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

Munchy_Monk went viral recently by asking why so many music concerts are being cancelled. The usual theories came out for inspection. Maybe the music is worse. Maybe young people no longer want to gather in person. Maybe they prefer consuming life through little glowing rectangles. Perhaps that is why cinemas are struggling too, and why […]

My dining table is more than 50 years old. My parents bought it when they moved house in the 1970s. It was a great novelty then: round, with a revolving centre for serving yourself, otherwise found only in the Chinese restaurants of the day. It was passed on to me a couple of decades ago. […]

I recently had to move out of a house my family had occupied for nearly a quarter of a century. It was a lovely old house from a bygone era, standing proud for more than 90 years. It had a Mediterranean vibe, with whitewashed walls and colourful creepers, and Italianate details and flourishes from another […]

Do you know how Sikhs greet each other? They say “Sat Sri Akaal.” As a boy I was told that means “Truth is Eternal.” It is the most philosophical of greetings. The priestly explanation for it is that it refers to the divine as both true and timeless. But I also hear in it a […]

“How are you feeling?” It is one of the commonest questions we ask one another. We ask it lightly, lovingly, anxiously, habitually. At home, in hospitals, after a hard meeting, after bad news, after an awkward silence. It has become one of the stock phrases of human concern. How we feel now carries immense authority. […]

Seal Island is a blunt fact off the coast of Cornwall, a lump of rock out in the Atlantic that refuses to be romantic. No cathedral spires, no plaques, no mythology gift-wrapped for tourists. Just stone and swell, and the kind of wind that scrambles your thoughts.  The island gets its name from its proper […]

Everything crumbles, eventually. What we assemble comes apart again, sooner or later. The physical structures we put up will someday come down, however robust they look today. The institutions and businesses we design, build, and nurture may enjoy proud runs, then fade. Globe-spanning empires—Roman, British, American—end up buckling under their own weight. Even our best […]

One evening I found myself watching people build cathedrals out of sugar. The Great British Bake Off, a phenomenally successful TV show, had reached that familiar moment: the showstopper that isn’t really a bake so much as a table-top construction project. A “showpiece” with a narrative brief: fairyland, iconic monuments, whatever the week’s theme happens […]

I wrote here recently about a close friend of my son offering him some real life counsel. That was Aiden: learn to accept difficulty without being defeated by it; accept impermanence without despair. Now another close buddy, Armaan, has added his own small truth: every life is a game of Snakes and Ladders. (Before I […]

I seem to work mostly as an advisor and teacher these days. I never set out to be; I fell into these roles by accident, and by request. It never escapes me that there is something more than faintly ridiculous about giving advice to others. Why should any one human be better than any other […]

I looked down from the stage. The seats brimmed with the who’s who of Kenya. But they were looking on not with boredom or envy, but with affection. I was speaking at the launch of an autobiography, Concert of Life, by Francis Okomo Okello. I don’t normally attend big socials, but this time I had […]

Ever seen turtles hatching?  If you haven’t, make a point of being right there on our sandy shores when this quiet miracle plays out. Tiny turtles, no bigger than a child’s palm, erupt from the darkness of their buried nests. They have never seen the world before, yet they know exactly what to do. In […]

How often are we tempted to put on a good show, tell a made-up story, sell an illusion? A Potemkin Village is something built or staged to give a false impression of prosperity, success, or good order. It’s a facade that hides a less flattering reality. The term comes from a story that’s probably exaggerated. […]

My son was talking to a close friend about a big change ahead. He would have to start afresh, get used to a new place with new faces, and tackle advanced knowledge. Here’s what the friend said, in conclusion: It will be difficult, but you’ll get through it. What a profound sentence that is. I […]

I have never been of the crowd.  From a young age, I flinched from the tumult of group interaction and enforced sociability. School playgrounds felt like battlefields, parties a series of uneasy truces. I simply existed on a different frequency. Where others thrived in the noise, I was attuned to silence, solitary trails, and quiet […]

Do you keep getting dumped on because you’re the accommodating one? Perhaps a lot of work lands on your desk because you’re so willing. Perhaps friends and even close relatives take you and your efforts for granted, not seeing how much you do to help them in their lives. If any of this sounds familiar, […]

In the days of yore, currency was in the form of silver or gold coins. If you allowed bad currency (debased, or even counterfeit) to be treated as equal to proper currency, guess what happened? Yep, the proper coins disappeared. People spent the bad money (because—why not?) and hoarded the good money. Eventually, the good […]

On Kenyan roads, many drivers seem to be in the grip of a particular madness: the need to get there quicker. On any given highway on any given day, there will be cars overtaking in the most dangerous situations. They will come blazing out past sharp bends. They will squeeze back into their lane with […]

The pause that saves us Creshonda Smith moved to Italy from America a while back, first to Rome and then to a remote town in the far south. She got a huge culture shock. Not about language, food, or fashion; but about attitudes towards rest. In her words: “For most of my life, being busy […]

A plain wooden coffin. No ornamentation, no gilded handles. An ordinary pickup truck, serving as the final hearse. A tombstone bearing just one word: Franciscus. And yet, the world stood still. Presidents, monarchs, patriarchs, imams, rabbis. Heads of state and heads bowed in reverence. All gathered in one of the grandest public squares on Earth, […]

Which sock do you put on first, right or left? Whichever one it is, I bet you choose the same foot, every time. Most people do. It’s the same with trousers; people tend to start with their dominant foot or leg. Once the routine is established, they stick with it. It’s an unconscious act, repeated […]

“The respect a person receives due to wealth is not their own; it is the respect for their wealth.” That was written by the writer Munshi Premchand, perhaps a century ago. A man draped in money is often showered with deference, but let him lose his fortune, and watch how quickly that reverence evaporates. What […]

“In a perfect world…” How many times have you heard that, or said it yourself? The human yearning for things to be better, more conducive, more acceptable, seems to be insatiable. We bring our children up in the pretence that the world is far better than it really is; that life is manageable and addressable, […]

We must have passions, we are told—our greatest achievements will come from it. True enough. Humans are creatures of passion. It is passion that sparks our most extraordinary feats, driving us to create, innovate, and pursue our dreams with unrelenting energy. Passion fuels motivation and unlocks the kind of performance that defies expectations, often turning […]

The year began for me with a series of setbacks. Life is often like that; the challenges come thick and fast. It has always been thus, and there is nothing to be done except deal with it. But when the season of setbacks is upon us, we need to step up, focus, stay calm, and […]

Have you ever watched a young cat? Many of these creatures are not “brought up” by their parents—they tend to get separated from their mothers at quite tender ages. Yet they seem to know exactly how to get into hunting positions; exactly how to eat, and how much; exactly how to clean themselves; exactly how […]

A New Year is the time to look ahead, to plan for the future, to make preparations. Right? And yet. Last week I closed the year urging you to be aware of the words of the wise since time immemorial. Be present. Be rooted in the here and now. Tomorrow is a dream, today is […]

“Our revels are now ended.” As another year slips away, we can look to Prospero’s famous words from The Tempest for some wisdom. That passage is considered one of Shakespeare’s most poignant reflections on the nature of life, art, and impermanence. The end of a year is a good time to reflect on our “revels.” […]