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A Night To Remember
I came home and couldn’t go back to bed without cleaning my kitchen countertop with my hands. As I cleaned, I thought of Brandon and how he was a human like me and not a hand that refilled my hot water, brought me extra napkins, or cleared out the empty plates on our table.
But, hey, here’s my ask. I want you to listen to those quiet crackles in the background, the ones of desire and longing to be the best you can be. The ones that feel forbidden, and the ones of love that don’t follow any norm. And you know what I think?
Read the essay HERE.
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When Life Happens, You Write
When you’re a writer-at-large, you let life happen to you. That way, you let your eyes steal everything that you see, put a spin on it and spill onto paper / machine some “stream of consciousness” kinda cool stuff. And if I am a true writer-at-large, it’s only fair that I must observe, muse and write about it.
When Men’s Vanity Becomes a Requirement: How Social Media Turned Self-Improvement Into Obsession
A decade ago, I had a Korean coworker who put my skincare regimen to shame. I used to be annoyed at him for not leaving a single lick of hair on his perfectly groomed, smooth skin. He blamed it on his culture’s beauty standards — and the fact that his wife was a...
AI Safety Leaders Destroyed by AI Agents: The Ironic Collapse Everyone Saw Coming
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Love For My Lava – A Poem by Rachana
It’s not a recurring dream —it’s my childhood in technicolor. I’m in Eluru again,first-floor balcony,colored baby chicksstrut past the open street sewer. Over the brick wall,police cadets march —stiff, precise,the way colonizers drilled them,looking ridiculous under...
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...
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...
Filters, Fraud, and Fame: Why I’m “Hiring” Kim K as My Life Coach
The Open Letter to Kim K Yeah, once in a while I write posts like these, the kind that disappoint my parents and my kids alike. But, who else will stick it up to Kim and her klan? Uggh, so I will do the needful. This one is going to be special. I’ll tell you...
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...
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...
A Speck on the Sahara – Read by Rachana
https://youtu.be/ob4pSskh2pg Want To Listen To The Article Instead? - Sipping Tea In The Sahara One early morning in late December, we set off on a three hour journey from Cairo to Dahshur. As we passed village after village, lush green fields...
Carl Sagan Didn’t Just Explain the Universe — He Explained What It Means to Be Human
Every time I come across Carl Sagan’s quotes on my social media feeds, I pause. I take time to reflect on what he was trying to say. When I moved to the US 24 years ago, I spent a lot of time in libraries, reading books and articles that might give me insight into the...
Totally Reckless – Micro Poetry by Rachana
Hi, thank you for reading my micro poems about desire, risks, and the attempts at being unforgettable. I mightsend a photoI’ll regret tomorrow. you askedwhat I’m wearing —I can’t describethe nothing on. I’m hereinventing our futures— all of them...