Anupam Kher

Retreat is often a sad word in military circles. It normally signifies a setback, if not a failure, of a military campaign. History is replete with such retreats, and heading the list is the one at Dunkirk, the greatest setback to Britain’s fight against Hitler’s Germany in 1940. But there is also another version of retreat and that is a strategic retreat, which is not so well known. In fact, strategic retreats sometimes come with great military victories, such as the Chinese Long March.

One of the enduring issues of contemporary life is that there are too many negative things happening, and too few positives.

One of the early lessons you are taught in eco-nomics is the difference between price and value. Unfortuna-tely, we always remember what price is but we soon forget everything we have learnt about value. That is the reason for the famous saying: that we know the price of most things, but the value of nothing.

Many things in life seem contradictory. You cannot hate someone, unless you love him, or at least you care for him. You will not try to change someone, unless the person means something to you. Never mind what you are, but at least in that one relationship, you are being very honest. You are a do-gooder. But it is tough being one, because it involves trying to show the person the way ahead; and that could make you unpopular. And that is the reason why many of us stop being do-gooders in many basic relationships.

Last week I wrote about how chan-ge creeps on us, imperceptibly, and how we sometimes change so much that we cannot recognise ourselves. Time changes us, circumstances change us. No one can remain unmoved if fate continually deals them the wrong set of cards.

All of us change over the years. The child grows up to become a man or woman. The seed becomes a tree. And the cub grows up to become a fearsome animal. It is not just living creatures that change. Even the shape of mountains and the

When you are young, you are naïve. You think that the world is inhabited by good-hearted kids as yourself, that everyone is like you and has your mental qualities, abilities and peeves. You cannot understand how someone can be so

I have always be-lieved that un-happiness is a state of mind, not of possessions. You can have all the wealth in the world, even qualities such as beauty, but they will never ensure happiness. While the truth behind such a philosophy

One of the cardinal rules of success is to have faith in oneself. Indeed, it is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that you cannot succeed if you do not have belief in yourself and your abilities. The more common situations that one comes

Not even a fortnight has pass-ed since Diwali, and I am sitting far away in Phil-adelphia shooting a film alongside one of my all-time favourite international act-ors, Robert De Niro.