It doesn’t matter when, where, or even how. It only matters that once again, humanity has (not) prevailed, and it’s a woman who takes the blame. What was she wearing? What was she doing alone? What- I will stop you right there. The second you begin to question what she was doing, you’re already in the wrong. Is it so hard to digest the fact that a man — unprovoked — committed a crime? And when it happens more often than it doesn’t, it should be easier to believe, not harder.

It goes as far as daily life. Oh a woman can’t possibly lift heavy items, she needs a man. Having a man to do your heavy lifting and needing one are worlds apart, darling. It’s simple logic, if I have a tool to ease my workload, why wouldn’t I employ it? We have nothing to prove to you or anyone else. I’ve seen it go as far as airports. There’s a difference between wanting for help and needing it. I’ve lifted my suitcase all on my own up till now, what makes you think I need your help without me asking for it? Oh she’s a woman, she must want my help.

Loud and wrong, darling; loud and wrong. Oh I did it to ease her workload. Okay but did you ask her? If she wanted your help, she’d ask for it. I recognise there are still kind, sensible men in this world (or rather, I choose to believe). But asking before assuming goes a long way. When we practice this rule for virtually everything else in life, why not with regard to women?

I admit, I might sound whiny but it’s a very real thing I’ve seen happening for far too long. Why is it so hard to comprehend the fact that women have the right to autonomy? They can do exactly what they want how they want. No uterus, no opinion, and yet it’s men who make the decisions regarding women and their health. Why do we think men understand women more than women understand themselves?

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Why do we hate women when we come from them? It’s time we recognise the extent of harm we’re inflicting on women. Erasing all pre existing notions from my head about current society, I fail to comprehend why women are treated so horribly. News headlines flash every single day and if we’re lucky, society rages for a day or two — a week even, and we’re back to normal till the next headline takes us by storm.

Why then do we bother? Why do we aim to bring about ‘awareness’? What is this awareness even doing? We parade and protest and yet, I see no difference. I wish I could be the harbinger of good news and tell you that we’re progressing, that we’re moving toward equality. But no — ice bucket on head — it’s the cold, hard truth. Somedays we’re at a standstill and somedays we’re moving backward. When will it be then, the day we move forward?

Is it that hard to love women? To hell with love; even respect women? Do we realise that we wouldn’t be here if it was not for a woman? I seem to be ranting on here, a dot of an article in this behemoth of a world. Is that doing anything? I’d love for the answer to be yes, but we all know it’s probably and unfortunately a no. I could rack my brains and claw at my eyes for an answer but I can’t seem to arrive at one. Maybe because there isn’t one. Maybe because we’re all hypocrites who made up imaginary rules to suit a section of society and the other was far too oppressed to do anything about it.

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Generations of women have fought for this. Fought for rights, for equality even. I personally think it’s time to demand for an imbalance, tip the scale in favour of the women. Statistics prove it, some of the happiest countries in the world are run by women. So tell me, who gave you the right to fabricate information that suits you? Who gave you the right to lead (which oftentimes fails miserably)? I do not deny that there are some incredibly sensible men in this world. But there are so many who aren’t that not every man but always a man is a reasonable claim to make.

Men should be thankful that women demand equality and not revenge.

Thank you for reading! I hope this forced you to think in a direction you haven’t before. Or perhaps a direction you have thought in, and it’s nice to see someone validate it.

On that note, when I meet a man, I’d like him to do my bidding.

Akshatha Chengalvala

I’ve spent most of my life outside — seven years in Vietnam, ten straight years in Singapore, the city I now call home, and now approaching two in the UK for university. This, however, doesn’t stop me from introducing myself as Indian. Of course I am. I’m ethnically Indian, always have been and always will be. My grandparents and all those who came before them fought for this country, and I, along with the other Indians who claim to not be from India, will forever be indebted to them.

India is a beautiful country, and I don’t say that for the sake of it. A country of more than a billion people, thousands of years of history, hundreds of languages and communities, extraordinary scientific achievements, countless cultures, religions, landscapes and traditions is increasingly reduced to a handful of out-of-context photographs. From there, an entire country becomes a punchline. And somewhere along the way, the criticism becomes contempt.

India is not a single image. It is not one city, one religion, one political party, one cuisine, one language, one social class or one experience. It is a civilisation and a modern nation of staggering complexity.

India contains the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean, the Thar Desert and the Western Ghats, tropical forests and alpine valleys. It contains ancient Buddhist monasteries, Hindu temples, Islamic architecture, Sikh gurdwaras, Christian churches, Jain temples and communities belonging to countless other traditions. UNESCO currently recognises dozens of Indian World Heritage sites, spanning everything from Ajanta and Ellora to Hampi, the Taj Mahal, the Sundarbans, the Western Ghats and the historic city of Jaipur.

That heritage did not emerge out of nowhere.

India gave the world mathematical ideas that became foundational to modern mathematics, ancient centres of learning such as Nalanda, sophisticated philosophical traditions, classical systems of medicine, literature in an extraordinary number of languages, and artistic traditions that have survived for centuries.

And then there is the India that exists today.

The country is home to extraordinary scientists, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, athletes and researchers. Indian-origin scientists and professionals have contributed enormously to universities, hospitals, laboratories and companies around the world. Indian technology companies and startups have become global players. Indian scientists have built sophisticated space missions at costs that have attracted worldwide attention.

Yet when India is discussed online, these achievements often disappear behind the same tired jokes. One of the most persistent misconceptions is that India is simply poor.

India certainly has poverty. It would be dishonest to deny that. But describing India simply as “a poor country” without context is an astonishing oversimplification. The World Bank describes India as one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies and notes that its economy has nearly quadrupled in real terms since 2000, while extreme poverty has fallen substantially.

And then there is Indian food. It is almost comical that Indian cuisine is simultaneously one of the most internationally beloved cuisines in the world and yet Indians are routinely mocked online for what they eat. Indian cuisine is not one cuisine.

South Indian food is not North Indian food. Bengali food is not Gujarati food. Punjabi food is not Goan food. Kashmiri cuisine is not Tamil cuisine. Andhra Pradesh’s food traditions are not Rajasthan’s. There are vegetarian and non-vegetarian traditions, coastal cuisines, mountain cuisines, royal cuisines, tribal cuisines, street foods and countless regional variations.

In a world where Indian hate is so normalised, I ask you to please take a step forward and admire the true beauty of this nation. In a country where the north is a whole world different from the south, the east a planet from the west, its beauty in individuality persists alongside the unity in diversity that flourishes. I recognise that no nation is without faults. My fellow Indians know all too well the issues that prevail. I’m sure most can name a slew of them in one sitting.

I ask you to put those aside, just for the duration of this article. The resplendence of this country is too often overlooked, and the widespread hate is unjust and cruel. For too long have I simply looked at the hate that swells for this nation around me. Whenever I stumble upon someone saying something incredibly insensitive (and downright illiterate, might I add), I look at the responses. More often than not, I have seen people with a level of intellect and reason countering them. All I ever did was like the comments standing against the vile remarks. I never spoke out myself.

Which is why I find myself writing this article now. This 80th Indian Independence Day, I ask all of you reading this, regardless of your culture or background, to appreciate the country while not overlooking its flaws. Like nearly every nation in the world, India is working toward progress. To all the people who have at least once thought of India in a bad light, I invite you to visit. Yes, visit. And not a random corner of the country not equipped for tourism, but build up an actual budget and come visit the country that has so much to offer you. See the cities. Taste the food. Experience the culture. Meet the people.

See beyond the carefully selected clips that make it onto your feed. But only if you can afford it, of course. Otherwise, I suppose the next viral video will have to do.

Read More: Kargil Vijay Diwas, 26 July, 1999

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This 80th Independence Day, thank you from the bottom of my heart to every brave soul who has fought for this country, and to everyone who came before me. For every sacrifice, every life given, and every dream carried forward, I salute you.

Thank you so much for reading! India will always and forever hold a special place in my heart. On that note, please do watch Operation Safed Sagar on Netflix. Heartbreaking, powerful, and absolutely incredible. I loved it!

Vande Mataram, Jai Hind.

Akshatha Chengalvala

Oh get on with it. Zendaya is the queen of current times. Back to back hits, with her name alone worth millions. I don’t know about you, but I was mildly surprised to find out that she was paid more than Jon Bernthal in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, whose screen-time was 30 minutes, whereas hers was 15. She was also reportedly paid between $5 to $8 million for her role as Athena in The Odyssey, where her total screen-time lasted less than 5 minutes across 6 scenes (whereas Anne Hathaway who played Queen Penelope for 30-40 minutes of screen-time was reportedly paid $4 to $7 million).

But this article isn’t really about Zendaya at all. It’s about your personal brand. WHAT? Yes. You might be thinking just about now that this is irrelevant and not connected whatsoever; but you’re in for a treat. A personal brand is the intentional, strategic practice of defining and expressing your value. “It’s the amalgamation of the associations, beliefs, feelings, attitudes, and expectations that people collectively hold about you,” Avery and her co-author, HBS Executive Fellow Rachel Greenwald, write in the Harvard Business Review.

Zendaya possesses just that; an incredible personal brand. You might argue that she’s a celebrity with a large fan following which is what sets her apart. However, I’d retort with the fact that there are countless examples of people who have built their identity ground up with little to no support. So what makes us any different?

A personal brand is what sets you apart from the crowd, exactly like those questions at job interviews, ‘why you?’. ‘Why me?’, is exactly what you need to ask yourself first, before even beginning to venture out on developing your personal brand. If I were to describe today’s world in one word, it would be saturated. Why, you ask? It’s because we now consume a lot more than we create.

Humans are naturally creative beings, and that holds true even today. All the reels we scroll, all the videos we watch on YouTube, and all the books we read; they’re all being created by another human being (who are in turn, often consuming other content). That said, not all forms of consuming content is negative. Reading fiction, for example, is a highly beneficial form of consuming media, with all the thinking skills it embeds in you.

However, reels as short form content have led us astray and though some (that I personally make sure to consume, more on this later) provide us with a beneficial takeaway, most of it is slop and AI-riddled. So yes, Zendaya has us all fooled. Her name makes rounds even in Hollywood, where supposedly anyone remotely famous’s name can.

Coming back to the personal brand, Zendaya has it nailed down. Interestingly, she does not do it like an influencer. We don’t find her constantly posting or documenting all aspects of her life. Instead, her public profile is largely calculated. Every sighting, every interview ties into a larger perception of who she is — talented, stylish, and culturally relevant. You probably clicked on this article seeing her name, which proves my point.

Like everyone with a strong personal brand; Zendaya too has something that sets her apart. If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last year or so, you’d know what it is. It is her ability to create narratives around her presence. It isn’t just about wearing clothes, or modelling them perfectly; her fashion tells the story of the art she’s promoting, telling a story about the project itself, turning her red-carpet appearances into extensions of the films.

Her collaboration with stylist Law Roach also demonstrates the importance of consistency within a personal brand. An important distinction is a strong personal brand does not mean repeating the same concept; It means allowing different things to communicate the same underlying identity.

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Perhaps the most interesting part of Zendaya’s personal brand is that she chooses not to stick to one lane. She could embody a different aesthetic every time but she would still unequivocally be Zendaya. The lesson here is not to simply post less, but to be more intentional and mindful of your presence. Think back to who you wish to be, what you wish to be perceived as, and how you present yourself. If the answers to these three questions do not overlap, then it’s time to reassess and take a page out of Zendaya’s playbook.

Because yes, she has us all fooled, and yes, we have a lot to learn from her which we absolutely should. In an age where the job market too is essentially fried, it’s up to you to set yourself apart from the crowd and unequivocally be you. For this lesson, you shouldn’t hate Zendaya but love and look up to her. I sure as hell do.

Wrote this right after I watched The Odyssey and Spider-man: Brand New Day back to back. I can’t lie, I loved former but the latter fell short of my expectations. Still two amazing movies though. I hope you enjoyed the read! Until next time, ciao <3

Akshatha Chengalvala

It’s 6th grade, my friends and I huddled over our notebooks, trying to puzzle out the question staring right back at us. We racked our brains and stuffed our mouths with chips; you know — in hopes of getting our brains running. Ever so often one of us would say “WAIT maybe…”, and scribble out a possible answer, till another debunks it. Thus went the cycle of wannabe eureka moments. We’d sail our boat looking for the correct island, as the waves of the incorrect answers would jostle about and nudge us, as mockery.

This would go on until we’d finally had enough and one suggests, voice trembling, “M-m-maybe we c-could G-g-goo-g-le?”. Using Google was a last resort. And to our 11 year old selves it was almost cheating. We’d think it through nearly a thousand times before opening up Chrome and gingerly type in the question in its search bar, not wanting to — but also wanting to — know the answer. We’d break into oohs and aahs as if we’d known it all along, or at least close to it, as an attempt to convince ourselves that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world that we looked it up.

Fast forward 8 years and I’m sure none of us peering at our notebooks would’ve seen this coming. Enter your query, no matter how personal, into ChatGPT and lo and behold there’s your answer, tailored to perfection. It even knows how to make it’s own judgement and nearly replace an online friend. [Note; the obvious: AI cannot inherently replace a human, but it is replacing several aspects that make us one. Work ethic, mannerisms; to name a few].

Today, we don’t think twice before opening up an AI agent of your choice — that’s right, we even have options now. “Would you like to degrade your intelligence with a side of slop or garbage?”, it asks with a wonderfully plastic smile on its face. Wait no, it doesn’t have a face nor is it plastic.
Maybe binary? 01110011 01101101 01101001 01101100 01100101

AI isn’t a new, unique environmental issue — it is an addition to an already established problem of digital infrastructure. Netflix, social media, Google Search, Cloud Storage, gaming, online shopping, and countless other services that we are inherently used to, depend on data centres and electricity, meaning they all have a digital footprint. AI is simply a new addition to said list; while its rapidly growing energy and resource demands shouldn’t be downplayed, we also shouldn’t be treating it as if it’s the first or only digital technology contributing to the problem.

My argument lies in the mental state. Don’t get me wrong, the environmental issue is just as important; but as mentioned, the damage to the environment is a long-standing challenge, with AI only adding to the list of things we’ve treated as a normal part of daily life. So setting this criteria apart, I ask, have any of those things interfered with the ability of the human mind to think? Gaming and social media are two examples of lowering attention span and degrading mental health but AI is on another scale all-together. No entity in the history of humanity has ever impacted the ability of humans to think to this extent.

We are simply able to touch and go with our thought process, offloading everything for ChatGPT to analyse and execute. Only problem is, it gives us the blueprint, but we expect it to follow-through as well. This leads to increasingly capable entities to form, with borderline dangerous implications. To a tech enthusiast who keeps up with the growth of these AI variants, these are tiny developments compounded over time, ultimately giving rise to something that has been in the works. To a layman, it’s overnight that something already so capable has reached a newer height.

AI has not simply depraved humans of their thinking abilities, it also seems as if it’s well on it’s way to bring about doom. It has just created viruses that do not exist in nature, and they work. If this isn’t enough to stress us out, I don’t know what will be.

As a last-ditch attempt to bring hope to you, dear reader, I will say that AI isn’t entirely evil. Sure, all the cards seem to be against us but it’s not yet in its most advance or vicious form. Play the AI to your own benefit and use it mindfully. Environmentally, we must aim to conserve and limit its use, however we are still depleting the Earth via various other pipes and not just AI. So please go back to 3rd grade and learn the 5Rs and how to practice them.

Life without AI must be heaven. It sure was, when I was in school and I’d go back to the Google search and scouring websites to match the question at hand word-to-word before the two second free-trial timer runs out. But the world today is laden with it and we must make do, as that simple no-AI Google search isn’t coming back to save us. (Hell, it integrated AI into itself).

In a world where many social media platforms are riddled with AI, it’s why platforms like Substack are incredibly important, giving voice to the humans who have something to say in their own language with its own flair. It’s incredibly unnecessary to analyse human writing with AI and determining why a page isn’t ‘growing’. What started as connecting humans online and making new connections, has now turned into a frenzy of consuming more than creating. But that’s a story for next time…

I hope you loved reading as much as I loved writing this! Might be my favourite piece till date. Until next time!

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Akshatha Chengalvala

You’ve seen it everywhere. People stepping up, getting on track, and achieving their dream lives. You want to do it too. I mean, you’ve done everything right. Made a vision board? Check. Made a 5 year plan? Check. Made a to-do list? Check. But have you checked anything off it?

That is where you’re stumped. You have everything down to the T, but how do you start? This is where things get crazy. You have everything at your disposal. Resources to no end, time in abundance but how do you get up and get going? You just don’t. You’ve want to do everything, so you do nothing.

I’ve been there myself. Hell, somedays I’m still there. WHY do I just not begin? I think to myself while the answer is staring back at me. Discipline, not motivation; consistency, not bursts of work; a schedule, not random. That’s what you’ve been listening to since day 1. On all those self-help videos, on the give-me-10-days-and-you’ll-not-recognise-yourself click baits. All they get you to do is give them engagement, and if you’re lucky, motivation that will fizzle out in two days.

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of this. Articles of the same concept, all of them telling me how to be better. But I don’t want to be better, I want to be myself. This version of me (and most definitely this version of you) that is entirely capable of achieving great, big, beautiful things without changing so much as what you eat for breakfast.

Truth is, you have it all. You can do it, you will do it. But nobody tells you how. I can. No, this wasn’t clickbait I promise. The answer is to do nothing. WHAT?!, calm down, I can hear you through the screen. Let me explain. Doing everything results in burnout. Doing nothing results in a happy, peaceful life. Right? WRONG. Doing everything doesn’t mean quite literally everything, at least at the beginning. To get somewhere, you need to start small.

Let’s say you want to get to Paris from where you live (if you live in Paris, assume Singapore). You don’t get there overnight by teleportation or floo powder, you must first make your way to the airport. But wait! Have you packed? So you make sure to pack. Be careful and don’t pack batteries or power banks! They’ll call you out on the loudspeaker and ask you to take it out. If this analogy is getting too flowery, allow me to elaborate. Paris (or Singapore) is where you do it all, the airport is what’s allowing you to get there (as in you with discipline, without any unnecessary items with you). You need to be careful to pack only the things that won’t get you kicked off the plane.

Pass the security checks (are you taking anything that’s going to harm you or your drive?), clear immigration (do you know where exactly you’re going and why?), and wait at your gate for the flight to your destination. All in all, what you have to do isn’t to change yourself, just get out of your comfort zone, make sure you’ve got a set plan of where you’re headed and go there!

What helps me solve the problem of but how? Is to talk to myself, pretending I’m a Forbes 30 Under 30 on a podcast. I explain where I want to go, get in the mindset of someone who’s accomplished what I want to, and start yapping to myself. Other ways to get in the zone are to journal, or even to sing it out if that’s your style. There are countless ways of getting into the zone, but the important thing is once you’re there, envision your goals and get out of your comfort zone. Start small, by simply packing your suitcase, or even making a list of what to pack.

Once you’re on your way to the airport, you know you’re ready to get on that flight. Pass security check and immigration easily, and now there’s only a single flight to take you where you want to be. So yes, I could’ve began with get in the zone, and told you what that was, but where’s the fun in that?

If all you got from this is to move to Paris, by all means, please do! After all, Carrie went to Paris, Emily went to Paris, Belly went to Paris, Blair went to Paris. So whatever you do, go to Paris!

I hope you took something away from this article, this was the first time I didn’t stop to proofread, and full-steam-ahead-ed into giving my thoughts words.

Until next time, au revoir!

Akshatha Chengalvala

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For decades, biotechnology was viewed primarily as a scientific discipline. But now, a breakthrough no longer ends in publication alone. It must now survive funding rounds, clinical trials, manufacturing, regulation, pricing decisions, reimbursement systems, and public adoption before it can begin to change lives. The science behind it is only the first step; the rest is translation. One of biotechnology’s largest challenges is the gap between discovery and commercialization, often referred to as the ‘Valley of Death’. Many promising breakthroughs never enter the markets due to lapse in funding, manufacturing or lack of a viable business model. This is why investors, entrepreneurs and economists have now become essential partners in modern biotechnology.

A medicine can be revolutionary in the laboratory, yet remain largely invisible to consumers. Health economics asks the practical questions: How much should a treatment cost? Is it cost-effective? Can the government or insurers pay for it? Should the limited healthcare budgets fund this treatment over another? These questions determine if the treatment ever sees the light of day. Science discovers possibilities, economics determines if we can see it through.

Business then comes into play as the bridge between invention and impact. A scientist may discover a gene-editing therapy, but it is the companies that organise clinical trials, build manufacturing facilities, navigate regulations and distributions, and educate healthcare providers. Without commercialisation and assistance from the business sector, potentially life changing discoveries remain confined to journals rather than improving lives.

The bioeconomy describes economic activity driven by biological knowledge and biotechnology. It extends far beyond healthcare into agriculture, sustainable materials, industrial manufacturing, biofuels, and environmental technologies. Countries increasingly view biotechnology not only as a scientific field but also as a driver of economic growth, employment, and national competitiveness. The biggest challenges of this century—pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, food security, climate change, and ageing populations—cannot be solved by biology alone. They require collaboration across biotechnology, economics, public policy, artificial intelligence, and business. Modern innovation is increasingly interdisciplinary because real-world problems are interdisciplinary.

Artificial intelligence is dramatically speeding up drug discovery and biological research. Ironically, this has shifted the bottleneck elsewhere. The challenge is no longer generating discoveries quickly enough; it is scaling manufacturing, securing investment, navigating regulation, and integrating new technologies into healthcare systems. Business and economics now determine how rapidly science reaches society.

Comparing two major markets – the United Kingdom and India – in the field of biotech is an interesting outlook. The UK has built one of Europe’s strongest biotechnology ecosystems by linking universities, startups, venture capital, pharmaceutical companies, and government support. Institutions generate discoveries, while biotech clusters and investors help transform research into commercial products. The UK’s strength lies not only in scientific excellence but in its ability to connect research with entrepreneurship.

India illustrates a different model of biotechnology. While scientific research continues to grow, the country’s greatest strength has been producing medicines and vaccines at scale and at relatively low cost. Recent policies increasingly aim to expand this into advanced biotechnology, biomanufacturing, and startup innovation. India’s bioeconomy has grown rapidly over the past decade and policymakers are positioning biotechnology as both a public health priority and an engine of economic development.

Thus we see how business and economics are now vastly influencing the biotech landscape, and how imperative it is to see their role in the field in today’s largely interconnected world. We cannot have one without the other, and that’s what drives us as humans to pursue not just one path, but as many as possible. We see AI and the like taking over some of the most on-demand jobs of the late 20th century. This now pushes us to rebrand and develop into a more irreplaceable entity in today’s business, biotech and econ markets.

Akshatha Chengalvala

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I believed that. I still do. In fact, I have a Barbie hairbrush laying next to me on the table right now that’s prompted me to think these thoughts and write these feelings. You can be anything, guided my childhood, and now my teenage years. Now, as I begin the last of my years ending in -teen, I’m forced to think, was she right?

At the smack middle of earning my degree, it feels like a cruel joke. At the ripe age of eighteen I, like many others, was handed the monumental decision of choosing a university to attend. Now, at nineteen I love it. Happy and content in my degree of choice. Thankful, even. It’s not often you see teenagers studying where their passion lies. I had it all figured out, undergrad first, job experience, a masters degree, work, and then a PhD. The sequence has always been my dream and my plan. I’ve repeated it countless times to my parents, grandparents, overly-curious too-distant relatives, strangers even, and to myself.

But now, the question floats all around me to the point I can see it in a translucent white cloud. Sparkly Barbie-pink letters spelling out ‘You Can Be Anything’, morphing into ‘Was She Right?’. Can I really be anything I want to be? Can I choose the unconventional path and still emerge secure? As we all know, the current job market is fried. With the rise of tools powered by AI that can essentially replace the role of an entire human, people migrate. If we hunt deep enough, there still are roles only a walking, talking, in-possession-of-a-working-brain human can do. But that begs us to think; there are only a select few jobs, with millions of people.

I have always known I had a knack for the sciences. I love learning and understanding the human brain and am sure I want to research neuro-oncology some day. But I also want to public speak. I want to be an author. I want to be an art historian. I want to give TEDx talks and inspire people. I want to read books full time. I want to travel full time. I want to become a singer. I want to become a philanthropist. I want to become a thousand other things I haven’t listed on here. In the year 2026, with nearly everything becoming automated and within arm’s reach, we’re still stuck. We’re stuck in ways we can’t comprehend and we desperately claw at the walls, not knowing what else to do.

But I see hope for humanity. I see humans — this generation — taking on newer roles and jobs, where we break free from the roads laid in front of us. What use are they when AI is treading them anyway? We lay our roads over it, under it, on its left, and on its right, and we solemnly swear that it won’t know what hit it. And I know the next generation will too. And the one after that. And the one after that. And the one after that. You get me.

So yes, Barbie was right. You REALLY Can Be Anything. We have to be something different to the norm. Break free from the status quo and blend the roads, merge them all to find your own way. These are not times to choose one path, they’re times to follow every road that your soul yearns for. You are human, and that’s the one thing AI does not have at its disposition.

You Can Be Anything; six year old me had already believed it.

Akshatha Chengalvala

I could stop breathing to find you, I could move mountains to define you, and yet, I find myself standing at cross roads with myself, wondering if I should run to you or away from you. Do I hide away everything I know and everything I value and come find you? Or do I keep my wits and morals about me and wait for you to come find me? I could just stop and stare at you, waiting, wishing, wanting, yearning for you to come by and find me.

I know you are everything I’m not. I don’t know you, you don’t know me; but I do know of you and you of me. Tell me, do you never lie awake thinking of me? Do you never play a scene with me as the protagonist? Tell me you do, for I do. I see you in the haze, I see you on the streets. I see you in classes with the dronings of the brain, I see you in filled-to-the-brim night clubs with Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me playing in the background. Exactly like the movies but nothing like them at the same time. Never worse, never better.

I lean into you, I mentally trace your tattoo, the swirl and dot. I yearn to ask you what it means and why you have it up there on your bicep. You lean into me and I can feel my heart go wild. I put my head down, exhausted, and I breathe you in, for my head is now on your jacket. Funny, that also spells your name out.

On reading the title, where did your thoughts go? Did they lean toward a social situation; perhaps a man betraying the one he calls his other half? Or did you choose the road less taken, the ‘affair’ connoting to an experience. If the latter, I’m happy to inform you that you’d be correct, and that I did in fact, have an affair in London.

An affair with the long lines to museums and overpriced souvenirs. With the labyrinthine underground and £7.00 iced coffee. You’d think I waited my whole life to go see Big Ben or the Buckingham Palace; but no — I waited my whole life to see the crowd. The bustle, the push and pull, of your average commuters and pick-pockets alike. I’m pleased to report however, that I did not get pick-pocketed (touch wood).

There’s something about those London girls and boys, walking down High Street, across the Shard, down the river Thames. No matter what tax bracket, they all have one thing in common: London. Oh my God, what’s this girl’s obsession?, is what you might be thinking. And yes, London has enamoured me. Clearly enough for me to yap about it on Substack.

There are cities you come from, the cities you belong to, and the cities you’re meant to be in. They might all be the same, or entirely different. What remains constant though, is the horror of never finding out which city is what for you. Cities are like people, each with their own personalities and charm. Take Paris, the city of love; Singapore, the city of gardens; Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India; Ho Chi Minh, the Pearl of the Far East; each one has it’s own quirk, it’s own gravity that pulls you to it. I may be insane, but close your eyes and you can hear each of them calling your name.

So what’s it going to be? Will you follow my footsteps, dearest reader, hop on the next flight, train or car; and have an affair? Or will you dwell on the feeling, on the surety and wait for the affair to come find you?

Until next time <3