Every day, my mother watches YouTube videos about traditional medicine, nutrition, and staying fit. Almost every day, she discovers something new. Sometimes it is a new ingredient. Sometimes it is a new way to prepare something we have eaten all our lives. And sometimes, it is an instruction that finds its way straight into my kitchen. Recently, it was moringa. We had to mix moringa into the flour before kneading. Other times, it was jowar. The form might change, but the message stayed the same: we could always add something more to our food to make it healthier. She then wonders why her grandparents and parents never told them about the nutritional value of what they ate. Perhaps they did not know these things in the language we use today. Or perhaps they understood food differently. Today, YouTube has become her teacher. It tells her what to eat, what to avoid, what to add to our flour, and what our bodies might be missing. Every new video seems to reveal another secret to good healt...
A message to all my readers When I first began writing down my stories in this quiet space, it was nothing more than an open diary. A place to put memories that needed somewhere to rest, reflections gathered over a lifetime, and thoughts that felt too personal—or perhaps simply too ordinary—to share in conversation. Conventional wisdom often suggests that personal musings rarely accomplish much on the wider internet. There are no frameworks here, no quick advice, and no polished agendas. Just the raw textures of life as I have experienced it: the sudden turns, the quiet routines, the moments of doubt, and the steady work of beginning again. Recently, as a small corner quietly crossed 30,000 reads, I paused to look more closely at the numbers. What moved me was not just the milestone itself, but where those visits were coming from. While some readers join from home here in India, so many of you are reading from entirely different corners of the earth—from Singapore across the seas ...