October 31st 2025, San Francisco

I wanted to remind myself of who I am, where I’ve been and how I came to be. And so I decided to read through my journals starting 2023, specifically November 2023. I called it The Great Breakdown then but I know now that there were greater “breakdowns” to come ahead for me. I now know better to just call it the unravelling or even the withering of a flower that is past its bloom if only to make room for another season of fresh blossoms.

Do you remember the show The Crystal Maze? The British show from the 90s with the bald guy? Well, that’s how journals from 2023 felt like. Like a woman who has done her best and given it her all and is rushing towards the crystal in the maze, panicking to complete whatever whack-a-mole challenges that sprung up in her path before times up, while also ardently wishing for some magic escape from this labyrinth of time and space. 

I was 38, living in a brick-walled Chelsea apartment, walking to work on The High Line to a job close enough to my dream, single, never married, no kids, dating loops of men and arriving at the same spot again and again. It was also the dawn of many realizations—futility of my misplaced ambitions at work, absurdity of a lawyer suggesting it would take me 55 years to get an American Green Card despite working in the country non-stop since 2010, gradual shutdown of systems starting with my body and secretly dreading which system would fail me next. 

I could feel the walls closing in and all I could think of was escaping. A recurring image that has comforted me since I was a ten was now a permanent fixture in the ruins of my mind: looking out from the point of view of a shepherd sitting on their haunches on a mountain cliff in silence with their grazing sheep. 

My intention over the next few days is to post journal entries from the last couple of years or to post net new ones in an attempt to find a singular thread across all these journals and thousands of words I have staring back at me, to answer the one eternal question: Veridis Quo?

Veridis Quo - Daft Punk

“Veridis quo” is a wordplay on the Latin phrase “Quo vadis?”, literally, “Whither goest thou?” or “Where are you going?”. The greater meaning of the phrase is, “To what purpose?” or, “To what end are you doing this?” http://daftpunk.wikia.com/wiki/Veridis_Quo

​​Thomas Bangalter on Veridis Quo-November 24, 2000: Veridis Quo is really weird because we can’t really remember the meaning of this track anymore at all. Veridis, there is different explanations for veridis: It could be close to veriatas which is truth, you could check in latin, but its not really that so we re still looking to see what etymological sense there is to it because veridis does not seem to have a proper match in Latin. … I dont know if we appreciate the weirdness or not. I think the state of being somewhere and realising you are in some place can be funny and can be very scary or just mystical…. I think this track is also about the loss of time and reality and space and time,. Space Continuum, A void. Like you said it was like Giorgio Moroder but it can sound like classical music but at the same time it can sound like futuristic music so its really wierd to see the future and the past like shoooo, circling. So from something that might be the music of the future, like electronic chord and harmony, but also music from centuries ago, and i think we like this idea of linking both ends. And you just get lost in the void. -the source is no longer on thump but it was https://thump.vice.com/en_uk/words/daft-punk-birth-of-robots if anyone wants to hunt the internet archives.

I know nothing. This is the humbling truth I have arrived at. This is in contrast to the pride I take in my inner knowing – the same inner knowing I am grateful for steering me in the right direction.

What I just said reveals a false belief: that this inner knowing is something I should be ‘grateful for’ rather than ‘grateful to’. This sense of knowing is not a part of me that I either was born with or cultivated. It’s just there. All I can be is grateful that it graced me.

Lately, I am able to recognize myself and thank myself for being aware of Grace and the only thing I can claim as something inherent to me is awareness itself. I am awareness.

The spell check suggests I correct the previous sentence to “I am aware,” but that implies some effort or action on my part – to be aware. It has never felt like effort or action to be aware. It always “just dawned on me” – I can truthfully claim no credit for it. Hence, all I am is awareness, and awareness is what I am aware of. Neti neti and so… I am.

A paradox resolved.

Another experiment just dropped. I seem to have a connection with J. I first noticed him in the local coffee shop near my apartment. One of those people who you cannot not notice. Not because they are loud or bizarre but because they are so present and fully alive. That was him. I noticed him and I had this feeling like I knew him. Familiarity. I had felt this couple of times earlier this year – with a guy at Esalen and a women in Esalen too. I had stopped to ask them if we knew each other or had met before. Both said no. And so I didn’t want to take a chance with J. I looked away.

Few months later I was looking for a AT teacher near where I lived. There was one 2 blocks away with double-digit reviews. It was him. J was an AT teacher who taught from his home and liked an Espresso at our local coffee shop. I want to elaborate on what happened in the 2 sessions I took with him but I don’t have patience to screenplay it out, so this is for any writer keen on doing a better job here → <insert how I felt the most intense energy shift in our two sessions. I got to know a bit and he me. I felt vulnerable lying on his AT table. It felt like he could see me naked in broad daylight – except I had all my clothes on. But I realized that he could feel/sense energy too. Awkward. Can he read my thoughts? Ugh, I should shut up. The days after our session felt like a psychedelic experience for me – for 3 days straight. I have now come to realize that thats what attraction actually feels like in the body. I now remember that while laying on the table. I remembered a poem that came to me at the Georgia O’Keefe museum in Santa Fe. 

Like Filigree. He was my perfect mirror. And I just had a crash course of expelling inauthentic energy from my body because he saw me. Wow. By negating what was inauthentic in me, he transumuted ir and that just increased my contrast.>

Powerful stuff. Which is why I never went back to him. Our dynamic was no longer like that of a teacher and student. It was more than that. What exactly, I don’t know. 

Now here’s the actual reason why I started writing this. I see a possibility and I committed to it. The possibility I see is that J and I will date, have sex and become lovers. He would cause me to become my most poised self. I don’t know yet what I’d do for him – probably erase cynicism from him. With my visa situation, he would ask to marry me. I would then email M and lay it out as is. That I’d rather marry him because I felt love with him.  And that it would be a leap of faith for both and him but that I trusted that we’d figure it out. I’m risking my life for love. If M says no, I marry J. What does M say? This is where I can’t see further. Likely because I’m not supposed to know the outcome. Best case, its beautiful. Worset case, mind has won over heart because that’s what is needed for me to because whole and balanced.

In former days we’d both agree

That you were me, and I was you.

What has now happened to us two,

That you are you, and I am me?

 – Bhartṛhari, a 7th-century Sanskrit poet (Translated by John Brough)

<insert character pre-sketch+allegations of not having ever loved>

January, 2013

Miami

Undisciplined lines of tourists walked past our outdoor table eyeing our plate of calamari. My friends, a rambunctious lot, sang along to the music playing in the beachfront bar. I took a sip of my Mai Tai and looked out emptily at the ocean. Waves, large and small, crashed on unsuspecting tourists causing a ruckus and then abruptly, and without any fanfare, retreated back into the ocean leaving the tourists dumbstruck, not knowing what to do with their soaked selves.

My friend tugged at my arm and gave me a look which universally translated to “check out that cute guy!”. I turned to catch the back of his white t-shirt as he walked by, and then he turned too, smiling an all-knowing smile. Our eyes locked.

A jillion bollywood movies paint this moment elaborately. Often with a gust of wind blowing, guitars playing, the protagonists levitating and the extras in the backdrop freezing as if stuck in time. But now there were no guitars nor any wind-tousled hair. But the music lulled into the background, the tourists froze, my friends froze, the waves froze, we froze. 

Then I peeled my eyes off him and turned back to the waves.

***

April, 2013

Washington D.C.

Armed with time-tested defenses often disguised as witty repartees, I strutted into the bar with my highest heels on for date #2. “Of all the cities in the US, isn’t it too much of a coincidence that I was put on a project which happened to be in the same city as you”?, he purred. 

I had been warned of boys like him: charming, flamboyant and unrelenting. But I knew how to maneuver my way around boys like him: smooth-talking, cocky and full of hot air. 

By date #4, we had moved past our sinuous mating dance and coasted into an unfamiliar territory of familiarity. We didn’t speak a common language that we were both comfortable with, but we didn’t seem to need one. Our stories and thoughts seemed to just flow through a stream in the vacuum between us. An intoxicating stupor of shared tales of our childhood, family, crushes, broken relationships, being a foreigner in a foreign land, ambitions and fears suffused the many bars, restaurants, alleys and streets of DC. 

Blurry as it were, I recognized that we were made of the same cloth. But his sewn and embellished parts often didn’t neatly lap over my sewn and embellished parts. I was struck with awe by his joie de vivre, righteousness and compassion and had no patience for his lack of courage, sense of entitlement and greed. 

Annie Dillard once wrote, “Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves.” By date #7, my defenses were on the verge of quitting. I stared at the gap between his front teeth, “If it interferes with your vanity, I have a dentist friend who could fix that for you.” “No way, that’s my signature. A five-rupee coin would fit between my front teeth.”, he grinned boyishly. Maybe it was at that moment when I should have known, I didn’t stand a chance against the enormity I felt coming.

***

<outline turning point section on power struggle and sex>

May, 2013

Washington D.C.

This set alarm bells ringing. So I unleashed the last of my shields, I unceremoniously disconnected from him and retreated back to the invulnerability of my apartment. Ceremoniously, I deleted his number, texts and social media but wondered how to delete him from my thoughts. 

I could count on the fingers of my hands the number of times I’d met him. How could I have fallen for something so fleeting? He didn’t even speak my language! What kind of hypnosis was this? Preoccupied with untangling the fluid conversations and outlandish events of the past month, I had trouble sleeping. More disconcerting was the discovery of my newfound ability to hear my own heart thump in a rhythmic, comforting slow hum. WebMD – the universal go-to of worriers –  narrowed it down to arrhythmia but in denial, I focused on cutting caffeine, exercising twice as much and sticking with a regimen, leaving no leeway for the whims of the heart.

***

June, 2013

Washington D.C.

One Saturday morning, sleep-deprived and drained, I settled in at the nail salon and observed the petite lady paint my nails one stroke at a time. With each sweeping motion of the paintbrush a century passed.  With each stray streak my heart paced to keep up with her fuss.  

How long does it take for paint to dry? Who even cared? 

I left her a big tip, waltzed to my MINI Cooper, checked for gas, my purse and iPhone charger. 

Google Maps – Set Destination.

New York. 

No. 

Upper West Side, NYC. 

No wait, even better. 

Saravana Bhavan, NYC. 

I recalled he lived on the street perpendicular to Saravana Bhavan. 4 hrs 17 mins with light traffic. A rookie driver, I worried about driving long distances, worried about highways, worried about big city honking but I worried the most about parallel-parking. I neatly packed my worries, stepped on the gas, inhaled and didn’t exhale till I reached Saravana Bhavan. 

***

June, 2013

New York 

I found an empty corner parking spot next to Saravana Bhavan and said my thank you prayers to the parking lords.  The lords weren’t impressed. As soon as I stepped out of my car, I realized it was the wrong Saravana Bhavan, which was different from the right Saravana Bhavan, which was 4 miles further away, which was 20 minutes more than the allotted 4 hours and 17 minutes of trauma I had allowed to inflict upon myself.

I left my immaculately parked car, hailed a taxi, stared out the window, stepped out onto the curb, spotted the right Saravana Bhavan, found the street perpendicular to it, turned a corner and then, I saw him and I was seen.

I debated evaporating versus self-immolating. Shuffling my steps, I resolved on walking towards the two men, his friend and him, sitting on the stoop of (their?) apartment smoking.  Skirting his aghast eyes, I joined them on the stoop and stared at my freshly painted toenails. Speechless.

Meanwhile the friend, presumably an audience member to his post-date rundowns, had a case of verbal diarrhea and spewed all the questions swirling in the air: 

“Is that you?”

“What are you doing here?” 

“How did you come?” 

“When did you come?” 

“Did you come for him?”

“Why are you trembling?” 

“Are you okay?” 

“What happened?”

Like I had the answers.

A much-needed meal and a bottle of wine later, I told him in great detail about the bizarreness of heart palpitations and nail painting. Not knowing what to make of it, he turned distant. “You’ve seen too many Bollywood movies.” Not knowing if that was a stance to a latent expectation, I took it as rejection.

***

July 2013,

Washington D.C.

Anticipating gut-wrenching heartache and eager to move on, I went back into my regimen. Few uneventful sunsets later I gradually discovered that my heart was, in fact, not broken. On the contrary, a thick fog had cleared to make way for a crisp, overwhelming sense of lightness. Like wispy tendrils from an incense stick, slithering into curls, it languidly infused my world. 

I woke up to a reality where the lush green leaves of the tree outside my window quivered with the wind, my thoughts wrinkled from soaking in music, the moon spoke a language I now understood, the numbers on clocks, license plates and bills had cryptic meaning to them. Curiously I had also developed an aversion to social settings, alcohol and meat and could consume half as much food but run twice as much. What was going on?

An analyst by profession, critical thinking and problem solving were my bread and butter, but this was a whole different ball game. Was I, like Mirabai who dedicated her life in devotion of her beloved Lord Krishna, to spend my days with little regard for social conventions? No, I was too much of an individualist to do that.  Or maybe I was to become a sanyasini renouncing material desires and prejudices to lead a simple life. Perhaps. But what about my Chanel and Zanotti dreams?

Why was I not heartbroken? Why was I not mad at him? What about him did I fall for? What could explain the improbable chances of us meeting in Miami, then DC and then in NYC? And what on earth were those palpitations about and now all this lightness?

Then a thought crept slyly up to me. What if I was losing my mind? 

I imagined breaking the news to my Papa and consoling him. Despite his reservations, I had insisted on leaving home and moving to the other side of the world. I had promised to be strong. I had promised to be alert. How could I let him down like this? 

What did it mean to lose your mind anyway? Is it when perception doesn’t meet reality? What is reality anyway? When does something become real? Is it real only if shared and validated? Did it matter that my reality be validated? What is even wrong with losing your mind? What is mind anyway? 

I gave up. This was beyond my intellect or imagination.

I gave in. I found reassurance in knowing I wasn’t causing anybody(myself included) any harm. Grudgingly,  I made space and allowed myself to lose my mind. I gave into the abyss of the wispy tendrils and let it take me wherever it wanted to go. What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen?

***

August 2013,

Washington D.C.

Untethered and unfettered, I soaked in the erratic waves that bashed my shores. Everyday was a new beginning. Curious, I couldn’t wait to see what new adventure was in store. Some waves brought forth deep seated rubble and some waves brought forth long forgotten pasts. Most waves brought forth boundless bliss.

I wasn’t the captain of my ship nor did I want to be. Was there even a ship? Wasn’t I just a mere spectator to this storm? I had the best seat and I didn’t want to trade it for anything else. 

But what was I to do with the body and life I was given? Could I not just park them somewhere and never return?

***

<insert long ass section on what i did to become captain >

February 2017

San Francisco

“Hey, long time no see. Want to catch up?” 

Different year, different city, different project, different me, familiar him. It had taken me years to painstakingly carve myself out and become the captain of my ship. I was reluctant to see him again after all these years. 

Like a ballerina inside a snow globe watching the world, through the glass, pass by, I saw him walk into the dimly lit bar, flashing his gap toothed smile. He recapped his last few years for me like I was the note-taker for his life. I scrutinized his torn, unsewn, unembellished parts. He seemed battered and was flailing. I watched him stuck within the cage of his reality. I watched him from my glass cage. Was this when I set him free just as he had many moons ago? 

<meh..What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen?>

<2018 outlines>

***

2022/2023

The opposite of love is not hate, its destruction

Clear up all the energy

Detach

Cut cords

Finding meaning in all of this

I went on a journey

• Experienced ego-less
• Love
• boundaryless
• Started from other end of the extreme and back tracked to who I am, crafted my self

Picking up from last time: Magic is real. My intention is to convince you of this. I am convinced but I am also the most skeptical person I know. So, I am going to stress test this belief in public so that you can look for any gaps in my test that I may have missed and burst my bubble. Not that you want to, Dear Reader, but because I want you to. These beliefs only strengthen in communion.

It’s not just that I have come to believe that magic is real, I also believe that everybody is a magician. One just need to wake up to it. 

So, if these beliefs was true, I should be able to magically realize my dreams. What are my dreams? Many. I’ll pick one that has been a constant for as long as I can remember. Finding “the man of my dreams”. Cringe, I know. I can’t even say it without putting it in quotes. But it’s the truth. I have consciously and unconsciously genuinely desired for this throughout my life and it has been the organizing principle of my life. It feels a little sad to actually write that as a feminist. The main thread of my life is not all the great experiences I’ve had nor the tough things I have overcome nor the many goals I have achieved. All of them were secondary to this very native desire. Primal desire? Maybe. 

Anyway, the point is that I should be able to magically manifest the man of my dreams. I’ve tried for, literally, decades. Failed. So, I’m gonna try one last time. Give it all I’ve got. My intellect, my passion, my love, my devotion. If this doesn’t work, then I will correct my belief that magic is real. A stretch of a conclusion, you say? Confounding variables, a data scientist would say. As a product manager, I’d say, “let’s look at the data more closely”. Which is what I’ve done. All. my. life. Made observations throughout my life, taken notes, made hypotheses and ran experiments to validate them. Like a scientist except it is life experiments to shape my self and my understanding of the world. Like “Test if I can will it to rain or thunder” or the more successful experiments like “Test if I have what it takes to get one of those prestigious high paying jobs that the 1% MBAs get without an MBA”.

So, this new experiment is quite simple. Like any good experiment, it would have a set duration it would run for. For me, thats by end of April 2025. Starting today. The Indian in me wants to check for an auspicious day/time (muhurat) but let’s go with it. I am here. Now. 

Let’s also define “man of my dreams”. Guy who is an equal partner to me in every way. I will know and feel this deeply when it happens. Thats the exit criteria. It’s a 100% heartful yes. Which has never happened with any of the men I dated. As I write this, I am skeptical. Because I have a guy in mind (but not in reality – as you will learn is often the case with me) who seems like a solid possibility except he doesn’t feel like an equal spiritually. Atleast not yet. He may surprise me. I am willing to be surprised. Heck, I wanna be DELIGHTED.

Alright, what else does a good experiment need? I need to put my PM hat on. It’s not yet natural to me to have my analytical and creative side co-exist. So I may have to come back and fine-tune the experiment. A good experiment has a hypothesis, success criteria and how it would be measured, solid experiment setup with fixed variables of duration and scope. In terms of duration, that’s based on my gut of just loving spring and April as a month in particular. And scope is what is expected conventionally – It will be in reality (not my dreams nor imagination) and rooted in standard conventions of courtship, dating, engagement, wedding what have you. The specific exit criteria is the mutual realization of our shared truth by April 2025.

Just writing that out felt exhilarating with a touch of skepticism. Because, Dear Reader, I have run this experiment many times before. The difference this time is that I am committing to both outcomes – success and failure. And that means taking the risk of wanting and getting something without fully knowing everything it entails. A leap of faith.

“Electric Zippers”, I say, touching his shoulder. He looks at me quizzically. “That’s what its made of – my bolero. Electric zippers.” He nods like he understands. “Kidding. About the electric part.”

I move to another part of the dancefloor. A definite move to signal my lack of interest in him.I have to be mindful and discerning of who I think is ready. Ready to move towards love. From lust. Not everybody is. Some people need to simmer in lust some more. Till they notice it start corroding their insides. Of their heart I mean. Disconnected from their sacral chakra. I hesitate to say “sacral chakra” for fear of being labeled woo-woo. Yet another fear installed by the collective to deter the masses from knowing the truth. Woo woo. Magic. All either silly, insane or taboo. Anyway, if you made it this far, I’ll just say it as is and then I’ll say it in a way that you’d understand.

Magic is real. Atleast as real as reality. As we know it. So, the real question becomes, what is it that we know? I don’t know about you but I have wrestled with this question for as long as I can remember. It started with me developing an internal sense, knowing and understanding of magic. All my senses, my faculties, my knowledge, my entire self knew what I had just discovered. But magic wasn’t real. It was not possible. It was just luck. Or a trick of the mind. And that was the paradox. And the beginning of my world as I knew it breaking down. 

This story is a more than a decade old. If I had to pick a starting point to this story, althoughI don’t really know the origin story. Yet atleast. Anyway, I wrote about it a few years after it happened because I felt an urge to document my experience. To whatever extent I could make sense of it.

<link to: K episode edited: actual link>

Okay, you’re back. Some things haven’t changed. I still put placeholders for parts of what I write that I can sense needs to be written but I can’t write – either because I don’t actually understand it or it feels too silly, insane or taboo to write about. 

What’s unwritten in that essay that I understand now is this: I experienced my self. It felt like the most beautiful truth and looked like love. No, not the Bollywood kinda love. It was infinite pure everything and nothing. Those in the psychedelic circles call it ego death, The ones in spiritual circles call it Self Realization. I knew nothing of these concepts – having never have tried psychedelics at that point or paid any attention to any of Hinduism, mythology or gurus, even though I grew up in India immersed deep in that culture. I intellectually knew nothing about it and my introduction to it was visceral and experiential. Which is how, I have since come to understand I learn and understand everything. I can’t seem to really understand words unless I have experienced the emotion the word represents. Before that, it’s just words. Like “capital gains” and “tax loss harvesting ”. Whatever. 

For simplicity, I’m going to call that experience as me coming to the realization that 1/ I was a person. 2/ we are all just people and we are all the same energy with varying magnitudes and complexity in different costumes. But essentially the same core enegry. 3/ we are all connected. 4/ the natural world – trees, plants, animals – can all talk to me in their own language like babies do – nonverbally 5/ karma and dharma are key organizing principles.

I dropped some heavy assertions there. So, if you are still reading even if out of skepticism, bear with me. I was skeptical too. For 2 years post-incident. 2 years where I questioned my sanity. And then questioned why I understood this so clearly when most around me were oblivious to it. And then wondered if it was like the movies and I was the main character and somehow woke up to my superpowers. Back to questioning my sanity and illusions of grandeur. At a point, I read the wikipedia of Ramana Maharshi, an Indian sage, I didn’t know of but chanced upon as I googled symptoms of a variety of mental illnesses. It had a blurb about how when he first “awakened” he thought the “devil had him and he went into isolation”. Unlike him, I didn’t think anything sinister was happening with me because I felt the most alive and happiest I had ever been but I felt like I had permission to explore the possibility that I could be like Ramana Maharshi. Eventually I came to the conclusion that this was just a natural phenomena of me waking up to my self. As hard it was to wrap my head around it, that was simply the truth I had arrived at that felt the most true.

What about the guy in question? I know, you are curious. It went nowhere. For years after he would ping me every now and then. To “keep track of me” as he’d say it. I eventually understood that he played the role of a mirror to me – I saw the reality of who he was and who I was. Tiktok girlies call it a trauma bond. Felt like it. Seems like I managed to transmute whatever karma there was into pure love – for him, myself and everybody around me. 

After 2 years of hermit mode, I was at a crossroads. As a young women in her late 20s, with a promising life ahead of her, would I choose to continue to live in the matrix or would I opt out. Opting out to me meant becoming a sanyasin in the Himalayas. I personally knew of a sanyasin from my undergrad days in India. I even checked in with her during my 2 years of elated, joyous, self-discovery and doubt and she said something which I think of as a totem to this day: “There is a fine line between mysticism and madness.” She and I had concluded that I was on the right side. But I was and have since been very cognizant of this fine line and the risks involved. I have also never forgotten the lesson of having anchors to ground me. Real world people who I deeply trusted. For me then, it was this sanyasin. Now, it’s my family. And going forward, I hope that it is you Dear Reader. By telling you as it is and was, I hope that you will point out any blind spots I may have. You may not know me like my family, but who really knows anybody? People know us to the extent we know and express ourselves. This note is my attempt to express myself. And stating the intention that this is how I would like to use this space and our time together. In return, I wish to offer what I know to be the truth. Love. The most beautiful truth there is and ever was.

For now, just imagine me wearing my favorite bolero. The one with Electric Zippers.