There is a moment most of us know well. You are scrolling through your phone on an ordinary afternoon, feeling fine about your day. And then you see it. Someone’s promotion. Someone’s new business. Someone’s perfectly arranged holiday photos. And just like that, a small voice appears. Why am I not there yet? Nothing in…

We have made giving complicated. We attach conditions to it. Expectations. A quiet, often unspoken hope that it will be noticed, acknowledged, returned in some form. We give and then we watch — for the reaction, the gratitude, the confirmation that what we offered mattered. And somewhere in all of that, we lose the heart…

Every year during this time, across the country, millions of women fast from sunrise to moonrise. They dress beautifully. Gather with other women. Perform rituals passed down through generations. Wait for the moon. And when it appears, they look at the face of the person they love through a sieve, and break their fast. Karwa…

This week, across the country, we celebrate the victory of good over evil. Effigies burn. Fireworks light the sky. There is joy, there is colour, and there is that familiar, collective exhale that comes with watching Ravana fall. But this Dussehra, I found myself thinking about something a little different. Not the battle that Ram…