Those moments of…Puerto Rico

"The only one stopping you is...YOU" - the quintessential bottomline of all exhortations meant to make me work harder, be more ambitious, or take charge of that career. All that socialization into dreaming big professionally made me forget that more than the professional risks, this exhortation stands true for all things personal - the only …

Our Wedding Story

The photographer sent the folder months ago. My husband downloaded that voluminous folder and gave me on a flash drive weeks ago. The task is pending at my desk - from over 3000 photos which document the two most phenomenal days of my life, shortlisting approximately 500. As I go through these photos, examining expressions, …

Chicago

The cab is on its way. Time is such a weird thing. It seems like yesterday that I moved into this house. And yet. Between that yesterday and today, it was a lifetime that spatially encompassed an entire continent, the node being this house, this city. Last weekend, when the thought suddenly struck that it …

A Fortnight in America’s Southwest

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.”Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar From a friend's PhD completion emerged an out of the blue plan for a fortnight in the Southwest. Fourteen days of camping, hiking, and driving through the myriad …

Dear Mummy & Papa,

For starters, I am graduating with honors (!!!) from UChicago. Full disclosure: I wasn't even aware that graduation came with honors if you worked hard enough. I was oblivious to the presence of this carrot dangling on the stick, but I got it nevertheless! Now, because I know you two have never really taken too …

Four Seasons & A Friendship @UChicago

Things hit me with a lag. In all the drama around packing and the logistics of her leaving, it did not occur to me once that hereafter it is going to be just me, left with the memory of Us drifting around Hyde Park. It did not even strike me when we waved good bye …

Matters of the Heart

It is Valentines season and one is primed to think of matters of the heart in terms of (romantic) love. I don't like misleading so at the very outset: this isn't about that. I don't think I have anything (meaningful) to say on love (as yet). This is about the whole "follow your heart" fad. …

Despair that Wasn’t, courtesy ISI @ Boston

"...how miserable my life is. A man lives his life, and then he falls apart and soon there is nothing left. Ka felt as if half his soul had just abandoned him but still the other half remained; he still had love in him. Like a snowflake, he would fall as he was meant to …

Sibling Trekk(ipp)ing @ Valley of Flowers & Hemkund

On a hot and humid April evening my brother proposed going tripping: Singapore, Malaysia... A spoilsport for any travel plans abroad, my expected response was "Why? If you're up for going trekking in the Himalayas, I have a plan." A skeptical look later I suggested "Valley of Flowers: check it out. We shall go in July. …

Sikkim: Thing of Beauty, Joy Forever

My Sikkim trip was everything I had wanted to do on a holiday but never really had the courage to admit; it felt so unachievable. When multiple such unacknowledged wishes came true within a fortnight, life acquired a radiance which defies precise description. I did not want to write about Sikkim because it was so …