Devotion here is not a silent meditation but filled with motion: the fluttering flags, the turning of prayer wheels, the rotation of singing bowls. The cold mountain air frays the woodblock-printed mantras into threads with time, but its prayers are carried by the wind to benefit every creature downstream. The prayer wheel rotates after the hand touching it has moved on. What we leave lives.

What colour is Pangong? I try listing it in my journal. The cobalt cerulean lake with concentric rings of teal and sapphire; in the distance I spot emeralds, aquamarines. And turquoise. I try to recall more colours as the lake quietly shimmers in the sunshine. I sat there long enough to ponder on life, to draw and to sing, to meditate and to look wide eyed till someone asked me, “Wanna skip stones?”

What colour is Pangong? Now, it is the colour of my dreams.

A crowd of stars hidden behind pixelated screens and city lights, unveiled all at once. We gasp at each other, separated by time. My ancestors slept under this sky! Weaved stories and futures, looked at it for assurance and guidance. My neck strains as I lose myself, unblinkingly looking at the blinking stars. Look! A shooting star! I wish hastily like I might not get this again. This abundance, this generosity of the universe.

The blue stands stark against the beige stony Ladakh. Besides the installation, local women sell dried rose petals. I collect tiny flowers wherever I go. Their fragility in the resilient landscape, both beauties transient. Like my palm.

Can places be shaped by lines? Geopolitics says yes, while my eyes saw something completely different. A village you have to hike down to and then climb back up to see, a village which was part of Pakistan pre-1971 and India now. A village where the women make apricot bread and butter tea and tell stories of weaving and medicines. A museum of memories, housing letters, utensils, and even clothes from people who once were and always will be..

The blues seem to have escaped from the sky and gathered in Tso Moriri. The howling cold winds made sure we couldn’t stay long enough. The contrast between the lake and the landscape feels surreal. You feel pulled into it, yet the water is icy cold, yet one dip has the severe risk of hypothermia, not to mention upsetting the locals who hold the lake as sacred. Sacred. An apt adjective for something so beautiful..

Until next time:)

Julley!

My love for Bollywood started pretty late. As a kid growing up in a conservative household, I watched very few movies and TV shows, focusing on homework and books. In college, I finally watched the classics: Sholay, Mr India, and the likes and realised the world of Bollywood is huge! Anyone who knows me well knows I am unbeatable in Antakshari and fairly proficient in Bollywood trivia. But some movies shine out among the rest:)

Here’s a glimpse of the top 10, in no particular order:

1. Anand

This was an unexpected watch and a movie that made me cry and laugh throughout! “Zindagi badi honi chahiye lambi nhi” is my motto, and the character is so well written and inspiring that I recommend everyone watch it!

Anand explaining Vibes before Gen Z did:

2. Rockstar

What do I say about a movie with the best songs, dialogues, and scenes ever! A lot of things opened up for me when I watched it: the nature of love and heartbreak, obsession and abandonment, and grief. “Tum Ho” was my love song in my college days, when I was fully single and full of yearning.

3. Jane Tu ya Jane Na

This is such a well-made movie; it has stories, side stories, and the best songs ever! And the character of Jai is such a cutie, a non-toxic, loving, funny boy who pulled off the craziest, most romantic movie ending!

4. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

A very cliche entry on this list, but as a traveller, I loved how this movie showed the transformation arc of three characters. Through the experiences, people they met, and situations they found themselves in, something shifts by the end of the movie; I have felt a similar shift in some of my trips. The poignant poetry of Javed Akhtar added to the movie immensely, making it reflective as well as entertaining.

Ik baat honthon tak hai jo aayi nahin
Bas ankhon se hai jhaankti
Tumse kabhi, mujhse kabhi
Kuch lafz hain woh maangti
Jinko pahen ke honthon tak aa jaaye woh
Awaaz ki baahon mein baahein daalke ithlaaye woh
Lekin jo yeh ik baat hai
Ehsaas hi ehsaas hai
Khushboo si hai jaise hawa mein tairti
Khushboo jo be awaaz hai
Jiska pata tumko bhi hai
Jiski khabar mujhko bhi hai
Duniya se bhi chhupta nahin
Yeh jaane kaisa Raaz hai

5. Dil toh Pagal hai

The hardcore romantic in me always wanted to believe in the world of love this movie creates. Dance studios, gorgeous suits, rain songs, and Shah Rukh Khan living with the absolute conviction that somewhere in this enormous city there is one person made specifically for you:)

6. Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.

If there is one Bollywood movie that can make me cry and laugh within the same ten minutes, it is this. But what I love about it is that it never becomes preachy about kindness. It simply suggests that sometimes the cure is not another medicine, but treating a person like a person.

The scenes where Munna hugs the patients and plays carrom with them. It is warm without being sentimental. And perhaps that is why it has aged so well.

7. Sholay

I have watched Sholay a couple of times with my family: my favorite way to watch it. My parents have all memorised the dialogues and repeat scenes after scenes with enthusiasm. I love how they love the movie. The story and scenes have become iconic, but the fact that this movie has such a big place in a whole generation’s heart is what features this movie on my list:)

8. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

Of course, the highlight of this movie is the visuals! Sanjay Leela Bhansali is a master of grand sets, and Aishwarya Rai looks her prettiest! The movie is a medley of colors and music! Along the journey of being in love to understanding what it means to love someone, we see Aishwarya Rai’s character go through so much! This movie takes you away from real life for a good three hours, and I love that about this. Also, I am yet to wear my dreamy lavender lehenga!

9. The Lunchbox

As a traveller, I have often experienced serendipity. And this movie celebrates exactly that. How strangers change each other through tiny acts, little notes passed back and forth in a lunchbox. There are so many poignant moments in this sweet, simple story that make you appreciate the mundanity of daily life:)

10. English Vinglish

I am a hardcore believer in lifelong learning. But the beauty of the movie lies not in a woman deciding to learn; it lies in the nuances and reactions of the characters around her. There are no real villains, no knights in shining armour. The celebrations are small, and the film ends almost where it began, but a big change occurs internally for the lead protagonist and maybe, for the viewer as well:)

That’s all, folks!

I loved writing this list; it was like spending time with all My Favorite Things. Hope you find your favorites in here; if not, watch the movies :D

Until next time:)

The gravity-defying, delicately perched boulders of Hampi!

As our car reached near Hampi, we started seeing rocks on both sides of the highway. Not just regular mountains of the Deccan Plateau but rocks of all shapes and sizes perched over each other at impossible angles. How do they not fall off? And it turns out these boulders, which look like rock-balancing artwork, are 3 billion years old. Which means they predated the Himalayas and dinosaurs. Yes, we really were standing on ancient history.

Over the next three days, these boulders dotted the landscape of Hampi. Behind the temple ruins and markets stood these formations. Making time look irrelevant. Yet ironically, they reminded me of a game we used to play as kid, where we balanced seven pebbles on top of each other and the two teams tried to dismantle and assemble it, running around.

If you, like me, are susceptible to rabbit holes, this is a nice read on these rocks :)

I listened to a bunch of podcasts and read a book on Hampi after my trip. But while I was there, I kept staring at these rocks. The market ruins right outside the Vitthala temple has so many tiny rock formations, mirroring the giants in the background. I asked our guide about it, thinking it would be a good luck ritual. Unexpectedly, he shared a fascinating and incredulous story. Long, long ago, before Vijayanagar existed, this area was called Kishkinda. It was the monkey kingdom in the Ramayana. The two brothers, Bali and Sugriva, had a fight in the region. And they threw these rocks at each other, leading to these chaotic patterns all around. Later on, the monkey army kept the leftover material from Ram Setu (the rock bridge from Indian mainland to Srilanka) here itself. As I tried balancing a few rocks myself, I couldn’t help but wonder at the size of the giants who balanced the boulders in Hampi! (So much cooler theory than volcanic eruption and erosion).

Indigenous cultures built permanent rock piles (cairns) to mark paths, cross rivers, or honor sacred sites. Today people rock balance as a hobby. It is about aligning the center of gravity of the stones, demanding time, attention, and patience. Yet one tap and they might collapse (like my rocks do). But mindful rituals are not about permanence. Tibetan monks spend days creating intricate mandalas only to sweep them away. Or the Kolam in parts of South India, created each morning only to be washed away by rains and footsteps by the evening. In the process, I also discovered a few cool rock balancers.

The gorgeous temples we saw on our trip were essentially these rocks skillfully carved. The structures were a mere teaser to what would have been. But how does a city of half a million people just vanish? It took months for the Bahamani Empire to destroy Hampi, and then somehow it never recovered.

Yet Hampi holds within itself two cities: a spiritual site being the birthplace of Hanuman, the place where Parvati prayed for Shiva, the place where Rama found Sugriv, and the mighty kingdom where traders from all over the world came and rested. And when you visit, you will catch a glimpse of both, almost like a holographic plate.

This was my second visit to Hampi; the first one was rushed yet impactful. I don’t think anyone can be unaffected by the energy the place holds even now. My musings from the first trip back in 2023. (*inaccurate as the attack was not by Mughals but our very Indian Bahamani sultanate)

I left with silences. The calm balance of boulders, the haunting stories of the temples, the coracle ride on the Tungabhadra River. Whenever my stock of silence runs low, I know I can always return to Hampi. To these rocks which are a symbol of endurance and the beginning of time itself. To these lands which have absorbed glories and defeats in their blazing heat. Hampi holds time for a while, and I was okay letting it go, not once but twice.

Until next time:)

So I picked colours which called out to me from the vast spectrum my friends offered me on Instagram. Yellow. Let’s get on a sunny ride!

1. I love people who love yellow. I love when people guess (wrongly) that my favorite color is yellow. How do I write about a color I have always associated with connection, laughter, and good food? Let’s start from the start, literally.

2. Mumma. As a kid, “what’s your favorite color” was an important part of my identity, and hers has always been yellow. From her favourite butterscotch ice cream to the saree she wore on all pujas, for me, she is the colour of sunshine and gold bangles and yellow marigolds :)

3. Lemons!! The magical glass of Shikanji after school in summers, tangy lemon rice made from leftover rice, lemon on chaats, lemon on salads, I grew up squeezing lemons. So when life gives me lemons, I will probably go to the kitchen to find a knife.

4. I once bought a yellow umbrella inspired by the TV show How I Met Your Mother. I even engraved AV on it, carrying it everywhere. Look at the fate: I finally lost it in Rome, left behind in a hostel’s luggage room. Mi Amore, Alessandro Valenti, I hope our paths cross soon;)

   

5. The arrival of love. I was twenty-three, giggling and hopping around, thinking of sunflowers and ordering yellow dresses. My inner palette got imprinted with many hues; it started with a base coat of lemon yellow, it glowed gold for a glee bit of time, and then it swirled into a confused rainbow!

6. Yellow is the colour of things that insist on being noticed before they disappear. A ripe mango. A crisp autumn leaf. Turmeric fingerprints on a marble countertop, human warmth.

7. “Please stand slightly behind the line.“ Yellow line in Delhi! Vishvavidyala to anywhere I want to go, the whole city within my reach for those two years. I took a friend along, boarded the metro and then decided the destination for the day. The twinkling lights of Bangla Sahib at night, the chaos of Chandni Chowk, the dates at Connaught Place: all had me follow some yellow footsteps first.

8. Colors arrive before language does. Yellow probably leads the march, tinting the world every single day before concentrating in whimsy candles, a quiet backdrop to the warm conversations in house parties.

9. The sunflower fields between Mysore and Ooty. My version of DDLJ’s mustard fields. Alexa sing “ Tujhe dekha toh ye jana sanam”

   

10. Post-it notes in my makeshift office desk decor. Tiny doodles as a resting place for my eyes. My guardian angels are a bunch of Looney Tunes!

11. The anticipation of the traffic signal, the chatter of the school bus, yellow-green autos, Amaltas shedding all over the road like confetti. Yellow makes everything a painting. I, a painter in a painting, collecting hues.

12. This listicle would be incomplete without mentioning one of my favorite artists of all time! Van Gogh wanted to eat yellow to feel joy. Yet he painted yellow unabashedly and brought joy to the world! Things which we can’t embrace can still change us, like the arrival of first love and the departure of the last one.

    

As I started penning this down, I realised yellow encompasses my life way more deeply than I ever anticipated. Yellow is in the covers of my favorite books, the brightest star in the constellation of colors, and my most replayed song on Spotify. If you pay attention to one colour, you will start seeing it everywhere. It might be a sign from God, or it might be your mind attuned to the “pattern”. Try it. Pick a color and go on a walk. Try to spot as many objects as you can and then see your next day painted in that colour serendipitously.

Until next time:)

Until I thought of getting my first tattoo, and birds came up as a strong contender, a surprising choice. But if you consider how birds are associated with both freedom and curiosity, two of my core values, you can see the link. Even though I didn’t get a bird tattoo at the time (I got one eventually), I became more interested in this chirping world, which is not just above us but all around us.

When I moved to Bangalore, I got a flat with a private terrace. And a huge flock of pigeons came as a bonus. My flatmate and I kept bowls of water and grain every day and were greeted by the lovely chatter of pigeons flocking to us. Like the scene in Khushwant Singh’s short story about his grandmother,”The Portrait of a Lady,” or Simran’s dad in DDLJ. Our neighbours complained, and we had to stop feeding the pigeons (I wonder where they eat these days), but my love affair with birds had already begun!

A great starting point was visiting the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary on the Bangalore-Mysore highway. It has over 200 species of birds. It is quiet, well-maintained, and offers visitors ample bird sightings(and a pretty boat ride). I also sat there for a couple of hours, by the lake, under the trees, and felt my body relax, my thoughts slowing down from the constant click-click of Bangalore.

The world of birds is fascinating. Birdwatchers identify birds by their calls. Birds carry magnificent conversations without waiting for human participation. And each cry is distinct. They wake before us, navigate magnetic fields we cannot perceive, recognize individual human faces, steal, grieve, flirt, improvise, migrate across continents, and somehow make all this seem entirely ordinary.

Historically, birds have been important both in mythology and in wars. In ancient Egypt, they were said to carry souls. When I visited temples in Luxor and Aswan, I saw so many birds being etched in the walls. Even the Hieroglyphic symbol for the first letter ‘A’ is a bird. In Japan, cranes are symbols of hope and longevity. Inspired by the Japanese legend that folding 1,000 paper cranes grants a wish, Sadako Sasaki, a Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor, folded them in the hospital hoping to recover. Today, the crane is a worldwide symbol of peace. Ravens accompanied gods across Norse landscapes, gathering knowledge. Across the world, birds are beings with agency, intelligence, and stories of their own.

Not just historically, but scientifically, birds are some of the most magical creatures. Every year, Arctic travels from the Arctic to Antarctica and back again, making one of the longest migrations of any animal on Earth. Over a lifetime, a single tern may fly a distance roughly equivalent to travelling to the Moon and back. And look at me, struggling to answer emails on some days.

The writer Helen Macdonald once wrote that birds allow us to glimpse “another way of being alive.” A lighter, more musical way. What I can perceive about their world is a tiny slice of what’s actually happening. But still I try to find a few moments each day to look up, to spot a bird and its peculiarities. To remember that I share the world with millions of feathered strangers flying on ancient routes above my schedules, ambitions, or anxieties. Above my constrained perception.

Until next time:)

An Instagram reel recommended me “Taiwan Travelogue,” and I bought it. Not realising it is on the Booker prize longlist. As I am writing my travel memoir, I was just attracted to the word “travelogue”. To say I loved the book would be an understatement, because a week after finishing it, I booked my flights to Taiwan. I wanted to live the story and the places mentioned in the book.

Over the next month, I started planning the trip. As always, I research elaborately to zero in on a few experiences and unique things to do. As the Taiwan section grew bigger in my notes, the Taiwan travelogue won the Booker Prize.

Everything was perfect.

Then I got a mail.

The airline had rescheduled my flights. One change led to another, and eventually the itinerary became impossible. One of my layovers was -3 hours. The trip was cancelled before it had the chance to begin.

I got a Google notification last night while I was dancing in a club with my friends! My flight was in 25 minutes. The calendar certainly didn’t catch up to the cancellations.

I was sad, of course, missing a place I had never been to. Because for me, the trip begins much before the boarding gates. The planning and the anticipation were all wasted. Or maybe not. While reading up on what to do, I learnt so much about the tiny country!

I often read books before or during my trips to new places. Some of my recommendations about Taiwan are:

1. Life of Pi was mainly shot in a water tank in Taiwan ! How cool is filming ocean scenes in a tank!

2. Love in Taipei was such a cute, happy watch, available on Netflix.

3. The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi, I loved the writing and the story.

4. Bamboo shoots after the rain by Ann Carver. This is a feminist short story collection where every story makes you think, and some make you cry.

I also ended up discovering the art scene in Taipei, which led me to make a leaf mandala and to think about using more of nature as a medium in my art to capture transience.

Taiwan is no longer this week’s location but a future story waiting for the right time. Even though this trip did not happen, I feel strangely connected to the country. At the end of the day, I realised that I can still be changed by places I have never reached. And like so many of my stories, it all started with a book.

Until next time:)

I love dancing as long as nobody is watching. I have choreographed dances for my younger sister’s competitions, where she won prizes. I try dance workshops across places and genres. Yet if you ask me to perform, I will freeze.
Maybe it is the trauma of my cousin brother’s wedding in 2011, where the DJ played a trance-remix version of the song as I went on stage to dance, and I repeated the same moves again and again, not understanding what had happened. Maybe it is my distant relationship with music itself. Or maybe it is me being conscious of my body.

Whatever the root cause is, I am scared of dancing in front of anyone. I can never be free if there is even one pair of eyes watching me.

Last month, I signed up for a dance retreat. I thought it was a good excuse to move my body more and learn new skills. Dancers would be a fun set of people to connect with. In my streak of spontaneity, I almost forgot how scared I am to dance in front of people. We started off well. I was my confident, communicative self. Then, after the first contemporary dance workshop (where I disbelieved the teacher’s compliment to me), everyone started performing solo. On camera. I resisted till the end, thinking I might be forgotten. But it turned out that with so many people encouraging me, I couldn’t just cry my way out of it. Though I was a bit teary-eyed, I had to dance. The moves were actually decent, but my expressions were totally off. And then, through consecutive workshops, my dancing got worse. “I am too much in my head”, everyone started telling me. How would they know that the more I tried, the harder it got.

There was another challenge too. One I did not foresee. I was not the best dancer in the group. Which is fine. But the teacher focused mainly on the best dancer. He didn’t see when I forgot the steps or missed something. In school and college, I had been on the other side, a clear favourite of many teachers. So it was hard to accept this ignorance. Practice after practice, I just saw him not paying attention. At one point, I didn’t want to dance because I didn’t matter to the instructor, almost forgetting that the point of the whole thing is to learn for myself, to dance for myself.

I danced jazz, hip hop, and contemporary for the first time in my life. I did animal flow, improv, movement therapy, and Bollywood. But above all, I moved more than I read or wrote. And it is like discovering another way to be alive. With the morning workouts, two to three workshops everyday, my body was completely tired. Yet my mind was decluttered. We stayed at a homestay in the middle of a coffee plantation, and the greenery calmed my nervous system. No more lists or next task, no more abundance of choices to pursue. I was just present.

I did write a bit, though. After the first day, it was mostly reflections on my equation with dancing and movement. What does dance mean to me? Something way lighter. A fun element. I also observed fellow dancers. How they knew their bodies differently than me? How they were working with everything around them, the ground, the air, the beats of the music; everything felt synchronous, as if they were not performing solo but with fellow dancers. Our instructor moved gracefully between points, his body like a paintbrush creating art in the air! We were transfixed just watching him.

Another girl moved with so much joy that I often found myself just smiling, watching her dance. Later, I saw her hesitate speaking in front of the camera, and realised how our fears are mirror images of each other. She moved like I spoke, free birds in our own skies. It’s interesting how we humans get conditioned to the ideas of safety and comfort. Confidence is built on the stilts of the known. But what does it take to cross over to the unknown?

It took me three days and another week to untangle the disconnection between my body and my thoughts. I am a great dancer. I dance on paper! My thoughts move in step with my hands as I create freely. Sometimes I change the rhythm, sometimes I flow, always I dance.

An improv workshop towards the end of the retreat made me realise how we can embody and express a character, getting out of our heads and into the characters’. How our bodies can be an instrument of expression!

I have a strong hunch that this is the beginning. Of my journey of knowing my body better, of my journey of expressing through my body better, of dancing :))

Until Next time:)

Wildflowers are accidents, not planted by anyone. In fact, my favorite flower of all time, bougainvillea, often grows in the wild, blooming without taking permission from anyone. It is one of the reasons for my affection, I love beauty which is not curated, which just blooms, lighting up my morning unexpectedly.

Rebecca Solnit says that walking is “the alignment of body, mind, and world,” and wildflowers feel like proof of that alignment: they reward slowness. You cannot discover them while rushing somewhere else. They exist for people willing to kneel down in mud, to look carefully at the margins. I have been encountering wildflowers everywhere on my walks. I love collecting them; you do not disturb someone’s garden when you do so. They add colors to the landscape, just like I intend to do.

There is something rebellious about them. Wildflowers are dismissed by gardeners as disorderly things, weeds, yet painters and poets adore them. Vincent van Gogh painted irises with the tenderness of portraits. Claude Monet filled his canvases with poppies that looked like fields on fire. The illustrator Cicely Mary Barker turned flowers into delicate fairy worlds, while Emily Dickinson wrote about blossoms like her secret companions. During World War I, red poppies became symbols of remembrance because they bloomed across battlefields torn apart by violence.

There is an ecological reason wildflowers matter too: they feed pollinators, stabilize soil, survive harsh climates, and often return after fires or floods. In Little Women, there’s a scene where the sisters run through fields with careless joy, skirts brushing against tall grasses and flowers; watching it feels like freedom. A field full of wildflowers.

In my favorite series, Anne with an E, Anne names flowers with such devotion that they become part of her stories. I like that I do not know the names of the flowers I encounter in my walks, in Bangalore or elsewhere. Like Anne says,“It just makes me feel glad to be alive — it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then.”

I cannot possibly wonder about the wild and wildflowers without mentioning the Mother, Mary Oliver. She’s a poet who has taught me to pay attention, to find beauty which is hidden in the obvious and the rushing. One of my favorite poems of hers:)

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

- The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

If you think about it, wildflowers ask for almost nothing except attention. They grow without the care of watering or pruning.

I am glad I keep noticing them wherever I go, in the fields beside my homestays, shutters of closed shops, and roadsides. Gardens are beautiful, but the wildflowers carry another kind of loveliness. They bloom wherever they can. Taking the shape of the weather they are offered by nature. They survive neglect while radiating color. They make their surroundings beautiful without any expectations. And I feel it is such a useful lesson on living itself :)

Until next time:)

I live in a comfortable familiarity here, go to the office, read books, meet friends for board games, and sometimes to meetups with my book club or travel groups. A lot of days, I don’t register my meals or the buildings I pass by. So I decided to incorporate certain”tourist days” to see how my life looks like. Stopping and taking more time instead of just passing by. It needed some thought, but since it was all the stuff i already love and do as a tourist, each of the experiences was pretty refreshing and fun in themselves. Here are some ways I tried being a tourist in my life (this is obviously a very much incomplete list)

1. Office as an Art Gallery

   I go to the office to work, like everyone else. But also, my office is filled with incredible artworks and murals. I realised the only time I had properly observed the office was when my parents visited, and I was showing them around. So one day, I booked a cab for a few hours later than my regular logout, and I went for a walk. As I clocked in my 7k steps, I was truly impressed by the quality and diversity of the artworks , just hanging there. In a gallery, people would stand for hours looking at the tiny details. In an office space, we all rush by, too busy at our phones and laptops to look up. Here are two of my favorite ones:)

2. Taking pictures while walking

   I go for my evening walks at the same place every day. Sometimes the color of the sky brightens my day, other days I am too engrossed on a phone call or podcast. I consciously decided to take pictures while walking for a week. Just to see what I find interesting. Turns out, lots of trees and flowers! But clicking pictures is such an easy way to pay attention. When I am traveling, I click SOO many pictures of the environment, yet Bangalore does not feature in my gallery just because I live there? I changed this a bit, one walk at a time:)

3. Trying new eateries and enjoying the food fully

   Four years at a place, and I have my regular joints. But when I break the pattern and try new restaurants, I observe more. I visited two of the OG dosa places in bangalore in the last one month, Vidyarthi Bhavan and Taaza Thindi. It was a good experience comparing the crispiness and taste of dosas with my regular spots. I also visited a Malayali mess, ate meals, and discovered curries I did not have during my Kerala trip! (Have Moru curry if you haven’t yet)

4. Take a Heritage Walk to know a neighbourhood more

   It is one thing to read about a person in history books; it is another to walk the paths they have walked, touch the walls they have commissioned to be painted, and see the trees they have planted. I visited Tipu Sultan’s summer palace when my friend from Hyderabad visited Bangalore. Funny thing, I have been to this place years ago. This time, however, it was a much more grounding experience, transitioning from my modern, AI-loaded life to the stories and buildings of another era.

5. Visiting the lesser known musuems and galleries

   There are so many museums in Bangalore that if you decide to visit one per day, you won’t be able to visit them in a month! One of them is the Indian Cartoon gallery, which is literally hidden in the basement of an old building called Milford Gardens. I could not spot a garden nearby, but I did spot original artworks of Mario Mirinda, RK Laxman, and other cartoonists. They also have prints for sale!

I realized being a tourist was not about the activities but a shift in how I see. It need not be a big city, but anywhere you live. Anywhere we pass by without looking closely. I became a much more active participant in my life instead of just living from one trip to another. Only to discover that my life is a pretty great trip!

Until next time:)

1. Ratatouille

I watched it as an adult right before going to Paris! And man, I encountered a story about anyone who has ever felt wildly misplaced and ambitious at the same time. I loved this movie so much that I made a Ratatouille-themed presentation for my work! Please watch if you haven’t and make your own version of “Anyone can X”

2. Frozen

This movie became my Sisters’ movie. My younger sister was obsessed with Anna, and of course, I was Elsa. Also, what beauty is the song “Let it go”, an anthem in self-reliance and finally finding the courage to be yourself!

3. Fantastic Mr Fox

I watched this movie when Wes Anderson began trending on Instagram. A charming stop-motion film about a clever fox stealing chickens from three angry farmers.And beneath all that whimsy is a quiet reflection on identity. Can people really change? Or do we spend our lives trying to negotiate with our instincts? Watch it for the ending:)

4. Whisper of the Heart

A poetry group recommended this movie to me for the “aesthetics”. Little did I know that this gorgeous movie would be my entry point into the gorgeous, reflective, meaningful world of Studio Ghibli! It is a simple story around trains, libraries, sunsets, handwritten drafts, awkward conversations, and the terrifying excitement of wanting to become someone:)

5. Soul

A dance between the dissatisfied life and the afterlife, it is a thought-provoking and beautiful movie. Every frame is dreamlike, along with great music! The movie captures something many adults are terrified to admit: sometimes achieving the thing you wanted doesn’t magically transform your life.

6. Inside Out

Unlike most of the movies in the list, the idea here is the star! Emotions turned into tiny characters running a control panel inside a child’s mind. Accepting the simple fact that joy cannot exist alone:)) I LOVED the movie and saw the second part as soon as it was released(which is also pretty good). Core memories glowing like marbles, abstract thought turning characters into shapes, train tracks of thought, forgotten memories fading into darkness, the movie brilliantly transforms psychology into landscapes:))

7. Loving Vincent

“Who is the prettiest of them all?” This movie felt like walking through a painting that is still emotionally alive. Every single frame of the film was hand-painted in the style of Vincent van Gogh, and you can feel that labor in every movement. “We cannot speak other than by our paintings.” It is slow, melancholic, and visually overwhelming in the best possible way. Not a film you casually put on in the background, but one you sit with quietly, almost reverently. I have copied three Van Gogh paintings. As a proud owner of Starry Night printed diary, skirt, earrings, and bookmarks, the movie will always be close to my heart<3

8. Grave of the fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies is not just one of the saddest animated movies ever made; it is one of the saddest films ever made.

And what makes it devastating is the humanization of suffering to the tiniest detail. It’s one of those films I cannot rewatch. It left me silent afterward. But that is what makes it on this list. I would recommend that everyone watch it; it is, after all, important to be silent and reflective.

9. Kung Fu Panda

It is funny, it is wise, and everyone loves it. Kung Fu Panda is one of the movies that no one can dislike. Po spends most of the movie waiting for a secret ingredient, some hidden power that will finally make him worthy. And the revelation that there is no secret formula, no mystical shortcut, feels surprisingly profound: the thing that makes something special is believing in it fully :)

10. How to train your Dragon

There’s almost no dialogue in the scenes where the two protagonists first learn to trust each other, yet the movie communicates everything through movement, hesitation, eye contact, and silence. The movie asks a question which is super relevant in today’s world: what happens when compassion interrupts tradition?? Can we forego our conditioned beliefs and choose kindness?

That’s all, folks (Yes, it was a Looney Tunes reference!)

I loved writing this newsletter. It is like spending time with all My Favorite Things. Hope you find your favorites in here, if not, watch the movies :D

Until next time:)

I grew up watching Bollywood movies and only took to Hollywood in my second year of college. So to keep things simpler, I will create a separate list for my Bollywood favorites. Even though Mubi introduced me to some international cinema, I don’t remember most of it, at least in the way I remember the movies listed below.

There is no order to this list, infact 10th would probably be my favorite of the lot. There is no cinematic lens in picking them up, just an emotional one. Hope you find some of your favorites in here too!

1. Secret life of Walter Mitty

Have you even felt freedom while watching something? This movie made me feel free:) It also made me feel the immense magic that exists in this world and how I must witness it. When I went to Iceland in 2023, I played the soundtrack of this movie on the roads and for a moment, I felt like I was on a journey with Walter. I am privileged enough to not be constrained by my 9-to-5 and yet, and yet the feeling that a new place or an adventure gives is incomparable. I watched this movie when I was barely traveling, which makes it all the more special and dreamy. Here’s to not waiting for the perfect time and stepping out! Here’s to booking that trip (I just did:))

2. Midnight in Paris

This movie had everything I like. Literature, time travel, Paris, and an idea of finding love in shared interests. I watched it transfixed for the first time, and then over the years, it has become a comfort watch. I once walked in the rain in Bangalore just to feel the last scene of the movie (Spoiler alert: it is not the same without an attractive company by your side) . I even created a zine inspired by this movie..

3. Harry Potter series

I watched the Hindi version on TV first. Yes, Prakashit Bhava FTW. Then watched 6th part on a school trip. Only when I got to college, I saw the entire series properly, in order. There is a certain sense of nostalgia associated with the Harry Potter series. I always saw myself as Hermione in the earlier parts: nerdy, irritating, focused. I also saw the world as somewhere I belonged, like so many kids of my generation. So this movie is for the hope and the dreams and the belief that good will conquer over evil, even if everything seems to go wrong.

4. The Holiday

This movie is my favorite Christmas movie! A perfect blend of whimsical, heartwarming, and fairytale. I loved the idea of a home swap; can anyone do it with me, please?? I loved how both the drastically different characters are transformed, and the interactions between Iris and Arthur. And most of all, I loved the idea of rediscovering yourself in unfamiliar spaces, new places bringing out the best in us.

5. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

This movie was unlike any romance movie I saw. About why we hold on to people and memories and the process of letting go. Clementine is chaotic, impulsive, luminous: the kind of character who is a perfect nudge to color my hair red back in 2017. I had my own Clementine rainbow moments :)

6. Jojo Rabbit

Taika Waititi does something risky here: he uses humor to walk straight into one of the darkest chapters of history. Instead of trivializing it, he exposes how absurd and fragile hateful ideologies really are. I have always been drawn to a child’s pov, in books or movies, and Scarlett Johansson’s character is light embodied. A serious topic like the ridiculousness of blind nationalism is shown in the most tender way possible. The movie has stayed with me long after I watched it; I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it yet.

7. Kiki’s delivery service

I realized I watch way too many animated movies to not mention one in this list. But then it was so hard, I decided to create another post for just animated movies. The movie which I chose for this is a simple story of a girl who delivers stuff. Among all the Ghibli movies, it is perhaps the most uncomplicated one, and that is what I love about it slightly more. No backstories or subtle messaging here.

8. The Intern

I should perhaps stop saying I love this movie because that is true for each one here. But there is a scene in this movie when Jules confesses about her husband’s affair to Ben, and how she is scared to be buried alone. “ Let’s take that one off your plate right now. You can be buried next to me and Molly. I happen to have space, okay?” As someone who has wondered about dying alone far too often, this is such a heartbreaking moment!

It is a story about loneliness, purpose, friendship, and the strange comfort of being understood by someone from a completely different generation. Ben doesn’t “fix” Jules. He simply becomes steady in the middle of her storm.

9. Dead poets society

The premise of this movie is simple enough. John Keating is an English teacher who walks into a rigid, tradition-obsessed boys’ school and tells his students to look at life differently. It ends with them standing on desks, tearing pages out of textbooks, whispering Carpe diem. I watched Mohabbatein way before this movie, so a rebellious teacher in a rigid school felt familiar. What was refreshing was how self-expression changes lives. How we forget to be happy by living life as it is told to us. I might look free, but I still operate within some conditioned beliefs, and it is important to question these from time to time:)

Another similar movie is Mona Lisa Smile, it leaves you smiling at the end.

10. The Before trilogy

This is technically three movies, each with a different flavor of love, and I absolutely LOVE it. Two strangers walking through beautiful cities, having deep, meaningful conversations, and eventually falling in love: what is not to love? And Julie Delpy is simply divine :) This is a very conversation-led movie, and the plot remains fairly simple, but the complexity of characters is what makes it interesting.

My idea of a perfect date is a long walk and conversations with a few pit stops in between. My Hinge matches might not understand, but it is heavily inspired by this:))

And we are at the end of this list…

I am sure that I missed many, perhaps my most favorite of them all. And yet, there is a beauty in this list as I only came up with these. Not any action or super heroes or award winning titles, but movies which touched my heart and made me feel. Yes, I remember them well.

I am sure they have impacted not only how I think but also how i love, how i travel, how i am. Yes, art becomes a part of you over time. And I am glad this is my list.

I don’t watch a lot of movies, books take up all my time) but sometimes I come across something utterly beautiful. I wish to witness more beauty through cinema. It is an absolutely magical thing after all: a bunch of creative people coming together creating this believable world, drawing you in for two hours away from your realities and worries.

So yes, that is my list, will follow up with Part-2 for animated movies and Part-3 for Bollywood ones. But, if you had to share one movie(or a couple) that changed you, even slightly, what would it be?

Until next time:)

Contrary to most women, Delhi for me meant “freedom”. I went there for my MBA, and lived life in the truest sense for the first time. With a great friend circle, I went on impromptu trips, SO many parties, and two intense years of being independent.

This trip turned out to be a mix of nostalgia and art for me. My college days started with rushing for 9 am classes, waiting for a break to have Sudama’s chai, going after college to grab a shake from Bistro57 or sit in Rico’s chatting about career, ending the nights in Hudson Lane or playing board games at someone’s flat. Good food, good people, and a pretty good life:)

I had to show my sister “Delhi food”. We had the famous Chole Bhature, of course, but also, how good is Delhi’s Dal Makhni!! I was blown away every time I had it (which was thrice in two days). We had Momos and Pasta, Chaat and Banta, and memories we cannot recreate in our cities.

I didn’t want to do touristy stuff, but since our flight was landing early, we went to Humayun’s tomb. It is one of my favorite landmarks in the city. The grandeur, the spaciousness, and the history. Commissioned by the grieving widow of Humayun, the grand monument is a precursor to the Taj Mahal. We entered a Persian-style quadrilateral garden divided by walkways and water channels. The layout is a stark contrast to Bangalore’s Lalbagh. During the upheaval of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, took refuge here before being captured by the British. These stones have seen so much history, standing in their perfect geometry. We saw a lot of couple photoshoots, and when we walked out, Delhi’s noise slowly seeped back in. I am glad we had a slow, unhurried start to the trip:)

Next, we went to Khan Market. Housing both Bahrison’s and Faqir Chand, it was a must-visit on our itinerary. We are both problematically passionate readers:) After clicking pictures with the colorful storefronts of Khan Market, we finally visited the oldest surviving bookshop in the city.

What surprised me about Faqirchand was that it is quite small. The books aren’t arranged, but it feels like they are inhabiting the space. Finding a huge collection of Hindi literature and Urdu poetry, I was instantly taken away from my primarily English world to another world! The quotes, the sticky notes art felt like personal things I have left behind. I found Russian literature and political books, all crammed into one beautiful, loved space.

I have subconsciously gravitated towards English contemporary literature, picking authors from different countries but not reading the words of my own soil.
I am glad the bookstore reminded me of the connection. I have never been to the place before, yet it showed me a glimpse of all the words I had within me before I picked one language. I learned Urdu poetry for a few months(a side quest which taught me makta and matla), I voraciously read Premchand during my school days, and one of my most-read books was Gita Press Gorakhpur before Enid Blyton took over. So it was revisiting older parts of me, sometimes triggered by a photograph, now triggered by a loved bookshop in the middle of a bustling city :))

We sauntered around the city, Exploring Janpath and Sarojini Nagar markets for some thrift shopping, Hauz Khas to revisit some of my first dates:)

" Indraprastha had fallen, six hundred years of Muslim domination had come and gone;a brief interruption by British was almost forgotten. But Shiva, the oldest living God in the world, was still worshipped. Sanskrit- a language which predates any other living language by millenia- was still read, still spoken. "

- City of Djinns, William Dalrymple

I realized it only after I left the city that I was neither a tourist nor a stranger. Even though new places kept popping up, even though some of the old ones lost their charm, this was a city where I belonged. Where the 22-year-old Ananya learned to go out and have fun alone. For that, Delhi would always be special:)

Have you revisited a city you lived in the past?

Until next time:)

Where did the practice of writing by hand go? And why aren’t we getting it back?

I could recognize my friends’ notebooks by their handwriting, but now it is impossible to distinguish unless they have signature emojis?! Apart from the good old nostalgia, there is one important reason to get writing by hand back. It helps you think. Most people write slower than they could think, so the practice forces you to pace your thoughts and be more intentional. A year ago, I was reading the book,” The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. The popular creativity book espouses two practices: Morning pages and Artist dates. Morning pages involve writing three pages by hand, the first thing in the morning. It is a lot harder than it sounds. And I gave up after a month, because my mornings usually involve waking up 10 minutes before my first meeting of the day. But, in those 20 odd days of writing three pages, I found myself writing things which were articulate, understanding the ways I craft sentences, and how I blabber on page. In those 20 days, I understood my thought processes way more than the past couple of years of texting everyone.

I am a huge texter. Sometimes, I would cut the call only to send a message (or voice notes to my close friends). And so after cumulating 100s of TB of data, I type as fast as I think, which implies most of my texts (and I am assuming yours too) are not deliberate, coherent ideas but impulsive reactions. And in the long run, this has real implications.

There is something inherently beautiful about writing, tracing patterns with ink on the smooth texture of paper. Calligraphy still lingers as an art form, breathing words into being. Before the printing press was invented, all books were handwritten: each page carefully inscribed, adorned with delicate illustrations, and gathered like stories stitched into a spine.

The intimacy is lost now.

The letters are blurring together, and words are gaining new meanings. We no longer wait for the responses. We no longer strike through words. “Hi, I wanted you to remember understand” is killed by backspaces. Less hesitation, less humanness in our communication.

Once upon a time , handwriting was considered a window into character. An entire field called graphology was built around the idea that your script revealed your personality. I am not sure how that works, but it surely is an imprint of who we are.

A handwritten letter now feels like a relic, almost ceremonial. The jokes around illegible handwriting of doctors are irrelevant these days. We are losing not just handwriting, but the space it creates. As James Robertson says, “I prefer the pen. There is something elemental about the glide and flow of nib and ink on paper.”

“If you dipped a spider in ink and then let it breakdance on a clean sheet of paper, you’d have a fair approximation of the state of my handwriting. I blame the internet myself. If I had to publish things in my handwriting, the only thing I could make money at would be selling ransom notes.”
― Stewart Stafford

I am trying to write more, taking workshops, and writing notes. My hands no longer possess the dexterity or speed, and after two pages, I am tired.

At the risk of sounding Luddite, I really, really hope we write more. If you are reading this, pick up a pen and write a page:) It could be a letter to someone, even yourself, or a simple description of your day. Even better, write in your mother tongue if you know the script, and be surprised by how your hands remember the letters. Let me know how it goes:)

I am trying to write in my notebook every day (one day at least) for my book draft. It is slowing me down but making my writing more cohesive, a tradeoff I would make any day. It is impossible to write as much as we did growing up, but the idea is to preserve the skill and not replace typing. Because as much as I wish to hand write this newsletter and send it via mail, I won’t be able to do it 190 times. So here we are, typing to connect, typing to express. I hope we also write by hand, if not for anything then simply to remember :))

Until next time:)

Back in 2025, I experimented with reducing my screen time. It was usually around ~3 hours per day (which isn’t that bad but I have always wanted to be Zen). I switched my phone to Grayscale and deleted Instagram for 10 days. By Day 3, I was able to live without my phone for almost a full day, picking it up only to order groceries or call my family. It was peaceful.

This February, I decided to cancel my travel plans for the next six months to focus on my health. Parallely, another goal emerged. What if I create more consistent content? I found a solution for Instagram which did not involve filming myself: A carousel series for all my side projects! I started posting daily on LinkedIn! And I became more consistent here on Substack. There were only two ground rules:

1. Consistency. Show up every single day.

2. Authenticity. Writing whatever interests and excites me and the right people will engage. I don’t need to post what I don’t resonate with to build a community.

And honestly, the response was amazing. I am grateful for the people around me, and I also believe in the sheer power of consistency. I did not change my voice or the topics; it was simply more content.

Looks so pretty na. The quantitative impact of my work. The qualitative is prettier, but sharing the comments while redacting the names is too much effort, hence I will skip the screenshots.

Now let’s go to another kind of data. Which is not so good looking. Remember, my daily screen time was a maximum of 3 hours. Here’s what it looks right now:

The double of where I was. And my weekly total change is even more insane at a 3x increase only within a month.

This does not even include the time spent on my laptop creating the content. I wish I could just go offline (disappearing and living in the woods is my favorite fantasy), but I do not want to lose everything I created over the last few weeks. I am hosting my first independent offline event this weekend, and I am planning more gatherings soon. This is me getting closer to building my community, my online presence. Leaving it right now would be losing the momentum.

So what do I do? The solution would be to find a sustainable balance. Till I try out some Claude suggested techniques, Fellow content creators, please share suggestions!

Until next time:)

In 2019, I was in Hyderabad. I joined Salsa classes because I met someone randomly who knew the dance. He told me about socials and how the classes are super fun. My flatmate and I went every Saturday for the next 3 months, learning the basics of a completely new dance form . The best part: A community of dancers who practiced together, went to other dance events, and also taught me Bachata!

I left Latin dancing when Covid hit and never really got back to it, but it remains a fond memory. One day, I will go to Colombia and dance salsa and bachata on the streets with the locals. Definitely need to brush up my skills before that trip though :D

After moving cities, I explored Bollywood and Contemporary dancing through workshops. I also go out dancing with my friends once in a few weeks. We do not dress up or party; it is basically a workout session to good Bollywood music on a weekday night.

Dancing and I, we meet as old friends. I recognize the sheer joy that moving to music encapsulates and dancing chides me in the form of stiff muscles.

“Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.”
― Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic

When I was planning my trip to Vienna, I wanted to learn a bit of Ballet. Viennese Ballet is so elegant, and I found a one-day workshop in an obscure travel blog. But due to Easter holidays, all the dance schools were closed. A local friend suggested me to try a dance workshop in a pub. I had no idea what Lindy Hop was, but I went anyway. After all, it was just a 5 Euro class.

Being the only “tourist” among a group of people from different nationalities was surely a fun experience. And my favorite moment was watching some people truly lose themselves in the dance. Swing dancing is magic!

In 2024, I saw a Flamenco dance performance in Seville and was mesmerized. The tapping, the intensity, I couldn’t understand the lyrics, yet I had goosebumps throughout the performance. Flamenco is a super immersive experience for the audience. Here’s a beautiful excerpt which underlines this:

“A flamenco dancer, lurking under a shadow, prepares of the terror of her dance. Somebody has wounded her with words, alluding to the fact that she has no fire, or ‘duende’. She knows she has to dance her way past her limitations, and that this may destroy her forever. She has to fail, or she has to die. I want you to imagine this frail woman. I want you to see her in deep shadow, and fear. When the music starts, she begins to dance, with ritual slowness. Then she stamps out the dampness from her soul. Then she stamps fire into her loins. She takes on a strange enchanted glow. She is taking herself apart before our sceptical gaze.

She is disintegrating, shouting and stamping and dissolving the boundaries of her body. Soon, she becomes a wild unknown force, glowing in her death, dancing from her wound, dying in her dance.

And when she stops – strangely gigantic in her new fiery stature – she is like one who has survived the most dangerous journey of all. I can see her now as she stands shining in celebration of her own death. In the silence that follows, no one moves.

Why do I dwell on this dancer? I dwell on her because she represents for me the courage to go beyond ourselves. While she danced she became the dream of the freest and most creative people we had always wanted to be, in whatever it is we do. She destroyed us because rarely do we love our tasks and our lives enough to die and thus be reborn into the divine gift of our hidden genius.

―Ben Okri, Birds of Heaven

I wanted to understand the magic, be closer to the dance. So I found a workshop near my stay through GetYourGuide and went to dance with a bunch of women from all over the world, calling me “Anina”. I still have the flower from the workshop:)

After the trip, I wrote about my experience and got published in a travel magazine. You can read the story here.

When I was planning my trip to South Africa, I searched for both dance and art experiences. Among a bunch of cooking and hiking activities, I found this cool Airbnb experience. A local street dance in the townships of South Africa, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods.

Apart from the initial nerves, we ended up having a really unique experience. We learnt Amapiano, such a cool, swag dance. Just look at this video!

After our class, my friend taught our instructor Bharatnatyam. And when it was my turn to teach him a form, I picked the song “Crazy Kiya Re” :D

It has been such a ride! You can dance without an education in dance, without the validation that you are skilled, without time to do it “enough”. You can dance simply because you want to.

“Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.”
― Rumi

Am I a great dancer? Who cares. I have discovered a shared, global joy of moving to music. And I am super grateful to do so. Till my body moves, I will keep on dancing..in new countries, to new beats, trying new forms.

Until next time:)

After almost a month of moving in, I saw one of my flatmates sitting on a mattress on the terrace with a bottle of wine. The stars were starring, and the music made it look so whimsical and tempting. All I saw was potential!

Over the years, I have had movie nights with projectors, solo evening walks, joint sessions, stargazing, and even a full moon meditation. Over the years, this terrace has seen many versions of me.

The ambitious product manager pacing while on work calls.
The tired girl staring blankly at cloud formations.
The curious human identifying birds and constellations using the SkyMap app.
The writer scribbling ideas while sipping coffee at sunset.

It has made space for everything. While the city with its crowds and overwhelming options compresses me at times, my terrace somehow release the stress within.

I love the terrace during the day, the birds move freely, chirping, staying put at a place. We even named the pigeons. There is a heightened awareness of the sky. The colors keep shifting, and the slow humming of distant traffic fills in the spaces.

I love it even more during the liminal spaces of dawn and dusk. The orange splashing in the sky and the cool air almost nudged me to breathe more deeply. I get the sense that my small, tucked-away life is linked to the grandeur of the universe.

At the end of a tough day, I know I have a space to exhale. To sit under the starry sky as my ceiling and wonder at the possibilities. One of my favorite books ends with the protagonist sitting under the stars.

“When we gaze at a star in the Milky Way, which is 50,000 light-years away from our sun, we are looking back 50,000 years in time.”

“The idea is much too big for my little head.”

“The only way we can look out into space, then, is to look back in time. We can never know what the universe is like now. We only know what it was like then. When we look up at a star that is thousands of light-years away, we are really traveling thousands of years back in the history of space.”

― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

Around two years ago, I was taking an online writing class. My instructor was late by 10 minutes. I stepped out to get some air, and I was greeted by thousands of flocks of birds in all the different formations moving across a blush pink sky. It was 6 pm, and if not for the message, I would have missed this magical sight. I stood mesmerized, and when I joined the Zoom call, I thanked the instructor for the delay. It was such a potent reminder to step out and look up, preferably around dusk :)

As a Bollywood buff, the terrace has always meant more to me than a place to dry clothes or keep my plants. In Wake Up Sid, the protagonists sit on a terrace, discussing life. I have had such deep conversations with strangers and friends alike. Something about being closer to the sky makes honesty easier.

Terraces have been the threshold between the inner selves and the outer world. It has been the muse for writers and artists alike. No wonder I get so many of my ideas while taking a walk or drinking coffee on the terrace. The artist J.M.W. Turner spent hours on the terraces of Rome, capturing the way the light dissolved the city’s edges. In his late watercolors, the terrace is often found in a marble railing or a dark foreground sweep that guides the eye into the hazy, golden distance.

I do not have as many plants on my terrace( there are 35 pots plus a few weeds), but I like to imagine the beautiful terraces of the world. How the Babylonians hoisted a forest into the air. Such a dream!

I live in the middle of a very crowded city. My life mirrors that, filled with my office calls, personal projects, relationships, and all the highs and lows that come with life. Yet my terrace provides a space to be alone in the crowd and take stock of the world. I can observe the world better, and I can observe myself better. All we need is space..

Until next time:)

I heard the same about Björk in Iceland. You see, our models of what is popular from a given culture are shaped by someone. In most cases, the person is not a local but an articulate traveler who wrote about it. Or popular media algorithms. Over the years, it bakes into our popular belief about that specific place.

Traveling has helped me counter some of it.I began to see that every place carries multiple truths. A street in Hanoi that felt overwhelming one minute and deeply poetic the next. A temple in Kyoto can feel serene while just outside, life rushes past in neon lights.

I have been humbled quite a few times during my travels. And I love that! Learning that the world is not built on single stories. It is built on layers. One time on a boat in Vietnam, our guide mentioned that the food would be spicy. “Oh, I am from India, I can handle all the spice,” I replied instantly with an undertone of pride. Thirty minutes later, I was sweating profusely in the hot and humid boat while my fellow travelers, folks from Switzerland and Australia, sat nonchalantly.

Travel offers a unique opportunity to see beyond sightseeing. To see the underlying realities of a place. This reel captures it well.

It is far easier for the human mind to classify things. That is what we learnt in school. That is what we instinctively do when someone shares a piece of information about themselves. Even though our minds prefer clarity to make sense of things, some doors are not straight paths but landscapes.

I am also reading books that hold contrarian views to make my thoughts more resilient. I do not wish to live a life thinking “That’s just how it is” without questioning why. I do not wish to reject any evidence because it might conflict with my conditioned identity and beliefs.

After all, a plant that isn’t growing is dying. And holding multiple truths together is a step towards being the kind of person who can hold every idea as a possibility, to have a pool of truths to pull from when faced with a tricky situation. Like Indian cuisine borrowed ingredients and methods from all over the world, I could also embrace multiple perspectives as a joint family coexisting in peace.

The world is beautiful. And flawed. And complicated. And all of it can still belong together.

I am making my world more complex, yet I am experiencing it more truly. Do you have a contrarian view of a popular belief?

Until next time:)

The answer in my head was slightly delusional, “Lentils.” If I had a bowl of soaked Moong Dal, I would feel good for days, not realizing it has, well, only 8g of protein.

Lately, I have started to think of it more seriously. It is, after all, an optimization game with constraints. Some days I give in to my favorite macros by a margin, Carbs. But most days, we manage 1x body weight protein. Which, for a girl who grew up on lentils, is a victory.

My first realization took me back to Iceland, with the famous Skyr. Unlike my expectation, it is tasty. I swap it with Greek Yogurt at the office and Curd on forgetful days.

My favorite food of all time has protein! Paneer used to be a delicacy growing up. We would have it once a week, hoping Mummy will make Shahi Paneer and not Palak Paneer. It does have fat, all good things do. But it is my constant source of joy without even thinking about it. I also found a chef on Instagram who adds paneer to everything, even Chapati dough.

My most successful efforts have been with a leaner cousin of Paneer, the tofu. I have cooked so many recipes with it that it almost feels like I like it. I even tried Tempeh because that is supposed to be absorbed better than Tofu. I am yet to be comfortable with Tempeh, but it is a journey after all.

Then ofcourse, came the protein powder. I have heard a lot of bad things about it, but I actually liked it? Maybe years of hating the powder have forced the brands to innovate tastier versions. I tried two so far- The Whole Truth and Cosmix and liked both. Maybe I cannot discern chalky tastes, but the only issue with a protein powder is that I feel full and bloated.

There are no conclusive results from these experiments(yet), but some discoveries:

• Mummy was right all along. Palak Paneer is better than Shahi Paneer.

• Tofu tastes the best when cooked Asian stir-fry-style (think soy sauce, chili oil, beans for the crunch). Do not buy silken tofu unless you want to make a dip out of it.

• Plan your meals. It sounds so simple in retrospect, but consciously tracking macros is a pain in the ass unless you do it in a single day, thinking about variety and new recipes.

It is an interesting journey with Swiggy helping me too! And some days I discover food items which I already love to have protein ( who would have thought the fluffy makhana is protein-rich)

Here’s to small adjustments and getting back on track after failing, here’s to me eating protein-rich meals and asking people one fine day, “ Where do you get your protein?

I kept asking, “ What does this make me feel?” “ What exactly do I like or dislike about this work?” After a while, it was instinctive. As I came out feeling things, the confusion faded, and art galleries started to feel more interesting.

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

I went to Kochi Art Biennale with the same framework at hand. I was in for a shock. Like an MBA student whose frameworks crumble in real-world situations, I was trying to make sense of the “explicitness” of art. Most of the art exhibits are in old, weathered warehouses that once fueled the spice trade on the Malabar coast. The stark contrast between the crumbling walls and gates of the venues and shiny, fresh contemporary exhibits made the art come to life. Almost too much for my expectations. Like wandering around a church looking at works on menstruation, disability, and weddings, all in a few steps.

You see, I am the girl with the notebook, finding meaning in things around. With Kochi, everything was put together in a way that I was often swept away in different directions in the span of a few minutes.

It was hard not to feel something. Artworks shone with the sunlight filtering through terracotta roof tiles. Unlike an art gallery where I was sealed away from the world, Kochi’s warehouses are porous. Here, the art existed among the dust, history, and salt of a coastal city.

There is a term in behavior science for this. The contrast effect is a cognitive bias where the perception of an object or situation is changed or distorted by comparing it to a preceding or simultaneous, but different item, enhancing their differences.

And boy, it did enhance the difference. It wasn’t just the walls. The warehouses were huge, as they were designed for volume, holding as many shipping containers as possible. The space allowed artists to dream and create at scale.

Art, most of us think, lives in white cubes. Most modern galleries become invisible as they want the art to speak.

Like the spotlight on a stage with black curtains as the backdrop. As an audience member, I can only see the artist and their performance. While Kochi Biennale was more like a movie playing in the background, and the artists were interacting with the elements on the stage, much beyond themselves.

I felt distracted; there are always horns of the cargo ships in the Arabian Sea mixing with audio installations and movies. I did look around, away from the art. Into the backyard meeting the sea, into the spice shop beside the entrance, or the shade from the hot, hot sun. But I could never disengage. Because the experience is as multisensory as it can get.

When the setting is porous, art bleeds into the streets, in the air, in your skin. It is a part of the city’s ecosystem. I discovered gorgeous murals outside the venues, I found art in the stores of the city, and, most importantly, found art in myself. Because when the spotlight is removed, anything can shine and be a star :)

Until next time!

I picked up Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman and Maria, Just Maria by Sandhya Mary. It opened up a whole new world for me, and over the years, I have read so many translated Indian language books.

Now, as I revisited Fort Kochi this year, it was a little different. I arrived after attending the Kerala Literature Festival with a huge book haul and lots of topics buzzing in my head. But look at the odds, my stay was on the same street as Kochi Books. So I popped in for a quick look ( as every bookworm and shopaholic says). I ended up picking a book by Manu Pillai, a historian I discovered and instantly liked in the KLF.

Another bookstore I discovered was Idiom Bookstore. It is an old store, and it shows in the most charming, old-school way. At first glance, it looked like a library; you had to really go through the titles, and most books were out of reach. I loved how they stocked all the non-fiction works of Arundhati Roy, something we don’t see often around the country. (Is it too political or leftist for a “common man”? Now that I have started reading it, I am figuring it out. Despite its small size, they had two whole shelves of feminist works. I picked Kamala Das and Arundhati Subramaniam’s poetry books. It was the kind of store which will keep churning out books after books for you. And none of that stupid self-help stuff. So I helped myself to a bunch of books, heavy enough for me to return to my stay to unload them and then move around.

I stayed in Kochi for almost a week, exploring the art biennale venues slowly, hopping between massive artworks and all sorts of emotions. Between two venues, I discovered a gorgeous storefront. It reminded me of the General Items store in Bangalore, but to my delight, it was a bookstore! I saw some exhibits and rushed to this place only to find it the bookstore of my dreams! Printed Matter. We were greeted by a girl who asked us to take our time exploring. The collection was small yet curated; they even had zines and artworks by local artists. The coffee menu was even smaller, a girl making coffee with a lot of dedication, while I picked a lovely food-themed magazine to read. It seldom happens, but I could see myself doing that for a living.

One day, I wish to be on the other side, smiling as a bewildered young lady walks in, her eyes shining at every new title, her head negotiating not to buy. I know she will buy, and I will make her a good cup of coffee:)

Kochi bookstores aren’t fairytale lands with neatly placed books against white backdrops. They reflect reality; they force you to pick a perspective and not just a book. From the translated works of Kochi books to the political, feminist lens in Idiom bookstore and the modern, aesthetic vibe of Printed Matter,I carried back way more than just works from my trip.

Until next time:)