Colleague

It’s just past 10 PM on a Wednesday night here in our small Bengaluru office, and the air is thick with the smell of stale filter coffee and the low hum of servers. My younger brother, Rohan, is hunched over his keyboard, his face illuminated by lines of code, a familiar silhouette I’ve seen since we were kids. Twenty years ago, we’d be fighting over a single video game controller. Tonight, we’re arguing about the deployment strategy for our app's next major update. Some things never change. And for that, I’m incredibly grateful. [Image: A candid photo of two brothers working late in a modest, modern office. One is coding intensely while the other looks at a whiteboard covered in diagrams and notes.] Anyone who has a sibling knows it’s a relationship forged in a unique fire of rivalry, shared secrets, and an unspoken, unbreakable bond. You’re each other’s biggest cheerleader and harshest critic. Which, as I’ve discovered over the past two years, are the exact same qualities you nee...

The faint, pre-dawn light of a Monday morning filtered through my window here in India. It was 5:30 AM, a time when the world feels both asleep and full of potential. For me, that potential usually involves a cup of chai and a quiet scroll through my phone before the day's chaos begins. This morning, my digital wandering led me, as it often does, to the endless digital aisles of Amazon. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, which is arguably the most dangerous way to browse. And then, I saw it. A book I'd heard whispers about in online forums, praised in reviews, with a cover so intriguing it practically hummed with untold stories. It was a beautiful, thick hardcover edition of a novel I'd been meaning to read for ages. The "Add to Cart" button was a siren's call. The "Buy Now" button? An act of pure, unadulterated optimism. Yes, I thought, I will make time for this. I will carve out quiet evenings to get lost in these pages. The order was...