Preening

Some ideas arrive wearing uniforms. Preening arrives in a kurta — plain, comfortable, and ready for work.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

Consider the chit fund in a small town. It survives not on contracts but on the shame of defaulting before neighbours. Reputation is the oldest collateral in India.

Money is a good clerk and a terrible master; the arrangement is entirely up to us. And when you forget it — you will — the world will remind you. It is a faithful tutor.