The Avalanche. It usually begins with something very small. A person refuses to sign a paper. “Why is it necessary?” Another person has a perfectly simple task to complete. A KYC update. A bank requirement. A registration. A compliance form. Something that would have taken five minutes if everybody involved simply did what they were …
Daffodils. I heard the word today. Daffodils. And for a moment it did not mean a flower. It meant a room, a season, a version of myself that no longer exists. Strange, how the world allows this. How we lend our hearts to songs, streets, restaurants, cities, books, flowers— and later discover I had mistaken …
The first time I came across the word Tokonoma, I assumed it was a person, or perhaps a place hidden among mountains with excellent tea and impossible train timings. Instead, it turned out to be something far more dangerous. An idea. The Japanese, it seems, looked at an empty corner in a room and decided …
The birds know before we do. A few warm sunny days appear between the rains, and suddenly the compound walls become crowded again. There is hopping and fluttering and endless discussion taking place among leaves that are still drying from yesterday’s shower. Ants return to their routes with the seriousness of government departments reopening after …