On music, resistance, and the human refusal to be silenced This morning, during my normal scroll through my Instagram feed, I stopped at an Outlook post featuring Ali Ghamsari , a young Iranian musician playing his instrument at the gates of the Damavand Power Plant — playing on, in the face of Trump's announcement of the annihilation of Persian civilization. The post also featured another musician, Hamidreza Afrideh . His music school had crumbled back to earth. He played s

For the last three years, April has been my favourite month — not for its mangoes or its lazy, stretched-out afternoons, but for the small, delicious ritual it ushered in. The drawing up of reading schedules. The curated list of books. The orders placed online, and then the quiet joy of waiting — watching for the courier, feeling the weight of each parcel, the unhurried pleasure of browsing through new spines and making tidy piles according to the reading schedule. April mean

I had met her at a poetry reading session. She was taking small notes in her journal, sometimes switching to Kannada. During the Q&A, she asked the very question I had been about to ask and quoted a book that lit up my curiosity. I passed my journal to her in a quiet gesture, asking her to write down the title. She wrote it down neatly. After the show, I had to rush to get the poetry book signed, but not before I'd had the presence of mind to ask her for a social media handle

There is a phrase that has always unsettled me: “selling yourself.” Once a corporate cliché, it is now the ruling doctrine of modern existence. In the age of platforms like LinkedIn, we no longer work, create, love, or even grieve without imagining an invisible audience. We are selling ourselves constantly—often without clarity on to whom and increasingly without clarity on why . Once, Human Values Were Never for Sale Before this era of compulsive self-commodification, socie

I haven’t been able to read much these past couple of months. Poetry, yes—plenty of that—but no prose. I was desperate to read and yet couldn’t. Never in my life have I struggled to consume words like this. After rapidly switching between books, (none of which could hold me)—books on craft, simple stories, purposeful stories—I finally picked up The Vegetarian by Han Kang. If I had to describe my state while reading it, I would simply say: the book stupefied me. For days afte

“ It’s an unnatural state for a person to have no history. History makes us someone. Gives us a context. A shape. ” — Severance , Episode 3, spoken through the quiet tenderness of Irving Bailiff. ( John Turturro ) Some mornings I wake up feeling strangely lighter, and as the first ray of sun slips into my left eye, it feels as if I am someone new. In that moment, I often wonder whether life would be easier if I could shed the weight of my memories. Just as we clear the memory

Yesterday, my house help had fallen sick, leaving me to balance the Mikado of domestic logistics while chasing the green ticks of a normal busy Wednesday. I tiptoed across my calendar like someone performing slow-motion Tai Chi—strategic, focused, and painfully aware that any wrong move could send the whole day toppling over. I haven’t felt that level of concentration since I played Minesweeper with the ferocity of a child desperately trying to impress her father. But of cour

Stranger Things happened to us once in 2016 and then again in 2026. For many reasons, we never followed it closely over the years. But when we returned to it in 2026, the story came in waves. It soaked us in its humor, love, emotions, and messiness, and then promptly drowned us in anxiety and fear, compelling us to pray for this small family that kept growing against all odds. The writing alone deserves a long discussion on some other unhurried Sunday. Yesterday afternoon, wh

The first morning in London, I woke up to cheerful voices on the other side of the wall. “Good morning, Mummy ji. Good morning, Papa ji.” I jerked awake and sat upright on a bed that clearly had strong opinions about comfort, and none of them were favourable. After a few seconds of frantic self-orientation (Where am I? Who am I? Why am I awake?), I reached for my phone on the bedside table. 7:15 a.m. My mind immediately went into crisis mode. It has been years since I have wo

Zohran Mamdani became the hundred and eleventh mayor of the most enigmatic city of the modern times. Zohran Mamdani, a brown-skinned son of immigrants from Africa and Asia, won the election with a promise for affordable homes in a priced-out city. Zohran Mamdani, a muslim, trumped fear of socialism with songs, dance and re-discovery of an ancient source of human energy - hope. I have had my juvenile share of euphoria that emanates from election campaigns - a wild performative

Even before you read this, close your eyes for a few seconds. Imagine yourself gliding through a silent universe. Stars bloom endlessly,...

—Literature Festivals as My Debi Pakkha The first line most of us would write as children in any essay on fairs was: “Fairs are the place...

Levitating I had gently dozed off reading Chekov's The Nose, observing the choice of adjectives to describe our 'major' Kovalyov, the...

Nila is barely into her twenties when we meet her, wandering through the underbelly of Berlin, trying to stitch herself into womanhood...

For a millennial parent of an eleven year old, watching Adolescence on Netflix seemed to be an urgent qualifying exercise, chided by the...

The few days spent near the foothills of Himalayas, a workshop and some reflections

Kintsugi , the Japanese art of mending broken pottery is a celebrated tradition, known to civilization for ages now. This delicate...

Driving in Bangalore traffic occasionally holds a mirror for you. You are navigating your vehicle in the rightmost lane of an arterial...

Leadership is all about preparation. Preparing not only yourself but the entire community whom you lead for a better and brighter tomorrow.

Saturday morning, the little doggy had an accident. N was in a bit of a grumpy mood. As he grumbled along with the breakfast, and stomped...