Tag: Personal Essays

  • Happy Birthday to Me

    This is it guys. I did it. Woohoo! I completed another year on this here planet. What an achievement! You know, there was a moment last year where time stopped and it wouldn’t move forward and I didn’t know if I would be able to complete the year or not but then I pushed really…

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    Happy Birthday to Me
  • Fighting the Cult of Productivity

    In a couple of days, I’ll turn 41 years old. As I prepare to start my 42nd trip around the sun, I’m trying to come up with a time management system that sits well with my philosophy and doesn’t repeat the same mistakes I always make, as I talked about in my last post on…

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    Fighting the Cult of Productivity
  • Timetables and Me

    When I was in highschool, a teacher was lecturing us on time management and asked if any of us made timetables to manage our time. I had just started making timetables and in my excitement I raised my hand without thinking about whether or not I wanted to share my routine with the entire class.…

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    Timetables and Me
  • Changes

    Things are changing again. I’m going through a bit of a negative phase and it’s frustrating because I thought I had gotten over that phase. But change is the only constant and there’s just no way to continue on a path that you don’t believe in anymore. I wish I could just choose a path…

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    Changes
  • The Death of Four Young Trees

    Dear Reader, My father cut down four trees today. He had planted these trees, 10 to 11 years ago and three of the four were mature fruit-bearing trees. One was a pomegranate tree and it hadn’t grown too big because when my father was planting trees, he did not leave enough room for them and…

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  • Republic Day Nostalgia

    Dear Reader, Today is India’s Republic Day and also a Sunday. When we were kids, we always hated when a national holiday fell on a Sunday. We felt like we were being robbed of a holiday. But that doesn’t bother me anymore, especially as I’ve not grown into the normal adult world of weekdays and…

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  • My Velvet Wings

    I was once a butterfly,born in reverse.My velvet wingsa burning orange and yellowwith two white eyessurrounded by black circles,on a constant leaden lookoutfor thoughts dull and pragmatic;what the grown-ups called “growing up”. Then I went into a slimy cocoon,slipped right in with a slush,as if someone had sucked me in.But who? Why? How?Maybe my ghost…

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    My Velvet Wings
  • Moving with Purpose

    Dear Reader, I’m back in Himachal and experiencing real cold again. My trip to Ahmedabad ended with a short but fun holiday in Udaipur. After more than a month of dawdling about in Ahmedabad, it felt exciting to move with purpose, from the time we left for Udaipur to the time we got back and…

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  • Self-Meta-Critical Letter/Journal Entry

    Dear Reader, How are you? How’s life? Can you really answer these questions? You can reply to this email and the replies will automatically get posted as comments under the blogpost for this letter. And if you do that, I will definitely read them and reply and perhaps even continue the conversation. But the more…

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  • A New Year of Philosophy

    Dear Reader, The year is almost over. In a couple of days, we’ll be celebrating the beginning of a new year. I’ve never been one to celebrate New Year’s Eve because to me it feels too arbitrary. I think one’s birthday is a more accurate and personalized new year for a person because they’ve gone…

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