India, Oct. 30 -- Salutations from under a big rock! I crawled out warily, brushing the cobwebs of a hiatus that has been abnormally long. As happenstance goes, the disappearance was not deliberate or self-imposed but just happened nonetheless.

All of a sudden, a number of things have changed in my person, things that I'm at a loss to label as positive or negative, heartening or dismal. If you met me a year ago, you would have seen me hard at work, furiously tapping out an article a month for this column or at the very least hounding whoever came my way for an idea or a topic to write the next one on.

Unconsciously, I had made myself a solemn promise to send in one piece monthly and had been doing so meticulously since 2012 till this un...