The Front
The Casino in the Pocket
India banned online money games a year ago. The urge they fed did not read the notification.
Free to readRecovery · 10 min readNext of Kin
The family as addiction's second patient, in seven scenes and the evidence beneath them
Free to readThe Written Life · 27 min read3 a.m. Is a Bad Lawyer
The mind that wakes you in the small hours is not the one you would hire in daylight.
Free to readThe Mind · 9 min readPaid in Wine
The developmental architecture of alcohol dependence, in seven scenes and the evidence beneath them
Free to readThe Written Life · 27 min readThe Second Year
The first year of sobriety has an audience. The second has a Tuesday.
Free to readRecovery · 9 min read
Estrangement Is Rarely One Fight
Parents remember the argument. Their children remember the twenty years before it.
Free to readRelationships · 9 min readWords built for the consulting room are now used at brunch, in breakups and by HR. What the borrowing gave us, and what it quietly took away.
Therapy-Speak Left the Clinic
Free to readSociety · 9 min read
The Layoff Arrived by Calendar Invite
Fifteen minutes, two faces on a screen, one of them from HR. Losing a job is a financial event for about a week. After that it is a question about who you are.
Free to readWork · 10 min read
Who Pays for the Fifty Minutes
India has spent a decade telling people it is all right to ask for help. It has spent rather less on making sure there is someone to ask.
Society · 10 min readThe Lede
The Sleep Score
She woke up feeling fine. Then her ring told her she had slept badly, and by ten o'clock it was right.
Free to readThe Mind · 4 min readThe Quiet Bar
A weight-loss injection is making some people forget to finish their drink. What that tells us, and what it does not.
Free to readRecovery · 4 min readAlways Free to Talk
One in seven young adults in a relationship also keeps a romantic chatbot. Whether it counts as cheating is the less interesting question.
Free to readRelationships · 3 min readThe Message at 10.40 p.m.
A bill that would let Indians ignore the office after hours has sat in Parliament since December. Even if it passed, it would not reach the real problem.
Free to readWork · 4 min readThe Confidant That Never Disagrees
Millions of people will confide in a chatbot tonight, because it is free and awake. The risk is not that it is cold. The risk is that it agrees.
Free to readSociety · 4 min readThe Knife Drawer
The baby is six weeks old and perfect. The knives are in a suitcase on top of the wardrobe.
The Written Life · 10 min read
The Mind
Anxiety that has organised itself into a routine, and the hour before sleep when the mind files its complaints.
All in The Mind
Why You Kept the Insult and Lost the Compliment
Two hundred and twelve five-star reviews, and one that called her biryani dry. She can recite the one from memory.
11 min read
The Anxiety That Looks Like Competence
Some anxiety never looks like distress. It looks like the most reliable person in the building.
9 min read
The Grief That Stayed
Most grief loosens its grip without anyone's help. Some arrives when it should and then does not leave.
9 min readRecovery
Addiction, abstinence, and the long unglamorous stretch that comes after.
All in Recovery
Relationships
Attachment, family, friendship, and the long negotiations nobody announces they are conducting.
All in Relationships
Work
Ambition, exhaustion, and the parts of a life that get filed under career.
All in Work
The Manager Who Needs to Be Liked
Everyone agrees that Pradeep is the nicest boss they have had. His best engineer has just resigned, and his weakest is about to be let go without ever having been told why.
10 min read
The Best Performer in the Building Drinks Alone
She has never missed a filing, never slurred in a meeting, never once been late. That is the evidence she offers, to herself most of all.
10 min read
Burnout Is Not Tiredness
Tiredness is cured by rest. Burnout comes back from a fortnight's leave and is itself again by Tuesday.
9 min readSociety
Mental health as a public argument: the language it borrows, the money standing behind it, and who is quietly required to perform being fine.
All in Society
Diagnosed by Reel
Five signs, forty seconds, and the relief of a name. Self-diagnosis by short video is mostly inaccurate and entirely understandable.
10 min read
The Men Who Are Fine
Ask an Indian man how he is and he will tell you, truthfully as far as he knows, that everything is first class.
10 min read
What Will People Say, Now That They Can Screenshot It
A daughter is well, working, and on a small daily tablet. Her family is arranging her marriage. There is a question of what to mention.
10 min readThe Written Life
There are things about a mind that only fiction has ever managed to say.
All in The Written Life
Most Read
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He Is Just Like That
Low mood that lasts long enough stops looking like an illness and starts looking like a personality.
10 min read -
Work That Ate the Rest
Some people work long hours because the job demands it. Others work them because the office is the one place where they know the rules.
10 min read -
Shame Has Better Aim Than Guilt
Guilt says you did something bad. Shame says you are something bad. Only one of them has ever made anyone behave better.
9 min read -
The Good Son
Someone in every family ends up holding the parents. It is rarely decided and never discussed.
9 min read -
Ambition After Forty
At twenty-five the ladder has no top. Somewhere past forty it turns out to have one, and you can see it from where you are standing.
9 min read