If there's one thing I'm notorious for, it's eating slowly.

Whether it was in the hallowed dining halls of my British boarding school in 2004 or navigating bustling Mumbai corporate life in 2019, the story was always the same. I’d eat bite after glorious bite at my own, glacial pace, while everyone around me, well, shovelled.

And, depending on the politeness level of my co-eaters, I’d either be left to finish my cottage pie or palak khichdi alone… or you’d find me inhaling everything as quickly as possible while everyone around me pretended to be highly invested in the idle chit-chat simmering around the table.

The point is, I’ve always preferred a slower pace of life. I’ve always been someone who cherishes every moment, every meal, mindfully and slowly.

But, somehow, somewhere along the way, I got caught up in the rat races that are London, Beijing, Singapore, and forgot to savour life entirely, instead pushing myself to get more done in less time.

I’ve always ended up in environments, friend groups, cities that run on speed, speed, more speed. Society — or, at least, the societies I’ve found myself in across the world — are big on the fast life. Yes, you may argue, that’s what happens when you live in a city.

But here’s my argument: why can’t we embrace the slow life, no matter where we are?

What daily emergency is making us wolf down our beautiful, buttery scrambled eggs every morning?

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It began, I suppose, as many a clichéd fitness journey begins: with a break-up.

I’m no stranger to heartbreak — although I often wish I was — so you would have thought I’d be a seasoned pro at this whole thing now. Which I more or less am. But, alas, this was not really about the break-up or about the person (sorry, ex). This was actually about losing a crucial sense of belonging I’d finally found in India.

You see, at the time, the relationship felt like one of the few things keeping me emotionally afloat in India, my passport country that continues to disappoint and confuse me. And so when this relatively more predictable and comforting part of my life here slowly started to slip through my fingers, I felt stranded in an ocean I wasn’t sure I could swim in.

But apart from this one, rather dramatic paragraph, I’m not going to bore you with the details of heartbreak today; don’t run away. Pun intended.

Today, we’re examining the act of working out. And no, this is not some preachy why you should work out post by a gym rat. I’m far from a gym rat. (Maybe just a rat?)

But even if this isn’t a pushy fitness post, does an act that millions of people incorporate into their daily routine without much fanfare really merit a whole blog post here, much less the first post in over a year?

Yes. Yes it does.

Because, just as that break-up wasn’t really about the person, this piece about working out isn’t really a piece about working out.

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Social media has us believe that, in order to live the proverbial ‘good life’, you’ve got to travel everywhere, read everything, watch all the films, and be in an Instagrammable, happily-ever-after relationship while you’re at it, too.

When I put it like this, it sounds wildly unrealistic. Yet, somehow, perhaps unwittingly, we’ve allowed this mindset to quietly, gently creep its way into our subconscious. And, just like that, we’ve been subjecting ourselves to the pressure that we must have it all, just like everyone else seems to.

But, of course, we can’t (and shouldn’t) have it all.

And that’s because life isn’t the number of cities you visit, the number of flights you board, the number of books you read. Contrary to what we make ourselves believe, we don’t have to do every single thing. It is A-okay to stay in the same city or town or hamlet all year. You can get through half a book a year and no one will care, I promise.

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So, I turn 30 this month. I’ll forgo the self-pitying monologue on how life didn’t turn out as expected — not because I want to spare you of it; trust me, there’s plenty of self-pitying to come — because well, while my life hasn’t turned out as expected, it's been in the best way possible.

If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll know my trajectory has been anything but ‘conventional’: a degree that took 7 years to complete, a life built across continents. And I’m now fast approaching yet another milestone that I won’t quite be completing ‘on time’: getting married.

Of course, if I were to paint a shiny little veneer to gloss over the truth, over my truth, I could simply tell you that thirty is an arbitrary number, walled in by arbitrary milestones, and that no person or society should have the power to dictate the most personal of our choices. That we craft our own timelines, and so on.

But saying all that would be disingenuous, and I’d hope this blog is anything but.

Because in reality, I do feel ‘behind’ right now. Very behind.

Should I be married by now?

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So, here’s the thing about India. Travel the country and you’ll discover it’s stunning, it’s eye-opening, it’s breathtaking. Travel the country and you’ll go through experiences far beyond anything you could have ever imagined.

In a world inundated with overpriced indoor rainforests and superfluous skyscrapers clambering to be at the top of those record-breaking lists, we are truly sleeping on India’s rich history, culture, and natural splendour.

So then why do other countries, with seemingly much less to offer, enjoy a far higher influx of tourists than we do? Why are people reluctant to visit us?

Well, because of our ugly truth: India is a notoriously difficult country to travel in.

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Perhaps a swift, breathless, round-up of everything that has happened over my last eight months of nomading through India will help you understand my why.

Here goes.

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The first time I told my friend this story, I thought it was nothing more than a casual retelling over a casual video call. His reaction, however, took me by surprise.

This story sounds just like a movie, he told me. You've got to write it down, you’ve got to immortalise it. You should be documenting all of this, Saloni — don't forget all the small yet important details.

So, here we are. Documenting those delightful details.

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‘Oh, you’re going to Goa alone? People do that?’

Yes, yes they do.

And they end up having the time of their lives.

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I’m back! Back to ‘reality’, after a blissful three-month stint in the coastal paradise that is Goa, India.

How did I end up living in India’s smallest state? Well, on the first day of August, I simply decided to fly there on a one-way ticket — with no friends, no plans, and no expectations. All I knew was that I’d stay for just three weeks and then promptly head home, case closed.

But then. ‘Just 3 weeks’ turned into 3 months. ‘No friends’ turned into a beautiful group of lifelong friends. ‘No plans’ turned into endless stunning memories of motorbike rides, waterfall chasing, sunset hikes, and even a gig working with one of my favourite authors (pinch me). And ‘no expectations’? Always the best way to kickstart any adventure.

After over a year of struggling to adapt to life in India as an ‘Indian’, it looks like I’ve finally found a home, a place where I feel I belong, right in the heart of Goa. And the entire sojourn has transformed my life for the better — I’ve come out a happier, calmer, more fulfilled human being.

All this, thanks to one little leap of faith: the decision to travel alone.

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Your life will be far more interesting if you pursue what you want to, not what you 'should'.

In the summer of 2019, my father quit his multi-country, decades-long, high-flying corporate career to leave shiny Singapore and…move to India to become a university professor.

At the time, I was entirely taken aback by his seemingly ‘left-field’ decision. I couldn’t — and, admittedly, didn’t want to — fully understand it at all. Why would you ‘unravel’ years of hard work in climbing the corporate ladder just to ‘give it all up’ and teach?

I was, of course, very naive (and very wrong).

Fast forward to today, and I see the vastly positive difference my father’s decision has had on his life. In a nutshell, the 2021 Papa Miglani is far, far happier and more fulfilled than his 2019 alter ego.

And this is simply because he chose to defy what was ‘expected’ of him, to stare uncertainty squarely in the face, and to tell convention to be on its way.

Today, I fully understand his decision. And that’s because convention may get you far, but courage will always take you one step further.

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I’ve always had a pretty strong work ethic. And when you couple the fact that I’m your quintessential mix of millennial + Twitter enthusiast + pesky perfectionist, you’ll see how I was always going to be the ideal candidate for recruitment into the deceivingly dreamy world of hustle culture.

And that’s precisely what happened last year. I got hooked on the hustle. Obsessed with optimising. Optimising my time, optimising my creativity, optimising my routines.

Somehow, somewhere down the line, my passion projects went from those fun things I did when I had the time, to a bunch of chores I had to be executing perfectly all of the time.

How did I get here? What happened to the fun? To the spontaneity and the serendipity? That’s where the real creativity is born, blossoms — not in the artificial world of optimisation. I knew all this, and so I knew I had to get back to my initial mindset, stat.

The good news is that I (think I) have. I’ve learnt to relax a little.

And, at the very least, I’m fortunate to have learned a thing or two from my tumultuous ride on the productivity rollercoaster.

So, if you relate to my words in any way, here’s your antidote to the toxicity of hustle culture.

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Six years ago today, this website went live. And its most important page since that day? The Bucket List.

Of course, it was one of the website’s very first pages, and has always enjoyed a predictable, consistent flow of traffic. But there’s more to it than that.

The Bucket List holds significance that goes beyond data and footfall; significance that has grown in magnitude over every single day of the past six years.

My first employer revealed it was the list that secured my first interview at my first job. Some of my closest friendships have been cultivated in its fertile soil — these were once-strangers who discovered the line-up online, were excited (and dare I say inspired?) enough to write in, and the rest is sweet, serendipitous, friendship history. And, well, as a perpetually restless nomad, the list has long been the secure home for my unbridled travel ideas, much before it made its way online.

So, it was only a matter of time before its long-private spin-off went public, too: The Book Bucket List. Yes, it’s finally here!

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I’m tired of being lied to.

‘Aw, English food? That would be a good idea!’

‘Saloni, not even the English like English food.’

Sorry, you asked what my favourite food was, and now you’re telling me my choice is invalid?

Right then, ungrateful gourmand, we better get down to business. The business of cauliflower cheese, of crispy roast potatoes, and of gravy-soaked Yorkshire puddings.

And while we’re at it, you can do away with the masala box — we’ll only need salt and pepper where we’re headed.

A combination of (very happy) coincidences, well, coincided to bring this post into existence.

First up, we have my brother who, having recently made his way to England, is steadily discovering the joys of the local fare, one malt vinegar-soaked cheesy chip at a time (preferably consumed while being spattered with the sorry-to-bother-you drip-drip-drizzle of rain that can only be English).

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TW: Brutal honesty and excessive self-indulgence.

It appears I’ve come up against a roadblock, of sorts, when it comes to scribbling away on this blog. Every time I turn up here — you know, ‘show up’ to ‘do the work’ like every upstanding member of the creator economy — inspiration seems to be elusive, at best.

And if said inspiration did exist at all, it promptly drains out of me the very moment I log in here — sometimes in slow, steady, drips, sometimes escaping in one large, unwieldy, gush.

Either way, it’s absent.

Based on some extensive overthinking, I think we can boil it down to two key culprits (I was serious about the self-indulgence).

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The more I read, the more my reading life has become a dipstick test for my overall life — a clear reflection of what’s bubbling beneath the surface of the everyday.

If (by some small miracle) I’m actually feeling relaxed, it’s almost guaranteed there will be more reading happening, thanks to that increasingly rare, pure, concentration that a calm state tends to gift us.

If, however, I choose to ditch the books and instead tumble into bed for a low-to-no attention 1-hour YouTube session, we’ve got an indicator that something is (seriously) off. It comes as no surprise, then, that the frequency of my reading slumps always seems to be a function of the stress I’m under.

Try examining your reading habits at any point in time, and you’ll likely get a pretty accurate picture of your headspace in return, too.

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“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.”

For me, for you, for most others, 2020 was the year of home confinement. And, of course, that confinement didn’t simply disappear with the dawn of the new year.

When the first lockdown hit, I – almost automatically – threw myself into blogging, into side projects, into self-discovery and self-improvement. As a result, 2020 was one of the most eye-opening, impactful, and path-changing years of my life. And that’s simply because my existence was limited to the four walls of a home, with little else but my thoughts for company.

And then (perhaps predictably), it all came crashing down. December came, and I was exhausted. Burnt out. Those months swallowed whole by a mundane mix of a laptop screen, hard gruel, and little time off – all in a city where I knew no one – finally took its long-overdue toll on me.

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What a difference a year can make.

If, on this day in 2020, you’d told me I’d be invited to speak on international podcasts, I just wouldn’t have believed you. But, I guess, that’s the power of finally taking the plunge to write online; of publicly serving up your thoughts, your experiences, for (a small part of) the world to read.

And so today, I bring you my third feature on a podcast.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record – particularly to those of you who have stuck around since day one (thank you) – the one question I’ll always struggle to answer is, of course, the perennial ‘where are you from?’

And, as it turns out, people aren’t (yet) tired of me attempting to unpack the complexity of identity, as I was lucky to be invited back on to the Bold, Brown, & British podcast to discuss the concept of being ‘from’ somewhere.

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I read 28 books in 2020. Somehow.

The past year had me wading through waves of uncertainty and overthinking – and sometimes allowing said waves to simply wash over me. But it was also an experience that made me incredibly grateful for my trusty reading habit. Reading at the end of a long day soothed my nerves more than I could have imagined, the words on the page knitting themselves into a comfort blanket of sorts, wrapping me up and whisking me away.

And so, in the spirit of sharing the transformative reading bug, I put together a mid-year reading audit in June – a round-up of the 15 books I’d read by that point in the year. Since then, I’ve gobbled up 13 more titles, making it just about time to share another set of reviews with you.

But I’m now doing things a little differently, with what my alliteration-hungry writing self is keen to call The Rapid Reading Review. Funky or lame?

Either way, this ongoing series will keep you up-to-date on my reading life, as I stack up the books and rack up the ratings. I also hope these smaller, more digestible editions will be less daunting than those overwhelmingly long book wrap-ups we tend to consume (yet not derive much value from).

For this edition, we’ve got the first 6 books I read since our last check-in – each rapidly reviewed and recommended with a star rating out of 5.

Happy reading, and happy new year.

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The past few days have been populated with a series of important video calls.

How important? Let's put it this way: if these calls were to go well, a long-held dream of mine would finally materialise, transforming into a reality I never imagined to be possible.

Naturally, I was a little nervous. The majority of my days were underscored with the muted – yet chronic – hum of fight-or-flight mode, as I poured my energy into preparing for the calls: researching, rehearsing, researching again.

And then.

The day before one particular call, a new set of neighbours decided it was time to move into the apartment next door. And along with their flatpack furniture and duct-taped cardboard boxes, they brought the one thing that has disrupted many a meeting in 2020: noise.

So much noise.

Children shrieking, parents choosing to debate those all-important dinner plans in the space outside our door, packers and movers swapping chai stall recommendations at a decibel level I would reserve solely for emergencies (but, after all, we are in India – not knowing where your next chai is going to come from is widely accepted as an emergency).

Jokes aside, my instant, instinctive, reaction to the noise was one of pure panic.

What about that all-important call tomorrow? What if the chaos seeped into it, shattering my focus, destroying the peace I so desperately needed? There had to be a way to mitigate the risk, to ensure I could stop the grating disruption from making its home in our home.

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I don’t watch sport. I don’t play much sport. I’m just not ‘sporty’. And so, I’ve certainly never understood - or made much effort to understand - the game of cricket.

Until last month, that is.

Somehow, cricket - more specifically, the Indian Premier League - has succeeded in capturing my full attention over the past few weeks. And so now, what has been an innate, age-old element of daily life in India has subtly edged its way into my life, too. (Yes, this is as Indian as I’ve ever felt, and will perhaps ever feel).

Naturally, I’ve taken a long, hard, look at how I got here. How did I become someone genuinely interested in sport - let alone television?

The only answer: the daily cricket match has become a pillar of certainty in the midst of increasing uncertainty.

Of late, each new day has been serving up a fresh helping of worries, of uncertainties and unknowables. And so, the knowledge that a cricket match will be broadcast live on television every single evening, of having the match accompany the rhythm of my routine, has been an immense source of calm and comfort.

And why am I holding on so tightly, so fervently, to this particular comfort?

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Nomophobia: The fear of being without your mobile phone.

Last week, I set out on a rare excursion into the real world, on the hunt for a loaf of sourdough and a good book (you know, the essentials). On the heat-soaked walk home, a familiar - and dreaded - hot/cold shiver washed over me. I hadn’t checked my phone in over an hour.

Where was it? What had I missed?

I stopped on the side of the road and began to frantically scramble through my bag - haplessly squishing freshly purchased jamun in the process - as I searched for the all-important smartphone.

And, sure enough, it was there (as it always is). But as the phone made its way into my hands, a thought was increasingly making its home in my mind: nomophobia.

Before this year, I’d been very fortunate to avoid any dependency on my mobile phone. I’d happily abandon it for hours, and was a firm believer in the power of flight-moded afternoons. But now, here I was, caught up in an almost out-of-body experience, tangled in a wholly unnecessary flurry of panic.

How did this happen? How did I succumb to the irrationality of nomophobia?

One thing is clear: the pressure to always be switched on, is switching me off. It’s time for a solution, for a proverbial nip in the bud. So, here we are.

Here’s my take on how we can cope with a life shifted online - a life rife with worries of the technological kind.

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