Volume 5 · The Great Indian Bazaar · Essay 246

Spin-Out Syndrome

Call it a syndrome and people pay attention. Call it a habit and they yawn. Spin-Out Syndrome deserves the attention.

It is not an illness, and there is no injection for it. The treatment is older and slower: honest priorities, kept daily, in the presence of people who will tell you the truth.

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. One page cannot change a life. But one recognised pattern can change a Tuesday, and lives are made of Tuesdays.