A picture. A thousand words.
Or a moment one never gets back.
The light that shines bright.
The shadows that grow.
A picture. My heart.
Almost like kindred spirits.
Looking in the same direction.
And then at each other.
Staring hard till one of them blinks.
Till the backgrounds melt.
And the air shifts.
A picture. A beautiful pause.
So last night, long before my bedtime, I sat in the dark for no particular reason. For a while, nothing happened. Trying to focus on the shadows cast by the palm tree outside my balcony, I held on to the stillness I felt. I realised I had the privilege of living in a quiet locality.
For a while or so, I let myself visualise everything that came my mind's way. There were memories of me eating in my hostel, walking through the college campus, singing out loud, sitting near the rose bushes. Someone was playing an A.R. Rahman song somewhere. I then saw myself in a metro, laughing at lame jokes of my male friends because I wanted to fit in. I took a cab. I was waiting for someone, can't remember who. I ate a lot. A sense of longing for the past enveloped me.
I then realised that what I wanted the most was not my younger body or the good moments from the past. Or the comfort of the truth that I had years ahead of me to fix and unfix things. What I truly wanted was to feel like before. To be able to move in the world with my old heart beating in my chest. I wanted my own old feelings to lift me up and drop me at a place where I could just glide, hear all the songs in my head and not see past the beautiful haze of a sense of reality that I once had.
Sometimes I wonder if others feel the same way? Do they also feel different as they grow older?
Today, as I write about all this, I think of this bright, sunny day. I took a colleague to a place I had visited exactly a year earlier, just to see if everything felt the same, if the trees looked the same, if the houses carried the same vibe. They didn’t. But it was still a good day. We walked for hours, noticed small things, saw cherry blossoms, had good coffee and matcha, and took some nice pictures.
Who cooks on their holidays?
The question may have an obvious answer for most people. Who, in their right mind, would fly for hours, drag heavy luggage, spend at least an hour trying to find their Airbnb, and also make dinner? And even when you are not tired, why bother to cook? Isn't exploring local food a part of the reason why you are where you are?
Of course, I eat out every day when I travel. But I do try to cook once a day. Sometimes it is not even proper cooking; it's just a simple meal thrown together with local ingredients. It all started with the goal of saving money. Just one home-cooked meal every day for, say, a 15-day vacation, and you end up saving a decent amount of money. But money is just part of the reason. Allow me to explain.
So whenever I go to a new place, I have this urge to head to the local grocery chains. I feel almost a childlike excitement as I explore aisles of wafers, ice cream, cakes, noodles and whatnot in completely new flavours. And then there is the fresh produce, in all its glory. In this picture, I have blueberries, plant-based milk, and cereals (not the usual kinds). A no-brainer breakfast that allows you to sit down and plan your day.
Sometimes, cooking at my Airbnb also allows me to enjoy a quiet day. No rush to go anywhere or book a table. I can explore the nearby area on foot, come back, read for hours, get up, fix a simple lunch like this rocket-and-tomato salad, and enjoy the view outside.
And then there are evenings when the nearby restaurants are closed. The thought of taking a train to have dinner in the more crowded part of the city crosses my mind, but it feels like too much effort, given my health. So I put together a quick pasta with spaghetti, tomatoes and olives, all bought earlier from a local store. And I pour my water into a wine glass (I forgot to take the picture), because I am fancy like that. And then I sit down, with Lana Del Rey in the background, have a quiet meal, pretending that I live there.
...........................................................................................................................................................So, flannel shirts are back. From Emily Ratajkowski to Jacob Elordi, celebrities seem to be going for this easy-to-style piece quite a lot lately.
For me, flannel shirts come with a solid dose of nostalgia. My first shirt was a flannel—a blue and red checkered one that I wore with a black denim skirt. Since I had just one pair of shoes—a pair of light purple Keds—I barely looked at my feet, telling myself people around me didn’t care anyway.
Fast forward to today, and I think that outfit would work beautifully now. All I need is the resolve to find the exact items, down to the shoes. For these photos, I borrowed this Uniqlo piece from a friend. Okay, bye for now. Will come back with a new blog post next month.
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There are days when style takes minimal effort. It almost happens to you—the perfect top, a satin skirt, a pair of sandals that you didn't even know existed in your wardrobe. Something like that.
And then there are days when you are getting ready while answering a call and packing your lunch. For days like these, I match my bag with my sandals/shoes and let the harmony do its job. Some call it "the sandwich method", a lazy hack to look a little put together where you wear at least two things (the slices of bread) in one color. I add a touch of big hair, just for a little extra something
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2026 has started on a nostalgic note, thanks to the latest social media trend. Everyone is looking back at their 2016 pictures; there seems to be a collective sense of loss of simpler times.
This view.
I tend to plan a few things around the lunar calendar. Just to make everything look grander, dunk those views in some heavenly concoction of dreaminess and sublimity. And when you step out on these nights, or look out of your balcony, everything appears the same, yet different. It is one of those rare occasions when you want the electricity gone, just for a while. And in those moments, cities like Prague shine the brightest.
Being alive
Come what may, I continue to drag myself out of bed, work a bit, and enjoy a good walk. I am grateful for my health this year. Better than 2024. Took this photo at an Airbnb in Regensburg right after a night of intense pain. Walked for three hours, sat on a bench, read a new book and had an overpriced coffee that day.
This human.
This sea of calm right here is the reason this year was kind of nice, at least in parts. So grateful.
...........................................................................................................................................................I have a green linen dress for days when I don't want to spend hours deciding what to wear. I love the length - not too short, long but with a slit. When the air is a little crisp, a trench coat complements it beautifully. And on warmer days, it looks good just on its own. In fact, it looks even better. Will upload pictures of the dress without a coat/jacket in later posts.
Hope you all are having a great November.
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Being in Munich, one cannot help wondering how the old and the new exist together, sometimes in harmony, sometimes not. The noisy centre, the non-stop trams, the trees that line the streets, the stunning statues, the parks, the newly built offices, people from all over the world, posters of plays. I am uploading a few semi-decent pictures that I have taken here.
Hope you are having a great day.
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I asked ChatGPT if I had depression. Before you decide to call me out on this irresponsible behaviour, hear me out. I have no money to pay for a therapist. I have no close friends. I detest the free counselling sessions where everyone looks like they don't want to be there. But what I do have is this objectivity, an ability to zoom out and see myself be me.
And so I took the help of an AI platform to tell me if I was okay. The questions were simple: Do you have difficulty falling asleep? Do you feel you have disappointed your family members? Do you have very little interest in doing things? Do you feel tired? Are you under-or overeating? Do you have trouble concentrating on things?
After reviewing my answers, ChatGPT told me I was just feeling a bit emotionally flat but was otherwise fine. It also asked me to keep a consistent routine, exercise regularly, practise meditation and talk to people.
But most importantly, it asked me to write down my thoughts. So I thought, "Why don't I create a blog post out of this journaling exercise?"
I was feeling really meh while getting these pictures clicked as well—overall sad phase or whatever. But I smiled nonetheless, because, pictures.
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Ever asked someone what makes them happy? If you have, you must have noticed how they pause before giving an answer. How their eyes, with glint and sadness, sometimes in equal measure, look within for an answer. And as they start talking, you get a tiny peek into their soul.
In this blog post, I am remembering a day when I was happy. The book I read. The selfie I took. The view I had.
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Going through one of those days when one doesn't have a lot to say. But one does want to upload something on their blog. I love the outfit in the first picture for its simplicity. The second shot is from a café that serves excellent vegetarian food. For some reason, whenever I am there, I keep staring at this corner. The third picture brings back a moment of chasing the perfect sunset.
That's all for this month.
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I have been made fun of, more than once, for being someone who, in this day and age, goes to a tailor. Except for the occasional lehenga or maybe a salwar kameez that needs to be stitched because it was gifted as a fabric set, I rarely see people around me visiting a tailor shop. So naturally, someone who needs a tailor everywhere they go appears to be an anomaly.
I get almost everything I wear altered. And then I have ideas. Tons of them. I even bought a sewing machine at one point, only to realise very quickly that I lacked the patience for sewing. So, I buy fabric and look for someone who can create something semi-decent out of it.
And I fail to understand how people do not need a tailor at all. Maybe it's a small-town thing. Or a millennial thing. Or both. We grew up in a culture where things ought to be stitched - from school uniforms to fancy dresses. But online shopping has changed everything, it seems. Now people see clothes on a screen and simply order them.
The shirt in these pictures was stitched by a tailor in the last city I was in. And it reminds me that I need a new tailor in this new city. Someone who can stitch all kinds of things, help me bring my latest ideas to life.
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I recently read on a wall in a cafe that life is whatever we have left after our screen time. The line stayed with me long after. We are losing years to scrolling. So now, to encourage myself to live a little, I have started talking about the offline things I do. Sometimes, I mention my offline activities to friends who may or may not care. Sometimes, I just take a picture to document the moment. And today, I decided to write a blog post about it.
I bought flowers for myself for the first time.
I grew up around people who believed flowers were a waste of money. And quite frankly, they are, especially in lower-middle-class households where every expense is carefully calculated, closely monitored, and repeated only if it has real value and doesn't interfere with more important expenses. But now that I can afford to spend just a little money every now and then, I would rather spend it on things like flowers. Once I had them in the house, I realised I looked at them several times a day. And every time, they seem to uplift a part of my spirit.
I stared at a bug for almost half an hour.
In my defence, the bug looked magnificent. This photo doesn't even do it justice. And it matched the colour of my coffee mug. After staying motionless for a while, the bug appeared to inspect the mug, examining it from three different angles. Almost half an hour later, I think it got bored and decided to leave the mug alone and wandered off.
I read Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea in a month.
The book is about a theatre director who leaves his dazzling life in London to move to a basic house with no electricity in a coastal town. And he wants to do good, but can a change of scenery change a person?
For me, the book was almost like a crash course on how to quietly observe a narcissistic, egoistic narrator, never get attached to him, and still enjoy everything around him – the house, the streets, the local market, his friends, and, most importantly, the sea.
I rarely post in real-time. It's almost as if I can't live a moment and talk about it as well. Till it's late. Weeks, months, sometimes a year late. A conversation with a friend, a good meal, a poignant book, a nervy movie. I rarely am able to talk about it, with all my heart, till I get a chance to sit alone, look back, marinate in the flashbacks just enough to feel something.
I have never really wondered before today why this happens. Why is it so hard to find beauty and meaning in things as they happen? Could it be because of the mobile phone-induced limited attention span? Or the constant distraction of the hundreds of things that happen all at once when I go out? Or is it simply because I am slow to realise everything?
This outfit is a small example of my inability to appreciate things in real-time. Beige shirt, beige shorts with a white undershirt. A simple outfit that can be worn on repeat. A three-piece set that will never seem out of fashion. The one that screams the opposite of try-hard.
That's all for this month. Will come back with another post next month.
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To the right of my wardrobe lies a longish oval mirror, placed solely to encourage me to look at myself once or twice a day. The goal is to check, before going out, if everything looks all right.
All my life, I have seen most men and women looking in mirrors as if it were second nature to them. Duck to water. Sunflower to the sun. To me, it has always seemed like a task. If I catch myself looking in the mirror, chances are, mentally, I am somewhere else. I guess I have always associated mirrors with self-adoration.
Lately, however, I have been intrigued by people who confidently look at themselves in the mirror. Do they just notice their facial features? Or do they, sometimes, also get a glimpse of how they feel?
I want to be able to look in the mirror and see if it helps in any way. If it helps me take a pause and notice what's going on. But I guess the first step is to be able to tolerate my face. No, actually, the first step is to wipe the dust off that mirror.
BRB.
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I want to write for long hours without any distractions. But the birds are chirping, so I close my laptop and look outside. For a change, I hear every little sound outside my balcony - a bike whooshing past, leaves rustling, two women talking indistinctly, the sound of a running hose as someone decides to water their plants in the middle of the day.
There is no deadline. I just need to write a blog post. And it's my blog, so it can be any topic. But I am stuck. I look at the pictures of the post - navy blue sleeveless shirt and beige shorts with a brown belt. Classic. Italian. Hint of old money. In fact, it could be one of the best quick outfits I have ever put together.
Do I really need to write another paragraph on the outfit? Who cares? Let me publish this post anyway. Wait, what if someone actually reads this? What if they come to read about fashion and get stuck in the mind of a clueless early millennial who has no idea what she wants to do? I am hungry now. Will write better next month. Bye.
Btw, the birds chirp again.
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