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The Best Books I Have Ever Read

Photo by John Ray Ebora on Pexels.com This is a personal, ever-evolving list of books I’ve loved the most in my life. I’ll keep adding to this list as I discover more gems, so check back often for updates! Classics Crime and Punishment by Fyodor DostoevskyI’m convinced Light Yagami (Kira) from Death Note is based on Raskolnikov. Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontëI could not put this one down—it…

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Turning Pages and Earning Badges

Photo by Emily on Pexels.com As we usher in 2025, many of you might have set a New Year’s resolution to read more books. If so, I have just the modality for you — Goodreads. For years, I’ve been a fan and vocal advocate for Goodreads, a platform I fondly call the “Facebook for book lovers.” It’s a space to read and write book reviews, organize books into categories like Want to Read, Currently…

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Board The Ozempic Train

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com We have learned the hard way not to trust everything on social media. We no longer fall for the Photoshop fails, over-filtered selfies, and outlandish conspiracy theories. But there’s a subtler, deeper lie lurking in the feeds today – the hypocrisy of celebrities. Last year, I shared my thoughts on how our beauty ideals drifted from body positivity to a…

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I Choose the Bear

Photo by Rasmus Svinding on Pexels.com There has been a viral trend going around asking women whether they would prefer to be alone in a forest with a bear or a man. Even fathers would rather their little daughters be trapped with a bear than a man. Cis-men are so dense that they are unable to comprehend why we are so afraid of them. “Not all men,” they say. So here I am with a detailed essay…

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Whitewashing Heathcliff

Photo by Chris Carter on Pexels.com Wuthering Heights is a chaotic classic about two deeply flawed people who are cruel to each other and everyone around them. The novel’s turbulent atmosphere reflects the mood swings of its antihero Heathcliff (I love the way his name rolls off my tongue), according to Friends’ own Phoebe Buffay. Being a classic, Hollywood is keen to extract yet another…

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Would You Walk Away from Omelas?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Warning: spoilers In 2017, BTS released a music video for their most beautiful song, “Spring Day.” While I watched it, a sign caught my eye: “Omelas.” At first, I assumed it referred to a restaurant, but as I dug deeper, I uncovered a heart-wrenching short story that profoundly influenced the music video. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin…

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Pro-choice Accommodates Everyone

Photo by Leah Newhouse on Pexels.com Trigger warning: ab*rtion, sexual abuse There was a controversial revelation in the penultimate season of my favorite TV show, The Boys—a superhero satire that anyone would get hooked on— that a famous superhero, Annie January aka Starlight, underwent an abortion. Her secret, which was broadcast on national television without her consent, came under fire.…

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Back to Square One

Photo by Nacho Juu00e1rez on Pexels.com I can no longer tolerate Friends as an adult (mainly because of Ross and Rachel), but a decade ago, I binged all ten seasons before my board exams. Yet today, I randomly recalled a special episode that offers a lesson on the inevitability of fate. Season 6, Episodes 15 and 16, titled “The One That Could Have Been,” begin with all six characters…

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Shakespeare Was a Woman

Photo by JJ Jordan on Pexels.com I love me some conspiracy theories—I don’t believe in the moon landing (why haven’t they recreated it?)—so today, I urge you to humor me until the end of this post before you call me crazy. There’s a school of scholars and literary enthusiasts who propose that Shakespeare was a woman, and not the familiar man from Stratford-upon-Avon. Historical evidence…

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The Drawer of Best Ideas

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Franz Kafka, the author of Metamorphosis (“the dude wakes up as a bug” book), died at 41, believing he was the disappointment his father said he was. On his deathbed, he urged his best friend Max Brod—who had previously encouraged him to publish his earlier stories, which went unnoticed in the book market—to burn all his works. Brod, however, warned Kafka that he…

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Work is Not Worship

Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com The recent death of a Chartered Accountant in Pune due to work stress has gained attention over the past week, with my family noticing a surge of reporters outside her mansion in Kochi, just a few blocks away from our flat. Despite denials of work pressure from the company management, citing four months of employment as “too short” to take someone’s…

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The Double Standards of Dad Bods

Photo by lucas mendes on Pexels.com When I hear the term “dad bod,” I am immediately reminded of Leonardo DiCaprio—not the heartthrob from Titanic, but the middle-aged protagonist in The Wolf of Wall Street. While I personally indifferent to people who remind me of my father, the dad bod has been gaining a lot of hype on the internet, much to my surprise. In essence, the dad bod describes the…

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Cat is Out of the Bag

Photo by Leah Newhouse on Pexels.com It is with good hopes that I announce I have published my master’s dissertation in The Social Chronicle, marking my third academic publication in the mental health field. I should have published it last year when I completed my study, but I felt some sort of mental blockage and finally took the plunge in January as part of my New Year’s resolutions. But…

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The Festival of Flowers

The most important festival in Kerala is Onam, celebrated annually for ten days during the month of Chingam (August-September). This harvest festival commemorates the legendary homecoming of the benevolent King Mahabali. While Mahabali gets to return to his homeland, I, on the other hand, haven’t spent Onam in Kochi for the past three years. When we lived in Dubai, my parents would always book…

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(Auto)biographies are Underrated

Photo by Karen Lau00e5rk Boshoff on Pexels.com My best friend gifted me a self-help book called Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Everyday. The author, Todd Henry, assigns us some homework: to read biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. In that spirit, I delved into three books about notable figures this year: Wings of Fire by APJ Abdul Kalam, I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (a…

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Bimbo Feminism

Photo by Reshma Mallecha on Pexels.com I am infamous in my office for my ringtone—Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” (instrumental version). My perpetual fear of losing my phone if I leave it on silent compels me to subject the entire office to my ringtone whenever I receive my daily Airtel check-ins. I’ve had this ringtone since September 2022, and the same expression of pleasant surprise crosses my callers’…

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No Way Home

Photo by Kelly on Pexels.com Even though I took my laptop with me to Kochi for my 10-day vacation at home, I never found the courage to use it. Writing is my best outlet for creative energy, but despite having several drafts ready to publish, I never took the time to open my blog. My forty-hour work week makes me crave an escape from reality, even though that reality includes the parts of myself…