Deep Adhya, PhD

The ‘JOMO’ (the Joy Of Missing Out) movement has started. I have to admit I didn’t know much about the ‘FOMO’ (the Fear Of Missing Out) movement that it is trying to replace. FOMO has always been a thing among competitive people even before the internet. If you recall those pesky kids who used to eavesdrop on your private conversation then later gossip about it, or those who copied your homework just because you would do a better job (so why bother making an effort to do it themselves), that’s FOMO in action. Some sections of the human race have always been obsessed with the lives of others, not out of curiosity but out of a need to enrich their own lives. Now we have a name for it, thanks to the internet. When doing things became so easy that we could do all things we desired by just sitting on the bed in our undies, we thought, “Woah!” What were we missing out on all this time? So the race began. Everyone wanted to experience as many things as possible in their ‘short’ ...

A fortnight ago, Cambridge experienced an evening of heavy rain, lightning and thunder. When I shared this with friends not from Cambridge, they heard me out and tried to be nice. It was clear that they didn’t believe that it could have occurred - a five hour long thunderstorm in a region more famous for being one of the drier ones in the country? The BBC failed to predict it, and if the Gods were the BBC the clouds were them playing a match of rugby. Ordinarily, on a dry day in a desert this would have been a blessing. It was like a perfect murder, no one believed it because there was no evidence. The weather forecasters said, “Clear sky,” and the minor local mishaps did not reach the press afterwards. I became the victim of a twisted celestial game of hide and seek, like a true detective solving a crime, he knows what occurred but does not have proof to show because the villain was really good at covering his tracks. In retrospect, my life has turned into a game of cat and ...