A writing workshop where our stories heal us. The Memoir 101 workshop with Natasha Badhwar is designed to enable participants to imagine and craft personal narratives that are resonant and evocative. This workshop offers an empathetic, safe space with tips, prompts, exercises, readings and analysis to develop one’s unique voice and write compelling essays that are intimate, thought-provoking…

When I died that day, I didn’t die. I broke many parts but I survived. All of me didn’t live either. I carried the dead weight of grief with me for years. That’s also why I cry. At funerals where everyone else is dry-eyed. At weddings, When the bride begins to walk…

These days I call myself a Love Jihadi. It amuses me no end. My husband was at the local electricity supply office a few days ago, trying to inspire the officers to restore the electricity connection to a factory space he is in charge of. “We cannot come in the…

“Dear Natasha,” I read as I clicked on an email whose subject line had the headline of one of my recent columns in Lounge. I expected to read feedback on the column. IT WAS A BAD START THAT BECAME WORSE “I am 45 years old and I have been married…

“I cannot study in that place, where students harass women on the streets. I will go mad,” he said to me. I have two brothers. Bhai, who is older, is the book I might write one day. Manu, our funny-serious kid brother, is my collection of short stories…

I hate attending weddings. They are phony, wasteful and irrelevant affairs and I don’t understand why people work so hard to get rid of their money overnight. The only wedding I didn’t mind so much was my own. It had its moments. My friend Reena was still fixing the last…

“Bhaisahab, hum aapko bewakoof lagte hain? (Do I look like a fool to you),” I asked the conman trying to sell me a sealed iPhone box at Shanghai airport. He quivered in fear. Travelling in China for the first time, I spoke to everyone in Hindi. After a stressful first…

“Priya is going to re-invent herself so magnificently, you just wait and watch,” I texted a friend on whatsapp. She was worrying for you. I’m not worrying for you. Priya Ramani has ruined my life. I’m sure she has done this to many others, but my story is the only…

Unlocking from the lockdown The lockdown made it official. We had been struggling to separate work and leisure, home and office, our personal from our professional and then we found ourselves locked in with all of our selves in one place for longer than we had imagined. …