Karina Pandya

Gone are the days when we prepared a long list of grocery items to purchase for the week. We live in an age of instant gratification, where goods are brought right to our doorstep via delivery apps such as Zepti, Instamart, Blinkit, Swiggy, and other 10-minute delivery apps. With the rise of these apps, urban India is changing the way it eats, shops, and lives.  What once began as ‘Grofers’ in 2013, a simple grocery delivery service, transformed into a major delivery app in 2021 through its rebranding. This was not just about rebranding and changing the name; it was about changing the entire game of service. What was the promise behind this? It was about quick delivery with speed, a promise of delivery to your doorstep within 10-15 minutes. This became a very convenient option for people. By 2022, Blinkit had also become part of the famous food delivery family – Zomato, which was backed by funding, smart tech and serious measures for speed. Life at one point in time was very slow, ...

  Writing Touching Void… Surviving a Car Accident was like reliving my past. It was not only a cathartic process but also a resurrection. It meant revisiting memories and the darkest corners of my life, reliving the trauma not for the pain but for healing. This book was, after all, a source of healing for me more than anything else. Through each chapter, I peeled back layers of my fear, resilience and unexpected hope. It was not at all easy, but I wanted my story to serve as an inspiration for other people who went through a similar situation; that they, too, could find hope, as I did. It wasn’t at all necessary to do, but I wanted my story to reach people. This book was about choosing life again.   It was in these pages that I rekindled the strength within me, and I started to rewrite poetry, something I had taken a long hiatus from. It just wasn’t about the accident but about the silence that followed. The strength and the slow rebuilding of life. Each word was like stitchin...

  Before I began writing Inside Mumbai: Stories from the   Heart of a Vibrant City, I found myself staring at a group of children whom I had taught at Angel Express Foundation (AXF), an NGO that works to bridge the education gap for children from under-resourced communities in Mumbai.     AXF wasn’t just about academics for the children. It was about discovering grit, ambition, humour, etc., that were packed into the lives of these children who had more wisdom in them than their years had even suggested.   Each student I interacted with brought a new layer of Mumbai to life. Some girls were so ambitious, balancing household responsibilities with homework, and countless others who engaged in little acts of courage that didn’t make the news but deserved to.      Those few interactions I had with the kids and the hurried monsoon goodbyes shaped the emotional fabric of my book, Inside Mumbai: Stories from the Heart of a Vibrant City. Th...

For years, before my graduation and perhaps even after, I never really understood the various types of ‘content’ that existed. I just understood one word, and that was content, but it was only after I started working did I know the magnitude of how many different types there were. My second, third, fourth, fifth and current job designations all involve content but in various ways. From being an SEO content writer, social media executive, and copy-editor to an author and having dabbled with report writing, I think I have tried my hand at different types of content. Content is not just content, I learnt; there is a whole business of content that drives the market forward. Content is so essential for commerce, and turning ideas, stories and information into assets which engage, convert, and even generate income is so important. You may be an author, blogger, brand, agency or play smaller roles such as an SEO or Social media content writer, but the outcome will always be the same. What is ...

  “Mumbai doesn’t sleep—they say. But in its sleeplessness, it dreams in seven languages, drinks chai with strangers, and tells a thousand stories.”  That was the starting point of my book Inside Mumbai: Stories from the Heart of a Vibrant City. As someone who has walked through the lanes of Fort, Kala Ghoda, caught the last train from Churchgate, and interviewed citizens with courage in their voices, I wanted to capture a version of Mumbai that isn’t just glamorous or gritty—it’s alive. This book follows seven young journalism interns at The Indian Express—each from a different background, each trying to navigate a city that is as unforgiving as it is inspiring. I structured the book around Mumbai’s seven original islands, blending fact with fiction, journalism with emotion. Because I believe storytelling and journalism aren’t far apart. Because many of us grew up in cities without pausing to ask—Who are we amidst this chaos?  And because Inside Mumbai: Stories from the ...

  Finding yourself and creating yourself can be one of the most overwhelming and often challenging things to do in life. Often, when we reach 18 or, at the latest, 21, we think we have everything figured out, but this is far from perfect. It’s the time when not only are we allowed to drive, but we also start our careers and are given our first taste of independence and freedom.     Although being an adult is generalised, there are stark differences in the maturity of both. At 21, we are generally told to find ourselves as if we had actually misplaced our personality somewhere between college lectures and Instagram reels or forgotten it on a bookshelf. At this age, it is the time to try to backpack, to flirt with veganism, join a poetry or book club; basically, do anything and everything. There is no clear sense of direction. It is at this age that we say yes to nervousness, no to stability, and we think that we have found ourselves after having visited a booksto...

After the release of  New York Wakes to Culture , I knew I had to write a book that captured the vastness and chaos of Mumbai. But this one was different—shaped not just by structure, but by the city itself. While I followed a similar narrative format—seven journalism interns and one lead character, Mahi—this time, each intern had a specific lens through which to view the city: Culture, Crime, Love, Disparity, Mythology, Historical Context, and Transportation.  This wasn’t just a compression chamber of experiences—it was a newsroom furnace. Each chapter was inked in urgency. And each intern—Mahi, Mariya, Kiara, Aditya, Vihaan, Ritvik, and Shiva—didn’t just live on the page. They lived inside me. They bickered, stumbled, fell in love, and grew—like every writer’s inner voice racing against a deadline. Ironically, I had no deadline. I wrote as per my whims, driven only by inspiration and the pulse of Mumbai. The Indian Express setting wasn’t imagined—it was symbolic. It mirrored...

  When people hear the word epilepsy, they often think of seizures and that it is just one more “neurological condition”. However, what they don’t know is that living with such a condition can weigh you down tremendously, and that is more than just the neurological condition, but also battling the side effects of the medications as well. What people don’t realise is the number of pills that are required to fight such a neurological condition. Some of the most common side effects include weight gain, foggy mornings and the silent battle that is assiduously fought.   I have been living with epilepsy for 30 years now, having been first diagnosed with this condition when I was 9 years old. While my current medication combination includes Brivazan 100 Mg, Lacoset 150 Mg, and Fycompa 2 Mg, the medicines that I have been taking since my diagnosis in 1995 have over time progressively changed. While the medications have been effective in seizure control, I have been silently fighting u...