Covid Update Jan 2024: Indonesia is now open for all travelers.
Irrespective of from where and with whom you watch a sunset, each sunset is of its own kind and is perfect in its own way.
I witnessed the golden beauty submerging in the Indian ocean from the island of Nusa Penida, near Bali, and in the zen state that followed, I wrote this piece of writing which I am publishing here (with some editing).
Covid Update January 2024: Indonesia is now open for all travelers.
I write this piece while sitting on the balcony of a beautiful Balinese home, with a lush green garden, with the blooming frangipani canopying over the sunlit courtyard and its tiny temple, and with towering palm and coconut trees swaying in the distance. And as I listen to the water falling over an artistic fountain while drinking tea, I know that there is nowhere else I would want to be in this moment.
Having been in Bali for ten days, my wanderlust soul and ever-wandering eyes have experienced and seen a lot.
Update January 2024: I also have a complete travel guide for Bali and a guide on Bali Visa on Arrival – For Indians and Others.)
I have given up my apartment, packed my bags, said my goodbyes, and off I go with my backpack, a pen and a notebook, and a one-way ticket to the world.
I have been in namma Bengaluru for a year now. Before that, I was in South America (SA), teaching, living, and traveling. After having been nagged by my family to return, I came back last year.
During my nine-months-long adventure in the passionate continent, I did more than I could have done in a few years. I hiked active volcanos, made friends from all over the world, learned Spanish, taught English in Chile and realized that I might have a few traits of a good teacher, stayed in a treehouse in a Bolivian village, stayed with local Quechua communities on the remote islands of Lake Titicaca in Peru, got mugged in Santiago, held monkeys and sloths in the Amazon, night trekked to stumble into the deadliest frogs and snakes, lost myself in the Machu Picchu Inca ruins, wandered in the fathomless-ness of the Atacama desert, and struggled to get job interviews and tried to prolong my stay in South America.
This was my perfect version of backpacking.
As I move onto a new journey that takes me outside India for a couple of months, I couldn’t help but reminisce about the places I have lived in and visited in the last one year in India.
India-a country with distinct religions from the ancient Hindu to the declining Zoroastrianism, with a myriad of languages and dialects from Konkani to Jarawa, with a plethora of geographies from fathomless deserts to treacherous glaciers, with a vast network from modern sea links to old hanging bridges, with a wide assortment of food from homely dal roti to mouth-watering, overnight-cooked chicken biryanis, with a range of commutes from rusted Hero bicycles, serene camels, and obedient bullock carts to fancy Rolls Royces, from peaceful Tamil marriages held for two hours during daylight to exciting Punjabi wedding functions sprawled over many days in luxurious hotels spread across India; we have it all.
This large and miscellaneous congregation of people-that India is-sometimes makes me proud, but sometimes the restrictions of this collectivist society suffocate me.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a French writer, aviator, and a unique philosopher. He served as a pilot in the French army, flew for commercial airline companies and also in leisure. He wrote in the air.
On one of his flights from Paris to Saigon in 1935, Antoine’s plane crashed in Sahara. He was stranded in the desert with his navigator. They were far away from habitation and only had a few fruits and a day’s supply of liquids.
Dehydrated in the arid Sahara, Antoine began to see mirages and hallucinated vividly. On the fourth day in the desert, a Bedouin found them and saved their lives with a native dehydration treatment.
Inspired by his experiences in the Sahara, Antoine published a children’s fable for adults called Le Petit Prince or the Little Prince in 1943. This book is not only one of the most favorite children’s books, but also one of the most popular philosophy books. It is the third most printed book after Bible and Gone With the Wind.
Let life happen to you – Rainer Maria Rilke told a Young poet, Franz Xaver Kappus when he expressed his doubts about his poetry to Rainer in a letter.
Out of all the golden words that Rainer said, this advice struck me the most when I read the twelve-letter correspondence between him and Franz. Those letters are a brilliant read. But calling them a read would be undermining them.
The art that those twelve letters hold in their hearts thrives with life and hope and advice. That art is like that thunder which roars at night. That art is like lightning which dances across the grey sky. That art is like that twilight which doesn’t know any bounds.
I hail from a small North Indian town that doesn’t offer many educational opportunities beyond high school. When I was 15, my father took me to Kota city in Rajasthan. There I was to study for the entrance examination to the well-known engineering university the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).
Settling me in a paying guest house, Papa left for home. That was the first time I was so far from my parents.
For two years, I studied. On my first attempt at the entrance examination, I failed. I continued staying in Kota for one more year. The second time I ranked seventy-eight amongst half a million students.
My success didn’t come by chance. I understood the importance of goals even back then. I knew I had to achieve mine.
I wanted to see if the flavors I saw flying in my kitchen had wings. I wanted to see if my hands moved fast enough to massacre a red onion in under thirty seconds. I wanted to see if I could count on the buoyancy of the country eggs I poached. I wanted to see if I could scale the golden fish. If I could do justice to her death. I wanted to see if I could make the chicken fall off its bones. I wanted to see if the boiled spinach adorned a darker green. I wanted to see if anyone else could stuff more onions in paranthas than I could.
I wanted to see if any other spice could overpower asafoetida’s pungent-ness. I wanted to see if life could be lived without coriander. I wanted to understand the fuss about the snowy-white garlic. That always looked to me like the dome-like crown on the head of queen Victoria. I wanted to see if Tiramisu talked. Maybe it could breathe life into another being. As when I licked its spoonful, I was floating freely and kicking in my mother’s uterus again.
I think a lot more.
I read a lot more. I scroll blogs for hours. I highlight words while I read. I note them down. I try to go through them again.
I write a lot more. I ask myself why shall I not write on a Sunday. The world goes on. So I go on describing it.
I broke up with redundant words. I perfect the Whatsapp messages and the emails I send. My scrutinizing eyes don’t even spare the responses of my friends.
When I wake up, I think about writing instead of thinking about going to the toilet. I am burdened by guilt the day I don’t write. The day I write well, I feel liberated.
Update 2025: Now I have even published a book 🙂
MY FIRST BOOK
IS HERE!
In my vivid narrative style (that readers love, ahem), I have told my most incredible adventures, including a nine-month solo trip to South America. In the candid book, the scoldings I got from home for not settling down and the fears and obstacles I faced, along with my career experiments, are laid bare. Witty and introspective, the memoir will make you laugh and inspire you to travel, rediscover home, and leap over the boundaries.
Sikkim Express: "Simple, free-flowing, but immensely evocative."
The Telegraph Online: "An introspective as well as an adventurous read."
Grab your copy now!
The memoir is available globally. Search for the title on your country's Amazon.
Or, read a chapter first. Claim your completely free First Chapter here.
When I say a new writer, I mean someone who didn’t dare to make writing her life. Or to even think about earning money from her writings. Or to be able to imagine that her story or a poem might get published. Or to be able to say out loud that she is a writer.
But.
She has made writing her life, recently. She earns money from writing. Her day revolves around writing. Her poem got published. Sometimes she stammers that she is a writer.
Update 2025: Now she has her first book out, too.
MY FIRST BOOK
IS HERE!
In my vivid narrative style (that readers love, ahem), I have told my most incredible adventures, including a nine-month solo trip to South America. In the candid book, the scoldings I got from home for not settling down and the fears and obstacles I faced, along with my career experiments, are laid bare. Witty and introspective, the memoir will make you laugh and inspire you to travel, rediscover home, and leap over the boundaries.
Sikkim Express: "Simple, free-flowing, but immensely evocative."
The Telegraph Online: "An introspective as well as an adventurous read."
Grab your copy now!
The memoir is available globally. Search for the title on your country's Amazon.
Or, read a chapter first. Claim your completely free First Chapter here.
She still gasps for breath as she wakes up every morning bearing a writer’s responsibility. She becomes too hard on herself while maneuvering her newly-found writer’s freedom.
After struggling for a year, I broke up with the man I had wished to spend the rest of my life with. Then I flew to the other end of the world. In that foreign land, I picked up a million tiny parts of mine and weaved them again. I breathed life into that lifeless me. After a year, I returned to the old city and happened to run into him.
I thought I had moved on. And I had. I am with someone else now and putting in all the hard work a relationships needs. I love my current partner most earnestly.
The prime-time news and the first page headlines of reputed national newspapers and the gossiping internet forums and the geeky silicon valley blogs have bombarded us with Elon Musk. They scrutinized the guy first for his electronic money transfer system (Paypal), then for his electric cars (Tesla), for his rockets and space stations (SpaceX), and then for solar energy (SolarCity).
I felt I still knew nothing about the Silicon Valley tycoon who manufactures rockets and cars in one of the most expensive places on earth aka Silicon Valley. So to know more about the real-life Iron Man, I read his biography – Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future by Ashlee Vance.