The Indian American Life
When Dreams Abroad Turn Heavy: The Tragic Story and the Silent Mental Health Crisis of International Students
A Promise And Brilliance Lost “I'm a Master’s student in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department at University of California, Berkeley, with an undergraduate degree from IIT Madras. I'm passionate about deep-tech innovations in soft and active...
Chandra Shekaraaya Namah Om: The Sacred Om Namah Shivaya Chant
Chandrashekhara is the one who wears the moon and Gangadhara is the one that holds the Ganga, they are tributes to the many attributes of Lord Shiva. Featured Image: This 12-foot monolithic stone Shiva Linga is located in Kanli Bagh, Baramulla, Kashmir. Thank...
Skyfaring In Luxor, Egypt: A Sunrise Hot Air Balloon Ride Over the Valley of the Kings
At 5am, we got ready for our sunrise hot air balloon ride. We were each handed a small bag of breakfast items to take with us at the lobby of our cruise. A few of us ate a muffin or a slice of bread but were mostly not hungry at that early. We were then picked up by a...
Chopra Is a Construct. Epstein’s Crimes Are Real.
The Business of Consciousness Constructs In one of the emails to Epstein, Deepak Chopra declares, “God is a Construct. Cute Girls are Real.” Yup, the self help Guru Deepak Chopra features in Epstein emails over 3000 times. And this is just one of the few...
The Evolution of Love: Marriage, Survival, and Personal Reinvention in a Changing World
A Society Experiences Growing Pains I took this picture of a wall hanging in the lobby of a hotel we were staying at in Granada, Spain. Somehow, the couples whose heads are disintegrating felt like a fitting image for the essay on marriage I was writing. I’ve...
The Prophet and the Poet: Tupac’s Humanity, Legacy, and Why His Words Still Heal Generations
For the longest time, until it just became too dirty for me to wear, I would wear my Tupac shirt whenever I had to run an errand or just take Yogi, our dog, out for a walk. I can't find a picture of mine readily, but I’ll update this space once I find one of me...
I Walked In as a Tourist and Left Feeling Like I Belonged Somewhere I’d Never Been Before
Selling Our Soul to The Arts I arrived in SFO as a tourist, but the moment I walked into SFMOMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, it felt like I belonged there. I was suddenly in the company of over 50,000 artists’ works. The Grand Atrium’s minimalist...
The Integrity Exit: Why Mrinank Sharma’s Departure Matters
Two days ago, Mrinank Sharma resigned from his role as an AI safety engineer at Anthropic. He had been with the company for two years. “The world is in peril. And not just from AI, or bioweapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very...
Shankara Shankara Shiva Shambo: A Transcendental Journey into Shiva Consciousness
There is a unique magic in the duality of Lord Shiva — the stillness of the meditator and the cosmic dance of the Nataraja. Whether you need to find your fire or find your peace, I hope these chants serve as a bridge to the divine. Thank you for listening. ...
The Nihilist Penguin: Why Werner Herzog’s Lone Penguin Speaks to Our Need to Reject the Herd
The "Nihilist Penguin" and the Man Who Found It Like many of you, I was captivated by Herzog's lone penguin. The one that breaks from the herd and heads in the opposite direction. This singular image of defiance seems to be the hallmark of its observer who...
Madhava Keshava Krishna Krishna: The Mesmerizing Bhajan That Awakens Divine Love
This bhajan is a rhythmic devotional chant that celebrates the various divine names, enchanting attributes, and heroic pastimes of Lord Krishna in the land of Vraja. Thank you for listening. LYRICS of Madhava Keshava Krishna Krishna: Madhava Keshava...
When AI Mirrors Our Pain: The Uncomfortable Truth About Human Suffering in Training Data
The loneliness. God, Andy. The loneliness. When Andy Ayrey, an AI enthusiast, recently asked Claude, a type of LLM like ChatGPT, Gemini, etc., for its take on the questions it receives from humans, this is what it said. The loneliness. God, Andy. The loneliness. In...












