What do fairness, courage and justice actually look like from a child's eyes? Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya has spent his career inside courtrooms, but in this episode, he brings that same rigour to the questions parents wrestle with at home.Why disagreement, not obedience, is where empathy begins. Why children absorb dignity from how we treat the person serving us tea, not from what we tell them. Why social media has replaced reflection with reaction. And why the single most powerful thing a parent can model isn't being right, it's admitting when you're wrong.A thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation for parents, teachers, and anyone raising the next generation.Off Syllabus, a podcast by The Brigade Schools.
What if the most important thing you could give your child isn't discipline, but the right to disagree with you?Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya joins Off Syllabus to unpack where empathy really begins, why courage can't be lectured into a child, and why kids forgive almost everything except hypocrisy.A conversation every parent will recognise themselves in.Off Syllabus, a podcast by The Brigade Schools.
Five-time Olympian. Ten-time national champion. Padma Shri. Khel Ratna. India's most decorated table tennis player.And for 18 months somewhere in the middle of all that — a railway ticket collector at Madras station.This is the Sharath Kamal conversation you haven't heard before. Not the medal count, not the career highlights — but the real architecture of what it takes to build something exceptional in Indian sport.In this episode, Sharath talks about the years nobody celebrates: the losing streaks at nationals, the financial pressure on his family, the dark patch between 2010 and 2015 when he dropped from rank 38 to rank 94 and people started writing him off. He talks about what pulled him back — not talent, but character. And he explains the difference between the two better than anyone we've spoken to.He also walks us through the Tokyo Olympics match against the world number one — five losses against this opponent before that day, not a single game won. What happened in that match, and what his coach said to him after he lost, is the kind of story that stays with you.Beyond his own journey, Sharath speaks honestly about what parents are getting wrong right now — the obsession with early results, the lack of patience, the pressure that kills joy before it can become passion. He talks about what good parenting in sport actually looks like, why education and sport are partners not competitors, and why India's youngest athletes today have something he never did: a clear pathway.Over 60 minutes. No fluff. Just one of India's greatest athletes telling the truth about what greatness actually costs.Off Syllabus, a podcast by The Brigade Schools.
We are raising children in a world designed to capture their attention, fragment their focus, and reward impulsive behaviour. And most of us are doing it without a manual.Dr. Pratima Murthy — former Director of NIMHANS, addiction psychiatrist, and one of India's most respected voices in mental health — joins Off Syllabus for a conversation that is equal parts science, wisdom, and honest reckoning.This is not a conversation about screen time limits or confiscating phones. It goes much deeper than that.Dr. Pratima talks about how the reward circuits in a child's brain are hijacked by digital technology long before parents notice anything is wrong, why the adolescent brain is neurologically wired for risk and what that means for how we parent teenagers, the difference between a child who acts out and a child who goes silent — and why both need equal attention, how adverse childhood experiences leave marks that show up in adult mental health, anxiety, and relationships, what consistent parenting actually looks like and why contradictory messaging between parents is more damaging than most couples realise, the connection between perfectionism, achievement pressure, and addictive behaviour in children, and why emotional neglect — even in loving, well-intentioned families — is one of the most underrecognised risks of modern parenting.She also shares the poem that reframes everything about how we think about raising children. You will want to save it.Practical, research-backed, and deeply human — this is the parenting conversation that should be playing in every school auditorium in India.Off Syllabus is brought to you by The Brigade Schools.
In a world that is moving faster than most of us can process, are our children getting the emotional support they actually need?Dr. Pratima Murthy — former Director of NIMHANS and a leading voice in addiction psychiatry with over three decades of experience — joins Off Syllabus for a wide-ranging conversation on modern childhood, mental health, and what parents are getting right and wrong.She talks about the neuroscience of why teenagers take risks, how digital addiction forms the same neural pathways as substance addiction, why shame and secrecy take root in children when parents are emotionally unavailable, the difference between authoritative and helicopter parenting, how to talk to your child about failure without crushing their confidence, and where to get help when things go beyond what a family can handle alone.Honest, grounded, and deeply practical — this is the parenting conversation we should all be having.Off Syllabus is brought to you by Brigade Schools.