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Five Years of Asking Questions

Five years ago, this didn’t start as a project. It started as mental noise. The kind that shows up after conversations end. The kind that refuses to leave when the room gets quiet. The kind that keeps asking why long after everyone else has moved on. There was no plan. No roadmap. No expectation that this would last half a decade. I just needed somewhere to put the questions. So I started writing them. Not answers. Questions. And somehow… that became The Strange Science. At first the questions were small. Personal. Almost accidental. Then they started connecting. Why do we obey authority so easily? Why does love feel essential and terrifying at the same time? Why does silence feel uncomfortable even when nothing is wrong? Why does attention feel scarce in a world that never stops talking? At some point I realised something uncomfortable: I wasn’t writing to reach conclusions. I was writing to stay honest with uncertainty. Writing became less about explaining the wor...
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Sixteen Years In, and Still Here

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 If you had asked younger me why I loved Scouting, I would have talked about camps, games, uniforms and badges. Those were the visible answers. The easy ones. The kind you can explain in a sentence. Sixteen years later, I am still in the movement, and the answer feels very different. It was always the people. Scouting has quietly existed in almost every phase of my life that I can remember clearly. Schools changed. Responsibilities changed. Goals became bigger and more serious. Life became faster. But Scouting never really left. And neither did the people who came with it. There is something unusual about friendships formed in Scouting. They do not follow the normal timeline of friendship. Sometimes you meet someone for a few days at a camp and end up carrying that connection for years. Sometimes months pass without talking, but the moment you meet again, the conversation continues as if it never paused. No explanations needed. No awkward distance. Just familiarity. Over the y...
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A Year in Transit

 If I turn 2025 into a list, it behaves nicely. It lines up. It performs. It looks like I had my life together. But years are sneaky like that. They cooperate only when you flatten them. In real time, 2025 was messy. It was me constantly packing and unpacking, not just bags but versions of myself. Different rooms, same questions. Different cities, same tired reflection in the mirror that asked, “Okay, but when do we stop running?” I spent most of this year being “on”. On stages, on panels, on trains, on deadlines, on WhatsApp calls that started with “quick thing” and never were. I spoke about systems, justice, youth, climate, mental health, futures. I spoke convincingly enough that people assumed I had it figured out. I did not. What I did have was momentum. And momentum is dangerous because it feels like purpose even when it is just inertia. There were days I felt deeply aligned, like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing work that mattered, surrounded by people w...
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Why I Stepped Away: An Honest Reflection

 So, I have been away from instagram - not posting constantly, not updating my page on time and rarely putting up stories. This was because I was feeling burnt out, overworked and even a little overwhelmed with everything going on and me stepping into a new decade of my life. I consciously step away from instagram every year during pride month, but this time it extended by another 3 months for me. Now, why am I even talking about this? The reason is quite simple, people assume that everyone who is posting about their achievements , accomplishments and accolades on instagram must either be very happy in life or at least have a good enough mental health - but, I am trying to show everyone the dark side of this, not to demean anyone but to show that everyone at the end of the day is a human.  Coming back, I stepped away because posting became overwhelming, while deciding my self worth. I became a part of the rat race where everyone does things only for recognition and started to ...
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A Year I Didn’t Think I’d Survive

Exactly a year ago, today I took my first step into the classroom. Like always I was a little too early and there were barely any people around. Looking for my class, I stumbled into a staff room and foolishly asked where the Department of Criminology was, foolishly, not because I was the guy who came in 19 days late but because I asked that question in the Department of Criminology. Little did I know that the friendly professor who patiently asked me a few questions and figured out which class I was supposed to go to would be the Head of the Department. Interestingly, I had chosen an outfit completely out of place - I wore a shirt on top of which I decided to put a sweater vest. Very, I mean very out of place given the Chennai heat at that point in time. This led to me being called the "sweater guy" for a while, and fortunately or unfortunately, I still am the sweater guy but I ofcourse don't put sweaters now. After coming back home I was certain of one thing - I would n...
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Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
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