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A theoretical engineer, permanently enrolled.

I have resisted every one-word answer to “so, what do you do?” — but if pressed, I call myself a theoretical engineer: someone who theorizes about how things work before, and often instead of, building them. Titles are useful on badges and gravestones; they are bad at describing a person mid-becoming. So, plainly: I am also a student — deliberately, permanently enrolled. By day I theorize with the new machines; by night I read the old books, pencil in hand. I have stopped pretending those are two different subjects.

This site is the notebook I keep in public. One letter a week on science, artificial intelligence, robotics, philosophy, economics, and tech journalism — not because I have mastered these fields, but because the interesting questions refuse to stay in one, and because I would rather question the first principles of what we think we know than take them on trust. I write the letters I wish someone had written me: patient, plain, and unafraid of being wrong where everyone can see. Being wrong in public is the tuition.

I write from Mumbai — a city that teaches compression. Too much life per square foot turns out to be excellent training for prose. My desk holds a laptop that argues back and a stack of annotated paperbacks that don’t. Both are teachers.

Set my syllabus

The best letters begin as assignments from readers. Send me a book, an idea, or a question — if it becomes a letter, the credit is yours.

Write back

Every letter here comes from a person, not a platform. Reply to any of them — [email protected] — and a human reads it, usually the same evening. The fastest ways to follow along are The Sunday Letter and RSS.