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Everything Else Is Rubble

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The administrative office in front of the main building. In this age of endless information, I sometimes pause and realize something strange. I am drowning in information, but starving for memories. Every day, my mind absorbs hundreds of headlines, messages, videos, opinions, and notifications. Most of them vanish without a trace. Yet when I stop for a moment, memories from forty years ago return with astonishing clarity. Today, for some reason, my thoughts wandered back to my school and its teachers. I remember my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Carol at Little Angels. She was Anglo-Indian, impeccably dressed, and absolutely determined that every letter I wrote should sit neatly within the four lines of my notebook. Not touching the ceiling. Not falling through the floor. Perfectly contained. I don't remember what I had for lunch three days ago. But I remember those four lines. My first-grade teacher, Ms. Alice at BP Indian Public School, was...

Hike or no hike

 It was Sunday evening. As usual, things were not on a level plane. The kids were yelling their throats out as though we had not provided them food for days. They had eaten an apple just about thirty minutes ago. At one stage, I had given up trying to understand these three feet creatures. They had their way with almost everything in our lives. I turned to my wife.  "What now?", I asked. "They have not had any outdoor activity. They need to exercise, run, and go around. We can't just keep them at home", my wife said with so much confidence that I thought if I had ten percent of that confidence, I would be successful with anything in life.  I shook my head out of habit before I recomposed myself to actually understand what it was that she said before shaking my head orthogonally in all directions.  "Next week, we go hiking", I said to everyone and no one in particular. So, this weekend, I took the kids for a hike in the morning.  My wife said, "No ...