He was the kind of man people trusted immediately— super athletic, stylish without trying, wheatish complexion that made aunties assume good family and bouncers assume VIP.

He ran every morning at 5:17 a.m. Not 5:15. Not 5:20. 5:17—because his fitness app once told him that consistency mattered, and he took it personally.

At traffic signals, strangers asked him for directions. In gyms, trainers corrected other people by pointing at him. Women smiled at him the way people smile at an exit sign during a fire drill. Which was unfortunate, because he was deeply, catastrophically lazy.

Not physically—never that.
Morally.

He believed in shortcuts the way other people believed in god.

He didn’t train hard; he trained visible.
Push-ups near mirrors. Sprints near cafés. Yoga only if there were windows.

His abs were real, but his résumé was aspirational. His discipline stopped exactly where effort began.

When his startup failed, people said,
“Such potential. Maybe bad luck.”

When his relationships ended, people said,
“She couldn’t keep up with him.”

Only his mother knew the truth. She’d seen him quit piano, karate, swimming, IIT coaching, and one very promising therapist.

Then one day, during his morning run, he collapsed. Not dramatically—no cinematic gasp.
Just a gentle sit-down, like a man reconsidering his life choices mid-squat.

An ambulance arrived.
The paramedic whispered, “Looks fit.” The doctor said, “Rest, stress, lifestyle.” Everyone nodded, impressed.

At home, forced into stillness, he discovered something terrifying: without motion, people stopped applauding.

No nods. No admiration. No borrowed confidence reflected back at him.

He tried posting old workout photos. Likes dropped.

He wore his best clothes indoors. The mirror didn’t clap.

Eventually, fully recovered, he went for a run again— same shoes, same route, same 5:17 a.m.

But halfway through, he slowed down.

Not because he was tired. Because for the first time, no one was watching.

He stopped.

And felt lighter than he ever had— which annoyed him deeply, because suffering was supposed to look better than this.

He sat on the pavement, stylish even in defeat, and wondered if this—this quiet, unimpressive honesty— was what people meant by inner strength.

Then he stood up.

Ran back home.

And told everyone later that he’d done ten kilometres.

He became a dedicated musician the way some people become monks—
by first failing spectacularly at everything else.

The instrument arrived quietly. No announcement, no Instagram story. Just a second-hand harmonium that smelled faintly of dust, incense, and other people’s disappointments.

At first, he practiced for the wrong reasons.
Posture. Aesthetic.
He sat straight, jaw angled, fingers curved just enough to look intentional.
But music, irritatingly, refused to perform on command.

It cracked. It wandered. It exposed pauses where he had nothing to hide behind. So he stayed.

Hours passed without applause. Days passed without witnesses.
His calluses formed in places no one ever complimented.

His parents noticed before anyone else.

His mother stopped tiptoeing past his room. She listened. Not critically—just listening, the way you listen to rain and decide not to interrupt it.

His father began hovering with unnecessary errands.
“Chai?” “Biscuit?”
“Have you eaten?”

They didn’t say we are proud of you. Indian parents rarely do.
They said things like, “Sound is coming nicely now,” which is practically a standing ovation.

He walked them to appointments.
Carried groceries without announcing it.
Sat beside them without checking his phone.

The athletic body softened—not badly, just honestly. The stylish clothes were still there, but they waited their turn.

Sometimes, neighbours asked,
“What is he doing these days?”

His parents said, “He is learning.”

Not earning. Learning.

Music didn’t fix him. It made him worse in useful ways.

He became patient. Which is an inconvenience in a world that prefers results.
He became attentive. Which is exhausting when people are used to being ignored.

He played small rooms. Then slightly larger ones.
Once, during a recital, he forgot a phrase and laughed— actually laughed— and the audience laughed too, relieved that perfection had been cancelled.

At home that night, his father said,
“You missed one note.”

He nodded.

Then his father added,
“But you did not stop.”

That sentence stayed longer than any applause ever had.

He still ran sometimes. Not at 5:17. Just when the day felt too loud.

People trusted him less now. Which turned out to be a gift.

He was no longer admired immediately— only slowly, after staying.

And if you asked his parents who their son was, they wouldn’t describe his body, his looks, or his achievements.

They would say, “He comes home.”

He used to donate blood regularly— not out of altruism, exactly, but because it paired beautifully with fitness.

Free health check.
Mandatory hydration.
A sanctioned excuse to skip leg day.

He liked the efficiency of it. Lose blood, gain virtue. Bleed a little, feel superior for weeks.

The nurses adored him. Veins obedient. Hemoglobin smugly high.

“Very good,” they’d say, tightening the band.
“You should come often.”

He did.

So often that one nurse once asked, gently, “You are not… hiding something, no?”

He laughed. “No, no. Just healthy.” Which was mostly true, if you ignored motivation.

After music entered his life, he stopped going for a while.
Practice ran late.
Parents needed company.
Silence became useful.

Then one afternoon, his mother mentioned a neighbour’s son—
an accident, rare blood group, shortage.

He didn’t announce anything.
Didn’t stretch. Didn’t post. He just went.

At the blood bank, the chair was the same.
The smell was the same. The needle didn’t care who you had become.

As the blood flowed, he felt oddly embarrassed— as if caught doing something decent without preparation.

The nurse checked his form. “You’re a musician now?” she asked, surprised.

He nodded.

“No gym?”

“Not much.”

She smiled, disappointed in a small, professional way. Still proud. Just differently.

Halfway through, he felt lightheaded.
Not dangerously—just enough to remind him that bodies keep score.

He lay still, listening to the machine hum, and realised this was the first time he’d given blood without using it to prove anything.

No optimization. No performance. No story planned for later.

At home, his mother noticed the bandage.

“Blood test?” she asked.

“Donation.”

She frowned. “You should eat properly then.”

She didn’t say good boy. She put extra ghee on his roti.

That night, while practicing, his fingers slipped.
The note wobbled.
Recovered.

He smiled.

He was still athletic enough to heal. Still stylish enough to look fine doing it. Still young.

But now, when he gave something away, he didn’t calculate what came back.

Which, annoyingly, made it count.

He had always treated blood donation like a clever cross-training drill. Cardio for the conscience. Strength training for reputation.

Back when he was still running at exactly 5:17 a.m., still dressing like mirrors mattered, still mistaking admiration for character, he donated blood with the enthusiasm of a man collecting badges. Nurses remembered him. Veins behaved. Forms filled themselves. He liked how orderly it felt—how cleanly goodness could be scheduled between protein shakes.

Until the neighbour’s son.

The boy died that night.

He knew, of course, what that meant. He was educated. He understood logistics, blood banks, probability. He explained it calmly to himself while tuning his harmonium later that evening.

Still.

The timing had style.

A week later, an old gym acquaintance—loud, smug, permanently motivational—needed blood after a surgery complication. The man had once explained discipline to him at length while skipping leg day.

He donated.

The acquaintance didn’t make it.

This time, the coincidence made him laugh.

Not loudly. Just a private smile, the way you smile when a song accidentally resolves better than planned.

He waited.

A distant cousin—petty, cruel, a lifelong borrower of money and joy.
A former boss—fond of unpaid overtime and moral lectures.
A neighbour who played music too loudly and apologies too softly.

Each time, he donated.
Each time, they died.

Never immediately. Never dramatically. Always just… didn’t recover.

He never told anyone.
Never wrote it down.
Didn’t even admit it fully to himself.

He called it a pattern, which felt safer than a belief.

The scientist in him noted variables.
The musician in him appreciated rhythm.

He didn’t cause anything—he was very clear about that. He simply observed. Participated. Like rain.

It became a hobby in the way dark thoughts do: quiet, recreational, deeply inappropriate for conversation.

He was careful. He never donated for people he loved.
He wasn’t a monster.

At home, he remained a good son.
Walked his parents to appointments.
Listened more than he spoke.
Practised while his mother cooked, while his father pretended not to listen.

His father once said, “Your sur is steady now.”

That mattered.

Years passed. Bodies weakened. Families shrank.

Then came the diagnosis.

Nothing dramatic—those are for cinema. This was slow, polite, incurable. The kind of illness that rearranges furniture and conversations before it rearranges lives.

There was a shortage.
A call. A file slid gently across a desk. He was the only compatible donor left.

He sat very still.

For the first time since the pattern began, it spoke back—not playfully, not ironically. Just a fact clearing its throat.

He tried to reason with it. Probability. Confirmation bias.
He played music until his fingers hurt.

His mother noticed the silence.

“You are not practicing today?” she asked.

“Later,” he said.

At the hospital, the chair felt smaller than he remembered. The needle less impressed by him. The nurse smiled, unaware of narrative arcs.

“Good thing you were available,” she said.

He almost laughed. Almost.

As the blood left him, he felt none of the old amusement. No curiosity. No secret counting. Just a dull terror wrapped in guilt’s familiar clothing.

He donated anyway.

Because patterns are only funny when they don’t ask for proof.

His parent survived.

Not triumphantly. Not cured. Just survived—longer. Enough for more evenings. More meals. More music drifting down a corridor.

The pattern broke.

Or maybe it had never existed at all.

He never donated blood again.

Not out of fear. Out of respect.

Some habits, he learned, are funny only until they love you back.

The story was buzzing in my head for a while. Got it out of myself today – Jan 27, 2026.

The designs are wedding cards for my sisters, created by our father, Gour Gupta. Though he designed adverts for a living, at heart he was an artist who was open to influences from anywhere. Also, it didn’t matter what he was scribbling on when an idea came by.

See where this one starts from. Ah and all that text (everything that you will see in the following photos) is hand written, yes, even the small text at the bottom mostly using a brush, but sometimes with a bow pen.

Next, he wants to leave an imprint that can’t be copied and combine it with a mark of any auspicious ceremony in the Hindu world, the tilak. The thumb imprint makes the design personal and unique to the person. The floral pattern, is the influence of alpona (Bangla) or rangoli, another inseparable aspect of any Hindu ceremony.

Notice the left, I am sure there was a kid around him and he loved to fool around with them with birds and monkeys. It was also a subtle hint that this design was not making the cut for him. It was already out of his selection.

The design influence continues and you see him mixing and matching ideas. All to scale and all keeping with print specifications in mind. You will see the accuracy in a bit as you read on.

He finally did the one on the right, but where did the influence come from?

Here, from a book which had been sitting in his library forever. The male was replace with a lady, the bird on the right was a near mirror of the one on the left. The horse is replaced with a cushioned seat, most likely the inside a palanquin, something that he was contemplating about earlier. See how the background from the original becomes a curtain with the block print impressions. The three ladies still continue. Three is a funny number, in all religious offerings it is auspicious, it is a particular set of three fingers while offering to the Gods; but when serving food, you never serve thrice at least if you are a Bengali, I am unsure if that tradition is true of other folks in India.

The cover had the alpona in pink (western influence for a female, maybe) and the thumb imprint. The inside was the lady with her confidants in attendance.

Now to the second design. During this he seems to be certain about what he wants from the get go.

The wedding scene, to scale with buffer, margins and alignment markers in place. If the printer made a mistake, he was surely going to get an earful.

Specific and clear dimensions. I mean who wants 6.5 inches in a regular world. Each dot is hand placed with a rotring isograph (one of his prized possessions).

Now see the final output, I put a scale next to it and it is 6.5 inches.

He made design fun yet clinical.

For folks who work(ed) with me, now you know why I see pixels move on the screen. Yes, my first job was reinforcement of the same line of thought too!

Recitation at Pravah 2025

The One Rupee Disruption: A Social Experiment

At the recently concluded group exhibition, I managed to turn the quiet act of pricing into the loudest conversation of the show for me. Every artwork, regardless of size, medium, or effort, was priced at a token amount: Re.1. What seemed like an almost absurd gesture quickly became the heartbeat of the exhibition — sparking dialogue, curiosity, and even discomfort.

Visitors were first amused, then intrigued. How could a piece of art — crafted with evident skill, layered with digital media and textures — be valued at less than a cup of tea? That question lingered, pushing people to confront their own assumptions about value, worth, and ownership. I, who do not rely on art for livelihood, described the move as a way to “strip away the market and focus on connection.”

But the story didn’t end there. Many collectors, unwilling to accept the symbolic price, insisted on paying more. I redirected these contributions towards a social cause for supporting young talent. In a poetic twist, the Re.1 experiment became a vehicle for collective generosity.

By the end of the show, the “cheapest” works had generated the most conversations — and some funds for social impact than anyone anticipated. What began as a personal artistic statement evolved into a community-wide exploration of how money interacts with meaning.

The Re.1 artworks may have left the gallery walls, but their ripple continues: a reminder that art can be both accessible and transformative, that value isn’t always measurable in currency, and that sometimes the smallest denomination carries the largest message.

“By pricing my artworks at Re.1, I wanted to shift the conversation from ownership and exclusivity to accessibility and dialogue. The unexpected generosity of collectors turned this gesture into something larger — a way to support a social cause to support young artists. For me, the real value lies not in the price tag, but in the connections and ripples the work creates.”

Till we meet again with some more art and work!