Karina Pandya

Every one of us faces incidents that shake our world—job loss, rejection, financial pressure, drops in confidence, or the end of a friendship or relationship. Yet what can feel most threatened is something that takes years to build: our dignity. Self-dignity is how you treat yourself when the world isn't clapping. It is the ability to see that you still have worth in your own eyes, even when circumstances try to convince you otherwise. It is the recognition that you deserve respect, that you are more than your current problem, and that your value does not disappear because you are struggling. Dignity is calm, steady, and often private. You do not need an audience to be worthy of respect. When hard times come, they often bring criticism, comparison, ridicule, mistakes, and slower progress. In such moments, you may begin to doubt your worth. But none of us was designed to be perfect. Self-dignity is how you treat yourself when nobody is applauding. It is the quiet decision to remain ...

It’s two weeks before I turn forty, and I woke before the sun’s rays lit the surrounding world. Something in me was restless, not in the usual way. My soul was awakening, and I could feel it. I made my tea and sat on my bed, swallowing all the emotions that had been moving through my heart and soul from the night before into this new morning. Forty. In fourteen days, I would turn forty. The number felt heavy when I heard it, like a suitcase packed for someone else. Inside were old birthdays, long-lost loves and friends, and the jobs I had performed over the past twenty years. Where was I now, and what was the future holding? So many doors had closed softly while others had slammed shut. I had imagined turning forty very differently. I thought it was the age when you were finished, when old age began to settle in. But now I felt the opposite. It felt like a beginning, a reawakening, when I finally started to understand things about myself and about life. I was free from robotic conditio...

Have you ever considered that when you are chosen by someone, bonded, or feel emotionally safe with another person, your brain knows it? It truly does. Shifts in neurochemistry are part of the evidence. The brain registers connection as security. But when romantic love is absent, the mind doesn’t simply shrug it off and move on. Humans are, by nature, a bonding species. We are wired for attachment. When a romantic connection is present, neurotransmitters such as dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin increase. These chemicals reinforce pleasure, trust, motivation, and pair-bonding. Love, in many ways, is a neurological priority. It is woven into the brain’s survival design. If there is no partner, however, the attachment system does not power down. Instead, it can heighten sensitivity, increase rumination, amplify longing, and trigger stress responses. The brain may interpret disconnection as a threat, activating some of the same neural pathways involved in physical pain or danger. Yet at...

  Every February, Colaba turns into a vibrant buzz of activity. What once began as a modest arts gathering near the iconic bronze black horse has grown into something far larger, spilling across streets, galleries, and historic institutions. The festival map now extends toward landmarks such as the  David Sassoon Library , transforming familiar neighbourhoods into unexpected stages, exhibition walls, and conversation hubs. For nine days, the city rearranges itself around just creativity. A Festival You Walk Into Music drifts from one lane. A theatre performance unfolds around a traffic island. Children sit cross-legged at workshops while parents hover with cameras and coffee. Somewhere, a poet gathers a quiet crowd. The festival embraces music, theatre, dance, literature, cinema, food, craft, and an enormous range of programming for young audiences. Lakhs of visitors arrive from across Mumbai, many returning year after year with the comforting certainty that art is y...

  No one wakes up on their fortieth birthday with everything figured out, do they? There’s no sudden wisdom download. No magical disappearance of fear or insecurity, is there? It all yet exists. What really changes is your ability to manage them better. There’s no immunity to heartbreak. No special spectacles that suddenly make you choose perfectly in love. But somewhere along the road to forty, something does shift. Your tolerance and maturity change. Anxiety is no longer mistaken for excitement. Curiosity is no longer confused with alignment. What begins to matter is what settles your soul — not what temporarily stimulates it. You start noticing who truly shows up in your life and who doesn’t. Where your energy returns to you and where it quietly drains away. This is when you raise your standards. Not because you’re snobbish. Not because you think you’re above anyone. But because you finally understand what works for you. By now, you’ve seen enough beginnings to know they don’t m...

Cats and ridiculous tales are, in fact, two very serious ideas when it comes to doing their job of entertaining people. Readers want to be charmed and allured by words and scenarios—but how exactly do you do that? Ridiculous tales only work when rules are followed, and these are not your everyday rules. When I was writing the short stories for  Purrfectly Ridiculous Tales , I learned that even absurdity requires boundaries. If a cat could speak, yes, that was fine. If a teacup had opinions—and excellent ones at that—and if gravity simply forgot its job, then it was even better. However, once the nonsense was established, there was no going back. There was no need to apologise or panic that something had gone wrong. These 25 stories shouted at the top of their lungs by treating the impossible as mundane and letting the reader do the job of catching up! Maybe you could call it  selective seriousness  being just as committed to how ridiculous something happens as to what hap...