People, Power and the Quiet Weight of Experience

Three small rectangles on a video call:
Ismar in Brazil, 64, the day still ahead of him.
Ritesh in Bangalore, 29, the evening already dark.
Frank in rural France, wearing a winter jumper, four degrees outside and a clear blue sky.

Nothing spectacular happens in this conversation. No breakthrough, no big decision. And yet, in a quiet way, it becomes a study in how people are shaped – by childhood, culture, hierarchy, and the slow work of trying to understand others and ourselves.

Two childhoods, two kinds of distance

When Frank asks them to look back at childhood, the contrast is immediate.

Ismar remembers being the boy who had the football. As long as he had the ball, the other boys called him to play. When he stopped playing soccer, he also stopped being invited. The ball was welcome; he was optional. Later, he says something that lands with a dull, honest weight: he has never really had a friend – only co-workers, neighbours, colleagues. Not one true friend in his entire life.

He doesn’t dramatise this. In Ismar’s tone there is little self-pity and a lot of plain description, almost like a field report on his own life. He simply notes that he learned mostly from his parents, books, magazines, and his own observation, and that he gradually distanced himself from people he considered “not good to live together with” – those who smoked, drank too much, or followed a path he did not want.

Ritesh’s childhood is crowded, by contrast. Not with friends, but with authority.

He describes a house where hierarchy was not just visible, it was enforced. Elders were to be obeyed, not questioned. An uncle decided that he should not play with village children but stay home, study, and maintain discipline. It worked – he became good at school – but at a cost: less freedom, less spontaneity, less practice in being “just a kid”.

Here you already see his characteristic “two-sides” thinking: discipline helped him, but the lack of freedom left him less relaxed, less naturally friendly. He is honest about both. And unlike Ismar, he grew up with siblings whose upbringing was already softer, more relaxed – a small generational shift inside the same house.

In these stories we see two different distances:

• Ismar’s distance comes from feeling outside the group, and from choosing to separate himself from habits he rejects.
• Ritesh’s distance comes from being held inside a narrow path, where others decided what was allowed.

Both versions make it harder, later, to feel fully at ease with people.

Learning to speak in a world of hierarchy

When the conversation moves to work and career, hierarchy becomes almost a character in its own right.

Ritesh tells the story of his first corporate job. Coming from a culture where “sir” and “madam” are automatic, where elders are called with respectful pronouns like aap rather than the informal tu, the corporate rule of calling managers by their first name felt almost rude. He needed six months just to feel normal saying “Frank” instead of “Sir”.

Language here is not just words; it is a psychological shift. To change pronouns is to change how you see yourself in relation to others.

Then he describes two job interviews that shaped him. In one, an HR manager rejects him for reasons that later turn out to be completely personal and unrelated to his competence – possibly triggered by a casual mention that he would “do parties” with friends. He spends that night blaming himself, feeling jealous of those who got the job. Later, he learns that this company treats people badly and works them to exhaustion. The rejection, painful then, becomes a blessing in disguise.

In the next interview, another man does the opposite: notices his nervousness, corrects his posture kindly, makes him comfortable, tells him to switch his phone back on because HR will call. This man becomes his colleague and quiet role model – a living example of how small kindness during a power imbalance can change someone’s trajectory.

From these two encounters, Ritesh draws a lifelong lesson: never let your private frustration spill into unjust decisions, and always try to make people comfortable when you’re in the position of power. In his voice, there is no demand for revenge, only a desire to multiply the second kind of person and reduce the first.

Ismar’s version of hierarchy is less episodic and more structural. He has spent his career in Brazil convinced that merit is not enough. What matters is whether you have a relationship with those “on the top” – politically, institutionally, socially. Without this connection, you will not get the right courses, opportunities, or promotions, even when the rules on paper say you should.

He sees this not only in the workplace but also in university life and politics: the impression that being politically aligned with the dominant current can matter more than being competent or honest. He does not shout this; he simply states it as a fact he has observed again and again, and it feeds a deeper pessimism about human nature and institutions.

Where Ritesh’s tone seeks hope inside the unfairness, Ismar’s tone leans toward resignation: this is how things are, and perhaps how they will remain.

Many Brazils, many Indias

One subtle theme in their conversation is the idea that “Brazil” and “India” are not single entities.

Ismar insists there are “many Brazils inside Brazil”. The north is different from the south; the cities are different from the countryside. In Manaus and other northern cities, people are more open, women speak more freely, even using more swear words; women may more openly approach men they are interested in. In the south, social behaviour is more restrained, expectations stricter. Food, music, social codes – they all shift as you travel.

He often finds himself at odds with popular tastes – for example, disliking the Brazilian country-style music that many around him enjoy. This difference in taste becomes yet another small distance between him and the environment.

Ritesh paints a similar mosaic for India: village vs city, north vs south, private sector vs government, upper caste vs lower caste, elite universities vs underfunded ones. He is sharply critical of how hierarchy and politics shape whose voice matters. Students and professors aligned with certain political currents seem to advance faster; others are blocked, sidelined, or even humiliated.

He describes PhD students who are expected not only to do research but also personal errands for professors – driving their children to school, taking their wives shopping – as the price for academic progress. For him, this is not just corruption of procedure; it is a deep violation of what education should mean.

Both men, in their own countries, see internal inequality as a defining feature: educational, social, economic. They agree that development has not been equally shared, and that those at the bottom of the pyramid are still not really invited to the table where decisions are made.

Being understood – or not

Frank asks a direct, almost intimate question: can you remember a moment when someone understood you without explanation, when you felt truly “seen”?

Ismar’s answer is simple: no. He cannot recall such a moment, not in work, not in friendship, not even in romance. He says he likes to talk to people, but whether they understand him or not does not matter much any more. It is a remarkable statement – not angry, not dramatic – just a man who has learned to live without expecting deep recognition from others.

When asked if he has ever truly understood someone else, he answers carefully: it is possible to have conversations where people keep different opinions, as long as there is respect. But he also notes that very often, when you think differently, people do not respect your opinion, and then the conversation simply cannot continue.

Ritesh’s “moment of being seen” is that second interviewer – the one who noticed his shaking hands and sweating palms and chose to be gentle. The relationship itself did not become deeply personal, but the view of that person changed something in him. It gave him a pattern for how he wants to behave when it is his turn to interview others or to support someone under pressure.

In a way, Ismar tells a story of never being fully seen and adjusting by lowering expectations.
Ritesh tells a story of occasionally being seen and building a small philosophy of kindness around those moments.

The future: fragmentation or fragile hope?

When the discussion turns to the future, the two men look in different directions.

Ritesh is openly critical of the inequality and intellectual stagnation he sees in India. He worries that development has been uneven – technology and GDP have grown, but critical thinking, fairness, and genuine social mobility have not grown at the same pace. Still, he keeps a cautious optimism: societies can evolve, even if slowly. He believes fragmentation is not inevitable, but he does not pretend change is near or easy.

Ismar, thinking about Brazil, sounds much less hopeful. He speaks of tens of thousands of homeless people in major cities, of gangs growing stronger, of Brazilian criminal groups spreading into other countries. At the same time, he sees enormous social and political energy focused on issues like how to address trans people and what pronouns to use – things that, to him, seem secondary compared with poverty and violence.

From where he stands, this imbalance is evidence that the world is not becoming more rational or more humane. He says directly: he is not optimistic.

And yet, the call itself quietly contradicts the darkest version of that pessimism.

A retired Brazilian man who feels he has never been truly understood.
A young Indian professional navigating layers of tradition, corporate culture, and global work.
A European moderator sitting in a cold French village, weaving their stories together.

Three people from three continents, different generations, different belief systems, spending an hour trying – clumsily, honestly – to understand each other a little better.

A small ripple

Perhaps nothing “big” changes because of this one conversation. Homelessness does not decrease. Gangs do not dissolve. Universities do not suddenly become fair.

But for an hour, two very different life paths are held side by side. We see how a lonely boy with a football becomes a reserved, observant man in Brazil. We see how a strictly controlled child in an Indian village becomes a reflective, nuanced critic of hierarchy, still hopeful that kindness is possible.

The tone that emerges when we listen to both of them is a mix of clear-eyed realism and gentle hope:

• from Ismar, the courage to describe reality without decoration, even when it hurts;
• from Ritesh, the insistence that even painful experiences can be turned into lessons for behaving more justly and more kindly towards others.

Frank ends the meeting by suggesting that maybe this little triangle of conversation – two older men and one younger man, speaking across continents – sends a small ripple into the world.

It is not a solution. It is not a revolution.

But it is one of the basic moves of any hopeful future: three people, different in almost every way, taking each other seriously enough to listen, to question, and to let themselves be quietly changed by what they hear.