we all want to believe we are independent spirits and free-minded souls; that we think for ourselves and come to our own conclusions. Sadly, for most of us that is just a delusion. Our minds are being made up for us, […]

When I make a new acquaintance in Kenya, particularly those of a certain age, there is a question I will very likely be asked during that first conversation: “You must know Mr So-and-So Singh?” My new friend will then proceed to roll off the names of a few Sikhs of his acquaintance, typically building contractors […]

How many times do you want to be wrong before you’ll accept you’re not infallible? I often watch some of the more cocksure folks amongst us strut from one bad decision to another – while never once acknowledging their own mistakes and errors of judgement. The blame is passed swiftly, scapegoats are found quickly, and […]

In my first year at university, I was like most students around me: finding my way in the world; straining to understand my own identity and place; yearning for experiences, the more the merrier. My budget was tight, though. Like most of my fellows, I spread my money as far as possible, seeking the cheapest […]