The Long View Letters Issue 09 (August 09, 2026) On Friendship Last Sunday, the 2nd of August, was Friendship Day. I began giving friendship serious thought as an 11-year-old when my mother borrowed a copy of Sun Signs and handed it to me. Goodman harped on how central friendship was to the Aquarius experience (even though she said they chase quantity over quality). And I internalized it. You can imagine how it felt to idealize friendships through the frequent moves of childhood, through the...
23 days ago • 1 min read
The Long View Letters Issue 08 (July 26, 2026) The Long View Letters essays ~ miscellanies ~ invitations “For the whole world is one; you are rated a very insignificant part of it, and therefore it is right for you that you should serve your millions of brothers, rather than aggrandise this little self." Swami Vivekananda Hello, I write in the aftermath of the largest youth protest in India’s recent history triggered (in part) by some choice name-calling from none other than the Chief Justice...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
The Long View Letters Issue 07 ( July 12, 2026) Field Notes: (Pluto, Odyssey, and Pining for Daddy) After a hectic June, I rather hoped July would be quiet. My plan was to nest and rest, at least for the first fortnight. Honour Cancer season. Instead, the month has kept me on my feet – literal and metaphorical. So, this edition of The Long View Letters is more field note than essay. The internet likes to joke about Mercury Retrograde. But if the messages which suddenly popped up in my phone,...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
The Long View Letters Issue 06 (June 28, 2026) The Long View Letters essays ~ miscellanies ~ invitations Hello! It feels like a year since the last Miscellany. How are you doing? I have been practicing crosswords and making collage fodder again. Collaging is such a therapeutic process for me - it deserves a whole letter. There is also a book I recently finished reading that felt like one of the best books I’ve read in a long time — but we'll keep that for later. For now, I’ll be honest and...
2 months ago • 1 min read
The Long View Letters Issue 04 (May 31, 2026) The Long View Letters essays ~ miscellanies ~ invitations Hello & welcome to the second ever edition of Miscellanies from The Long View Letters! Corralled indoors by the threat of a forbiddingly high UV Index in these dog days, I have found myself brooding on life and times. To help me on, Spotify has curated my Top Songs of All Time. Mom has asked me to box notebooks from the last four years which have been gathering dust in the next room. In...
3 months ago • 3 min read
The Long View Letters Issue 03 (May 17, 2026) On Making a Khichdi: (And the Absence of Certainties) The truth is I love straight lines. I admire mathematical precision. If life were Euclidean geometry, I'd think it a delight (even though I hated the subject in school). For all these reasons, I admire bakers and baking. It is a science. Numbers of eggs, ounces of flour, degrees of heat, allowances for fan-assisted ovens. On the other end, a fork that comes out clean. And, as often as you like,...
4 months ago • 4 min read
The Long View Letters Issue 02 (May 3, 2026) The Long View Letters essays ~ miscellanies ~ invitations Hello & welcome to the very first edition of Miscellanies from The Long View Letters!On 26 April 2026, the internet would have you know that Uranus entered Gemini after spending eight years in Taurus, having, what I would like to call, a titanic tantrum. Imagine hiring an inventor to lay bricks as per a bureaucratic blueprint. Understandably, the wiry genius had many deep and lasting...
4 months ago • 2 min read
The Long View Letters Issue 01 (April 19, 2026) On Rereading: (And Why I'm Still on Volume IV of IX) Here is the truth: I am a writer who has often struggled with a reading habit. Picking a new book, keeping up with bestseller lists (let alone book clubs), and setting reading challenges has felt incredibly hard. Perhaps part of it is down to how I feel about reading itself. I grew up in India, where the education system emphasized learning by rote. We had to memorize quadratic equations,...
4 months ago • 6 min read