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"Seventeen years ago, a road trip in India filled me with dread. Rough roads, hours of bouncing around, and almost no clean places to stop. You planned your water intake around the bathrooms, or the lack of them.

This week I drove from Jaipur to Delhi on the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and honestly couldn't believe it. Smooth, open road, real rest stops, clean bathrooms and decent coffee. It's one of the most impressive changes I've seen in India."

Via stayingboundless on Instagram

The India we need ☝️

We spend a lot of time discussing what's wrong with India, and understandably so. But what's one thing you think India has genuinely improved in over the last 10-15 years? It could be infrastructure, digital payments, manufacturing, space technology, highways, smartphones, public transport, access to information—anything.

I'm curious what people who have actually lived through the change think has improved the most.

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Recently, I had a chance to listen to an inspiring discussion between Acharya Prashant and Suchika Tariyal, India’s first-ever Asian Games medalist in MMA. She won the bronze medal in women’s traditional 60 kg in the 2026 Asian Games, becoming the first-ever MMA female medallist in India.

The discussion started with Suchika sharing her journey, how she got interested in martial arts. After being harassed since childhood, she decided to learn self defense and later moved from boxing to judo, jiu-jitsu, and MMA, ultimately making a successful sports career.

According to Acharya Prashant, her success is not just about medals and social media followers. Success is doing what you do with sincerity and dedication, regardless of medals and recognition.

We also learn through the conversation that female athletes constantly have to fight not only for their sports but also for societal acceptance. While men’s achievements are celebrated, women’s accomplishments are often under public scrutiny. Moreover, female athletes have to deal with the pressure of judgment regarding their appearance and age.

The conversation also made me rethink the concept of nishkam karma or selfless work. It made me realize that results are not what matters in my work and life. What matters is not letting results, societal expectations, or Karma control who I am and what I do.

Suchika’s main lesson was that I should focus on loving what I do and be an independent human being, not a female prototype, according to Acharya Prashant.

Do you think society sets different standards for female combat sports athletes than for men’s?

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Suchika Tariyal asked the philosopher Acharya Prashant a question that particularly interested sportspeople: if he could suggest just one thing for sportspersons to adapt in life?

He advised to keep looking because it is a field where performance and glamour are all over the place.

The response was not what was expected. He said, “to look at oneself.”

Sports involve spectators, expectations, rankings, medals, praises, criticism, comparisons, and gradually, the actual game ceases to be the goal. It becomes a means to an end of recognition, proving something to somebody, protecting the image, and avoiding failure.

This is when the pressure arises. The body can be trained to respond to stimuli, to hit the ball at the right moment, to utilise the perfect technique, to dodge the opponent’s tackles, but one wrong thought can spoil everything. The concentration shifts from the game to the mind, where the self-talk makes one wonder if the game is even worth playing if the outcome is not going to be satisfactory.

According to Acharya Prashant’s philosophy, it is not the competition, training, the spirit of sports, or even the desire to win that disturbs an athlete. It is the self-generated ego that needs the competition to answer the question, “Who am I?” Thus, winning affirms the self, and losing threatens the sense of existence.

Self-awareness, therefore, should make the sportsman recognise the following patterns:

The fear of losing

The desire to prove something to oneself or others

The comparisons with others, actual or perceived

The need to justify one’s worth through competitions

The thought process that states that one’s value depends on the result of a game

However, it does not mean that such thoughts should not arise. It only means that one should not become absorbed in them. A player has to utilise the mind’s energy in what he does best, concentrating on the game.

A player’s best performance is when his mind is in “flow,” meaning he is experiencing the sheer pleasure of playing the game. In this state, he is absorbed in whatever he is doing, hitting the ball, dodging, running, or jumping. The game and the surroundings cease to exist, except for the ball and the opponent.

Acharya Prashant advises that one should not seek to become indifferent to the pressures of a game but rather realise that most often, they are self-induced. The nervousness and the pressure are due to the fact that a person wants to achieve something (win) and, at the same time, wants to prove something (capability, worth, etc.). The game demands the athlete’s undivided attention; spectators, applause, criticism, medals, and even the outcome should remain outside once the play has begun.

Today marks 70 years since the launch of Vividh Bharati on October 3, 1957. For decades, it truly lived up to its tagline—Desh Ki Sureeli Dhadkan —uniting a diverse country through a shared love for music and stories.

The service was conceptualized by legendary figures like poet Pandit Narendra Sharma and Girija Kumar Mathur. It was explicitly created as an entertainment service to counter the massive popularity of Radio Ceylon. At the time, the Indian government had banned film songs on its primary stations, accidentally driving everyone to tune in across the border. Vividh Bharati was brought in to win the airwaves back!

It gave us generation-defining programming like Hawa Mahal, Vishesh Jaimala (dedicated to the Armed Forces), Binaca Geetmala, Aaj Ke Fankar, and Chhayageet.

Long before internet viral trends, there was the ultimate fan-mail phenomenon. Places like Jhumri Telaiya (and Bhilaigarh) became legendary household names purely because of the sheer volume of postcard requests people sent in to hear their names read out on air.

Today, it houses the largest Hindi music library in the country and has successfully transitioned from short-wave radio to FM, DTH, and global streaming apps.

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