A Year in Writing 2025: Art, Emotion, and the Ideas That Shaped My Inner World

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On Motherhood

As a Writer-At-Large and primarily as a mother, I wrote about Kanu dappika, the longing of a mother to see her children in A Mother’s Words for the Ache of Missing Her Children. I beamed in joy when they literally and metaphorically were touching grass in: They’re Touching Grass! Small Joys of Parenting Gen Z. I revisited an old poem to talk about intergenerational reckoning at: Child Bearers of the World – What Remains. I wrote so many articles about digital education for parents including ones like these: Internet Safety for Parents: Protecting Kids in the Digital Age – Essential Tips & Strategies.

On Living

Live like a Carpe Diem type of person and stop waiting for permission. Here’s the philosophy meets praxis moment: Live Out Loud. I wrote a living will on how I want to be remembered as. I actually mostly wrote it as a device for my children and loved ones to hold on to, in case they miss me. If I Die Tomorrow, Let This Be My Final Message to You. And since no one wrote me an essay for my birthday, I wrote myself one LOL. Read it here at: The Festival in My Heart: How I Learned to Live Between Rage and Grace. I also want to challenge to live a superb life of service and satsang. And I write about it here. Let’s Reimagine the Übermensch: Creative Freedom in Service to Something Greater

On Humor

What’s life without humor. I found proof that my foul mouth makes me admirable. Here’s how I Found Out I’m A Saint. How can I call myself a writer and not lament on how others are living their lives. So I wrote about Kris Kardashian as: News for the Unemployed: Kris Jenner Got Plastic Surgery and Now Looks Like Kim’s Twin. LMAO.

On Crossing The Line

I started dwelling into something I’ve never done before. Write NSFW poetry. Yup, totally won’t be amusing my mother with any of those ideas. Talk about being a dissapointment child LOL. Jokes apart, let’s not pretend that we have lines we don’t want to cross. Find the anthology here at: These Poems Are Not Safe for Polite Company. I wrote Don’t Kiss Me. Yet. to see if it will set the sheets on fire. Based on feedback I’ve received, it seems it did. One of my favorites is a prose poem I wrote, Arrested By Your Gravity: A Philosophical Freefall Into Desire. Hope you like them.

On Nostalgia

I went to my home town only once this year, but wrote about it a million times. Here at: What a Street Food Vendor Taught Me About Vijayawada’s Soul, here: How I Travel to My Village Poranki Anytime Without a Passport and here: Nostalgia in Ruins: Watching My Childhood Home Fall and My Memories Rise. I also wrote about Bengaluru because its living rent-free in my heart. You must visit. And wrote about the Magestic Nile and all the lessons it taught me with its grace and free spirit.

On AI

Like everyone else who’s tuning into even 1% of the news these days, I obsessed about AI. At work and at writing and in my daily life, I tried my hand at it. I wrote about its impact on writers at: When AI Gets Flirty and Writers Stay Human in The Digital Era. I prompted it and found out it understands my voice to a great extent. ChatGPT Wrote a Story in My Voice and It Is Scary Accurate. I tried to understand how it was changing relationships for children, teens and adults in: When AI Becomes More Human Than Humans: Relationships, Intimacy, and the Age of the Promptstitute. Finally, I ask the ethical question that bothers me the most. Who Owns Ideas Anymore? How AI Is Hijacking the Internet’s Original Thinkers.

On Arts

Everyone has an origin story. Here’s mine on becoming a writer. Read it at, The Night I Claimed My Voice and Never Looked Back. I wrote about the fabulous words of Rilke at: Life, Art, and the Power of Solitude: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. I wrote about the Hunger Diaries and the unbearable pain of the autobiography of Mavis Gallant’s The Hunger Diaries: A Writer’s Struggle, Sacrifice, and Passion in 1950s Spain. I started learning Carnatic music and started understanding what I was singing. Read it here at: Karpura Gauram Karunavataram – Shankara’s Timeless Mantra on Shiva, Shakti, and Non-Duality.

Thank you for your readership and engagement.

Books Fall From The Sky In China Town SFO

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On How To Write.

Writing Hacks, Compelling Story Telling And Essays On Life

“To me, a short story is a conversation between writer and reader, since only the writer can speak, she must take care to respect the reader, to avoid telling him what to think, to say as little as possible and imply the rest with metaphor, ellipses, allusive dialogue, pauses.” ~ Edith Pearlman on Writing