Sashaying With Sushi

Everyday, Featured, Mental Health, Musings

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 […]

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Meeting Ruskin Bond

Featured, Travel

“Happiness is a mysterious thing, to be found somewhere between too little and too much.” – Ruskin Bond If you are a book lover, you can’t really visit Mussoorie without realizing that this is Ruskin Bond territory. You see it in the winding roads and rolling hills. You hear it in a chirp or a […]

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A Tale For The Time Being: Ruth Ozeki

Book Of The Month, Featured, Mental Health

I first heard of Ruth Ozeki’s masterpiece, ‘A Tale For The Time Being,’ a few years ago. It lay on my mind’s shelf, and although I had heard of it, I never came around to reading it. Until a few weeks ago, I was traversing books hungrily, flipping from one to another in a frenzy […]

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To Love Or Not To Love


Writing

We are soulmates.Until we aren’t. Best friends.Until we aren’t. We match. Unmatch. Swipe. Block. Casually fling away people the way we uninstall apps. Where is love in the middle of it all? This messy appendage that comes with not just the placid lakes but the boiling lava of a burning volcano? Who are we without […]

February 12, 2024

The Last Run


Musings, Running

It was about 9:45 am. The weather in Mumbai had been pleasant until 9 am. But now, the sun was out. Anyone who has run a marathon will tell you that the last 5 km are the most excruciating. That is when your mind plays tricks. It colludes with a broken body. It whispers that […]

February 7, 2024

In Grace We Are


Mental Health, Musings

It’s early Sunday morning. One of our clients wants to “talk.” I am nervous. We had had a bit of an uncomfortable discussion around payment on Friday. I call them.  She picks up. “I want to say that we are truly sorry. We allowed our biases to creep in. We talk so much about biases, […]

February 4, 2024

To Choose To Live


Musings

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 […]

January 25, 2024

The Start Is Just As Important


Musings, Running

My left knee throbs as I write this. It reminds me of its existence, a sudden flare-up of a pain I have been managing for 1.5 months now. Pointed stars of pain. I am used to it, but the thing about pain is that it always hurts. In 3 days, I will run my first […]

January 17, 2024

The One With Books


Mental Health, podcast

A few years ago, I had a book soulmate. I connected with this person in a way I never had with anyone else over books. Words. We wrote long emails over books. Read together. Mused over words. Fell in love with melancholy. The person wasn’t to stay in my life, however. She didn’t just carry […]

November 27, 2023

When Mondays Meant Saris


Musings

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. […]

June 26, 2023

Feel Your Feelings


Everyday, Mental Health, Musings

“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 […]

June 2, 2023

The Angels In Our Life


Musings, Reading

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 […]

May 15, 2023