There came a time—now not that long in the past—when a positive type of female was everywhere. She woke up at 5 a.m. She had a vision board. She used phrases like "boss up," and "she believed she should, so she did. She became the girlboss, and for a solid decade, she became the aspirational blueprint for an entire generation of bold women. And now? That same woman is posting about her slow Saturday morning, her therapy appointments, and why she turned down a promotion. Something shifted. And it shifted hard. The Girlboss: Where...
Let me be upfront about something before we get into this. This is not one of those self-help pieces that hands you a numbered list and sends you on your way. No "7 habits of highly insightful people". No morning routine. No cold shower advice. What I want to talk about is something quieter — and honestly, something most of us have been slowly losing for years without realising it. When Was the Last Time You Sat With a Single Thought? Not scrolled through something. Not half-listened to a podcast while doing something else.
Let me tell you something strange before we get into the list. There is a temple in Tamil Nadu where a tower standing 216 feet tall throws no shadow on the ground at noon. Not a smaller shadow. Not a faint one. Nothing. Engineers have walked around it. Architects have run calculations. And after all of that, nobody has come back with a completely satisfying answer. This temple was built in 1010 AD. India has over two million temples. A good number of them are ancient. Many of them are...
Close your eyes for a second. Imagine the smell of dry earth the moment the first raindrop hits it. That sharp, ancient smell – petrichor – rising from cracked ground is like the land itself is exhaling after holding its breath for months. Now add the sound of water rushing somewhere in the distance, the kind of sound that gets louder the deeper you walk right into a woodland. Green everywhere. Mist is sitting low over valleys, as it belongs. That is monsoon season in India. And most travellers completely...
Stand at the base of Amer Fort on any given morning — before the tourist buses arrive, before the elephant processions start, and before the souvenir sellers set up their stalls — and just look up. The walls climb the Aravalli hillside as they grew there naturally, like the rock itself decided one day to arrange itself into battlements and gateways and soaring palace towers. It doesn't look built. It looks inevitable. But someone built it. Many someones, actually. Over a hundred and thirty-five years. Across three generations of kings....
You understand that feeling; you've traveled for hours and, sooner or later, step out of the automobile; however, instead of silence, you listen to a Bluetooth speaker thumping out a Bollywood remix. Or when you’ve queued for twenty minutes to take a picture of a waterfall, or even when the filter can’t cover the gang inside the background? I’ve been there. We all have. India’s “must-visit” spots are gasping for air. Kasol feels like a college canteen in June. Hampi’s boulders hide more tourists than history. And someplace in that...
Look, in case you’re nonetheless dropping $200 a night on a “boutique neighborhood revelry" that serves avocado toast and has rainfall showerheads you may discover in any Western city, you’re missing the point. The actual stuff—the grit, the accidental friendships, the meal you’ll bear in mind for all time because the grandma who cooked it didn’t speak a word of English—doesn’t stay behind a concierge table. I’ve spent many years living out of a single rucksack. I’ve slept on floors where the roosters started at 3 a.m., been invited to...
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