Hardik Rajgor

W orking from home is the Holy Grail of  corporate   life. It’s like the time teacher told you to “read” something for homework. It meant that there was no homework. It’s basically a  holiday  that hasn’t been explicitly declared as such. Just like a chutti, there is a sense of wonder associated with working from home. For starters, you can magically create time in the morning. On an ideal work day, you invest at least an hour in commuting, courtesy our amazing  roads  and the people on them. But when you work from home, you get to do in bed what you otherwise have to do at work – sleep. Don’t get me wrong — I am not the sort of person who advocates slacking off.  Which is why it is important to follow a routine and have the discipline to stick with it. It is very important to set the mood within the first few hours of the morning, by replying to every mail within 10 seconds (by adding people to the email thread, of course). An impression m...

E very  marathon  ever run has only ever had two kinds of participants – those who registered under guilt, and those who didn’t. The former is a core group of people who mark the entire year by the marathons they will be participating in, to plan the preparation and diet that it will require. These are the guys who will show up on race day with their  fitbits  and phones all charged up, liquids and food packed. These are the people who know exactly what they are doing. And at most marathons, these people number one in 10. The other 90 per cent are people like us. When you get the bib number in your mailbox a few days before race day, it dawns upon you, what kind of monster that you have unleashed. You are the guy who takes a rickshaw to station instead of risking a 10-minute walk, but now you have registered for a 10-kilometre run that flags off at 6 am sharp. The last time you woke up early on a Sunday morning, LK Advani was still gunning to be Prime Minister ...

W hat makes us laugh? I’m asking because as human beings we seem to love to laugh and to make other people do it too. Laughter is highly contagious and pretty much anything can trigger it. A joke. A fart joke. A fart joke involving a rabbi. A fart joke involving a rabbi who is bald. It goes on. There are places where we go and pay good money, just so we can have a couple of laughs. And then there are moments when your father insists on reading you a  WhatsApp  joke (instead of forwarding it to you) and laughter suddenly seems impossible. Generating a laugh takes work. It requires a coordinated effort from our faces, voices, and bodies. It is hard work and hard work has disappeared like grace from the Indian political  discourse . Which is why digital laughter, with its acronyms and emojis, is what passes for real laughter these days. The wide use of “LOL”, “ROFL”, crying-with-laughter  emojis , and funny faces gives you the ability to be insanely manipulative...

S igh. It’s been a rough few months. My good friend, Arnab Goswami who watched Padmavati (or Padmavat, even I can’t keep track of the names anymore) even before the censor board, played a clip on his channel. In it, a man announced a bounty of  ₹ 1 crore for anyone who burnt Deepika alive. Then the next guy came in and announced  ₹ 5 crore for anyone who beheaded me and Deepika. The next guy upped the bid to  ₹ 10 crore. It was like watching ISIS have an IPL auction. I was shocked beyond belief. Is that all my life is worth?! Jesus fucking Christ, the economy has indeed dipped over the past few quarters, but this is low! I still had it better than poor Shahid. After being ignored by the audience and award shows for his brilliant performances,  Shahid Kapoor  is now also being ignored by fringe groups issuing death threats. Nothing this man does is ever going to be enough, is it? The producers have been quite supportive of me in the media but I can sense ...

C hildhood is just like an opinion: Everyone has had one and everyone thinks theirs is the best. Coloured by the vintage filter of nostalgia, viewed through the shattered kaleidoscope of adulthood, our childhood sticks deep, like religion. Look no further than when your parents start a sentence with, “When I was your age…” Grab a cup of coffee, because it is going to be a lecture in how this generation has lost the plot, and you’ll need the caffeine to stay up. “Ye koi gaane hai? Gaane to Kishore Kumar aur Mohammed Rafi ke hote the. What is all this crap that you guys listen to, Honey Singh and  Badshah ? ‘Blue hai paani paani paani.’ What nonsense is this?” This is how every  road trip  with my family begins. The person sitting next to the driver, playing the role of the car DJ faces more pressure than  Virat Kohli  in a big run chase, as he tries to acutely balance the melodies of the ’60s with the beats from 2017. Movies are another bone of contention a...

I n 2003, the era before T-20, watching a game of cricket for eight hours straight wasn’t considered “boring”. The Indian team at the time was a batting masterclass. Sehwag, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvraj – you name it. But as good as the batting was, the bowling and fielding was equally lacklustre. You never knew what score would be enough. Our bowling unit never inspired much confidence. Whether it was 300 or 350, it could make any score look mediocre. At age 10, this lacklustre bowling was my single biggest worry. (Yes, I’m that uncool.) The England-India game at Durban was a must-win World Cup game and we put on an average 250 on the board. I had as much faith on the Indian bowling line-up as I had in Santa Claus showing up for Christmas. England lost a couple of quick wickets but a partnership was beginning to take shape. In came Ashish Nehra, moving the ball both ways at a serious pace and he ran through the English middle order in a breath-taking spell of  6-23 . It ...