Category: Excerpts

‘Unfiltered: The CEO and the Coach’ is the book which chronicles our six-year partnership. We committed to be bold, to be real, and to openly share what happens behind the doors of the confidential coaching space. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first book ever written which looks at the coaching journey – in all its intricate detail – from both the perspective of the coach and the client.

As in professional sports, so in business life, the coach’s job is to push her client to learn new skills, build on existing strengths and become more self-aware of both his strengths and his stressors. In Unfiltered, Ana and I have given several case studies based on our personal experiences of how this process works. Our book will let you go as close as possible to being “in a coaching session” without the resources and emotional investment that typically come with a first-hand coaching experience.

In addition to sharing our journey and hard-won lessons, we also offer many practical tools and resources that can immediately be used by anyone interested in self-development. Readers will be able to understand how their formative years shape them – for better and for worse – in their professional lives and how they can harness their past for success going forward. Great leaders will be able to more confidently choose their coach and design a coaching journey that feels right and lets them be extraordinary.

Seven years ago, when I turned forty, I felt that I had no more worlds to conquer. The business I had been hired to turnaround was now firmly in the black. At an individual level, for several years in a row I had been ranked the leading equity strategist in India. My previous two books on investing had become bestsellers. My family was thriving. In search of a new challenge, I requested the Board of my then-employer to let me run the firm as a whole rather than just the equities and investment management businesses (which I was already in charge of). That request of mine turned out to be a turning point in my life but not for any of the reasons I could have possibly foreseen.

My erstwhile employer hired one of the world’s leading search firms to assess whether I was fit for the Group CEO role. The verdict was that while I was a bright, hardworking individual with a credible leadership track record, I had some way to go before I could be given greater responsibilities. My shortcomings—as per this report—were a tendency to fly off the handle when dealing with people I didn’t like, a low emotional quotient (EQ) and a ‘moody and irritable’ nature. In addition, I was also ‘naturally suspicious’ of people. Their recommendation was that a world-class leadership coach should be hired to iron out my deficiencies. I was humbled.

Once the Board accepted the search firm’s recommendation, I was tasked with interviewing two highly credentialed executive coaches based in Europe. I chose Ana Lueneburger, a German national based out of London, on the mistaken assumption that she would be an easy-going coach who would not burden me with lots of homework. In retrospect, I can safely say that this was the best mistake I have made in my professional life!

The journey of introspection, learning and change that I then began with Ana six years ago has made a massive impact on my life and on the lives of my family and my colleagues, as laid out in detail in our book. Through a combination of tests and extensive discussions with my colleagues, friends and relatives, Ana – who is both a seasoned executive (with stints in Boston Consulting Group, Danone and INSEAD) and a trained psychotherapist – was quickly able to assess the root cause of my issues. Having done that spadework, she agreed with me on the goals that I wanted to achieve via her expert interventions.

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A Code for A Balanced Diet

There is a lot of debate about what is a balanced diet and there have been numerous revisions to the ideal food pyramid, but if you can follow these simple guidelines, you will get all the nutrition that you need:

Ensure that you get the majority of your calories from plant-based sources like fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, legumes and grains. While fruits and vegetables will provide high quality energy and essential micronutrients, nuts and seeds are packed with healthy fats and proteins.

As children, we were berated for not eating our green leafy vegetables, and for good reason. Greens, along with other brightly coloured vegetables like beets, carrots and pumpkins, are packed with all kinds of nutrients, digesting slowly to provide energy for a long time after meals.

Incorporate healthy fats that come from ghee, coconut oil, various nut and seed oils, as well as vegetable fat sources like avocado and olive oil. Avoid refined and processed fats such as vegetable oils, margarine and light butter spreads, as well as deep-fried foods, since the cooking process results in the generation of trans fats that can be carcinogenic.

Instead of relying only on wheat and rice, get your carbohydrates from diverse sources to make your meals multigrain. Rather than buying multigrain atta, whose ingredients you have no control over, choose grains such as jowar, bajra, makkai, buckwheat, brown rice, ragi, amaranth and quinoa, among several other options.

Pulses and legumes, including the dals or lentils so common in an Indian kitchen, as well as chickpeas, black-eyed peas and other beans, are nutrient-rich and a great source of both complex carbohydrates and proteins. Boiled or sprouted pulses are a great addition to any diet.

Avoid all kinds of processed foods and sugary drinks like the plague. These are just empty calories that offer no benefits. You might have a dessert or a sweetened drink to celebrate an occasion, but they cannot be part of your everyday diet.

Black coffee and all kinds of white and green teas are full of flavonoids and antioxidants. These also work as appetite suppressants and can be great for your mind. Given that they are stimulants, though, it might be a good idea to avoid coffee and tea after 4 p.m., especially if you have trouble falling asleep.

Local and seasonal foods should be a big part of your diet. Fruits and vegetables are at their nutritious best and full of flavour at the peak of season. One of the best ways to identify what is in season is to visit your local vendor who does not have a freezer or refrigerator, and to pick what seems to be available in abundance and inexpensive.

Spices are densely packed pockets of essential micronutrients and should be liberally used in your food.

Fermented food is a great way to improve the health of the gut. In India, these have been an integral part of our diet, from curd set at home to rice or cooked vegetables soaked overnight in water and pickles. Fermented drinks like kefir and kombucha are also great choices.

Just because you are eating healthy doesn’t mean you should be eating all the time. In fact, don’t be shy about skipping a meal every now and then, to give your gut a much needed break.

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Get your copy of Hacking Health from Amazon.

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature: Part detective story, part historical epic—a bold and brilliant novel that imagines a plague ravaging a fictional island in the Ottoman Empire. Here’s an excerpt from Orhan’s Pamuk’s Nights of Plague.

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In the year 1901, if a steamer with black coal-smoke pouring from its chimney were to sail south from Istanbul for four days until it passed the island of Rhodes, then continue south through dangerous, stormy waters toward Alexandria for another half day, its passengers would eventually come to see in the distance the delicate towers of Arkaz Castle upon the island of Mingheria. Due to Mingheria’s location on the route between Istanbul and Alexandria, the Castle’s enigmatic shadow and silhouette were gazed upon in awe and fascination by many a passing traveler. As soon as this magnificent image—which Homer described in the Iliad as “an emerald built of pink stone”—appeared on the horizon, ship captains of a finer spiritual disposition would invite their passengers on deck so that they could savor the views, and artists on their way to the East would avidly paint the romantic vista, adding black storm clouds for effect.

But few of these ships would stop at Mingheria, for in those days there were only three ferries that made regular weekly trips to the island: the Messageries Maritimes Saghalien (whose high-pitched whistle everyone in Arkaz recognized) and Equateur (with its deeper horn), and the Cretian company Pantaleon’s dainty vessel the Zeus (which only rarely sounded its horn, and always in brief bursts). So the fact that an unscheduled ferry was approaching the island of Mingheria two hours before midnight on the twenty-second of April 1901—the day our story begins—signaled that something unusual was afoot.

The ship with pointed bow and slender white chimneys closing in on the island from the north, stealthy as a spy vessel, and bearing the Ottoman flag, was the Aziziye. It had been tasked by Sultan Abdul Hamid II with transporting a distinguished Ottoman delegation from Istanbul on a special mission to China. To this delegation of seventeen fez-,turban-, and hat-clad religious scholars, army officers, translators, and bureaucrats, Abdul Hamid had added at the last moment his niece Princess Pakize, whose marriage he had recently arranged, and her husband, Prince Consort Doctor Nuri Bey. The joyous, eager, and slightly dazed newlyweds had not been able to fathom the reason for their inclusion in the delegation to China and had puzzled over the matter at great length.

Princess Pakize—who, like her older sisters, was not fond of her uncle the Sultan—was sure that Abdul Hamid had meant her and her husband some kind of harm by putting them in the delegation, but she had not yet been able to work out what the reason might be. Some palace gossips had suggested that the Sultan’s intention must be to drive the newlyweds out of Istanbul and send them to die in yellow fever–infested Asian lands and cholera-ridden African deserts, while others pointed out that Abdul Hamid’s games tended to be revealed only once he had finished playing them. But Prince Consort Doctor Nuri Bey was more optimistic.

An eminently successful and hardworking thirty-eight-year-old quarantine doctor, he had represented the Ottoman Empire at international public health conferences. His achievements had caught the Sultan’s attention, and when they had been introduced, Doctor Nuri had discovered what many quarantine doctors already knew: that the Sultan’s fascination with murder mysteries was matched by his interest in European medical advances. The Sultan wanted to keep up with developments concerning microbes, laboratories, and vaccinations and introduce the latest medical findings to Istanbul and across Ottoman lands. He was also concerned about the new infectious diseases that were making their way toward the West from Asia and China.

There was no wind in the Levant that night, so the Sultan’s Aziziye cruise ship was making swifter progress than expected. Earlier it had made a stop at the port of Smyrna, though no such stop had been declared in the official itinerary. As the ship had neared the misty Smyrna docks, one by one the committee’s delegates had climbed up the narrow stairwell that led to the captain’s quarters to request an explanation and had learned that a mysterious new passenger was to come on board. Even the captain (who was Russian) had claimed not to know who this passenger was.

The Aziziye’s mysterious passenger was the Ottoman Empire’s Chief Inspector of Public Health and Sanitation, the renowned chemist and pharmacist Bonkowski Pasha. Tired but still sprightly at the age of sixty, Bonkowski Pasha was the Sultan’s Royal Chemist and the founder of modern Ottoman pharmacology. He was also a semisuccessful businessman who had once owned a number of different companies producing rosewater and perfumes, bottled mineral water, and pharmaceuticals. But for the past ten years, he had worked exclusively as the Ottoman Empire’s Chief Inspector of Public Health, sending the Sultan reports on cholera and plague outbreaks, as well as rushing from one outbreak to the next, from port to port and city to city, to oversee quarantine and public health provisions on behalf of the Sultan.

Inspector of Public Health and Sanitation, the renowned chemist and pharmacist Bonkowski Pasha. Tired but still sprightly at the age of sixty, Bonkowski Pasha was the Sultan’s Royal Chemist and the founder of modern Ottoman pharmacology. He was also a semisuccessful businessman who had once owned a number of different companies producing rosewater and perfumes, bottled mineral water, and pharmaceuticals. But for the past ten years he had worked exclusively as the Ottoman Empire’s Chief Inspector of Public Health, sending the Sultan reports on cholera and plague outbreaks, as well as rushing from one outbreak to the next, from port to port and city to city, to oversee quarantine and public health provisions on behalf of the Sultan.

Chemist and pharmacist Bonkowski Pasha had often represented the Ottoman Empire at international quarantine conventions, and had written Sultan Abdul Hamid a treatise four years ago on the precautions that the Ottoman Empire should take against the plague pandemic that had begun in the East. He had also been specially appointed to combat the outbreak of plague in the Greek neighborhoods of Smyrna. After several cholera epidemics over the years, the new plague microbe from the East—whose infectivity (what medical experts termed “virulence”) had waxed and waned in time—had, alas, finally entered the Ottoman Empire too.

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Get your copy of Nights of Plague from the nearest bookstores on Amazon.

When it comes to wisdom, and no it’s not the stuff learned from books for exams, we’ve learned the best things from stories. Taking on that mantle of the storyteller with a wise lesson to pass on, Kamlesh ‘Daaji’ Patel’s The Wisdom Bridge is replete with such educational fables. Guiding parents and other family members to more holistic childcare, the book uses the Nine Principles learned by Daaji from his own experiences. Available at bookstores and Amazon, the following excerpt address the epigenetic effects of stress through the story of the caveman and the tiger. So, scroll down to understand how you can cope with stress.

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The villain in maternal epigenetics is stress. It’s a leading factor affecting pregnant women’s health. The form of stress that causes the biggest problems is chronic stress, which is the body’s response to emotional pressure suffered for a prolonged period. 

In today’s world, the sabretooth tigers are all around us. Stress at work, stress at school, the stress of finances, the stress of relationships, and stress because of stress itself. We are always on the lookout for the sabretooth tiger lurking somewhere.

Imagine your caveman ancestor strolling in the jungle and a sabretooth tiger attacks. There are three options: fight, flight, or freeze. If you freeze, well, that’s the end of the story. If you fight the tiger or outrun the tiger, there are chances of survival. It’s a high-stress encounter where the body creates stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol. Blood is redirected from the digestive tract and other vital organs and moved toward the muscles and limbs to give the energy needed for fight or flight. If your caveman ancestor was lucky and survived the attack, then the stress levels in his body would have come down, and the body resumes its regular business. This, in short, is how the stress response mechanism evolved. ​

In today’s world, sabretooth tigers are all around: stress at work, stress at school, the stress of finances, the stress of relationships, and stress because of stress itself. We are constantly stressed about the lurking sabretooth tiger. This type of stress where one is always on guard is called chronic stress. Chronic stress is known to cause issues related to high blood pressure, suppression of immunity, damage to muscle tissue, and poor mental health. ​

Research shows the epigenetic effects created by a combination of finance, relationships, lack of community, and racism induce chronic stress in pregnant mothers, resulting in premature deliveries. Cortisol, a stress hormone, crosses the placenta barrier and passes on to the fetus affecting its development. The effects of chronic stress on the fetus also include lower weight at birth and longer-term effects, including personality disorders, cardiovascular issues, and diabetes. ​

Building immunity against stress is crucial because stress, first and foremost, affects the mother. Proper nutrition, a healthy lifestyle, and good social support help manage stress. While we know the harmful effects of chronic stress, avoiding stress altogether is not possible. We all have some level of stress in life. Studies show that moderate stress does not cause any damage to the fetus. What we need to avoid is chronic stress and burnout. 

In medicine, burnout is defined as ‘a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress. Though it’s most often caused by problems at work, it can also appear in other areas of life, such as parenting, caretaking, or romantic relationships.’

In a research study on burnout, it was found that in a short period of time Heartfulness meditation lowered stress in a statistically significant way. Not only did the stress levels reduce, but the length of the telomeres increased, especially in the younger population. Telomeres are cap-shaped sections of DNA found at the end of chromosomes. The length of telomeres indicates wellbeing. So longer telomeres are a good sign.

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Get your copy to read more on how to cope with stress and live a life that inspires your younger ones.

In a world of several success stories, many starry-eyed, entrepreneur aspirationals buy books and watch numerous videos on what formula will make their own start-up stick. It takes a real expert like author Dhruv Nath, to know that the real lessons come from a comparative study of what worked and what didn’t. Compiling the journeys of the ideas that saw the light and went beyond, as well as those which ended before they even began, The Dream Founder is a must-read on what happens after the lightbulb switches on.

You can get your copy now from the nearest bookstore or visit Amazon to order.

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One More Book on Start-Ups? Why?​
​Good question. There are several books on start-ups out there. Just get on to Amazon or Flipkart and you’ll see lots of them. So, why did I write one more?​

Well, for a start, most of the books in the market talk about American start-ups—the Facebooks, the WhatsApps, the Ubers and the Airbnbs of the world. But hang on—aren’t you planning to create a start-up in India? In which case, you would want to learn from Indian start-ups, wouldn’t you? Sure, you can learn from Airbnb and Uber and all the rest of them—and you should. But isn’t it far more important to learn from companies in the Indian context? All of us are aware that the Indian environment is very different from what exists in the western world. Most western countries, such as the US, are developed. We are a developing country, which clearly means that both the opportunities and constraints will be different. Small-town and rural India—often called Bharat—offers a huge, untapped market, with no parallels in the west. Language is a major issue, with the future perhaps belonging to start-ups that cater to vernacular languages. I can go on and on, but I’m sure you get the idea. While you should learn from start-ups in the US, it’s much more critical to learn from start-ups in India. And that’s why this book is all about Indian start-ups. One of the few in this category.​

Next, even if you were to look at the Indian books out there, all of them talk about huge success stories, such as Byju’s, Flipkart, Paytm and Ola Cabs. Whose founders are spoken about in hushed whispers, even at paan shops. And, of course, in bars, with alcohol warming the insides. I’m sure you would want to learn from these phenomenally successful guys. But let me ask you a frank question. Can you really identify with such start-ups? These aren’t start-ups any more. They are giants—in many cases, multinational giants. Who do you really identify with? The smaller guys, isn’t it? Those fledgeling start-ups which are just a few years old and are perhaps facing the same problems that you are. Wouldn’t you also want to listen to the founders of these young start-ups? Of course you would!​

So, which ones do we discuss in this book?​

Aha, that’s the best part. We discuss both. On the one hand, the book has stories about young start-ups which you can identify with. But it also has advice from the real giants in the business—the likes of Sanjeev Bikhchandani of Naukri.com, Deepinder Goyal of Zomato, Dr Annurag Batra of BW Businessworld and Meena Ganesh of Portea Medical. And then, we also have a highly successful investor—Sushanto Mitra of Lead Angels. They have all been happy to share their gyan, which I’ve promptly included in this book. So, you are in the happy position of learning from both the big guns and the smaller guys. And that makes this book truly unique.​

But it gets even more unique, so do read on. You see, you can get lots of write-ups about start-ups that succeeded. Stories about their founders are plastered all over the Internet, the TV, the papers and, in fact, on virtually all kinds of media except possibly posters on public toilets (thank god!). But what about those that failed? Shouldn’t you be learning from them as well? To take an analogy from the film industry, if you want to be an actor, it is good to learn from Amitabh Bachchan. But isn’t it even more important to learn from those who came from their villages to try their luck and are still pottering around as extras in Bollywood? Or worse, those who got fed up and went back to their villages?​

Agreed? So, how often have you read about failures? How often have you heard founders bragging, ‘You know, I’m really proud of the fact that my start-up was a failure, and I’d be delighted to have this come out in print’? Never happens, does it? Obviously, no one talks about failures. These things are never written about, which means you don’t learn from them.​

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where this book gets really exciting. As I mentioned earlier, I have spent several years with young founders, investing in their start-ups as well as mentoring many of them. There have been some really successful founders, but there has also been a fair share of failures. And I decided, in all my wisdom, to write about both the successful guys as well as the failures. Founders who were simply not able to build and grow their start-ups. And whose stories have remained under wraps and, therefore, unavailable to mankind. Of course, in some cases, liberal doses of alcohol—duly funded by me—had to be supplied to get these founders to open up.​

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes this book really, really unique!​

When the Galwan Valley clash happened in June 2020, the Indo-China conflict became the centre of the world’s attention. As shown in this excerpt from India’s Most Fearlesss 3, journalists Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh have succeeded in recalibrating the narrative from speculative headlines to the real axis of the stories: the Indian Army soldiers. Read the full story of these bravehearts as well as many others in this thought-provoking book on real-life military bravery.

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‘I Had Never Seen Such Fierce Fighting’
The Galwan Clash of June 2020

Even above the loud, steady roar of the Galwan River, he heard the thundering footfalls. The sound of over a thousand men reverberating through the darkness, amplified by the tunnel effect of a narrow valley flanked by steep rising mountains on both sides. Peering into the black void beyond Patrol Point 14, lit only a few metres forward by hand-held torches, the reality of those sounds dawned on Havildar Dharamvir Kumar Singh of the Indian Army’s 16 Bihar infantry battalion. He clenched his eyes briefly shut to soak in every vibration. When he opened them again, he knew that the huge horde of men advancing towards his position was not marching.

They weren’t even jogging.

They were sprinting.

‘There were less than 400 of us,’ says Havildar Dharamvir. ‘We would soon discover that the number of Chinese Army soldiers running towards us was maybe three times that. We had been fighting smaller numbers of Chinese for two hours before that. But this was their main force. The all-out assault that the Chinese side was launching against us.’

An all-out assault.

Unarmed, as stipulated by decades-old protocol between the two armies, Havildar Dharamvir quickly glanced around at the soldiers with him. Even in the darkness he could tell their expressions. A curious mix of determination and fearlessness, but tinged with an edge of foreboding.

As the soldiers steeled themselves, rallied by their commanding officer and a group of younger officers, Havildar Dharamvir knew what lay ahead would need every ounce of strength the smaller force could muster. But it also made one particular man in the team even more crucial.

A non-combatant with a white suitcase.

Wading through the group of soldiers with him, Havildar Dharamvir emerged on the banks of the gushing Galwan, right where he had last seen the man he was looking for now.

With a big, unmistakable red ‘plus’ sign painted on to his parka, Naik Deepak Singh wasn’t standing. On his knees, his suitcase open with bandages and bottles of tincture, he was crouched over what appeared to be a small group of injured men, all groaning in the darkness. Three were Indian soldiers being administered first aid.

The six other soldiers receiving emergency ministrations from the young Indian Army medic weren’t Indian soldiers. They were Chinese Army personnel. Two People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers and four jawans.

‘They are badly injured. They need to rest,’ Naik Deepak said before Havildar Dharamvir could ask. An hour earlier, the injured Chinese soldiers had been left behind by their retreating force. Naik Deepak, the young nursing assistant, had been summoned to Patrol Point 14 by his commanding officer two hours earlier. Not he, not Havildar Dharamvir and not his commanding officer knew then how crucial his crouched figure would be in the events of that night.

‘Is that your blood?’ Havildar Dharamvir bent down over Naik Deepak, inspecting a gash just above the nursing assistant’s right eyebrow.

‘It’s nothing. A piece of rock hit me. It’s superficial. Main theek hoon [I am fine],’ said Naik Deepak as he finished bandaging one of the Chinese soldiers, a young man whose face was covered with streams of blood from a head injury.

A short distance behind, at a point where the north-flowing Galwan River abruptly bent westward, Colonel Bikkumalla Santosh Babu, commanding officer of the battalion, had been alerted to the sounds of the Chinese advance. As he began to summon reinforcements and rally his much smaller force to face the arrival of the much larger Chinese advance, one thing was certain to him. No matter what transpired next in that desolate, ravine-like valley at 13,000 feet in Ladakh’s Himalayan heights, history had already been made with blood and bone that day.

As word of the lethal Galwan Valley incident shocked the world at 12.21 p.m. the following day, most would see it as a spontaneous flare-up that had ended a healthy forty-five-year run of zero fatal casualties on the India–China frontier. But waiting in the darkness on the banks of the Galwan River the previous night, Naik Deepak and Havildar Dharamvir knew that nothing, including that advancing horde of Chinese soldiers, was unplanned.

In the early twentieth century, a Bohemian writer called Franz Kafka released a strange story. The absurd but existentialist tale of a man who transforms into a huge insect is the reason we now have the term ‘Kafkaesque’. More than a century later, Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, who last published Exit West has adapted the trope to suit contemporary anxieties about race and identity. His protagonist, a white man named Anders, wakes up in a darker skin colour. Soon, the world around him descends into chaos as more such transformations take place.

The following excerpt is the first chapter of The Last White Man. Get your copy from bookstores or Amazon.

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One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown. This dawned upon him gradually, and then suddenly, first as a sense as he reached for his phone that the early light was doing something strange to the color of his forearm, subsequently, and with a start, as a momentary conviction that there was somebody else in bed with him, male, darker, but this, terrifying though it was, was surely impossible, and he was reassured that the other moved as he moved, was in fact not a person, not a separate person, but was just him, Anders, causing a wave of relief, for if the idea that someone else was there was only imagined, then of course the notion that he had changed color was a trick too, an optical illusion, or a mental artifact, born in the slippery halfway place between dreams and wakefulness, except that by now he had his phone in his hands and he had reversed the camera, and he saw that the face looking back at him was not his at all.

Anders scrambled out of his bed and began to rush to his bathroom, but, calming himself, he forced his gait to slow, to become more deliberate, measured, and whether he did this to assert his control over the situation, to compel reality to return through sheer strength of mind, or because running would have frightened him more, made him forever into prey being pursued, he did not know.

The bathroom was shabbily but comfortingly familiar, the cracks in the tiles, the dirt in the grouting, the streak of dried toothpaste drip on the outside of the sink. The interior of the medicine cabinet was visible, the mirror door askew, and Anders raised his hand and swung his reflection into place before his eyes. It was not that of an Anders he recognized.

He was overtaken by emotion, not so much shock, or sorrow, though those things were there too, but above all the face replacing his filled him with anger, or rather, more than anger, an unexpected, murderous rage.

He wanted to kill the coloured man who confronted him here in his home, to extinguish the life animating this other’s body, to leave nothing standing but himself, as he was before, and he slammed the side of his fist into the face, cracking it slightly, and causing the whole fitting, cabinet, mirror, and all, to skew, like a painting after an earthquake has passed.

Anders stood, the pain in his hand muted by the intensity that had seized him, and he felt himself trembling, a vibration so faint as barely to be perceptible, but then stronger, like a dangerous winter chill, like freezing outdoors, unsheltered, and it drove him back to his bed, and under his sheets, and he lay there for a long while, hiding, willing this day, just begun, please, please, not to begin.

Anders waited for an undoing, an undoing that did not come, and the hours passed, and he realized that he had been robbed, that he was the victim of a crime, the horror of which only grew, a crime that had taken everything from him, that had taken him from him, for how could he say he was Anders now, be Anders now, with this other man staring him down, on his phone, in the mirror, and he tried not to keep checking, but every so often he would check again, and see the theft again, and when he was not checking there was no escaping the sight of his arms and his hands, dark, moreover frightening, for while they were under his control, there was no guarantee they would remain so, and he did not know if the idea of being throttled, which kept popping into his head like a bad memory, was something he feared or what he most wanted to do.

He attempted, with no appetite, to eat a sandwich, to be calmer, steadier, and he told himself that it would be all right, although he was unconvinced.

He wanted to believe that somehow he would change back, or be fixed, but already he doubted, and did not believe, and when he questioned whether it was entirely in his imagination, and tested this by taking a picture and placing it in a digital album, the algorithm that had, in the past, unfailingly suggested his name, so sure, so reliable, could not identify him.

Anders did not normally mind being alone, but as he was just then, it was as if he was not alone, was, rather, in tense and hostile company, trapped indoors because he did not dare to step outside, and he went from his computer to his refrigerator to his bed to his sofa, moving on in his small space when he could not stand to remain a minute longer where he was, but there was no escaping Anders, for Anders, that day.