As we headed out of our self-quarantine to explore this city which has been home for the last 11 days, the streets of Manchester welcomed us with freezing rain and cold, gusty winds. Felt like kids as we splashed in the water puddles and gaped at the amazing architecture around…

The year was 1565, squirrels were chasing each other up and down my trunk as I stood basking in the winter sun, on the banks of the Yamuna river, my leaves rustling in the afternoon breeze. Mirak Mirza Ghiyath and his son were there with the Begum and hundreds of…

January rain is not a Mumbai thing, I looked up at the sky with the clouds hanging low. Weeping gently and wetting the roads below. In the still of the night it felt like God was trying to wash away the dark memories of 2020. Washing away the pain of…

Hope Twenty-twenty ends One more spin around the sun welcome twenty-one!

We’re still adapting to the new norm. The world is opening up, risks are being accepted, cautions are being repeatedly reminded. As Aladdin would say, “It’s a whole new world …” With so much changing outside we seek more and more solace inside our homes, our families, our feelings. Over…

There are few things spookier than being woken up by the loud, raspy, continuous cawing of half a dozen crows crowding on your bedroom balcony. The first instinct is that there is something wrong, something ominous happening or about to happen. Their reputation precedes the appearance of these urban scavengers…

Monsoon is magical in Mumbai. All year round we yearn for those few days when life stops in our city. When the incessant rain floods our streets, our railway tracks, our backyards and we are forced to take the day off. For 2020, today was that day. When the sky…

Everybody leaves Some because they had no hope, some just had no choice. When we kill ourselves, it’s not that we’re weak or that death seems easy. We fight, fight hard everyday to stay, to face life. But sometimes the demons inside are too strong. Our strength is not enough…

In the beginning of April, before the mangoes came home, we ate an organic papaya. The inner cavity had so many seeds that it almost triggered my trypophobia. A huge difference from the small, almost seedless ones that we normally get at the fruit vendor. This particular papaya was so…