Rambling on... again..

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember — first in secret diaries, then in blogs, and now here. What started as a private refuge has, over time, collided with the strange pressures of writing in a public world. This is the story of how I lost, reclaimed, and redefined my relationship with words — and why today, writing has returned to being my most private joy. Writing for me started very young. I remember those little diaries where I poured all my teen-angst — crushes, heartbreaks (mostly imaginary!), scraps of quotes, shayari, and song lines that spoke to my romanticized self. By the time I was done, I had 3–4 thick tomes filled with deeply personal scribbles — names, incidents, wild notions of love explained with all the seriousness of youth. And then it all came crashing down. During a visit home from my MBA hostel, I discovered that a house “sorting exercise” had included discarding my precious diaries along with other raddi . That moment — more than the crushes — felt lik...

There’s something almost mystical about reunions. Not the regular catch-ups over dinner, but those epic, trip-based gatherings where classmates convene after decades, as if time were just a decorative illusion. In the past few years, with the slow but steady drumbeat of friends turning fifty, I’ve been both witness and participant in adventures that begin with nervous anticipation and end in riotous laughter—and a kind of rebirth that no ordinary weekend could bring. At first glance, reunions seem to promise little more than nostalgia, some bad dancing, and a few retellings of embarrassing teenage moments. But somewhere between boarding passes and late-night confessions, something extraordinary unfolds. Time collapses. The cracks and scars of the intervening years fade into the background, replaced by a wave of pure, unfiltered joy—like meeting long-lost parts of ourselves we never realized had gone missing. For those fleeting days, we become the version of ourselves that existed befo...

  Its funny to say or hear this but its true. In my life, books happened very early on in life and I got totally hooked to the escape they offered. Given our financial constraints growing up, books were a cheap way to get those kicks in life. A nearby renting library with an endless supply of M&Bs and Georgette Heyer’s and other similar ‘fluffy’ fiction – made it all super easy. I devoured books from the school library, shamelessly borrowed (and returned) books from friends and neighbors and never shied away from being seen with a book at the every juncture. Its truly a wonder that i didn' t get glasses at that stage in life! Books saved me from the stress that financial constraints bring to a child’s mind. Books saved me from the boredom that brings on negative thinking. Books told me that having and expressing emotions were totally fine – I could shed copious tears while reading without any fear of judgement. I could laugh out loud at a smart and sassy scene. Instead they...