What’s True Love Like In Isolation?
The most poignant events of our lives still leave an impact that only lasts a couple of years at most. What do we make of ‘true love’ which has a kind of endlessness?
Culture
Books, Film, Fashion, Food, Music, Performance & all things popular culture
The Economics Of Our Dining Choices: Morality Measure?
If we’re going to measure morality based on what we eat, let’s examine the food on our plates first.
2023: Comfort Is Served
We are all angry. Seething and out for blood. Where do we go from here? The pandemic has been the arsenic cherry on the difficult lessons of a decade.
BOOK: Home – Manju Kapur | Coming Back To Me
A lovely return to my late 20s where books absorbed me with a rigour I did not experience in my social or professional life.
Focaccia & Fortitude – Healing From Scratch
The world still doesn’t know how & why death shows up. How can there be any answer to why people turn out the way they do?
BOOK | Fearlessly Flying With Erica Jong
Giving sex an easy place in my mind, required moving around the furniture inside my head – old traumas, inherited shame, cultural taboos. This book taught me flying.
Autorickshaws & Poetry: Dignity In A Post COVID World
Finding poetry & gentleness in an angry post COVID world. I found dignity in an autorickshaw driver. And a poem.
‘The Good Place’ Is A Study Of Libra
The Good Place is a treatise in the Libra ethos.
Wayfarer On An Open Road
Post COVID, life is uncertain but it’s an open road. Everything is a lesson, every meeting is a gift.
Body & Sex | Culture | Home & Identity | Map Of Emotion | People & Relationships | Politics & Feminism
What Do We Owe Each Other In Shifting Normals?
After I wrote yesterday’s fan post about And Just Like That, I stayed up late reading reviews & the subreddit of the show. Well. There is so much vitriol. I believe most of it is the punishment our overly capitalist world is wrecking on anyone who hasn’t paid the requisite…
And Just Like That…I Found Friends Again
I’m liking where I am with regard to viewable content. I’ve spent a long time burrowing into books mostly because the video medium was garbage churned out by rich, privileged, inbred people who didn’t care about humans like me. But the streaming services are getting with it. And even if…
Modern Love: The Quest For Identity First
What were the brutal experiences of fear, grief & unexpected connections in the last two years but lessons in love & relating? The lockdowns forced me away from my usual coping mechanisms & distractions. What is left when all assumptions are stripped away? Love & Identity As a metropolitan Indian…
Culture | Evolution | Examining Gender | Home & Identity | People & Relationships | Politics & Feminism
The “Do They Treat You Well?” Play
I was watching an episode of ‘Kim’s Convenience’ where a concerned (possibly over protective) family is talking to their daughter about her love life. One of them asks, “Does he treat you well?” And I realised no one had ever asked me that. Not family members, not friends, not classmates,…
Raining Me
I am open walking wounds. I’m awash in the pain of those who hurt me. Because to bleed is to also stain & to infect. But you know, it hurts much more to fester alone, to bear wounds silently, to hide sores in pretence. In the feeling will there be…
Lesson
My friend Saurabh referenced the idea that when the student is ready, the teacher arrives. He said when the teacher is ready too, the student arrives. I think student, teacher, lesson, these are all part of something more complex and yes, when they intersect it feels dramatic because it’s a…
The Bureacracy Of Time Travel
In 2019, I matched with someone on a dating app. We were having a great conversation, which in itself was surprising. Trying to find anything (companionship, laughter, connection, fun, attraction) via the interwebs designed to turn human response into capitalist touchpoints – is counterintuitive. What made it extra surprising was,…
Reluctantly Seeking Shah Rukh Fans
I visited North India (Himachal Pradesh & Chandigarh) this week. The last time I was there was in 2018, pulled abruptly out of an impending midlife crisis & looming health scares to cremate an unexpectedly deceased relative. I’ve never liked the mountains. My only associations with them have been under…
The Unloving Wanting
I wonder if we fall a little too much in love with stories, especially ones we write ourselves. It’s a fallacy to call this love because this is an uncontrollable, desperate, choking stranglehold that is not loving, nurturing or caring. Love is not blind; it makes our vision clearer, if…
What Does Loneliness Mean To You?
It occurred to me when I followed a trail down Saurabh Garg‘s Instagram Stories. He writes of the isolation of chasing material dreams. His friend who saw the same view spoke of a wineglass on a window sill. Me? I saw exquisite poetry laced with slivers of pain. Loneliness. To…
What About Regret?
@agentsofishq’s ‘An Evening of No Regrets’ gave me pause. Do I truly have no regrets?For most of my teen years & adult life, I’ve tried to live a life free of regret. Early on, this meant being cautious about navigating gender pressures & unrealistic expectations. The thing about growing up…