In 2020, at the Chennai Book Fair, I heard something that was bewildering and powerful at the same time. After walking around the book stalls for a few hours, I stepped out, and I was relieved to find a coffee stall. I bought a cup of coffee, placed my backpack filled with books on the … Continue reading The Story of My Reading Life

I have related this story so many times that the ink in my proverbial pen must have run dry by now. Even when the pen doesn't let any ink run into the letters, rendering them invisible, I can't stop writing this story; the impressions the letters leave are enough. In the last few years, September … Continue reading Of Hope And Other Angels

Why do I want to write? Why do I think I can write? What do I want to write? I went there to find answers; I was received by more questions. At the Creative Writing class, the facilitator gently observed that I should have discovered and embraced the answers by now. A decade ago, when … Continue reading Hello Writing, My Old Friend

Every birthday is a door. When the arbitrariness of life leaves you in front of a door each year, you are oblivious to what's behind the door. Sometimes, you say a little prayer before turning the doorknob and you step into the room with hope and determination. Sometimes, you curse under your breath, wish you … Continue reading Before Opening Door No. 34

“A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can’t get it by breeding for it, and you can’t buy it with money. It just happens along.”-- EB White It was 26-January-2014. She wasn't Anu Boo then. Just Anu. Her rough, thin fur betrayed her ribcage. There were quite a few bald … Continue reading Happy 7th Gotcha Day To Us!

I wrote this piece for the Blog-a-Thon that happened at work. I was asked to write about 2020, and how I navigated the year. I am saving it here for posterity. In the end of March 2020, when the pandemic shed its cloak of mystery, appeared with fangs and all, and became almost palpable, I … Continue reading The Year of Words

"I think of literature," she wrote, "as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but will never reach. And I have started too late. I will never catch up."-- The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett The reader in me surfaced in 2015. I was 28. It was the hardest year … Continue reading Of Reading and Other Demons

I started blogging in 2009. My memory is unreliable, but I think my first blog was about my phone which was stolen. I had employed quite a few words to describe its physical features, the attachment I had developed with it, and how I loved listening to music on the phone. I was 22, and … Continue reading First Light