The Light That Told Us the Time

There was a time when work faded with the daylight. Life bloomed like jasmine; it didn’t need a watch. The street-end sodium vapour lamp told the time. People slowly came out. Those days had no agenda.

I used to be surrounded by 10 odd people almost always. Some were sitting on the thinnai. Some leaned against compound walls. The old men had taken the vaaravathi without thinking about it. Nothing had been planned. People were just there, talking about whatever interested them that day.

The boys on the compound wall spoke about cricket, full of movement and noise. Some swung air-bats and some caught imaginary balls. There was a harmless serial liar too. But it all added flavour, like a mole on a fair lady’s cheek.

The women on the thinnai compared the colour of marudhani on their hands, holding their palms up, looking closely. The first time in the day they thought about themselves.

The old men spoke about astrology, correcting each other. I overheard that visiting Tiruchandur temple will make one’s boss kinder.

Another group nearby discussed cinema. Yes, Rajinikanth would have been more successful had he been fair like Kamal.

We children stayed in between all this.

We ran around the yard, stopped suddenly, and ran again. We played our own games. We were superheroes in our own right. One boy proudly showed a half-somersault, landed badly, and still stood up like he had done something great. Another walked around with a toy pistol tucked into his shorts and believed that was enough to make him a hero. The rest of us watched, laughed, copied, and moved on. Elder sisters controlled them.

That was enough for us.

Fireflies began to appear near the bushes. One light, then another. We noticed them immediately. We ran after them, hands open, trying to catch the light. We stopped suddenly and opened our palms. Nothing was there. We laughed and ran again. Sometimes we stood still and watched them float.

From somewhere, a voice would come. Not always the same voice.

“Do not go near that plant now. There will be snakes.”

We paused, looked at the plant, and ran in another direction, laughing at who got scared more.

Someone lowered a vessel into the well. We waited for the sound. When the metal hit the water, we felt satisfied. A while after, the thud of that vessel hitting the ground gave a sense of safety. We did not know why.

Around us, the adults kept talking. We were not listening carefully, but we heard everything. The pieces of information stayed with us without effort. Just enough to show off among our classmates that we know what’s happening.

Later, someone called us in. We went inside. The day ended.

Tomorrow was always different. We did not carry anything from the day before. One thing I miss now.  We went to rest not realizing it would all be memories one day.

The Secret AI Will Never Know

We are surrounded by clever-sounding statements these days, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence and the future of work. One that often does the rounds is: “AI won’t replace you. But the person who knows how to use AI better might.” It sounds motivational. But beneath that tone of encouragement lies something more unsettling, something that feels less like reassurance and more like a countdown.

Imagine this line in a different setting. Picture a farmer telling a bull, “Don’t worry, the tractor won’t replace you. But the bull that learns to drive it might.” It’s a strange picture: funny at first, but also deeply ironic. The bull, a creature bred to plough fields, is now being told to compete by learning to operate the very machine created to replace it. It’s not just about progress anymore. It’s about survival. The tool meant to help is now the bar to beat. And it’s not enough for the bull to just get stronger and keep doing its job well. It must now learn something outside its nature just to be allowed to stay.

That’s what the modern workforce is being told. On paper, AI is just a tool, just like any other invention in history. The printing press didn’t end storytelling. The calculator didn’t ruin math. The internet didn’t destroy books. But what makes AI different is its ability to imitate human thought, to create, summarise, edit, plan, and even judge. It doesn’t just support your work, it can do large parts of it. So when someone says, “AI won’t replace you,” what they might really be saying is, “It hasn’t replaced you—yet.”

What’s harder to admit is that many of those offering this advice are simply buying time. They are testing the waters. When you are not seeing, they are testing AI tools, cutting small corners, and automating small steps. Once they find that AI performs well enough for their needs, the story might change. The roles that once felt secure may quietly vanish, no longer needing humans to manage them. So that cheerful quote ends up sounding more like a gentle warning: “You’re still useful—for now.”

In that climate, what can you do? You cannot outpace a machine that runs 24/7. You cannot memorise more than something trained on the entire internet. You cannot analyse faster or sort cleaner. But you can look where it doesn’t. AI has blind spots. It lacks context, history, doubt, compassion, and love. It doesn't feel embarrassed when it's wrong. It doesn’t apologise or thank you with sincerity. It cannot truly understand trust, sarcasm, grief, or warmth. Your task, then, is not to match AI’s power, but to lean into what makes you human. To find those unpolished, inconvenient, emotional corners of life where machines still fail to follow.

And even that is not easy. It places enormous pressure on people to reinvent themselves constantly. To be part-coder, part-writer, part-designer, part-analyst, and full-time learner. The workplace becomes less about stability and more about staying in the game. The cost is emotional. You’re no longer just doing your job; you’re proving you’re not obsolete.

But maybe we need to pause and ask: Should that be the goal? Should the aim be to keep proving our worth to machines and systems, or should we be asking why we’re racing them at all? Why do we keep building tools and then expecting people to bend themselves out of shape to keep up with them? Shouldn’t the tools be built to serve people and not the other way around?

AI, like all powerful tools, depends on how we choose to use it. It can lift burdens, open access, and support creativity. But it can also quietly replace care with convenience and skill with speed. Whether it improves lives or quietly displaces them depends on the choices made: not by the tool, but by the humans who hold it.

And this is where we come full circle. AI can summarise data, but it cannot sense doubt or trust. It can mimic tone, but it doesn’t feel tone. And I’m quite certain its readers can’t feed it either. So what can we do?

Maybe the answer is not to become faster, sharper, or more machine-like. Maybe the answer is to turn back into humans again.

Spend time. Live. Breathe. Laugh. Cry. Meet friends without a reason. Visit an orphanage or an old-age home. Talk to someone who won’t boost your network but might change your heart. Play a game with a child. Listen to someone’s story. Step out into places that remind you of your own impermanence.

Because what AI cannot replicate, and may never understand, is the quiet, steady fire inside a human being. That stubborn spark that says, “I’ll keep going.” That strange, irrational faith that whispers, “It’s not over.” The sheer madness of hope in the face of failure.

AI can follow logic. It can learn from patterns. But it cannot understand why someone gets back up when every single sign says to stay down. It doesn’t know what it means to keep walking when your legs are trembling. It doesn’t know what it means to keep loving, trying, showing up when you’re out of strength.

Because no matter how smart AI gets,

It doesn’t know that sometimes, keeping a step forward when all odds are against you—That’s how winning is done.

Maybe the secret to surviving the age of machines isn’t buried in new skills or smarter tools at all.
Maybe it’s hidden in something we forgot.

Maybe it’s been with us all along.