“Our acceptance rate is only 8%”. The cold condensing tone of the admissions manager in Netflix’s latest series, Unorthodox, provoked a thought I had been continually feeling as I watched the episodes of this stunning take on conformities and subcultures I knew so little about. We are instinctively wary of anything different – it makes […]
Tag: Stories
Questions at the finish line
Act fast.Think on your feet.Fail fast(er). In an age where performative workaholism could easily be the new organised religion, we are all forcibly a part of a formula (pun intended?) where speed is considered the glorified variable to win. [And winning is seen as the number of finish lines you cross, rather than the value […]
This is it
It’s personal. This year. It’s all about knowing. Yes. That’s the word for 2020. Knowing. The last decade began with me not knowing myself. Actually, I had no idea that I didn’t know myself. If you had asked me back then, I would have denied it quite vehemently. I would’ve said I know exactly who […]
I was not raised to be a girl
“Learn to be independent.” Every time I face a challenge that seems like an impossible obstacle and my own voice sows a seed of self-doubt in mind, I hear my father’s unequivocal voice demanding that I be independent – in thought and action. And every time I tide over stronger, eventually figuring it all out […]
Finding me
“I would’ve thought you are a writer.” I don’t know what it is that the girl in the chocolate store in Belgium saw in me, but it was more than I had ever seen in myself. She saw my truth, she saw me for who I was. Writing has been my singular truth long since […]
To Dream
“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist It’s been over a decade from when I first read the book. I wouldn’t give myself the credit to fully appreciate it back then. I was such a different person, with such a different dream. Mine, but not […]
Better Days
This was a song that once brought me angst /Today that has flipped to a positive headline / Better days are here to come / Better days are here // What changed was not the world around me, but me.More precisely – my state of mind. There are days when you pour your heart and […]
It’s not enough
One of the many side effects of living away from “home”, of opening your world, or better yet your mind – it’s just not enough, nothing. Where do I belong? A question that haunts me in broad daylight, one I know is not unique to me, yet is my very own. You are not born […]
’18(’19)
Discovery. It was the word of 2018. I don’t think I would have chosen it so, had I written this post at the close of last year. But that’s what I ended up discovering. I discovered a lot of things this year – about people, my people, places (past and yet to come), about life […]
No Foreign Objects
“Specialized in foreign & domestic” – this sign for Joe’s Auto Repair in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is what first sparked the idea for this blog post in my mind. “Am I foreign or domestic?”, I thought. What defines me to be foreign or domestic? Is it because I wasn’t born here the reason I’m foreign, or […]