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Dear Me: The Letter ChatGPT Wrote Me

I had been waiting for a letter for longer than I care to admit. Eventually, I stopped waiting for someone else to send it and asked ChatGPT to write the words I needed to read. Here's how ChatGPT responded before proceeding to write the letter: I’ve written this with the emotional thread I know from you: the overthinking, the dignity you fought to keep, the way you love hard, the way you turn pain into language because apparently some humans are cursed with both feelings and vocabulary. Dear Me Dear me, I know you are tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. Not the kind that disappears after a weekend, a good coffee, or one carefully curated playlist that makes you feel like the main character for exactly seventeen minutes before life resumes its nonsense. You are tired from carrying too much quietly. Tired from reading the room before you enter it. Tired from making yourself smaller so other people can feel comfortable. Tired from laughing things off before anyone notices...
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The Grace We Give Ourselves

I met a friend today. A friend who had carved time out of the chaos of adult life just to sit across the table for a bit. It has been over 6 months since we last met. Things have changed dramatically for both of us. Strange circumstances, some unspoken and unnecessary losses, some necessary pruning. We’ve known each other for over 13 years now. Long enough to have seen each other through versions we have both outgrown. She’s been with me through my darker days, the ones I’d rather not revisit, and I’d like to think I’ve been with her through hers. We’ve also shared some incredibly good moments together that felt almost undeserved. And we’ve had our share of arguments and days where things didn’t quite land the way they should.  But here’s the thing. Through it all, in every version of this story..in every nook of memory…the fact that I could slip up and be the reason for some of her pain… never struck me. Until she mentioned something I’d casually told her years ago after a fight w...
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Cold Coffee. Closed Chapters. The Kind of Blog I Like to Write.

I’m sitting with my cup of coffee and browsing through a news article on my computer. Brooklyn nestles his head on my lap and gives me a disapproving look when he can’t find a comfortable spot. For the first time in 5 months, it is as though my nervous system is at peace. Unemployment looks good on me.  So, what went wrong? That is a story for another day. One involving better lighting and a dramatic background score. Today is for the things that went right and the people that made the chaos worth showing up for. A and P, thank you for the trust and belief you showed in me and seeing potential in me. It was not taken lightly.  J, for showing me where to plug in my laptop that very first day and for all the music. Some of my best memories are from that time. BK, I will really miss your jokes and sense of humor. I will miss the way you’d roll your eyes and look at me after certain interactions, especially with people who confidently assumed you were the 6th floor’s receptionist....
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12am Ponderings in a Coffee Shop

“You are not yourself."   This was the second person who was telling me this in a span of 2 weeks. When something like this happens, you don’t just brush it off. It sticks. You carry it with you. Like a stone in your pocket. Heavy. Impossible to ignore. What were they referring to? A flurry of unanswered messages? A lack of warmth and depth? Or maybe it is something quieter. Something harder to name. The way something that resembled happiness slipped out of the backdoor quietly. Without making a sound. “Your joy has been sucked out,” she said, her voice coming through a phone clutched far too tightly.  “Talk to me.” I tried, but the lump in my throat made itself known in the silence that followed. “Some other time,” she offered. “Some other time,” I agreed, gratefully postponing my own unraveling.   Later, with someone else, I said it out loud. Almost defiantly. “But I don’t want to give up. I want to fight. I want to prove I am worth my salt.”   He paused, then aske...
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Picking Up Right Where We Left Off: Reunion Edition

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I spent the last weekend catching up with some of the ladies from my last job in India. Now, context: I worked there for barely two years. It’s been almost seven since I left. And yet, somehow, this little gang of women refused to fade into the 'ex-colleagues-I’ll-never-see-again' folder. Among the 5, I’d managed to meet three of them at least once every year (you know, enough to keep the friendship alive and the inside jokes updated.) But with two of them, I hadn’t crossed paths in nearly six years. Over the last few months, I'd been retreating to familiar feelings of comfort, places I had fun, places I felt safe. And I realized how these women had created a safe haven for me. A space where I could be vulnerable and still crack the silliest jokes without fear of being judged. And so a meetup plan began to formulate in my mind. After chatting with everybody individually, a WhatsApp group was created   (2 months in advance)and we figured out dates,locations and venues. There...
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The Boatman of Kochi

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A few weeks back, I embarked on a solo trip to Kochi, Kerala. It was an equal parts work and an equal parts 'wrap your head around life’ kinda trip. There was no real itinerary. All I knew was I wanted to be close to the backwaters , visit the famed Fort Kochi area and eat one of the delectable chocolate cakes and take in the wonderful art at Kashi Art Cafe. I was also looking forward to fitting in a meeting with a very dear friend.  I landed in Kochi just before dawn on a red-eye flight from Sharjah. By the time I got into a cab, fatigue was gnawing at me. What should have been a ninety-minute drive to my hotel turned into an endless crawl through traffic. The digital map mocked me with a frozen ‘35 minutes to destination’ for nearly an hour. Just as I was about to give in to irritation, the skies opened. It rained with the kind of balance only nature knows: gentle enough to enjoy, strong enough to stir something in the heart. I pretended to be in a Hindi movie and stuck my hand o...
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