From the journal
Articles
Ideas, reflections, and practical guidance on building a fuller life.
Showing 21 articles
3 Dharma
The word dharma gets thrown around like it means one thing. It does not. The Mahabharata is essentially an argument about which dharma wins when three different ones collide...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →The five-point check
For years, I made important decisions while one part of me was clearly not at peace, and I could not understand why my judgment let me down so often. The mind would be...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →3 Sthithis
Three Sthitis I had a small realisation this weekend after Saturday's post about not getting promoted. The verse I leaned on, कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते, addresses one specific...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Titikṣā
In 1973, India's space programme started work on its first satellite launch vehicle. Prof Satish Dhawan was the Chairman of ISRO. Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was the Project Director...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Karna's Wheel
It is results season, and meetings are happening across every company I know. Numbers are being presented, and explanations are being offered for what went right and what...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →The 9th Man
In 1957, a young aeronautical engineering graduate from Madras travelled to Dehradun to appear before the Indian Air Force Selection Board, carrying a childhood dream. He...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Ranchodrai
In the town of Dakor in Gujarat, there is a temple where pilgrims sing the name of a God whose name means the one who fled the battlefield. It is not a name you would expect...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Yudhishthira's Perfect Imperfection
Yudhishthira bet his wife in a game of dice. That is the sentence the Mahabharata has never been able to live down, and neither has he. Two thousand years later it remains...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →The Amygdala Hack
Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional Intelligence, has a name for the moment you end up regretting three seconds later. He calls it the amygdala hijack. The emotional part...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →The skill no body trains you for!
For years I assumed the hard skills were the technical ones, reading the numbers, fixing the machine, closing the deal, the things that fit neatly on a resume. Then I read...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Kauśalam
Most of the bad calls I have watched in business came from smart people who had decided in advance who they were going to be in the room. Mahabharata gives you three options...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Promotion you did not get
Promotion season in India is here, and a lot of people you know are walking around hurt this week. Some of them have not told you, and they will not, because the hurt of...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Where is Krishna within you
Most of the worst decisions of my life were the logical ones. Every time I went with the spreadsheet over the gut, I paid for it. Every time I followed the voice that did not...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →18 days at the ghats
In the Bhagwad Gita, Krishna goes after an idea most of us secretly believe. The idea is that if you simply refrain from acting, you can stay innocent. His answer to Arjuna...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Self Talk
In a swimming pool, all you have are bubbles. Your own bubbles, going nowhere interesting, offering zero conversation. In an Ironman swim, that is 3.8 kilometres of just you...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Watching the Alarm
The night before an IRONMAN race I do not sleep well. I lie in bed at 10pm, then 1am, then 2am, watching the alarm get closer. My head runs through everything that could go...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Abhyasa
There is a stretch of road on the SPRR where I have done my long rides for years, and every single time, somewhere around the 80 km, my mind starts negotiating with me. Maybe...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Dhriti
Dhriti is one of those words people use to make themselves sound serious. Grit, determination, backbone, the kind of thing that goes under a finish line photo on a LinkedIn...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Himsa (हिंसा, violence)
There was a clear instruction, simple and direct, and my junior had looked at it and apparently decided it was more of a suggestion. He offered no explanation, no apology and...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Tughlaki Farmaan
Mohammed bin Tughlaq was one of the most intelligent rulers of 14th century India. He spoke five languages, understood philosophy, mathematics and medicine, and had genuinely...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →Attitude When Nothing Else Is Left
In 1944, a 39-year-old Austrian psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl was taken off a transport train at Auschwitz with his wife, his mother, his father and his brother. His...
By Hyuma Mahadevia
Read →