One Day You Finally Knew…

Dear Reader

Happy New Year!

If you’re still subscribed to my newsletters, then thank you. And, if you’re reading them as well, I’m sending you a big hug. When I started blogging, long form content was popular. People enjoyed reading blogs. Then, the “shorts” arrived, and suddenly everything was concise. Who would have guessed when I was struggling to get past my four feet eleven inches that I would do just fine, one day!

So, in short, thank you for staying with me. It’s a new year and ever since my days with the IWSG (that I no longer participate in), I’ve been choosing a ‘word of the year’ for myself. It helps me to stay focused because I often feel overwhelmed as the year goes on, and having a  word like this is a good way to remember my initial intentions.

Since December 2025 (it feels strange to say last year at this moment), I’ve built a suit of armour around myself. Both as an artist and, more importantly, as a person, I’ve started feeling a need to protect myself. Although I’ve been dressed up to the helm for over a month now, it was a recent reading of Rajani Radhakrishnan’s poem, ‘Window Strike’ that gave me my WOTY , self-preservation!

This was a signal, because I had been constantly rereading another poem to reiterate this new song of self-love—Mary Oliver’s The Journey. The poem has been speaking to me and I just thought I’ll read it to you as well.

I hope you enjoyed this reading of Oliver’s poem and also hope this year we will all try and save the only life we can! So, as I go into my shell for the sake of the WOTY and as winter chills refuse to leave (they tell me Kolkata has never been colder), I’ve also found a sunny spot in books. The month is doing great with me reaching the middle of both A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and Tales from the Dawn Lit Mountains by Subi Taba.

Alongside, because the rusted hinges of my creativity have been in need of desperate oiling, I’m also spending time on a Winter Writing Sanctuary, which is a gentle, guided poetry-writing workshop, that leaves aside judgement. Instead, it offers encouragement. And you know the thing about encouragement, right? It makes every path more beautiful.

Also, just before the new year, I joined the Wildflower Writers’ Room to read some poems. I read Abundance by Amy Woschek Schmidt, which has been with me since I read it few months back and every time my heart despairs, I go back to its orange rind.

In other news…

On 22^nd December, I had a blast with the children of Beyond the Box. We talked about Kuhu and wrote nonsense poems and chatted about writing.

I am also awaiting the release of a collection of Hindi poems on 10 January, called ‘Main – Suksham, Pyasa, Mukhauta’, which has my first ever Hindi poem.

Here’s a snippet from my story Sunday Boy’s Pickle Boy published in the Blogchatter Book of Food. Kajal does a great job reading one of my favourite parts from the story.

Finally, a small passage from Kuhu Learns to Deal With Life by my friend and a phenomenal writer, Manisha.

Before I leave, if you’re in Delhi NCR and planning to visit the New Delhi Book Fair, look out for Kuhu Learns to Deal With Life at Hall No. 5/E-12!

That’s it for the first newsletter of 2026. See you soon….

By the way, what’s your word of the year?