Milwaukee Masala

  If there’s one rule you could break, what would it be? Maybe it’s an extra hour in the day, or one less working day. Maybe it’s the law of physics, or the mysterious black hole where all your unmatched socks vanish. Maybe it’s the quiet rule that keeps your mornings just a little too ordinary, your streets just a little too predictable. I recently explored one of these “rules” in a story — a rule that seems harmless at first, but the more you notice it, the more it changes the way you see everything. Curious? You can read the full story on my Medium publication: Read the full story → If that little spark made you pause, there’s more where it came from. My Medium publication is full of stories that twist the ordinary, spotlight tiny absurdities, and invite you to question the rules you’ve always taken for granted. Discover more stories →

  When the Sun Oversleeps A quiet vignette for early September I’ve been noticing these moments. Cataloging them, really — little shifts in air, light, mood. But I haven’t been writing them down. Not yet. Not until now. Finally got the first one out — before it slips away, lost in the mist of my mind. This is the start of Still Season — a slow, wandering series about weather and feeling and the space in between. Not essays. Not poems, exactly. Just quiet snapshots from the year, caught before they fade. Here’s the first. When I wake, I wonder if the sun has overslept The seasons change. So do we. Still Season is a yearlong collection of quiet hours — the hush of snowfall, the weight of humidity, the first golden leaf. Mist, wind, thaw, bloom. Each entry catches the moment between what was and what’s next. These are vignettes of weather and mood, stillness and shift. Noticing the sky. Listening to the air. One breath at a time. One season at a time. When I wake, I wond...

How anniversaries, national holidays, and teenage chaos collide across two continents. Anniversary circled. PTO denied. Laundry wins. Any time an Indian learns the date of my wedding anniversary, there’s a pause. Then a smirk. “Ohhh… poor guy. Lost his independence forever.” Cue my eye roll. Everyone sympathizes with the groom.  A nd me? I’m just the extra in this rom-com called life, clutching a wilted rose. The truth is, in our family, anniversaries don’t just mark romance—they come stamped with historical significance. Stick with me—there’s a surprising logic to it all. From dinner cruises and hot air balloons to a single rose grabbed on the way home with a quick,  “Happy Anniversary, I guess” —after a quarter century, I’ll take it. Especially in a family where anniversary dates are picked not just for sentiment, but for their spot on the national calendar. My parents got married on January 26—India’s Republic Day. Patriotic. Poetic. Comes with a guaranteed parade and a pub...

  How Far Friendship Travels ☕️❤️ Zoom out: Kolkata. Friendships weren’t declared, they just were — forged in mango-sticky afternoons and fights over kul (sour plum), sealed by pinky promises and whispered secrets. My earliest BFFs were family: Dida (grandmother), Mama (maternal uncle), and Chhoto Kaka (father’s youngest brother) — the ones who told stories, were my caregivers and babysitters, and were there when the world felt too big to handle. Summer vacations back in Kolkata stitched those bonds tighter — my first cousin would patiently take out fish bones from my plate, gently mending our out-of-practice bond from Delhi. Friendship, after all, often looked like small acts of care. Cut to: Delhi. Friendships cemented over twelve years of school — secret crushes, Saraswati Puja celebrations where we dressed in saris, making us feel grown-up, heard, and seen, and student council politics fought with more passion than any exam. College days meant sneaking out of lecture...

 For Shejo Kaka Some uncles buy you toys. Mine smuggled me into theaters with leaky roofs, slipped me warm biscuits off conveyor belts, and re-routed grocery runs into full-blown snack pilgrimages. A few short months ago, he passed away. This is my tribute—part love letter, part food tour, part mischievous field guide. My Shejo Kaka didn’t just take me places. He revealed them. (For the uninitiated: Shejo Kaka was my father’s younger brother—the third of four sons. But no family chart could capture what he truly meant to me.) He opened doors into secret worlds. Picture a Bengali Willy Wonka—not in a purple coat, but in a soft white kurta, eyes twinkling, with a look that said, "Let’s make some trouble." And trouble? He understood it intimately—from both sides. He was, shall we say, an early adopter of creative asset management. Imagine a schoolboy in rural Bengal, cash-strapped, needing some pocket money... maybe for a kite or a mutton cutlet. There’s a big drum of rice in th...

Guava—that crunchy bite, the explosion of sweet-tangy flavor that lands somewhere between a pear and a strawberry. There’s just nothing like it. I haven’t had a proper one in over a decade, and maybe I’m romanticizing it by now—taste memories have a way of ripening over time. You don’t get that here in the Midwest. Not really. But when coworkers-turned-friends travel in from the southern neighbor to the U.S. of A., and they bring guava candies and spicy tamarind ones—the good kind, with just enough kick—it’s like a shortcut straight to your childhood. The kind of taste that says: hey, you’re not home, but you’re not entirely adrift either. Speaking of coworkers... I once worked with a brilliant young engineer—Berkeley grad, true-blue nerd. Let’s call him Mr. Q. One day, we were walking back from the cafeteria. Mostly me talking, him enduring. By the time I got back to my desk, my work laptop was lighting up. Messages from all corners of the office: “Wait, did Mr. Q just laugh?” “...