Let me tell you a story… I go for a walk every evening. I stay in an apartment surrounded by lush gardens and huge trees—walking here is a delight. I see an assortment of people on my walk. The old couple who always walks hand in hand. Screaming kids. Weary mothers. The fast walker who […]
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. […]
“How are you feeling today?” This is probably the most difficult question you can ask me. When I first started therapy about 1.5 years ago, my therapist would ask me this question first, and I would freeze. I didn’t know the ‘correct’ answer. Do you actually respond with what you feel? Because we have been […]
“I just want to be heard!” This is me during most of my therapy sessions. All my life, I have craved this feeling of being held in silence and understanding. My closest friend in life, Travelling Birdy, and I have a long friendship of almost 20 years. Like any other relationship, we have grown and […]
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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 […]
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 […]