A Year That Ends


Musings

“How was 2019 for you?” a good friend asked me. That was when I realized that this year is really coming to an end. I didn’t have an answer to my friend’s question. I hadn’t thought of this year ending. I hadn’t even thought of this year beginning. For some reason, I feel that I […]

December 22, 2019

When Life Is A Messy Openness


Musings

Every now and then, I come across moments that shine with irradiance, that mock my cynicism, that glitter with the fragile wings of lost hope, that move me even when I think I have ceased to feel.  Saturdays are usually my long run days. I hadn’t gone on a really long run since running the […]

November 9, 2019

The Art Of Saying No And Why I Struggle With It


Musings

The other day, a friend dropped in from Mumbai and asked if I could meet him the next day. My answer was curt and unlike what I usually respond with. I said, “No. I am busy.” After I sent the message, I sat a while, looking at it. The message looked rather forbidding, casting a […]

November 4, 2019

When Happiness Is Awe


Everyday

It is bitterly cold. The tea stall owner is doing brisk business. I am wearing thick gloves and wrapped up in a long coat, but I can still feel the cold seep in through to my bones. My taxi driver, a smiling Nepali who speaks little English, promises me that he will wait, so I […]

October 9, 2019

Where’s The Faith? Walking The Camino


Everyday

It’s a walk of faith, I tell myself. I would walk 800-km from France to Spain to find faith. A walk to dispel my inner cynicism and believe in the essential goodness of humanity. That walk is the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrim trail that starts in different places in Europe, culminating in the […]

September 10, 2019

When Kindness Makes You Cry


Musings

We live in a world where hope seems dry; where the dreams of our lives flutter like dusty rags; where we flounder in the decay of our putrid emotions. And then…you see this. I had just gone to the hospital to get my monthly injections when my Dad told me to stop by at a […]

August 11, 2019

My Enduring Affair With Chennai


Musings

I am sitting on Marina Beach, Chennai on an upturned canoe sometime in 2004. Next to me is a guy – Suresh. I watch the waves recede. Ebb. Flow. Recede. Relentless. Suresh turns to me and breaks the silence. “So, let’s talk about you and me.” I almost fall off the canoe and hurriedly clamber […]

August 7, 2019

What You Will Say On My Death


Musings

If you go to Bhutan, and you must because it’s my favorite country, then you will find that for a nation that pursues ‘Gross Domestic Happiness,’ its people are curiously obsessed with death. And since I am obsessed about happiness, then it follows that I am obsessed with death too, right? So, one day, I […]

August 1, 2019