I don’t remember the exact time in my life. That time I first picked up a book. Smelled the pages, inhaled the story, and fell in love. I must have been 5. I have never stopped loving since then. Books have been the companions who I know will never abandon me. I can trust books – waiting patiently for me, accepting my flaws because they judge you not. You […]
Here’s a story for you. Sometime in 2020, I had a meeting by the beach in Chennai with one woman who I thought was a friend but never was. It was a weird, discombobulated meeting, one of skirting around edges, and one where I returned feeling I hadn’t said anything I wanted to. I tried […]
Let me tell you a story. A travel story. In 2003, I was teaching Spoken English in a tiny city called Lianyungang, China. It was the first time I was in a foreign country. Living by myself. Teaching a language I wasn’t confident speaking. And had narrowly escaped the confines of a Chinese prison. (A story […]
When Mondays meant saris… My first job after graduating was as a teacher at Jain International Residential School. There were many other firsts: It was my first time as a teacher. Studying a paper called ‘Teaching English as a Foreign Language’ can in no way prepare you to meet a bunch of raucous 5th graders. […]
Where would I be without literature? In 2000, I applied for a Master’s in Mass Communication from Bangalore University. I had graduated in Psychology and Journalism and thought that journalism was my ‘career’ path. We didn’t have career counselors then. My family didn’t really care what I did. 𝗜 didn’t care what I did. I […]
My best date ever. 🌹 I have been in love with Oscar Wilde since I read ‘A Picture of Dorian Gray.’ I love the writer’s wit, humor, and brevity that still brims with soul. The novel was considered vulgar for its homosexual overtones and was banned. Wilde anticipated this already with a classic quote from […]
Many years ago, in 2016, I went on a solo trip to Japan. The country was everything I had imagined it to be – a bustle of contradictions and sweeping contrasts. It was also, expectedly, expensive. And being a vegetarian in Japan was even more expensive. There were two ways I could get vegetarian food […]
Today marks a confluence of New Years. I love celebrating New Year’s. There was a time in my life when I made it a point to celebrate the New Year in a different country every year. I have seen the New Year ushered in Wadi Rum, Jordan, with a singing bedouin who proposed marriage to […]
The last few days have been trying for me as I watched the light of my life – my mother – hospitalized yet again. It scares me to see her like this, and my heart is restless. As always, I turn to what gives me the most succor: words and, through them, memories. And this […]