Musings of a White Haired Teenager

I’m finishing the last section of my book on Covid narratives, and I keep circling back to the same conclusion: people make decisions on the basis of stories. Not evidence. Not logic. Stories. And not just their own stories—other people happily jump in to reinforce them, especially when there’s something in it for them. During the pandemic, science was catching up as it went along, so we leaned on stories to guide our actions. Remember the “15-minute rule”? Stay near a Covid-positive person for fewer than 15 minutes and you were supposedly safe, like the virus had a stopwatch. At 14:59 you’re fine, at 15:01 you’re doomed. I used that little gem myself when I delivered food to the sick family of a dear friend (bondhu). Did I actually believe it? Not really. But I wanted to believe it, and the narrative gave me cover. And that’s the thing: we don’t just invent these stories alone. We get help. People around us validate, repeat, and polish the narrative until it feels like the truth. And...

Loyalty is usually sold as noble. A virtue. A steady hand on the rudder of life. But in relationships, that noble loyalty takes a darker turn when the newcomer enters. Suddenly, loyalty isn’t a gift freely given — it’s a demand, an ultimatum. Prove your devotion not by being present, but by erasing everything that came before. The past isn’t just behind you; it becomes the enemy. This is not loyalty as trust or love. This is loyalty as ransom. “You want me? Burn everything else.” The friends who stood by you for decades. A threat. The family who shaped you? A liability. The institutions that made you whole? Dangerous. Your history, once your anchor, is reclassified as evidence of betrayal. To stay “loyal,” you must file for divorce from your own past. The script is ruthless. Meet an old friend, and you’re accused of disloyalty. Recall a fond memory, and suspicion grows. Show affection for anyone from “before,” and suddenly your loyalty is in question. The newcomer doesn’t just want to ...

One of my loyal readers, in a comment stated, “Genuine loyalty is moral clarity wrapped in care,” in response to a recent blog . And opened a Pandora’s Box – loyalty - that quaint little word we like to dress up in Sunday clothes, pretending it’s still shiny, noble, and worth something in a world addicted to the next big thing or the next magnificent person. I used to think loyalty was invisible, hidden quietly in gestures and choices. But no—actions out you every time. Actions don’t lie. Wear the tie with the university crest, and suddenly you’re branded: “company man.” I heard that more than once when I was chairing my department. And yes, guilty as charged. Because loyalty to an institution, to a person, to a relationship, actually meant something to me. Imagine that—choosing predictability over chaos, constancy over the sugar rush of novelty. What an old-fashioned fool. The truth is: loyalty has a price. It demands sacrifice. It demands compromise. It demands giving up some dreams,...

I will put the associated song here in case you want to listen to it. Promises Without a Bottle A kind and thoughtful reader commented on the most recent blog and said that what eventually matters is walking toward the future with quiet clarity. Got me thinking. Sounds beautiful, almost poetic. But let’s not kid ourselves. Clarity in relationships is reaching perfection, and perfection is no small trick. Because clarity happens when promises and actions converge. When they don’t, the whole thing falls apart. Promises without action? That’s fluff, nothing more than sweet talk floating in the air. Action without promise? That’s just confusing—why the heck did you bother if there’s no suggestion of a future, no hint you’ll ever repeat it again? Sure, the promises— I care for you, I think about you —sound noble, but words without action are nothing but stage props. The real test of a narrative is not how pretty the dialogue sounds, but whether it can stand up, walk into the room, and pou...

A reader kindly commented on the last blog and made a very important point. In narrative theory there is always an intended audience, and those who think they control the narrative have that audience in mind. It is not always about cleverness, or manipulation, or even power. Sometimes it is simply about survival. The one who crafts the story, trying to write out a character from the plot to make space for the newcomer, is often desperate, doing whatever it takes to keep the new guy happy, like buying a round you can’t afford just so you’re not the one left at the table with empty hands. You tell the newcomer what they want to hear because you’ve got nothing else, because maybe stroking their ego buys you another story, another sliver of a life that already feels like it’s slipping through your fingers. The story becomes less of a weapon and more of a life raft. But as the reader asked— “in my own story, am I the narrator, the newcomer, or the one written out?” —that’s where the whole t...

In talking about the blogs, a dear friend and colleague reminded me that the language and the style was not like the real person I am, who is often described by well-wishers as a “smart ass” who does not mince words and takes pleasure in wise cracks and being a wiseguy, in the tradition of the word's American meaning (those who do not get it, watch some of the Mob movies about the Upper East Side of New York). And that is true. I have no hesitancy in asking people who come up to me to talk, “who are you?” Essentially saying - why should I waste my time paying attention to you? I have known to have done this to people who think they know me, and I have no idea who the person is. Lately, I was losing this touch in my writing, but my friend reminded me not to - it should show in my writing as well - she suggested. As anyone who has taken the time to know me, would know - I have no patience for crap. So, when narratives try to treat people like shit but deodorize it, I am very much a ...

Narratives are never innocent. They are crafted artifacts, spun out of fragments of observation and stitched into coherence not because the world demands it, but because the narrator does. Unless a tale is sheer fiction, there is always an initial spark — a gesture, an overheard sentence, the sight of a raised glass — that becomes the seed of a story. The story is what the narrator does with the spark, how the flame is coaxed into a particular shape, how it is bent to illuminate one figure while leaving another in shadow. It is rarely the event itself that dictates the story, nor the person who is the object of the tale. The purpose lies in the needs of the narrator: to defend, to accuse, to justify, to protect, to erase. And when told with enough conviction, these spun tales do not merely sit alongside reality — they replace it. They become the received truth, repeated until the event itself is buried beneath layers of narration. The 1996 film Courage Under Fire understood this well....

 A narrative is always imposed, and when the newcomer arrives, it is not merely an arrival but an occupation of the narrative field. To exist within a story is never enough; permanence must be secured, and permanence requires authorship. Thus, the newcomer takes up the pen and redraws the script. In the logic of narrative survival, others must be made into villains, foils against which the new protagonist can claim legitimacy. It is a familiar violence, subtle but unrelenting, because as Barthes reminded us, authorship is always a performance, an arrangement of signs that privileges certain characters while banishing others to the shadows. The one caught between stories—the attempted mediator, the figure trying to hold multiple truths at once—suffers most acutely from this rearrangement. They are forced into confusion, for Ricoeur’s notion of emplotment makes clear that coherence requires a selective weaving, and once the weaving begins, no thread can remain neutral. To balance co...

Personal narratives are never as innocent as we might wish them to be. They are manufactured, crafted with the precision of an editor who knows that some pages must be kept and others must be torn out so that the new storyline appears seamless. Ricoeur (1984) reminds us that narrative identity is always an act of emplotment, a stitching together of fragments to create coherence, and in this sense the introduction of a new character requires a revision of the entire plot. When a new person enters the scene, the stories are refashioned to show convergence, as if the two lives were always meant to meet, as if the rhythms of their pasts had been quietly rehearsing for this inevitable duet. What was once contingent is rewritten as destiny, and what was once merely accidental is reframed as necessary. The old text is folded, hidden, sometimes deliberately destroyed, because its persistence would betray the artifice of the new narrative. People who once mattered, who once carried the weight o...

I have spent my life dealing with narratives. Indeed, once, my notion of narrative bits (narbs) took on global prominence. And thus, I believe, people are made of stories. This is not a poetic indulgence but the fundamental reality of how human beings exist in the world, for every person carries within them a woven text of memories, gestures, and acts, each one forming part of an unfinished manuscript that is constantly revised. To meet another person is not to meet a body or a face, it is to allow one’s stories to brush against theirs, to test whether their archive might rhyme with your own, to sense whether a shared narrative could be written together. And yet, contrary to the gentle myth of “growing apart,” these stories do not weaken simply because time passes, nor do they fade like ink abandoned to the elements. They remain stubbornly alive in memory, ready to be recalled, ready to be retold, waiting for the occasion when the silence is broken and the old convergence can be heard...

The arrival of a new presence in a life does not simply draw attention away from the older friend; it requires a re-telling of the story itself. Overtly neglecting the old alone is not enough to secure permanence — a narrative must follow. A specific plot must be woven, one that elevates the newcomer as more precious, more indispensable, while quietly recasting the older companion as an unnecessary burden, especially in the eyes of the newcomer who may have no knowledge of the authentic narrative or the narrative from the point of view of the one being replaced. The re-narration is not always done with malice; it is done because human bonds demand coherence (Ricœur, 1991). To integrate the new, the old must be written differently, the script altered so that what was once essential now appears excessive. And yet, there are tell-tale signs that linger. The kindnesses once performed by the older friend — the simple task of reading through a document, the late-night phone call during a cri...

The unraveling of friendship is not always a story of neglect. More often it is a story of distraction, a quiet shifting of attention rather than a deliberate act of erasure. When a new person enters the scene, the earlier rhythms of friendship are not cast away with malice but slowly pushed aside, because the new requires constant presence, immediate responses, a consuming attentiveness. The everyday acts that once served as tiny proofs of intimacy — a meet up at a coffee shop, the wait for the person to show up, a simple statement, “come”— begin to vanish. Not because they lose value, but because someone else begins to supply them. Memory bends easily; when the gesture is repeated by another, the original becomes faint, a trace rather than a pulse. It is in the loss of the asks that the displacement becomes most visible. Friendships are not held together by grand declarations but by small, familiar requests — “Can you write up this document?” “When will you be back again?” “Can you ...

Social penetration theory tells us that relationships grow by revealing — layer after layer — the deeper selves we hide. But what happens when the process reverses? When instead of opening, we begin to close? People rarely confess that they are pulling out of a friendship. That would sound too deliberate, too cruel. So, the retreat takes another form — silence and absence. In the technological world, it is literal — messages unanswered, profiles blocked, visibility erased. In the real world, it’s more graceful — a slow unavailability, a growing distance, a calendar that never seems to align. Sometimes the retreat doesn’t arrive as silence. It arrives as scheduling. Calendars suddenly grow mismatched. One is always traveling, the other always “just busy.” The rhythm that once aligned so effortlessly begins to stumble. Every invitation meets a gentle deferral — “next week maybe,” “things are a bit hectic right now,” “let’s catch up soon.” But “soon” never arrives. Because it was never me...

The last couple of weeks carried me across different parts of the World (and thus silence of blogs), including a return to Kolkata, timed to coincide with the annual celebration of Durga Puja, that monumental festival now inscribed by UNESCO as part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. To speak of it only as spectacle is to miss its essence. Yes, it dazzles with light, sound, artistry, and scale, but beneath the grandeur it is a profoundly human moment of communion, where families, friends, and even long-forgotten acquaintances find occasion to reconnect, while others are quietly abandoned as unnecessary, redundant, or too heavy to carry forward. Festivals, at their core, are crucibles of choice. In choosing to attend one gathering, one implicitly declines another; in choosing certain companions, one silently relegates others to the margins. This truth confronted me in an almost mundane way. Each evening of the five-day celebration, my neighborhood cultural club staged performan...