I Am Probably the Least Motivational Blogger in India

I am probably the least motivational blogger in India.

This is not branding by the way. Not one of those fashionable internet poses where someone says, “I’m brutally honest,” and then posts a filtered gym selfie holding black coffee like an undercover philosopher.

I genuinely have no motivational energy.

First off, I do not watch motivational videos. The entire thing feels suspicious to me. A sweaty man with unnaturally white teeth yelling “YOU CAN DO IT” while dramatic music explodes behind him like the trailer for a Christopher Nolan film. Somewhere in the background there is always a mountain. Or a lion. Or both. Apparently no one can improve their life anymore unless wildlife and violins are involved.

And anyway, after age fifty, motivation starts sounding less like wisdom and more like a salesman trying to push extended warranty on a refrigerator.

Here is the uncomfortable thing I have learned.

You cannot really change people in India in any meaningful way.

Actually let me correct that. You can. But the effort-to-result ratio is so absurd that it resembles trying to cool Park Street in May using one table fan and optimism.

People here do not lack intelligence entirely. That would be unfair. What they often lack is curiosity. And without curiosity the brain becomes like an old locked almirah in a damp Bengali house. Heavy. Rusted. Full of old newspapers nobody has touched since the 1998 World Cup.

You can knock all day. Nothing opens.

And, yes, this is true everywhere on Earth to some extent. Americans have conspiracy lunatics. Europeans have their own flavors of nonsense. But India has this special pressure cooker combination of mythology, bad education, pollution, heat, bureaucracy, and family conditioning that can turn even educated people into intellectual cauliflower.

I see it daily.

This morning the electricity vanished three times before breakfast. Somewhere outside, somebody was already shouting about politics. A stray dog was sleeping under a broken scooter like it had finally given up on civilization altogether. The tea tasted faintly of iron because Kolkata pipes have the emotional stability of wet cardboard. And then, while scrolling the news, I saw another crowd somewhere beating a man because WhatsApp University had awarded them honorary doctorates in madness overnight.

And then people ask me why I sound pessimistic.

My friend, look outside.

The country is running partly on jugaad, partly on denial, and partly on gods who apparently cannot fix drainage systems.

That last part especially fascinates me.

India is drowning in religion but starving for science.

You would think after enough bridge collapses, enough heat waves, enough hospital tragedies, enough stampedes, enough people dying because someone thought antibiotics are optional suggestions, there would be a national moment of collective awakening.

But no.

The average fellow still thinks chanting ancient poetry is somehow a substitute for scientific literacy.

That is like trying to repair a Wi-Fi router by feeding it incense sticks.

And before anyone accuses me of hating culture, no. I like culture. I am Bengali. We can turn fish curry and existential despair into an art form. I simply do not think mythology should be mistaken for engineering.

Anyway, I do not write this blog hoping to save society.

Good lord no.

I write because I enjoy writing.

That’s it.

Some men drink. Some gamble. Some obsess over stock markets while losing hair in real time. Some spend six hours daily screaming at cricket statistics.

I read books and write paragraphs.

It is cheaper than therapy and marginally healthier than alcoholism.

Also writing is one of the few activities left where a human being can still think slowly. Modern life wants everything immediate. Immediate outrage. Immediate opinion. Immediate patriotism. Immediate certainty. Nobody sits with thoughts anymore. They microwave conclusions.

Reading and writing force the brain to walk instead of sprint.

And honestly, our lives are much shorter than middle-class Indians admit to themselves.

This country trains people to postpone happiness endlessly.

“Save money.” “Don’t travel now.” “Later.” “After retirement.” “After marriage.” “After the children grow up.” “After the loan.”

Then suddenly one day the man is sixty-three, diabetic, furious, exhausted, trapped in a hospital queue that smells like Dettol and despair, wondering when exactly life was supposed to begin.

Meanwhile the neighborhood uncle who spent nothing on himself dies leaving behind four steel cupboards, seventeen bedsheets still wrapped in plastic, and enough unused utensils to equip a medium-sized submarine.

Fantastic strategy.

I am not saying become irresponsible. I am saying understand arithmetic.

You are mortal.

This should not be shocking information, yet people behave as if they are temporary inconveniences inside an eternal spreadsheet.

Eat good food sometimes. Travel if possible. Buy the better tea occasionally. Sit with your friends. Waste one afternoon doing absolutely nothing.

That last one is underrated.

The modern world has declared war on silence.

Everywhere there is noise. Reels. Notifications. Political shouting. News channels behaving like cocaine-powered wrestling commentators. Somewhere a motivational speaker is still yelling near a Lamborghini he rented for six hours.

And there you are, a tired middle-aged Bengali man eating muri beside a lizard on the wall while wondering whether the ceiling fan sounds slightly more murderous than yesterday.

Honestly, I trust the lizard more than most public intellectuals now.

At least the lizard is sincere.

And yes, my depression is bad. I do not romanticize it. Depression is not poetic when you are actually inside it. It is mostly administrative failure of the soul. You wake up tired. The day feels pre-chewed. Even brushing your teeth can seem like an unnecessary sequel.

People online talk about “winning battles.” Depression is not always a battle. Sometimes it is weather. Damp mental weather. Kolkata monsoon inside the skull.

You wait it out.

I also do not particularly dream of long life anymore. Indians have strange fantasies about old age. They imagine grandchildren, laughter, soft sunlight, devotional songs floating from nearby temples.

They do not imagine power cuts in forty-degree heat while arguing with a pharmacist who says the medicine is “coming tomorrow definitely.”

Reality has poor cinematography.

And because I think about death quite practically, I do not care much about ritual either. Burn me, bury me, recycle me, feed me to mushrooms, whatever is cheapest and environmentally efficient. We are atoms borrowing temporary shape. That is all.

People become scandalized hearing this.

But think about it carefully.

Your body is basically rented chemistry.

The carbon was here before you. The oxygen was here before you. The calcium was here before you.

You are biological LEGO assembled temporarily by physics.

Then disassembled.

Nature runs the oldest recycling program on Earth.

The truly difficult thing is not dying anyway. Everybody does that eventually. The difficult thing is freeing your own mind before death arrives.

That is the real struggle.

Not converting everybody else.

I gave up on that fantasy years ago.

You cannot drag people toward reason if irrationality gives them emotional comfort, social belonging, and ready-made answers. Human beings will protect comforting nonsense with astonishing aggression. Tell a man his football club is mediocre and he may argue. Tell him his entire worldview is built partly on inherited mythology and suddenly he behaves like a medieval crusader with broadband internet.

So now my philosophy is smaller.

Find a few intelligent people.

Not many. You do not need many.

Two or three decent minds are enough to make life survivable.

Sit together. Talk honestly. Laugh at absurdity. Exchange books. Complain about the weather. Discuss why humanity keeps electing theatrical idiots.

Then go home before the mosquitoes begin their night shift.

That, I think, is enough civilization for one lifetime.

And if somebody still wants motivation from me after all this, then here it is.

Do not waste your limited years trying to rescue crowds who enjoy drowning.

Save yourself first.

Then make tea.

Then call a friend.

That is already a meaningful victory in modern India.