In The Girl in Chains, the newest Simone Singh thriller from Devashish Sardana, a young woman pulls the trigger at a crowded political rally—but uncovering why may prove even more deadly than the crime itself.

***

‘Keep moving.’ 

Naina hears the words. Urgent and sharp. An order from Daayan. 

She nods. A fresh stream of sweat trickles down from behind her ear to her neck, igniting a fleeting tingle as it dissolves into the warmth of her skin. She keeps moving her head up and down like a bobble head. She doesn’t want to displease, doesn’t want to disappoint Daayan. But her feet remain rooted to the ground. Stuck. Unmoving. She knows why she is here. Somewhat. But she also doesn’t. As if her mind is fractured, thoughts disjointed, like someone has scrambled her insides and left her with pieces that don’t fit. 

A finger pokes her in the spine. ‘Keep moving.’ 

‘Okay, okay.’ She takes a breath. Deep and steady. 

Then steps into the crowd. 

The line snakes forward, bodies pressed together, restless, buzzing with energy. Up ahead, Delhi’s Ramlila Ground churns with movement. The crowd sways, alive with anticipation. Cheers and chants rise, bouncing off the colourful banners of the political party they are here to support for the upcoming Delhi State elections. Bright yellow. Bold blue. Everywhere. This is ‘Democracy Bachao,’ a political rally led by the sitting government in Delhi, with the Deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sengupta, set to address the gathering. 

As she stands in the queue, the Delhi heat hits Naina like a wall, bodies pressing close, damp and restless. She feels it then. The weight. Not the crowd. Something else. Solid. Heavy. It’s there, hidden in the weave of her wig, snug against her scalp, carefully secured with hair pins and perfectly concealed. 

The revolver. Loaded. Ready. Cold, like a secret with a trigger. 

Her right hand had shaken when she first held the gun at home—cold metal, heavy with intent—but Daayan had steadied her. She didn’t know where the gun had come from. It wasn’t important. A trivial detail. What was important, Daayan had said, was the purpose she must fulfil with the revolver. Or else . . . he didn’t have to finish the sentence. She knew the consequences. 

Now, standing in the searing heat, the gun pressing against her head, Naina shifts her weight from one foot to the other, uncertain and disoriented. She swallows back the sour taste of dread. ‘You sure about this?’ she whispers, her eyes darting across the faces of the crowd. 

No response. 

She doesn’t need one. She knows what Daayan wants. He brought her here for one purpose only. She feels sick thinking about it. Her heart pounds in her chest. Every nerve in her body buzzes with tension. She wants to turn around, walk away, but she can’t. Daayan won’t let her. He has been planning this for weeks; controlling and blackmailing her for even longer. She wants to turn around. Just once. Look at his face. But she doesn’t dare. 

‘Move.’ 

‘Yes, yes. I’m moving,’ she says, her tone tinged with frustration, and moves along in the queue, closer to the entrance of Ramlila Ground. 

She notices the tight security at the entrance—metal detectors and police personnel with stern eyes scanning the crowd. She gulps and unconsciously touches the wig on her head. 

Daayan slaps her hand away. 

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbles as sudden pain erupts at the back of her hand. 

At home, Daayan had told her not to attract attention to the wig. Keep it natural, he had said. ‘Blend in or bleed,’ he’d whispered. She feels anything but natural right now. She is out of place. And completely out of her depth. 

‘Keep moving.’ 

Naina gulps and trudges towards the security gate. The line inches forward, and Naina’s gaze locks on the two metal detectors at the entrance. They stand like sentinels, humming faintly as people pass through. Beyond them, uniformed police methodically pat down attendees, their hands brisk and impersonal. Her stomach twists into a knot. Every step forward feels heavier than the last. She shifts her weight, her palms slick with sweat. 

A woman ahead of her sets off the detector. The sharp beep pierces the air. Two constables close in, their eyes cold and unyielding. A brief scuffle, then they let her through. Naina’s breath quickens. What if that happens to her? What if they find it? 

She feels Daayan’s presence, heavy and oppressive. She doesn’t dare turn, but she knows he’s there. Watching. Waiting. 

Her turn. 

The metal detector beeps—loud, jarring, unyielding. Her chest tightens as panic surges. Her heart thunders. Her vision blurs for a moment, her body frozen in place. 

A woman constable steps forward, her expression unreadable. ‘Step aside, please,’ the constable says, motioning to a curtained area. 

Naina trudges after her, her legs barely holding her up. Inside the small enclosure, the constable gestures for her to raise her arms. Naina obeys, the revolver’s weight pressing harder against her scalp. 

The constable’s hands move swiftly, patting down her sides, her back, her legs. Naina clenches her fists, waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for the constable to touch the wig and find the weapon hidden there. 

Nothing. 

In Strategy for Life by Surya Ramkumar, a simple yet powerful idea takes centre stage: the biggest obstacle to success is often not a lack of solutions, but a failure to identify the real problem worth solving.

***

‘Is my career about to disappear?’

This question haunts professionals across countless industries today. Samir, a thirty-two-year-old radiologist with ten years of experience and multiple responsibilities that include a mortgage, school fees and recurring family health expenses, is sitting at his workstation reviewing chest X-rays when he receives an article forwarded by a colleague: ‘AI System Outperforms Radiologists in Tumor Detection’.

He feels a knot in his stomach.

The mixed messages he has been receiving from the hospital management, the radiology webinars he attends and his lived experience create an unsettling dissonance he is unable to resolve. On the one hand, he is looking forward to the technological advances that would make his job easier, ‘take out the routine tasks, leaving the human to inject creativity and unique value,’ as one webinar host put it. On the other hand, he is swamped with more work than ever, the productivity increases that the new technology promised never quite kicking in. While the ambient threat of redundancy looms in the background, he tries to focus on the things that he can control on any given day.

‘How do I compete with AI?’ he asks himself, spending nights learning about machine learning algorithms and wondering if he should change specialties. But his attempts to solve this ill-defined problem leave him more anxious and confused.

Is his problem really about competing with AI in its current form? Is that something he can reasonably solve, and even if he were to solve it, wouldn’t the next technological advance be just around the corner? Will it materially change his life? And is it even a path that aligns with his skills and capabilities?

Samir’s situation illustrates a common challenge: when facing uncertainty about our futures, whether from technological disruption, economic shifts or personal transitions, we often rush to address symptoms rather than root causes or jump to narrow solutions without understanding the true nature of our challenges.

Trying to ‘master AI’ gives Samir the illusion of progress. But in the long run, he is running on a treadmill where technological advances are always one step ahead, and the latent anxiety remains ever present.

In a world where the horizons appear hazier than ever, we need a new approach, one that considers the ambiguity and uncertainty of our times yet utilizes our unprecedented agency in setting our own path. The first step of that approach starts with accurately identifying and defining the problem in a systematic way.

The Promise of a Problem

Every strategy starts with a problem. An invading king that you want to defend against. An opposing team with more talented players than yours. A competitor with more resources than you. All examples of problems that could lead to strategies, and thus to success. Yet even those who know the utility of a well-defined problem often struggle to get the first steps of a strategy right.

Based on a recent survey of venture capitalists and unicorns, McKinsey summarized the main factors that differentiated a successful unicorn from the other start-ups. One of these factors, very simply, was, solve something. Too often, the report went on to say, founders start with an idea or a product and then try to find a market. But the really successful ones are able to identify and solve a problem that matters. The same is true for each one of us.

In a world of positive thinking, we don’t always like to think of problems. Euphemistically, we may call them challenges or opportunities, but in my opinion, the best way to figure out what to do is to figure out the most vexing problem that you need solved and attack it head-on.

What is unique about a problem versus an opportunity, a passion or a purpose? A problem is a pain point that is hard to ignore. It cannot be described as a role or a job opening. It addresses something that matters to you, which is not easily solved.

Let’s say you have been working for several years, and you know your job inside out. You feel that you have trained and helped many new employees, but somehow that elusive promotion to a managerial role keeps slipping between your fingers. It may be tempting to fixate on getting yourself a job as a manager. But getting a job as a manager is not a problem. Being in a job where you don’t feel fully utilized and recognized is a problem. This reframing helps you articulate a wider range of solutions, rather than the narrowly defined possibility of getting promoted to a specific role.

The other wonderful thing about problems is that they have an uncanny ability to focus resources. People like opportunities, of course, but the human brain responds much better to an urgent and pressing problem. If you have observed teams at play or at work, crises often have a way of bringing them together in ways a new growth opportunity cannot. In the throes of crises, people forget their differences, debates abate and we are more willing to get into action mode. And deliberate action is exactly what we are after.

In The Skincare Guide That Will Save Your Life, dermatologist Dr Deepali Bhardwaj explores the fascinating science of probiotic skincare and explains how nurturing your skin’s microbiome could be the key to a stronger, calmer and more resilient complexion.

***

(Some) Bacteria Are Our Friends

How probiotic beauty products are the way forward

‘I started taking the probiotic Dr Deepali suggested, and within three weeks my skin allergies reduced drastically. The irritation on my skin subsided too. My gut feels lighter and my skin looks calmer than it has in years. No other doctor had suggested this to me. Thank you so much!’ —N.P.

‘You want me to put kimchi on my face? Like a beauty mask?!’

If my reaction to this statement had been recorded, it would have become a viral meme by now.

I was talking to Neeta, a patient, about changing her skincare routine and introducing some probiotic products to it, and this is what she asked incredulously. After I got a hold on myself, I realized she wasn’t wrong in asking that question. We all associate the word ‘probiotic’ with the foods we need to eat to ensure we always have a healthy gut. But probiotic products are not just limited to foods. There is now a whole range of beauty products that contain probiotic ingredients, which are great for your skin.

But what exactly do we mean by ‘probiotic’?

The Good Bacteria

Our skin is home to millions of bacteria, fungi and viruses. Altogether they are called the skin flora or skin microbiota. One type of skin microbiota are probiotics. Human bodies are home to millions of microorganisms. Not all microorganisms are helpful to us; some types like germs are, in fact, harmful. But probiotics—live microorganisms—are beneficial to us.

Probiotics are found naturally within and on the body, and they greatly impact our skin’s health and overall appearance.

The concept of probiotics dates back to 1900, when French chemist and pharmacist Louis Pasteur studied fermentation microbes in the 1800s. However, the first probiotic product was introduced to the world in 1907–08 when scientist Élie Metchnikoff created ‘Lactobacilline’ consisting of Lactobacillus bulgaricus bacteria, a true forerunner of modern probiotics. The term ‘probiotic’ was first used in 1965 by Daniel Lilly and Rosalie Stillwell. In the human body, probiotics make up part of the microbiome, which is a collection of microorganisms that are naturally found in the digestive tract, skin and other parts of the body.

Like the gastrointestinal tract, the skin’s microbiome helps keep the skin barrier healthy and strong. It is estimated that around 1 million bacteria are present per square centimetre of the skin. Probiotics are part of this microflora. Their main job is to help the skin’s microbiome stay in balance. They do so by keeping harmful bacteria in check and preventing them from over-proliferating. This, in turn, helps to boost skin barrier health, control inflammation and prevent water loss in your skin.

Inversely, a dysfunctional microbiome results in inflammatory skin conditions such as acne, eczema and rosacea. Simply put, the good bacteria are constantly putting up a fight against the bad ones—the ones that can cause several skin diseases.

There are three main components in your skin microbiota—probiotics (the good microbes), prebiotics (the food on which the good microbes feed on) and postbiotics (the chemicals released by the microbes). These chemicals, like anti-bacterial peptides, are of immense benefit to us as they eliminate harmful bacteria.

What Is Probiotic Skincare?

Products that promote the skin microbiome are a part of the probiotic skincare routine. Probiotic skincare incorporates ingredients derived from beneficial bacteria or their byproducts. They are designed to nurture your skin’s natural ecosystem. These products work to maintain the microbiome’s balance, promoting a strong, more resilient skin barrier.

Probiotic-based skincare products contain ingredients like inulin, alpha-glucan oligosaccharide and thermal spring water. Sulphate-free cleansers, pH-balanced face washes (around 5–5.5) and barrier-repair moisturizers with ceramides are some of these products. If you’re already using a gentle cleanser, a ceramide-based moisturizer or a serum with fermented extracts, you’re likely supporting your skin microbiome without even realizing it.

A large part of understanding probiotic skincare is learning that bacteria are not always bad. They play a vital role in the human body and that billions of microorganisms work together on the skin’s surface to protect and reinforce its strength.

Probiotic foods contain live bacteria that improve your gut health. But that is not the case in probiotic skincare. Here, the bacteria are stabilized and formulated to allow the product to remain well-preserved.

What does it take to create something that changes your life and perhaps the lives of millions of others? Everyday Creativity by Pavan Soni explores this question through the stories of remarkable creators who transformed imagination into reality.

***

Meet Joanne, a shy girl who preferred languages over sciences in school and fantasy over realism at home. She had the ‘fertile imagination of the born storyteller’, as the Dictionary of National Biography later described her. Joanne’s unbridled imagination was stoked by her mom and shaped by books such as Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford, Emma by Jane Austen, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

‘I was the epitome of a bookish child—short and squat, thick National Health glasses, living in a world of complete daydreams, wrote stories endlessly and occasionally came out of the fog to bully my poor sister and force her to listen to my stories and play the games I’d just invented,’ is Joanne’s self-description. She preferred being a closet writer, away from the scrutiny of the world. Joanne’s uneventful upbringing and education offered the perfect backdrop on which a storyteller was getting shaped, only to be rudely shocked as an adult.

It started with Joanne’s mother’s untimely death due to multiple sclerosis, followed by a strained relationship with her father, then spiralling into a disarrayed career, financial distress, a miscarriage, an abusive marriage, a public divorce and social ostracization. In just a few years, this aspiring writer was reduced to queuing up at post offices to collect her £69 per week from Social Security and with a threemonth-old daughter to look after. Her only possession was the manuscript of the story of a boy wizard. How did that idea come about?

‘All of a sudden the idea for Harry just appeared in my mind’s eye,’ describes Joanne of the epiphany on one of her routine Manchester–London train rides. ‘I can’t tell you why or what triggered it. But I saw the idea of Harry and the wizard school very plainly. I suddenly had this basic idea of a boy who didn’t know who he was, who didn’t know he was a wizard until he got his invitation to wizard school.’ It was her own story and her life experiences filled in the details. Characters emerged from her teachers, settings conjured out of her years at Wyedean and the University of Exeter and of the places she frequented. Nothing went to waste. ‘Harry has always been my favourite boy’s name and Potter was the surname of the family who used to live near me when I was seven.’ She already knew that it would be seven books, except that her first book was far from finished and there wasn’t any publisher.

‘I never expected to mess up so badly that I would find myself in an unheated mouse-infested flat, looking after my daughter,’ was Joanne’s admission. The manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was laboured, with Joanne teaching at schools, hopping coffee houses with a toddler in tow and securing funds to keep her house warm. Seven years after that light-bulb day on the train, twelve rejections later and with no money to even photocopy her manuscript, Joanne got a break with Bloomsbury Publishing. ‘You’ll never make any money out of children’s books, Jo,’ was the prophecy from Bloomsbury’s Barry Cunningham. When suggested that young boys wouldn’t like reading a fantasy book written by a woman, Joanne adopted her grandmother’s name Kathleen, giving us J.K. Rowling (1965–).

J.K. Rowling’s first book appeared in 1997 and six books and 600 million copies later, she has become the world’s highest-paid author. By 2004, Rowling was the world’s first billion-dollar writer, sharing the Forbes list with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Oprah Winfrey. ‘In practical terms, it will mean security,’ she clarifies. ‘We’ve been getting along but it has been hand-to-mouth on occasions. I don’t want to dramatize it—we weren’t starving or anything, but single parents are never going to get rich. It’s amazing to think something you have done is worth that amount of money to someone else, but then I look at my daughter and think, thank God for it.’

I can list out the trials and tribulations of Joanne, but I will spare you the details and Joanne some irritation (if she ever gets to reading this). Let me instead draw out the insights on creativity—what it takes to create.

‘I admire bravery above almost every other characteristic,’ reflects Joanne. Her story is that of imagination, intelligence, talent, perseverance, rigour, patience and luck. It’s a relatable story, one which shows that creativity is an achievable feat rather than god’s gift, or ‘hitting the jackpot’. That creativity is ‘in spite of’ and not ‘because of’ and that you can afford to be creative even when your life doesn’t seem fair. This book intends to simplify creativity, making it accessible to you daily and with a hope that the next story could be yours.

‘We were put here on earth to act as agents of the Infinite, to bring into existence that which is not yet, but which will be, through us,’ notes Steven Pressfield, a novelist and screenwriter. ‘If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.’7 By that argument, creativity is not a choice but an obligation. However distasteful it may sound, you will be remembered for what you ‘create’ and not what you manage. So, don’t waste your energies tinkering with someone else’s creation. Go about yours.

In Be Better, Live Better, Dr Hansaji Yogendra explores a powerful idea: that true happiness doesn’t come from chasing more, but from living in greater harmony with ourselves, with others and with life itself. 

***

If you look closely enough, you will see that the universe is not a chaotic mess held together by chance. It is precise. Measured. Alive in its own way. It has its own survival instincts.

We often speak of evolution as a biological process. But existence itself evolves. The entire cosmos, from the tiniest particle to the largest galaxy, functions with remarkable balance. What continues to exist is that which fits into this larger harmony. What disturbs it fades.

Science has long pointed to something mysterious: the fine-tuning of the universe. If even one of the fundamental laws or constants of physics were altered just slightly, life could not exist. In fact, not even matter as we know it could hold together. There is a balance to everything.

It is deeply aligned with survival—not just for individual forms, but for the whole. And in this system, only what supports the balance, what adds to the stability of the whole, is allowed to stay. Everything else is either absorbed, transformed or dissolved. That is why what survives in this universe is not the strongest nor the fastest, but the most attuned.

Even destruction, when it happens, serves a purpose. Black holes consume, but in doing so, they also recycle. Supernovas explode, but in their death, they birth new elements that make life possible. The universe is not wasting anything. It is always, somehow, balancing itself.

So when we speak of stability, sustainability or harmony, we are not speaking in moral terms. We are speaking in universal terms. These are not human values. These are cosmic principles. The universe does not run on good or bad. It runs on what works.

And perhaps the real wonder is this: that we, as tiny fragments of this great whole, can even begin to sense this intelligence. Maybe our own longing for balance is not separate from the universe. Maybe it is the universe recognizing itself through us.

Among all that exists in the universe, living beings hold a unique position. Stones may rest, stars may burn, but it is life that breathes, grows, adapts and chooses.

We, as living beings, are not merely drifting particles in space. We are active participants in the unfolding of existence. But here is the truth: only those who contribute to that balance are sustained and supported by the universe. Like a tree that gives shade, a bee that pollinates or a mother who nurtures her young, when life supports life, it is preserved. It is allowed to thrive.

Imagine this universe as a vast ecosystem, or even a great company, if you will. In any thriving organization, those who add value, who contribute to growth and stability, are cherished. They are given more responsibility, more freedom, more opportunity. Those who don’t— who disrupt, consume or pull away from the collective purpose—are slowly phased out.

The universe works the same way.

It retains that which contributes to its harmony. It nurtures beings—plants, animals, humans—who participate in the symphony of balance. A forest that heals the earth will flourish. An animal that keeps an ecosystem in check will be preserved by nature. And a human who lives not just for personal gain but also in service of life, of growth and of others’ well-being will be supported by unseen hands.

In the Indian tradition, this principle is known as Dharma. It is not religion. It is not a duty imposed from outside. It is the inner alignment of a living being with the cosmic need. Dharma is that which holds, that which sustains. When a being—human or otherwise—functions in accordance with their dharma, the universe has a place for them. They are needed. They are upheld.

But when a life form becomes parasitic, when it consumes but does not contribute, takes but does not nurture, then slowly, over time, it loses its place in the larger scheme. Its presence becomes irrelevant to the grand balance, and nature lets it go.

So ask yourself: What does the universe want from me as a living being? It wants you to participate. To grow in a way that helps others grow. To live in a way that adds to the harmony. To think, speak and act in ways that stabilize, not disturb, this existence.

***

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Root, Leaf, Fire by Luke Coutinho and Sheeba De Souza reimagines wellness as a way of living—one that begins with mindful eating and extends to sleep, movement, emotional balance and the small daily rituals that bring meaning, nourishment and joy to everyday life.

***

Root is where everything begins. It is the quiet ground beneath everything else: the way we sleep, the way we eat and the small rituals that steady us when life feels fast. Root is not about perfection; it is about rhythm and steadiness. These are the practices that hold us together, the ones we return to, no matter what.

When we pay attention to the foundations of food, rest, movement and stillness, life feels more balanced, cooking becomes joyful and health feels less like a struggle and more like a natural flow. This part of the book is about those roots: the choices that are simple but powerful and the reminders that balance is built one small step at a time.

Health Philosophy

Food is fuel, but it should also be enjoyable and satisfying. Eating simply with intention and without guilt lets us enjoy food as both nourishment and joy. Beautiful meals matter, not because they are perfect, but because they encourage us to slow down and savour. Chocolate can sit alongside lentils and greens. Health is about balance.

True wellness isn’t built on strict rules. It grows out of real meals, simple movement, meaningful rest and listening inward. Food also carries the energy we put into it, the joy of chopping fresh herbs, the calm of stirring a pot slowly and the laughter shared at a table. Cooking is not only about nutrition; it is about sharing warmth, creativity and good energy with the people we love.

Health philosophy is not a rigid system to follow. It is a remembering: that our bodies know, that our minds and guts are deeply connected and that food can be nourishing, healing and full of positive energy.

The Art of Eating Well

Eating well starts with simplicity. Seasonal, local, unprocessed foods eaten slowly and with joy form the foundation of a balanced diet. It isn’t about strict rules or tracking macros; it is about noticing how food makes us feel, whether light yet satisfied, nourished and content or energized. That sense of calm and clarity after a meal is what proper nourishment is all about.

In daily life, food doesn’t need to be complicated to nourish; it only needs to feel alive. At home, this is evident in different ways: one child leaning towards comfort and familiarity, while another is eager to explore something new. Similarly, each of us finds our own rhythm with food. What matters isn’t perfection but connection: listening, adjusting and finding joy in what resonates with us. A balanced plate often holds:

• A clean protein such as grilled tofu, paneer, moong chilla, lentils, eggs or fish

• Vegetables in at least two textures, raw and cooked, roasted and fresh, with something for crunch

• A wholesome carb such as sweet potato, millet, sourdough, red rice or ragi

• Good fats from avocado, seeds, nuts, ghee, cold-pressed oils or coconut

• A touch of acidity, lemon, fermented pickle, mustard seeds or a swirl of chutney

• And always, a touch of joy: a drizzle of something unexpected, a burst of colour or a garnish that makes the plate feel alive

Eating well isn’t about following a fixed system. It’s about creating meals that leave you feeling calm, clear and satisfied.

Luke’s Perspective

When it comes to eating, the fundamentals still apply. Choose seasonal and local foods because they are at their highest nutritional quality and easier for your body to digest. Keep meals simple and unprocessed. Eating slowly, chewing thoroughly and paying attention to your food can improve digestion, boost nutrient absorption and naturally reduce issues like bloating or overeating.

A balanced plate doesn’t have to be complicated. If you include lean protein, vegetables with different textures and colours, good-quality fats, wholesome carbs and a small amount of natural acidity, you’ve already met your body’s needs. Consistency in doing this daily matters more than perfection.

Over the years, I’ve seen people transform simply by following these basics. It’s not about dieting or strict food rules. It’s about respecting food, eating mindfully and allowing simple, steady habits to work in your favour.

***

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