Rohit was juggling eggs. Smooth, brown ovals—in one hand or the other for a split second, and then up, up, up in the air. First there were three, then four, then five—Where are they coming from? he wondered—but he kept his arms moving and the loops going, and the crowd in front of him cheered. Where am I? Who are these people? He wanted to look around but knew he couldn’t take his eyes off the eggs. Then, suddenly, they changed into different things: a chicken leg, a courgette, a tomato, a potato, and a bag of lentils. He tried to keep juggling, but his fingers slipped on the slick chicken skin, he tossed the lentils too low and the potato too high, and everything came crashing to the ground. He looked down, but the mess wasn’t what he expected. All around him were broken eggs—dozens of them—whites and yolks oozing out through splintered shells.
A version of this article appeared in the June 2016 issue (pp.109–113) of Harvard Business Review.