Hi guysss. This is one of those posts that materialised out a spontaneous burst of energy. What prompted it is the joy I felt at reading a few editorials on today's Hindu Newspaper that gave me simple yet profound and beautiful quotes and thoughts. I just realised that chancing upon thoughts, ideas and phrases that light up my mind or resonate with it, especially while reading, has the miraculous power of making me the happiest girl in seconds. The articles I read today (11

Hiii. It's Anagha. I've been away for a whole two months now, and I feel like a tortoise putting its head out after hiding in its shell :) If I were to discuss the whole list of reasons that kept me away, it would be endless. But I must accept that a lot of them were fuelled by procrastination and laziness. What started as genuine reasons became excuses built around insecurities and hesitancies. The long break had brought me back to the stage where I judged creations before

Coming back home after two years away feels surreal. The place and people are all familiar, but something has changed. Maybe it's me. Lying in my own bed and looking through my personal belongings, I am reminded of the young woman who left here two years ago. She wanted a change in her life from the usual pattern of going to school and back home, which persisted until her undergraduate years. Living along with her parents and under their immediate care felt too comfortable fo

I’m writing after a short break, and honestly, I don’t really have a clear idea of what to write about. But I wanted to post anyway, so here goes… The past two to three weeks went by in a blur. A lot of things happened, and trying to recollect them now feels like containing the entire ocean in a fish tank. But I know that each experience challenged me and helped me grow in ways I may not be able to completely track down—and that’s okay. As many of my earlier writings suggest

From high school to postgraduation, I've always been awed by the intensity of experiences packed into the last one or two months before farewell. The surroundings and people that until then remained a backdrop to our everyday life come to focus, making us wonder: Why haven't I noticed them before? Sometimes, the routines that were crafted to foster discipline and consistent growth—in personal life or academics—subtly drive you to choose familiarity over new experiences. Thi

Have you ever had those rare days when you feel you look your absolute best? The kind of day when you catch your reflection and feel a quiet surge of satisfaction, not because someone else noticed, but because something within you aligns. There is a special confidence in body positivity that rises from inside. Even though we often say that personality matters more than appearance, the truth is that appearance does shape how we see ourselves. Just as our inner stat

There is a magic in sports that effortlessly brings out the best version of myself. I realised this when I was in fourth standard after joining karate classes with my elder brother. It was a turning point in my life, and its significance remains even now, years after I stopped practising. I still remember the joy of those early years. After sifting through several extracurricular activities, I had finally found something that ignited my spirit. It awakened a part of me that

I am someone whose ideal weekend routine involves staying in the comfort of my home, absorbed in solitary hobbies and carefully conserving my social energy. And yet, every once in a while, it is deeply illuminating to rediscover the quiet joys of social life — in the company of people who feel safe. As someone who guards her personal time and space like air, I often fall into the illusion that social engagements bring nothing but exhaustion. I realise now that this belief ca

I think our college campus looks most beautiful in the early mornings and close to dusk. It is the time when nature is most alive as human beings slowly trickle in and out of the college grounds in small numbers. The music of nature embellishes the silence without any noise to disturb it. I love such moments even though I have experienced it only a couple of times. As an admirer of solitude and silence, I feel most free and alive when there is more of nature than people arou

Is it possible to love someone who is absolutely so different from you? To go back to them even when their words at times cause you pain as well as joy in the blink of an eye? That was how Mary Roy was for Arundhati Roy, and how the latter was for me as well. It is hilarious how the differences in our viewpoints and opinions start from the coverpage of the book itself! My grimace at the picture of her smoking in her book cover was as real as my admiration of her. But neither

It is interesting to note how we give emotional and symbolic meanings to the things around us. How we store or associate certain feelings or memories in or within material objects, so you can experience it all over again at a later period through them. What you associate those feelings with need not be objects; it could also be some activity. For instance, I am sure that every one of us has different rituals which we do after returning home after a long time away. It could b

The past few days, I've been on the road with my family in our Toyota Cresta (Innova), visiting temples near Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh and Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. But this post is not about the places I visited, but about how this family tradition of road-tripping has strengthened our family bond over the years. From the time I can remember, we have always enjoyed travelling by private car when going on trips, mostly in South India. The fact that my father loves to driv

No matter how much you try to deny it, waking up on Jan 1 of any year feels different. It brings a breeze of hope inside your heart, urging you to take this chance to change your life for the better. Unlike other months of the year, January brings with it an urge to set new goals and plans, even when your situation is no different from yesterday. It is as if a notification pops up, enabling you to edit your avatar or attributes. When multitudes across the world get this at t

This blog post is for me. It is my attempt to put forth something that is not well-polished or planned over a whole day. This is not going to be well-researched or overly pondered over except for proofreading and editing. It is a small but significant step in letting go off my perfectionism, which I find is making me procrastinate things in the hopes of improving it overtime and which inturn fail to debut. Over a week of intense self-assessment and learning—through personali

I am currently in my hometown and just finished attending my online classes for the day. On that note, let me confess early on that I LOVE online classes! To explain why, I need to go back to the pandemic days. It was when our special classes (i.e. extra class hours before the start of the academic year) began in standard 12 of high school that the lockdown was announced in our country. Though physical classes were disrupted, teachers and students explored virtual platforms

I came across this book during one of my desperate hunts at the college library. I was holding onto a huge book by Amitav Ghosh, which I had trouble placing back on the shelf, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to finish it before I leave for my hometown in a week. So the only way to get that book from me was to replace it with another book, which I might be able to finish reading in a week. The search thus began. It must be fairly obvious from the picture above that one

As part of our Bioregional Studies class, our Professor, Dr Samuel Rufus, encouraged us to explore the flora and fauna of MCC. We were asked to go around the campus, click pictures of the birds we spot and identify them using Google Lens. And thus began our birdwatching adventure that started with the allotted hour and extended into two days of after-class group excursions. In the book, The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place , a bioregion is defined, l

You clutch onto it— the little light in the dark. You chase after it, yet stand still when it parts. You offer everything for that presence; a short-lived moment of honesty alive. Is it a wish that craves or a need that braves, this strong faith in a passing mate. A stubborn impulse, an idealistic leap— when you mute all doubts and chose to believe. A joy that mourns, a hope that burns but still takes flight knowing well its plight. I still look up— when hope comes by, and lo

The picture is purely for fun. I just couldn't keep my imagination in check. A week back, I gradually started a morning exercise routine—following my doctor's suggestion—to manage my allergy levels. I also started putting even more thought into what I ate, since I had a list of food items to avoid for the time being. It has been a week of gradually easing my body and mind into working out regularly, and that naturally piqued my interest in understanding what my body needs

It was by chance that I came across a scanned copy of a poem I had written during my UG days, which I believed to have been lost forever. As a class, we were asked to create a class magazine that would feature literary and artistic works by the students in our class, taking inspiration from the texts we studied in the syllabus. Paintings, sketches, poems, cartoons and other creative submissions came forth, and every student in the class contributed. My contribution was a poe