ARTIST. GRIOT. ACTIVIST

When my kid was 10 months old, her father got diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and they told him he had 6 months to live. When suddenly faced with your own mortality while you stare at the future in the eyes of your infant child, it does funny things to your mind. Those six…

I have pondered a lot lately about domestic abuse. The complexity of it is that it has many faces and sometimes it is hard to see beneath the surface to recognize it for what it is, both to the abuser and the victim. I have had a personal experience of it but I cannot tell…

You know how when you socialize with in a foreign country and you try to learn a word or two of the local language, there is always a dim wit that wants to teach you the curse words and sleazy phrases? Yes, I found a few of those over the years, some milder than others.…

When I was growing up, the one thing I recall hearing from my father very often is “There is no dignity in fighting”. As far as he was concerned, every conflict can be resolved with dialogue. Some dialogues can be handled between the conflicting parties and others will require a mediator, but no matter how…

The thing about humans is we have an innate ability to cry one minute, wipe away the tears the next minute, stand up straight and step out into the sunshine and carry on, with the rest of the world. We all do that. So it is not absolutely surprising to find yourself in the constant…

Yesterday was my birthday and I spent it (like I normally do) contemplating how I had spent the past year, what I’d like to improve on, and what I’d like to do differently or drop off altogether.For some reason, none of that lingered long enough. My mind kept going to the image of Amy Cooper…

There are a lot of things I learned from my father that (sadly) I never paid heed to till after his passing. He used to say “if you are feeling sad (negative energy), go and make something with your hands (creating being positive energy) and if that doesn’t work, do something nice for someone else”.…

We’re in the second month of social isolation. When it all began, we expected it to last only a few days, at worse a week or two. But then the days began to reveal the depth of the situation and the gravity of it all towards our health and safety, and soon a week became…