The Years Without Fingerprints

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Some years don’t leave fingerprints. For the last few years, time feels like it has quietly pressed fast-forward. I finished tenth grade in 1997. Twelfth grade in 1999. I exited my teens right as the new millennium arrived. And somewhere along the way, I crossed a strange milestone: I’ve now lived more of my life after 2000 than before it. Yet most of my vivid memories still belong to the pre-2000 world. Maybe childhood memories are denser. Or maybe adult life is just better at overwriting itself. Post-2000 is one thing—but post-2020 is another entirely. The last five years feel like I took a hand towel, wiped my face, and tossed it away. Gone. Just… blur. Nothing makes time’s passage more obvious than children. Akhil and Sahana are growing up fast, each carving out a personality that couldn’t be more different. Akhil’s fascination with basketball has only deepened—remarkably so, given his usual talent for boredom. Middle school is around the corner, and we’re all quie...

Ping-Pong: Not all that easy

As we spent our time waiting in long queues in the amusement park in Kansas City, Ashwin came up with an interesting game. It is called as ping-pong. The name can be quite misleading as it does not involve ping pong balls and racquets. The game play is as follows. All of them form a circle, and each of them choses a country of his choice. One person starts with a ping, the next one follows with a pong, and the third one has to call out a country chosen by anyone in the group other than his own. The next "ping" is called out by the person who has the name of the country previously called out. Any deviations from the above pattern results in the person being out of the game.

This might sound too simple but I assure you that it is not at all the case. Last night in a dinner party, we played this game, and as I explained the rules to the people present, there was this feeling What's so tough about this? But as we started to play the game, everyone realised that it is a lot of fun with unthinkable mistakes from the participants.

A neat party game and if you are in a big group waiting in a line, go for it and have fun!

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