Volume 5 · The Great Indian Bazaar · Essay 79

First-Class Noticer

You may not know the name First-Class Noticer, but you know the thing. This page only introduces the two of you formally.

It is worth keeping in your pocket not because it is always right, but because it is always available. A tool you carry beats a perfect tool you left at home.

Watch how a rumour travels in a hostel: it gains one detail per room and loses one truth per floor. By the fourth floor it is unrecognisable, and by dinner it is fact.

Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. You will meet this idea again this week, wearing different clothes. Now you will recognise it.