Category: Personal Essays
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A lesson in observation: Creating merch for DD
One of my favourite, super-exciting projects under Decoding Draupadi has been creating Merch. I have a number of personal reasons why but this piece is not about that. This is about a tiny, little and very-obvious reminder that sat right in front of me all this while but only clicked yesterday. I don’t know how…
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No home to write back to
I am sitting on my desk. It is against a giant window on the 8th floor overlooking a small jungle of sorts. When I look down, I see trees bearing yellow and pink flowers. Shadows of crows and pigeons crawl the land. Occasionally, I also spot a dog or a cat looking for food. What…
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You can’t cash in ideas (and other things)
Hello, hello! I come bearing a couple of thoughts. Here’s the agenda for our little rendezvous – if I may. One. You can not cash in ideas. What this means is that you could have the best ideas on God’s green earth but if you are not acting on them, they are dirt. On the…
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Two hours of absolute inaccessibility
Yesterday was a classic case of me not waking up on time and thus missing my two hours of working in absolute inaccessibility. What is that? I do not tell the world I am awake – which means: I do not step out of my room, do not play loud music, do not tweet, post…
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Checking in: 9th Sunday of April, 2023
Happy Easter folks. How are you doing? I aim to write something and post it – so here goes. One. The best writing advice for days I have writer’s block: Write about your day. There is always content. Always a story. You will always have layers, thoughts and nuance. Plus, you get some clarity and…
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What race are you running? And why?
Disclaimer: In all honesty, I found this piece tucked away in a dark, dinghy corner of my Notion. So, I decided to put it here. Why let content go to waste? The farthest I have gone from the world as I know it has been simply sitting on the surface of a 7-feet deep pool.…
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I do not ever want to feel stuck in the same place for seemingly endless time
I was born in Gorakhpur, brought up by the Internet. As a kid, school was my first home. However, once I left it, I didn’t go back for five whole years, until recently. It was comforting to go back to the familiarity: the teachers, the staff, the buildings, the sun rising from the East. I…
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What I learnt in Jan: Creative Bullshitting and Work systems
I procrastinate. A lot. And I am extremely embarrassed about it. When I list out my life goals today, I say things like “I want to be a UN representative, I want to be a sustainability and feminism leader, I want to be a reef cultivator, I want a certain $140 Million house and whatnot.”…
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Loud households: On troubled childhoods
I come from a loud household. And by that, I don’t mean that every family member has an extravagant personality or we love blasting music at parties or that we talk in generally higher pitches than most because we live in a big bungalow. I come from a loud household: which means that when I…