Karina Pandya

Over the past decade, India’s mental health landscape has undergone a visible transformation—from a largely silenced and stigmatised topic to an active and evolving public conversation. What was once confined to hospitals and clinical spaces has now expanded into workplaces, schools, social media platforms, and everyday family discussions. This shift has been driven by growing awareness, rising life stressors, increased digital connectivity, and a younger generation that is more open and accepting of mental health concerns. Together, these factors have fuelled the rapid growth of India’s mental health ecosystem. Therapy and counselling, once viewed as urban and elitist services, are now increasingly accessible through online platforms, mobile applications, and multilingual resources. Widespread smartphone usage has enabled individuals, even in smaller towns, to explore mental health information privately and without fear of judgment. Teletherapy has further bridged geographical gaps, a...

Life does not always offer answers. More often, it leaves us holding unresolved emotions—uncertainty, quiet longing, and the acceptance of moments that arrive without closure. These feelings surface in many forms: breakup monologues we rehearse in solitude, nostalgia-tinted reflections, or gentle affirmations we lean on for comfort. And yet, amid all this emotional noise, Hindi music has a rare ability to soften the edges. It doesn’t silence our feelings; it steadies them. Songs like  Tujhse Naraz Nahin Zindagi , especially in SANAM’s rendition, invite stillness. They make me pause, reflect, and reconnect with life’s quiet tenderness and emotional honesty—without demanding resolution. Hindi music has never belonged to a single era. It grows with the listener. A song that once felt like a simple love story in youth slowly transforms, over time, into an expression of longing, memory, or quiet acceptance. This evolution is what gives Hindi music its endurance. Rooted in simplicity and...

Life can feel like it’s always rushing. Days move fast, one after another, and it’s hard to hold onto any of them. Time slips by before we even notice it. And yet, the things that matter—thoughts, feelings, conversations—move slowly. They stay with us. They echo. We start things and forget them. Tea goes cold because no one stays long enough to drink it. Feelings fade because no one sits with them. We try to keep everything together by planning more, tightening routines, and filling every hour. As if holding tighter will stop things from falling apart. People are always moving—on buses, trains, sidewalks—but their minds are somewhere else. Replaying old talks. Worrying about what they lost. Pushing feelings away for “later,” even though later may never come. Faces stare ahead, not with hope, but with habit. Being still feels wrong now. Silence feels awkward. Rest has to be planned, timed, and earned. Even slowing down feels like another task on a long list. And yet, small moments still...

Memories arrive without asking, the way grief does. Uninvited. Unscheduled. I leave his number in my phonebook because deleting it would mean accepting that it is finally over. And I’m not ready to make something final when it never felt finished. The last message still sits there like an open door—though I can’t tell if it was ever meant to be open, or if I imagined that part. Maybe it was rhetorical. Maybe it was already closing while I stood there, waiting. I keep rereading it, searching for a hidden meaning, a pause I missed, a sentence that explains itself if I look long enough. There’s no punctuation. No grammar. Not even a goodbye. Just the end of a thought. And I wonder if this is really how endings between friends are supposed to happen—so abrupt, so unfinished, so confusing. I tried for months to understand what led to this finale. I built stories in my head, stacked possibilities on top of each other until they collapsed under their own weight. None of them explained why he ...

  My thoughts always followed the same theme: attachment and longing. But were they even worth delving into so deeply—worth rethinking why they existed the way they did? Perhaps not. Still, I kept analysing and re-analysing my behaviour as if it truly meant something, as if there were a hidden agenda even my subconscious knew nothing about. Why do my thoughts always crave the same pattern, the same uncertainty?   I kept asking, again and again, as though the answer were just around the corner. But I could never logic my way out of it, never conclude this pattern of behaviour. Did I even need to understand it, or were these simply thoughts in motion—flows I was unnecessarily shaping and compartmentalising? Thoughts came and went, and I knew this movement was central to my existence. But did it always need patterns, explanations, meanings—answers my fidgety mind insisted upon? Maybe I was thinking this way because, months later, I was still grieving the end of something else. Ma...

Maya had learned that keeping the peace often required her to shrink herself. Over time, it became second nature—smiling through discomfort, laughing at jokes that weren’t funny, convincing herself that silence was a sign of maturity. People called her easygoing because she never caused a scene. What they didn’t see was how much effort it took to remain that way. She was a writer, though she rarely said it aloud. Her words lived in half-filled notebooks, unsent documents, and forgotten notes on her phone—quiet attempts at finding a voice she was still learning to trust. Like her confidence, her writing was always in progress. When feedback was kind or thoughtful, she listened easily. But when it came wrapped in cruelty, she told herself it was just honesty. She believed that—until one evening when it wasn’t. His comment was tossed casually, laced with sarcasm and a dark humour that landed harder than he seemed to notice. The room stayed light, almost indifferent, but something tigh...

She fell in love with echoes—but did they even exist anymore?  She reminisced about the way he used to lean in when he spoke to her, as if every sentence  was measured and mattered. There was a version of him who stayed up late just to talk about  nothing and everything all at once. He believed closeness was something you chose every  day. He knew how deeply his silences and unguarded moments affected her. There were other versions of him, too. The hopeful one who made promises easily. The tired one who arrived late to conversations or replied half-heartedly. The distant one who smiled without having much to say. Each version quietly replaced the last, and she hadn’t noticed the loss until it had settled in completely. The present version was polite—perhaps even kind. He remembered details as they were spoken, feelings as they unfolded. When she talked, he listened with careful posture and thoughtful attention. Loving him came naturally, but it became an act of remem...