I have been writing on Medium for 6 months now, since last September. All this while, I used to only write when I was “inspired.” I used to have a couple of inspired and creative days where I could sprout out how many ever words I wanted, and then there were others where I just did not have the “mood.”

It wasn’t like I did not have ideas to write articles, mind you. In fact, I had too many of them. But I just did not “feel” like doing the research or putting the effort to publish.

This might be…

“Don’t talk to strangers. They might be dangerous”, is something that most of us have heard from our parents in our childhood. And, of course, do not accept anything from them. Talking to strangers meant they would somehow convince you to eat their food, drug you, and kidnap you.

From childhood, I was wary of social media for this very reason. When I am not supposed to talk to strangers who exist in real life, how could I talk to people when I don’t even know if they exist (John and Jane Doe’s of the virtual world)?

In India alone…

Travel. India. Road trip. South Asia

It was a beautiful day in winter. My husband and I had come for a year-end holiday to Kerala. It is an Indian state situated on the Arabian sea. Known for its palm-lined beaches, backwaters, networks of canals, and inland tea/coffee/spice plantations, it is truly god’s gift to mankind.

We traveled to Cochin (Kochi), which has been a port city from 1341 by bus. We then rented a Royal Enfield bike for 10 days and took off on our first ever road trip to travel the entire state. It was amazing.

The unparalleled scenic beauty of the land, the sea…

FEMINISM

A recent call I had with a dear friend of mine, May Pang, inspired this article. We had a group call recently, with some others, about how connections and what they mean to us. Completely unrelated, I know, but a question striked me. Probably because the following also defines our connections with others.

“What are the moments which changed your life?”

As other people in the group gave their own answers, I realized I have never had a “lightbulb moment” in my life. Which was again a moment by itself :-)

I also realized that the past 9 months have…

FEMINISM

From the day I became a writer, Feminism has always been a topic that I was passionate to write about.

I have been a believer in equality for a long time. And also detested anyone who did not provide me (or anyone else) with the appropriate opportunity, only because I (she) was a girl. I hated it.

Thus, writing gave me a purpose or a way to pour out all my frustrations about the topic. I wanted to educate people on equality of all genders. I wanted to shout out to the world, to stop differentiating between men and women…

I am a huge fan of Italian cuisine, especially pasta. Thus, the one question that had confused me from time immemorial was, “Do different types (shapes) of pasta really taste different?”.

I always get confused when buying pasta from the grocery store, staring at the different types of pasta, available. Do you face the same situation too?

This confusion led me to research the said topic, and write this article.

The obvious factors which affect the taste of the pasta are its ingredients and the type of flour used. For instance, pasta made of eggs, rice, or soba — all…

I am a proud feminist, and am a firm believer of feminism.

Women should get equal opportunities as men and moreover, no one should be judged for his/her own choices.

I have always dreamed of a society, which does not put boxes of masculinity and femininity in characteristics of individuals. Everyone should be free to do whatever they feel is right without the fear of society judging them.

But it is only in recent times that I have become so much more aware of my internal misogyny. It might be because I am being more aware of my values related…

I read Jay Shetty’s book, Think Like a Monk a month back. And it already changed my life.

In the first part of the book, he explains how to strip off the outside influences by avoiding several negative characteristics. This is only one of the methods he mentions.

When reading about the negative influences, I did something subconsciously, which surprised me. While I was associating people I know, with each of the toxic traits, I was also identifying each of those characteristics in me.

In this article, I aim to make you aware of each of the toxic traits. I…