A garage. A loft. A cupboard. A suitcase under the bed. A plastic bag inside another plastic bag because, obviously, that also has potential.

In my house, it’s the garage. In yours, it might be the kitchen drawer, the guest room, or that one shelf nobody opens unless there’s a family emergency.

This is not a story about clutter. Not really.

It’s about the strange, funny, very emotional way we keep saving things for a version of life called “later.”

It is also a little bit about the hoarders of our families.

In my case, it’s my mum. She has always had this very specific relationship with things. She doesn’t just see an old bedsheet. She sees backup. She doesn’t just see a box. She sees future use. She doesn’t just see a pile. She sees effort, money, memory, and the possibility that one day, somehow, this exact thing may save the day.

And honestly, that is the part I understand.

What I don’t understand is when “saving” becomes “forgetting,” and the thing kept for later quietly becomes the thing nobody can find, use, donate, repair, or even emotionally defend anymore.

The Garage Has Receipts

My mother is usually very happy not taking my help with household cleaning and organising.

Which is fair. Because the second I enter the scene, peace leaves the group chat.

She is the kind of person who will run an entire house, remember where the turmeric is, know which neighbour borrowed which bowl in 2017, and still insist that the one faded dupatta in the back of the cupboard has “some use.” Her brain is basically a household archive with emotional subtitles.

So when I question the archive, naturally, the archive questions my audacity.

As long as I mind my own business, live out of the suitcases I’ve brought home, and don’t look too closely at anything, all is well.

Then one of two things happens.

Either she asks me to “go keep this there,” or I notice something I was never meant to notice.

Like clothes from when she was my age.

Or old bags.

Or random fabric.

Or something that has been “kept safely” for so long that even the thing itself has forgotten its purpose.

And that’s when the fight begins.

Everything Is Useful If You Believe Hard Enough

To be fair, she’s not entirely wrong.

During my fashion design days, I did use old clothes and fabrics to repurpose them into new designs. Very sustainable. Very creative. Very “look at me saving the planet with one old kurta.” But here’s the problem with saving things for later.

Sometimes, by the time later arrives, the fabric has gone bad. The stitches don’t hold. The quality has died. Or worse, you forget you saved it in the first place and end up buying the same thing again. So now you have the old thing, the new thing, and the emotional burden of both.

Cute.

The Indian Home Runs on ‘Kaam Aa Jayega’

If you grew up in an Indian home, you know the sentence.

“Rakh do, kaam aa jayega.” Keep it. It’ll be useful.

This sentence has saved many things from death. Old containers. Bedsheets. Dupattas. Wires. Notebooks. Gift boxes. Broken bags. Clothes that no longer fit anyone but are somehow still “good material.”

And listen, there is history there.

For a lot of our parents, saving things wasn’t a quirky habit. It came from scarcity. From not having enough. From knowing the value of money. Growing up in homes where you didn’t throw something away just because you were bored with it.

So no, this is not me saying our mothers are wrong.

It’s me saying maybe the “later” they’re preparing for has quietly taken over the house. And with my mother, “later” is not laziness alone. It is a habit. It is an attachment. It is also the mental load of running a home where every object has to be accounted for, every expense has to be justified, and every perfectly usable thing feels rude to discard.

The Problem With Later Is That It Has No Calendar Invite

My mother’s usual defence is simple.

She has to do everything in the house. Nobody helps. Everything is on her. Organising is also another task added to the pile of tasks already waiting for her.

And honestly? Fair.

Decluttering sounds cute on the internet. In real life, it means bending, sorting, dusting, arguing, deciding, donating, carrying, and then listening to someone say, “But why did you give that away?”

No wonder the pile becomes a “later” pile. The donation bag sits in one corner. Then moves to another corner and somehow migrates to the garage and becomes part of the architecture.

Not a Mom Thing, a Letting-Go Thing

The funny part is, this is not just my mother.

My brother has been holding on to notebooks from standard 11.

Standard 11th. He doesn’t use them. He doesn’t need them. He probably doesn’t even remember what’s inside them.

But touch the drawer, and suddenly it’s a heritage site. For him, it’s not about scarcity. It’s about comfort. He arranges his things a certain way. His space feels familiar. Even if he’s not using half of it, knowing it’s there makes him feel settled.

And that’s the thing.

Some people hold on because they grew up with less. Some people hold on because change feels annoying. Some people hold on because deciding is exhausting.

Some people hold on because their mess has become their comfort zone.

So no, it’s not a mother thing. It’s not even a money thing. It’s a letting-go thing.

Minimalism Meets the Middle-Class Cupboard

Watching The Minimalists: Less Is Now makes living with less look almost too simple.

The documentary follows Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, better known as The Minimalists, as they talk about how owning less can make space for more actual life.

Lovely thought. But Indian homes complicate minimalism. Because here, an extra bedsheet is not just an extra bedsheet. It is guest culture, emergency planning, middle-class memory, and “what if someone needs it?” folded into one.

Minimalism says: keep what adds value. Indian homes say: but what if this random cable adds value in 2031? And that’s where the real work begins. Not in throwing everything away.

In asking: Is this still serving me, or am I just scared to let it go?

My Personal Rule: Keep the Story, Not the Storage Problem

I’m not someone who believes everything old must go. I keep things too. I keep letters, clothes that still feel like a version of me, small objects that carry a person, a place, or a time I don’t want to lose. I understand the drama of a thing becoming more than a thing. Sometimes a random top is not a random top. Sometimes it is a whole era with sleeves.

But I do have one rule. If I can tell you why I’m keeping it, it can stay.

If the only reason is “maybe later,” “just in case,” or “I forgot this existed but now that you’ve shown it to me, I feel emotionally attacked,” then we need to have a conversation. For me, the difference is simple. Keeping something should feel like care. Hoarding it should not feel like avoidance.

Some Things Are Memories, Some Are Just Dust With Confidence

There are things worth keeping. A sari that belonged to your grandmother. A letter. A childhood toy. A piece of clothing that carries a whole person inside it. Something that still makes your heart do a small, dramatic thing.

Keep them properly. Store them with care. Give them space and respect.

But the broken wooden chair that someday a carpenter will come and fix? The top you haven’t worn in six years?

The notebook from a tuition class you emotionally left behind in 2018? Maybe not. Not everything is memory.

Some things are just objects with excellent PR. Memory deserves preservation. Clutter just demands accommodation. Know the difference. 

The Marie Kondo Method, but Make It Family Drama

With my brother, the calmer route works. You can’t just storm in and say, “Move your things, I need this space.”

That will activate the defence system. You have to tell him, gently, that you know this is difficult. That you’re not here to destroy his entire emotional ecosystem. That you just need him to look at the things and decide what still matters.

Once he gets there, he usually realises he doesn’t need 100 things. Maybe he needs 10.

Fine. Keep the 10. But let the 90 go.

That’s the most practical version of the Marie Kondo idea. Not everything has to “spark joy” in a poetic, Netflix-approved way. Some things can simply be useful. Some can be meaningful. The rest can leave.

With Mothers, You Need a Strategy and Snacks

With mothers, it’s harder.

You cannot simply tell them what to do. That is not how Indian households work. That is how you get a 45-minute speech on everything they have done for you since birth.

You have to help. You have to sort with them. You have to show them what has gone bad, what hasn’t been used, what someone else could actually use, and what is only taking up space.

And most importantly, you have to move fast. Because if you leave the donation pile unattended for too long, it will be reviewed, reconsidered, rescued, and returned to the garage.

The trick is not to fight every time. It is to explain why something can go.

Why it won’t be used. Why someone else may need it more. Why keeping everything is not the same as valuing everything.

Don’t Wait for the Big Clean

The easiest clutter to deal with is the clutter you never create. When you’re about to keep something, pause for five seconds and ask yourself if it has an actual place in your life or just a possible one.

Because if everything gets promoted to “later,” later eventually needs an entire garage.

And if you already have a later pile? Give it a date. Not someday. A Sunday. Take an hour. Put on music. Make coffee. Get everyone involved. Homes don’t belong to one person, and neither does the responsibility of looking after them.

You don’t have to become a minimalist overnight. You just have to stop making “later” do all the heavy lifting.

Before You Ask, What’s Wrong With Hoarding?

Technically, nothing.

Keep what you want. It’s your house. Your cupboard. Your emotional support carton.

But also, let’s be honest.

If you keep things you never use, you make less space for things you actually need.

If you store things “for later” and never find them later, you buy more.

If something could help someone else but is sitting in your garage collecting dust, its usefulness is basically being held hostage.

And if your home starts feeling heavy, crowded, and chaotic, maybe the things are not just taking up space.

Maybe they’re taking up energy.

The Real Test Is Honesty

Maybe the real test is not whether something sparks joy.

Maybe the real test is whether we are being honest about it.

Will I use this? Do I know where it is?

Is it still in good condition? Does it mean something to me? Would someone else use it better?

Am I keeping it because I love it, or because deciding what to do with it feels like work? That last one is usually the problem. A lot of clutter is not attachment. It is postponed decision-making wearing sentimental perfume.

Keep the Meaning, Lose the Dust

The point is not to become a minimalist monk with one chair, two plates, and a beige linen wardrobe.

The point is also not to shame our parents for saving things.

Maybe they saved because they had to. Maybe they kept because life taught them not to waste. Maybe “later” was once a very real survival strategy.

But maybe now, we can update the system. Keep the things that hold meaning. Keep the things that still serve a purpose. Keep the things that make you feel rooted, loved, or quietly happy.

Let go of the things that are only sitting there because no one had the energy to decide. And the garage, finally, gets to stop being a museum of postponed decisions.  Because somewhere in the garage, my mother is probably still saving something for later. And if I come back years from now, I have a feeling it’ll still be there.

Waiting.
Dusty.
Confident.

Fully convinced its moment is coming.

The post Somewhere In The Garage, My Mother Is Still Saving Things For ‘Later’ appeared first on Voicey World.

There’s a version of life you don’t recognise when you first step into it. It doesn’t announce itself. It just quietly becomes your normal. Learning which grocery store is closest. Finding the sunny corner of the room. Buying another plant even though you promised yourself you wouldn’t. Then, just when it starts feeling like home, you’re packing boxes again. And only while leaving do you realise you’ve been living a life built on temporary addresses all along. 

The kind where home is never one place. Just a series of rooms that held you for a while.

I moved to Pune with five suitcases in June 2018 for my undergrad. That was my entire life.

No “I’ll take this later.”
No cupboards left behind at home. Just everything I thought I needed, zipped up and carried with me.

I lived in a PG first for seven months. Three girls, one room, cupboards that filled up too quickly.
Somewhere between fashion college and growing up, my things started multiplying. More clothes than the cupboard could hold. Fashion magazines I kept “for inspiration.” My favourite coffee mug. A corkboard with polaroids and receipts from random café visits. Plants that somehow survived hostel life. None of it was expensive. But together, they stopped the room from feeling rented. 

The room didn’t grow, but my life did. So it started feeling smaller.

Then came the one BHK in Feb 2019 for the next three years. A friend, a slightly bigger kitchen, a little more breathing room. We bought stuff, a lot of stuff

Then we started playing house!

Added plants, photographs, and hung fairy lights. For the first time, it felt like we weren’t just living; we were staying.

Until we weren’t.

She left. I stayed back in that same house, surrounded by things that once felt shared. I didn’t decorate much after that.
Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know if I was staying long enough to put that effort in. 

Then came another move. A job in a different part of the city. Long commutes. Expensive rent. And a version of me that was starting to get scared of comfort. So I left again in March 2022. This time, into a home I built with someone.

And this one, I gave my whole heart to it. New curtains and fresh plants.
Cushions, bedsheets, things for the kitchen, we didn’t really need but wanted anyway. A refrigerator that made it feel like permanence had finally arrived.

I didn’t hold back in this house. I let it become ours. And maybe that’s why leaving it hurt the most.
The relationship didn’t last. The job changed. And suddenly, everything I had carefully built became something I had to pack away.

Again.

By then, I had more than I started with. A lot more. 

So I packed it all up, once again, and moved into another house. It was April 2023, and this time, it was just me. 

Lamps, overnight bags, little souvenirs I’d picked up along the way, because I always thought, I’ll still be here. Somewhere.

But somewhere keeps shifting. And slowly, you realise, you can’t carry everything with you.

Another move, Jan 2026, this time I didn’t even try. I gave things away. Left things behind. Packed only what felt necessary.

Came back to my hometown with less than I had built, but more than I had started with. And even now, I know,  if I leave again, I’ll leave things here too.

The stuffed toys on my bed. The things that don’t fit into suitcases anymore. The things that quietly became part of my life.

Because that’s the truth no one tells you about moving, you don’t just change homes.

You shed them.

Over and over again.

So how do you live in a place you know you might leave? Do you hold back, keep it minimal, live like it’s temporary?

Or do you give in, decorate every corner, let it hold pieces of you, even if you know you won’t take them back?

I’ve done both.

I’ve lived in rooms that never knew me. And in homes that held too much of me. And I still don’t have an answer.

Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe the point isn’t to choose between staying and leaving. Maybe it’s this…

To keep building a home anyway.
Even if it’s temporary.
Even if it breaks a little every time.

Because somewhere between the packing and the leaving,
You realise it was never just about the house.

It was about who you became in it.

The post I’m Not a Minimalist. I Just Move Too Much to Get Attached appeared first on Voicey World.

I watched the film adaptation when I was 11, and that logic felt almost like a spiritual download. You see, I have always been the kind of girl who wants everything she sets her eyes on.

I used to think exactly like this.

For years, while I was in Delhi, I operated under the same logic. It made perfect sense to me because every month I’d buy a minimum of two pairs of shoes, lipsticks in the same family of browns, a blingy bag [I swing between a mini bag and a handbag, because you never know when the occasion to pull it out will arrive], and a cute top for special coffee runs.

To me, it wasn’t excessive spending; it was just variety. Each purchase was justified by the last, and each cycle was validated by the monthly ritual of it all.

I never budgeted in seven years of working. I was living the Carrie Bradshaw life from Sex and the City, under the delusion that the more I spent, the more I would earn. And I got away with it. Money was never an issue.

But then I moved to Mumbai.

Packing up, I had to look, for the first time, at everything I had accumulated, and it did not feel good. I felt like a pig gorging on food when I wasn’t even that hungry, stuffing things into my mouth and getting bigger with every bite. It reminded me of the scene in Spirited Away… [2001] where Chihiro finds her parents in an abandoned restaurant, eating mechanically and senselessly until they literally turn into pigs.

I was filled with stuff I didn’t particularly love: shoes I thought I would wear someday, clothes I thought I’d fit into when I got fitter, and, of course, the bags I could pair with all my ‘fits. TBH, if you had lowkey tossed it all away, I wouldn’t even have noticed. And the common factor was that I bought because it was trendy, or because an influencer I subconsciously wanted to be had bragged about it.

This was never a money problem. I never shopped to the point of thinking twice before buying a packet of milk by the fag end of the month. I certainly could have budgeted better, and I certainly did not need two of every piece “just in case”. But the feeling of achievement I chased with every purchase was clearly helplessness. I tried to fill a void every time I swiped my card or entered an OTP, all while eagerly tracking the last parcel’s delivery.

So I did what my dad had been telling me to do for seven odd years: I decided to finally budget. A new city requires new discipline, I thought. Maybe the problem was my location and not my soul.

One month after moving into my new place, I spent a small fortune on home decor, which I could easily have spread over the following months. I bought a floor lamp, a chandelier, a bookshelf, and a floor-length mirror, none of them necessities. I would find myself clicking Buy Now at 2 AM, and then it would arrive: what I call post-purchase clarity, which hits like cold water. Once the order was placed, the desire for the piece would vanish, replaced by a crushing wave of guilt.

That was when I realised I wasn’t spending carelessly. I was spending in a pattern that couldn’t work for me.

Desire Is Never About the Object

This is what took me years to understand.

When I buy a pair of earrings, the same pair I already own, I’m not really expanding my jewellery collection. I’m buying an image, a promise that this object will make me more myself and make me feel more seen, when TBH nobody gives a f*ck whether I wear those earrings again. I’m buying the illusion that owning it will turn me into the person I want to be. What I’m chasing is a voyage, not a destination. At the click of ” Add to Cart”, the voyage feels intoxicating, but once I unpack the order, the destination always feels empty.

This is why post-purchase clarity slaps so hard. It’s as if someone woke me with a kiss to break a spell, and suddenly I see what I bought: no dopamine hit, no gateway to a better self, just the knowledge that I had believed a lie that lasted exactly seven minutes. If desire were an object, it would vanish the moment you got your hands on it.

People treat money as just currency; I really think it is not. It is alignment. It is the pull of the eyes when you see someone stepping out of a Porsche, or walking down the street to a Boojee Café carrying a vintage Dior bag.

I explain this in a materialistic way because when we feel the weight of our being, the fact that we will leave this planet, that we are specks of dust in the universe with only finite time in hand, we start chasing goals and levels that will outlast us. What we’re really chasing is a sense of immortality, something that lives longer than we ever will. We want to be remembered, and maybe the things we buy help us give that feeling a tangible form.

That’s why values, posed as questions, actually work. Before I buy something now, I ask myself three of them.

Will this serve me in the next two years, and help me become who I want to be? Not “do I want it today,” but will it still be part of my life when the excitement of newness wears off, or will it become clutter that weighs down my freedom?

Where will it go, and what will it cost the planet? Every purchase is a vote for the kind of world I want to live in. If I can’t bear the answer, I shouldn’t buy it.

Am I buying because I need it, or because I’m bored, envious, or influenced? This is the hardest to answer because it requires me to be vulnerable with myself. Am I buying because someone I want to be like has it? Because this algorithm knows my weakness?

When you filter your desires through real values, a lot of sense comes knocking. You stop seeing budgeting as deprivation and start seeing it as a doorway to less clutter, less anxiety, and more freedom.

Because here’s the truth: I don’t actually need anything materially. I have everything [in pairs] and more. I have a lovely set of family and friends, a job I love, a healthy body, and a place I like to call home in the city I have always wanted to be in. Everything beyond that is a choice, and that choice deserves only one test: does this serve who I want to become, or does it pull me away from myself? As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club, “The things you own end up owning you.”

The crop-rotation logic made sense to me for years because variety is sweet and rotation sounds sustainable. But it’s just another way of saying, I don’t know who I am, so I’m trying on different identities through purchases. The real problem was never discipline or spreadsheets. I had never decided what I valued.

I think of those boxes in my new living room now. Each one held something I had once wanted badly, and none held the life I thought I was buying. I never wanted shoes, bags, or lamps. I wanted the person who would own them, the woman who is seen, settled, and sure of herself. An object can only ever be an object. The life it seems to promise has to be built through choices that matter, and that is the only thing worth unpacking.

The post I am the Pig from Spirited Away… appeared first on Voicey World.

I just covered my head when told, sat through the prayers, waited for langar, and accepted that adults had their own mysterious spiritual logistics. But somewhere between hearing verses from the Guru Granth Sahib, watching my nani pray to Guru Nanak Ji with complete familiarity, and eating the best kada prasad known to humanity, one thing quietly stayed with me.

Langar wali thali

Gurudwaras are so commonly associated with Sikhs, Sardars and Punjabis that I didn’t realise, for years, that our Sindhi comfort there had a whole history of its own.

Mostly because nobody sat me down with a whiteboard and said, “Beta, today we will discuss the historical relationship between Sindhis, Sikhism, Nanakpanthi traditions, Partition, and inherited spirituality.”

Rude, honestly.

Instead, like most things in South Asian families, the answer came through habit first. Through summer vacations and my nani’s routine. Through old photographs of Guru Nanak Sahib on the wall and prayers I heard before I understood them. 

Through spaces that felt like home long before I knew their history.

Well, this one is not your same old ‘suddenly discovering a new faith’ story.

It is about realising that something I thought belonged to someone else had been part of my own inheritance all along.

Before History, There Was Nani

The writer’s nani

My nani was the kind of woman who dedicated her life to her guru, her children, and then her grandkids, which is basically the holy trinity of nanihood. 

My nanu called her Kiki. She was loving, warm, deeply devoted, and had that specific Sindhi-Punjabi-Sikhni aunty energy that cannot be manufactured. You either have it, or you don’t.

The writer’s nani at the Gurudwara

She gave me my love for parandas and patiala saawars. She dressed me in clothes she made herself. Nani fed me, played with me, spoiled me in the legally approved nani way, and somehow made faith feel less like a rulebook and more like a rhythm of the house.

During summer vacations, all the cousins would gather at her home. Mornings had their own chaos. Everyone had to brush. Everyone had to bathe. Everyone had to stand in line like we were auditioning for a family version of military school. Then we’d open our suitcases, pick our favourite clothes, and get ready like our lives depended on it.

Because in a way, they did.

If we were late, nani would leave without us. Or worse, she would take only the cousins who were ready.

At Nani’s house, spirituality came with its own consequences. 

The Gurudwara Felt Like Nani’s World 

The Gurudwara she took us to was old-fashioned.  It was quiet in that way; some places are silent even when people are moving around. An elderly Sardar uncle would read from the Guru Granth Sahib. We would cover our heads, take a rumala sahib from the pile outside, enter, sit down, and watch.

The idea is simple: you enter with respect.

As a child, I didn’t know all this language. I just knew the steps.

Cover your head. Sit quietly. Don’t fidget too much. Try not to fall asleep.

My nani would read Japji Sahib, the morning prayer composed by Guru Nanak Ji. The prayers would end with ardas, the collective prayer of supplication and gratitude. And somewhere in the middle of all this, I would become completely hypnotised by the chaur sahib, the ceremonial whisk waved over the Guru Granth Sahib as a sign of reverence.

The slow movement of it was so calming that it almost put me to sleep.

Honestly, if meditation apps had chaur sahib visuals, half of us would be healed.

Then came the part every child understood without needing theology: kada prasad.

Warm. Ghee-loaded. Soft. Sweet. Absolutely undefeated.

The old sardar uncle, whom we called Babaji, would give it to us while chanting, “Waheguru, Waheguru.” I didn’t know the full history of what I was part of. But I knew that prasad felt like love being placed into my hands.

We’d come home, eat breakfast, and continue with our day. That was the routine. That was nani’s world.

And because it was nani’s world, I accepted it.

Here’s Where the Confusion Entered

Back at my paternal home, the spiritual setup looked different. There was not the same everyday Gurudwara rhythm. We did have a Sindhi Tikana, a devotional space where we prayed to a different guru, and only much later did I realise that in one section, the Guru Granth Sahib was kept there too.

As a child, I didn’t know this.

So in my head, nani’s Gurudwara world felt separate. Almost like something from her side of the family, her city and her rhythm. My paternal side felt more like a Sindhi Tikana setup, a mixed devotional space with Sindhi, Hindu, and Sikh influences sitting together in a way nobody seemed to find confusing except, eventually, me.

Because outside the home, the categories felt clearer.

Sindhi. Sikh. Punjabi. Hindu. Gurudwara. Mandir.

Clean labels. Separate folders.

But inside our families, faith did not behave like a school notebook. It moved through rooms, rituals, photos, prayers, idols, scriptures, food, songs, and grandmothers who did not pause to explain the academic framework before taking you along.

And honestly, maybe that is why it took me so long to understand it.

I Was Trying To Put Nani’s Faith Into Boxes She Had Never Used

The facade of the Gurudwara

The more I read, the more my childhood memories rearranged themselves.

In many Sindhi devotional spaces, especially tikanas, the Guru Granth Sahib has historically been kept with deep reverence, sometimes alongside Hindu deities and other devotional symbols. That may sound confusing if you are used to clean set of religious boundaries, but Sindhi spirituality has often been more layered than what most people perceive. It has carried influences of Hinduism, Sikh teachings, Sufi traditions, local saints, Jhulelal devotion, family gurus, and community practices, sometimes all in the same emotional room.

This does not mean Sindhis and Sikhs are the same community.

It does not mean every Sindhi family follows the same practices.

It definitely does not mean we can flatten everyone’s faith into one cute ‘unity in diversity’ poster and call it a day.

It means the lived history is more complicated, and honestly, more interesting.

For many Sindhi families, Guru Nanak Ji was not someone else’s Guru. He was part of the spiritual vocabulary of the home. Present in prayers and photographs. Present at Gurpurab celebrations. Present in the Guru Granth Sahib kept in tikanas. Present in the way elders spoke of faith, even when they did not explain it like a podcast episode.

Which, frankly, would have helped.

But no. We got mystery, prasad and vibes.

And Then There Is Partition

Because no story about Sindhi identity can really avoid it. Partition did not just move people from one side of a border to another.

 It moved languages, recipes, gods, prayers, scriptures, grief, habits, and the tiny rituals families kept repeating because stopping would feel like losing one more thing.

After Partition, many displaced Sindhi families rebuilt their lives across India, in places like Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, and beyond. KBS Sidhu’s essay notes that Sindhi Hindus carried saroops of the Guru Granth Sahib with them and rebuilt tikanas where Gurbani remained central to community gatherings.

That detail stayed with me.

It’s one thing to say a community values a tradition. It’s another to carry it with you when everything else around you changes.

Sindhi families rebuilt their lives from scratch after Partition. New cities. New homes. New beginnings. But many of them still made space for Gurbani, paath, Gurudwaras, and the practices they had grown up with.

There is something quietly moving about that.

At Some Point In School, This World Appeared Again

I did a project on the ten Sikh Gurus, from Guru Nanak Sahib to Guru Gobind Singh Ji, who declared the Guru Granth Sahib as the eternal living Guru of the Sikhs. I remember writing it down, learning the order, understanding the broad story, and feeling like I had touched a part of history that was both familiar and not fully mine yet.

Then life did what life does.

Boards happened. Exams happened. We grew older. Nani shifted homes. Summer vacations became shorter. We stopped going to her house for long stretches. The Gurudwara visits slowly faded into memory.

Not dramatically.

Just quietly.

But they didn’t fade from hers.

When she celebrated big wins like moving homes, she kept Paath Sahib at home, bringing the sound of Gurbani into her own space, almost as if the Gurudwara had travelled with her. For my nani, it is a love language. She didn’t just visit Waheguru Ji. She made room for that presence wherever she lived.

My childhood rituals, though, disappeared. One year, you are doing them. Then one year you are not. And nobody announced the last time.

Pune Brought It Back

A Gurudwara in Pune

Years later, in Pune, the thread found me again.

In my first year, on Guru Nanak Jayanti, my Punjabi roommate and I decided to visit a Gurudwara. I didn’t know then that this would become one of my most peaceful places in the city.

But it did.

I started going often. On Guru Nanak Jayanti. On New Year’s. At the beginning of something. At the end of something. When I wanted to say thank you. When I wanted to pray. 

When my mind needed a place to sit down and stop behaving like a browser with 47 tabs open.

And slowly, I began taking people with me.

Punjabi friends. Muslim friends. Spanish friends. Marathi friends. My Marwari best friend. Office friends. People I loved. People I wanted to know better.

Yes, even dates.

Listen. Some people do coffee. Some people do cocktails. Apparently, I do spiritual soft launches.

But it made sense to me. A Gurudwara is one of the few places where I have always felt that nobody is asking you to perform belonging. You cover your head, sit down, listen, eat prasad, maybe help, or just be. It is calm without being cold. Open without being loud. Sacred without making you feel like you need a membership card.

For me, taking someone there became a way of saying, “This is where I come from.” This is what calms me. This is a part of me I want you to see.

The Place Was Never Just a Place

The more I returned to Gurudwaras as an adult, the more I understood what nani had given me.

She had not given me a lecture. She had not explained history, syncretic Sindhi spirituality, the role of Guru Granth Sahib in tikanas, or the spiritual overlap between Sindhi and Sikh communities.

She had simply taken me with her.

And maybe that is how grandparents pass things down. Not always through explanation. Sometimes through repetition. Through where they take you. Through what they bow before. Through what they make feel normal.

As children, we think we are just being dragged along.

As adults, we realise we were being introduced.

The Part That Still Hurts a Little

Kada prasad

I had always wanted to take nani to the Gurudwara I loved in Pune.

I had told her about it so many times. I imagined sitting there with her, showing her the space that had become mine in a city far away from home. I imagined her looking around, approving it in her quiet nani way, maybe telling me something I would pretend to understand fully and then decode five years later.

But before I could take her, she passed away.

So now, whenever I go, I carry her with me.

Every beginning. Every thank you. Every quiet prayer. Every Guru Nanak Jayanti. Every time I sit there, and the world finally lowers its volume, I think of those summer mornings. The cousins rushing to get ready. The old Gurudwara. Babaji saying “Waheguru.” The kada prasad in my hands. 

My nani sitting there with a faith that did not need to justify itself to anyone.

Maybe This Was Always Mine

For a long time, I thought my confusion came from not knowing enough.

Now I think it came from being taught to see faith as something with hard borders.

But my nani’s faith did not move like that. Sindhi history often did not move like that either. It moved through migration, memory, devotion, adaptation, loss, rebuilding, and the stubborn tenderness of families who carried what mattered even when they had to leave almost everything else behind.

So when people ask why Sindhis go to Gurudwaras, why many revere Guru Nanak Ji, why the Guru Granth Sahib appears in some Sindhi spaces and why this connection exists at all, the answer is not a simple, one line.

It is history.

It is Nanakpanthi tradition. It is Sindh’s layered spiritual landscape.

It is Partition. It is my grandparents. It is the way faith sometimes arrives before language. It is the way a child can sit in a Gurudwara, not fully understanding anything and still feel held.

Maybe my nani did not introduce me to a new faith. Maybe she helped me recognise one that had been waiting inside my own history.

And maybe that is why, even now, years later, whenever I enter a Gurudwara, I don’t feel like I am stepping into someone else’s space. I feel like I am returning to something she knew before I did.

To the sound of “Waheguru” under someone’s breath. To kada prasad warm in my hands. To a faith that arrived first as routine, then as memory, and finally as belonging.

Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal

The post My Nani Introduced Me to a Faith I Didn’t Realise Belonged to Me Already appeared first on Voicey World.

I couldn’t get enough, because these characters were doing something to my mind that was unimaginable, even to me. I was so deep into it; the stories were full of complex human emotions and were presented in a very magnificent way.

I got into reading more and more about Gods, their strategies, and how they moved through the world. The more I read, the more I realised that the stories I thought I understood had so many facets. Mythology had so much more to offer because even the Gods I had grown up praying to could make me question their actions.

A character I admired in one book could frustrate me in another. Someone I had first understood through her suffering could turn out to be a warrior in a different retelling.

The Narrator Changed Whose Side I Took

What surprised me most was how quickly my loyalties changed depending on who was telling the story. These were different writers’ interpretations, not interchangeable accounts of one definitive version. But while reading, it was easy to forget that distinction.

Take Draupadi, for instance.

Water-colour painting showing Draupadi tying her hair after the defeat of Duhshasana, surrounded by the Pandavas [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

In Mahabharat, Draupadi is shown as a woman wronged by a society that failed her, and even by her own husbands. She got far less screen time and fewer dialogues than the male characters in the television adaptation, yet her rage and her vow of vengeance changed the course of history.

She seemed divine to me because of how much she endured and how the series chose to show it. She was born from fire and had to accept a life with five husbands. And when she was dragged into the royal court and disrobed, she didn’t break. She held on to her dignity and demanded justice. She faced humiliation without letting go of her anger, and that made her feel larger than life, like someone who could bear far more than an ordinary woman could.

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni shows Draupadi in a different light, as the epic’s protagonist. Her emotions take centre stage, and her anger, jealousy, pain, and pride are explored in far greater detail, along with her fight against patriarchy and society.

I was impressed by the voice Draupadi is given in this book because she is no longer a character to be looked at. I was looking at the Mahabharata through her eyes. I could read her thoughts, see her rivalry with her mother-in-law, and root for her. I understood Draupadi, and I accepted her faults and her unfulfilled desires. I grew alongside her and almost became a fan.

Karna offering his Kavach and Kundal to Indra, who approaches him disguised as a Brahmin. [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

And then came Kavita Kane’s The Wife of Karna.

This book challenged the very version of Draupadi I had built in my head.

Through Uruvi, Karna’s wife, I saw a different side of her. At Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya Yagna, the Vedic royal consecration ritual associated with establishing imperial sovereignty, Uruvi noticed Draupadi gazing at Karna again and again. It made her question her bond with him and whether any feelings still existed between them.

And suddenly, Draupadi was no longer the heroic woman I had admired in the previous book. She was someone my protagonist felt jealous of.

You know how we connect with the protagonist while reading? Imagine finding out that your partner shares a history of admiration, rejection, and humiliation with another woman, and that she still seems to hold a place in his life.

It was a strange experience. Draupadi hadn’t become a different person in my head for no reason. I was seeing her through someone else’s eyes, and that changed how I felt about her.

And this happened with Sita, too.

Sita Bhumipravesh (Sita Returning to Mother Earth), oil on canvas by Raja Ravi Varma. [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

In Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan, I watched Sita go through her hardships with very little space to express the range of emotions she might have felt. She is portrayed as an ideal wife who stood by her husband through the worst phase of his life and remained ‘pure’ even after being held captive by Ravana.

Her portrayal felt celestial to me; I admired her, but I couldn’t feel or see what those hardships meant to her as a woman.

Then I read The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Written from Sita’s perspective, it took me through her emotions, her journey, and her resolve. She was still in love with Rama, but I could see the hurt and disappointment that came with that love. Even after walking through fire to prove her purity, she forgave him. And when Rama eventually abandoned her, she wasn’t entirely surprised, because his doubt about her faithfulness during her captivity had already broken the trust between them. Reading this made me realise that Sita could love her husband deeply and still be hurt by him.

I built a soft corner for her in my heart, so much so that the book turned me into a sobbing mess at 4 am.

I thought I had finally found a version of Sita I could connect with, but then I picked up Amish Tripathi’s Sita: Warrior of Mithila.

.

Book cover for Sita: Warrior of Mithila

In this book, Sita is a warrior. She fights Ravana’s army with weapons in her hands when they come to abduct her, and she is trained in combat, strategy, and planning. The idea of her being chosen to become Vishnu was also very different from the Sita I had read about and imagined.

This version really puzzled me. The Sita I knew was now someone who could fight, strategise, and lead. I had gone from feeling sorry for her to admiring her resolve, and now I was reading a version that challenged my understanding of her role altogether.

Phew! That’s how my mind went through all this.

And this is one of the things I love about falling into the mythology rabbit hole. You don’t have to settle for the character you first encountered on television.

You can meet them again through another writer, another perspective, and another interpretation. Sometimes you agree with that version, sometimes you don’t.

And sometimes you end up questioning why you felt so strongly about the character in the first place.

An Emotion Often Assumed Is Only Felt by Humans

The Sacrificial Horse (Ashvamedha), Paithan-style painting (Chitrapathi), Maharashtra, 19th century. [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

There was something else I began noticing as I read these books. For most people, deities are flawless. They might do things that we wouldn’t normally approve of, but we believe they did them for a larger good. We see them sacrificing, protecting, and guiding us. I used to think that way, too.

But when I read about Krishna in the Mahabharata, I observed another side of his character.

Take the episode involving Jarasandha. Krishna had to relocate his people from Mathura to Dwarka to protect them from Jarasandha’s repeated attacks. But he didn’t stop there. He later devised a plan in which Bhima would challenge and kill Jarasandha. I was fascinated by how cunningly he handled the situation, using his intelligence to help the Pandavas succeed.

Isn’t this similar to how we ask our friends to deal with people who are annoying us? Once, my friend hadn’t finished her work, so I had to convince her professor by telling him she was unwell and in the hospital. I know the stakes were completely different, but Krishna used his friend to get the job done, and in many ways, I did the same.

Then there was the episode involving Jayadratha, when Krishna used his Sudarshana Chakra to cover the sun, making the Kauravas believe that the day had ended. Arjuna had vowed to kill Jayadratha before sunset, or else take his own life. Krishna’s strategy gave Arjuna the opportunity he needed.

I found myself appreciating how Krishna could use deception and strategy to get things done. These weren’t necessarily the qualities I associated with a God growing up. And yet, here they were, part of the stories I was reading.

I absolutely loved how Krishna, since his childhood, was lovingly called chhaliya [trickster] because of his playful and cunning nature, from stealing butter to helping the Pandavas win the war.

I wasn’t looking at him only as a divine figure who knew and could do everything. I was looking at his decisions, intelligence, and the lengths he would go to achieve what he believed was necessary.

For the first time, I was comfortable looking at a God through the same lens I used for other characters.

Examining their actions, questioning their choices, and trying to understand their reasoning. I didn’t have to stop thinking critically just because the person in the story was godlike.

I realised I didn’t have to arrive at one final answer every time I read something. I could look at different explanations, explore different theories, and form my own understanding.

That was a big shift for me. Earlier, I would watch a mythological story and accept what I was shown. Now, I want to know why a character acted a certain way, what another version might say about the same event, and whether I agree with the interpretation in front of me.

Mythology has made me comfortable with not having one fixed answer, and eager to find more.

Where Should You Start

A 12th-century painted wooden manuscript cover from Nepal depicting narrative scenes from Kalidasa’s play Abhijnanashakuntalam. [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

You don’t need to watch a television series before picking up a book. Start with the question or character that interests you, and keep track of what kind of book you are reading.

Rajagopalachari’s Mahabharata offers an abridged retelling if you want to follow the wider story. Devdutt Pattanaik’s Myth = Mithya explores ideas and symbols through his interpretations and illustrations. For novels centered on women’s perspectives, try The Palace of Illusions, The Forest of Enchantments, or Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen. If you want a more freely reimagined adventure, there is Sita: Warrior of Mithila. They offer different ways into the stories, not a single reading order or a substitute for one another.

You may not agree with every interpretation. I certainly haven’t. But now, when I find myself taking a character’s side, I also want to know who told me their story.

The post I Fell Down the Mythology Rabbit Hole. Here’s Why You Might Want To, Too appeared first on Voicey World.

Then the scene cuts.

Now she’s in the kitchen wearing an oversized T-shirt, tiny shorts, specs slipping down her nose, hair tied into a chaotic bun that hasn’t known peace since 8 a.m. Suddenly, this man is obsessed. He’s grabbing her waist. Picking her up. Acting like he discovered love itself next to the fridge.

The caption usually says something like, ‘Men are simple.’

What exactly is going on here? How are these creatures simple?

And every single time I come across these reels, I have the same reaction I had when it was happening to me.

Because, objectively speaking, she looked incredible in both scenes. In fact, in the first one, she looked like she could ruin someone’s life and get away with it legally.

So why does the second version suddenly feel more intimate?

The Off-Guard Theory

There’s this scene in Peaky Blinders [2013] where Tommy Shelby visits Grace at home and tells her people look different at home, off guard.

That line has stayed with me for years because it’s true. People do look different when they’re off guard.

Not uglier.

Not less attractive.

Just… softer somehow.

Less aware of themselves.

There’s a version of people that exists when they stop preparing to be perceived. When they’re sleepy. Distracted. Existing instead of presenting. And maybe that version feels closer because it isn’t performing for the world.

That’s the feeling those reels are trying to capture.

Not necessarily: men prefer messy girls.

But there’s something intimate about being allowed access to someone unmasked.

The oversized T-shirt isn’t really the point. It’s what the T-shirt represents.

Comfort.

Domesticity.

Access.

The feeling of being let into somebody’s real life instead of just witnessing their public self. And honestly? That’s kind of beautiful.

Maybe this is where the idea of exclusivity sneaks in. A woman walking out the door in a tiny dress probably knows she looks incredible. She knows she’ll be seen. She knows people will notice. Not because she’s arrogant, but because she’s human.

But the version of her standing in the kitchen at home, hair a mess, glasses on, completely off-duty? That version isn’t performing for the room. She’s not trying to impress anybody. That version feels private.

Maybe that’s what some men are reacting to. Not the clothes. The feeling that this person has lowered her guard around them in a way she wouldn’t around everybody else.

The feeling that this version exists only between the two of them.

Also, Let’s Be Honest, Women Do This Too

I don’t think this is some uniquely male psychological phenomenon. Women have versions of men they irrationally adore more too.

Post-gym boyfriend.

Sleepy boyfriend.

Boyfriend before a haircut.

Boyfriend driving with one hand.

Boyfriend making Maggi at 2 a.m. like he’s competing on MasterChef.

Humans attach emotions to tiny versions of each other all the time. Love is weirdly specific like that.

So, part of me understands the appeal of someone being ‘off-duty’ around you. Especially in relationships. Especially after the world has exhausted both of you all day. There’s something deeply romantic about the ordinary. About kitchens, slow mornings, and someone stealing fries off your plate while looking clinically underdressed.

Internet culture has shifted towards this kind of intimacy a lot. The whole soft domestic romance aesthetic. Girl dinner. Shared hoodies. Couples grocery shopping like it’s a personality trait. Everybody wants love that feels like a Sunday afternoon instead of a music video. I get it.

People Have Wildly Different Reasons for Feeling This Way

Some love the off-guard version of their partner. Some are attracted to confidence and effort and want their partner dressed up every chance they get. Some don’t seem to choose at all.

I’ve even had someone tell me that when I was dressed up, I looked so beautiful that they wanted to look at me more than touch me. The point is that attraction is personal. Two people can have the same behaviour and arrive there for completely different reasons.

Which is why conversations matter so much more than assumptions.

Quietly Carried Pressure

These reels become popular because, for a lot of women, they feel relieving. Being a woman can feel like a part-time administrative job.

There is always maintenance involved somewhere.

Hair.

Skin.

Outfits.

Weight.

Makeup.

Shaving.

Looking effortless while secretly operating like a production team.

So the idea that someone could still find you desirable when you look deeply unserious is comforting. Maybe even healing a little.

Like, okay, cool, I can look like a sleep-deprived potato around you, and you’ll still kiss my forehead. Great. Love wins. And that softness matters.

And to be fair, this isn’t something women do alone. People rise to the standards of the people they love. Men do it too.

They start dressing better. Grooming better. Caring about things they previously considered unnecessary. Entire skincare routines have probably been born because somebody developed a crush. Relationships have a funny way of making all of us want to show up as the best versions of ourselves.

Which is why being loved when you’re not trying feels so reassuring.

Because effort is beautiful. But knowing you don’t have to earn affection every second of the day is beautiful too. We should absolutely feel desired in the versions of ourselves that are casual, tired, emotional, sleepy, uncurated, and fully human.

But my confusion with these reels started when I realised how close intimacy and control can sometimes sit next to each other.

Because the question stopped being ‘Is this cute?’ and became ‘Wait… is this always cute?’

Because I’ve Also Seen the Other Version

I’ve been in a relationship where the ‘off-guard version’ of me was appreciated.

But the confident version of me was resisted. And those are two different things. At first, it’s subtle enough that you don’t immediately clock it. You think maybe he just likes simpler things. Maybe he’s protective, uncomfortable, or overthinking. But over time, the pattern becomes harder to ignore. I’d dress up to go out with him, and instead of excitement, there would be comments.

‘Isn’t that too much?’

‘Why are you wearing that?’

‘Why do you need to dress like this?’

And it wasn’t even only about clothes eventually.

It became the dancing.

The confidence. The loudness. The social version of me. The visible version of me.

The parts of me that naturally took up space. Even writing about that dynamic now makes something tighten in my chest. Not because of the clothes. The clothes were never the real issue.

What felt suffocating was the feeling that I was constantly being edited. That somebody could love me enough to stay, but not enough to let me remain exactly who I was.

And that’s a very different conversation.

That’s no longer about attraction. That’s no longer about oversized T-shirts, tiny dresses, or Internet Reels.

That’s two people repeatedly running into each other’s core nature and wishing it were different.

One person wanting to be fully accepted. The other person wanting a slightly modified version. And eventually you stop arguing about the outfit and start arguing about existence itself.

That’s a much deeper problem than the one this article is trying to understand. But it’s also why I can’t think about this topic without remembering how quickly one can start looking like the other. And I realised something terrifying: There’s a difference between someone loving your softness and someone only liking you when you become smaller.

That difference changes everything.

You Have a Responsibility Here, Too

Sometimes we spend so much energy trying to become the version of ourselves that gets the best reaction that we stop asking a much simpler question:

What if I just stayed exactly as I am? Because if a woman starts wearing baggy clothes only because she’s noticed her boyfriend prefers them, something has already shifted.

Not dramatically. Not maliciously.

Just quietly.

The same way some people become less loud around certain partners. Less ambitious. Less expressive. Less themselves.

And I don’t think that’s what love is supposed to ask of us. Let people accept you fully.

The dressed-up version. The messy version. All of it. Because the goal isn’t finding someone who loves one version of you.

It’s finding someone who doesn’t need you to edit yourself to be lovable.

Intimacy Should Not Require Shrinking

That’s the actual conflict sitting underneath these reels.

Because healthy intimacy exists.

Private versions of each other exist.

Domestic attraction exists. People become more magnetic when they’re relaxed and safe.

But there’s a line where preference becomes restriction. Where ‘I love this side of you’ slowly turns into ‘I prefer you this way.’

And then ‘I prefer you this way’ becomes ‘Why can’t you always be like this?’ That’s where things start choking. Because a woman should never start feeling easier to love when she becomes less herself.

Less expressive. Less free. I don’t even think most people do this consciously. That’s what makes it complicated.

I don’t think every guy who loves seeing his girlfriend in an oversized T-shirt secretly wants to suppress female expression. Please. Some men are literally just obsessed with messy buns and emotional support hoodies. But I do think relationships sometimes reward softness while unintentionally punishing visibility. And that deserves examination, too.

Maybe the Real Answer Is Balance

Maybe the healthiest version of love is when both versions get adored equally. The girl in the tiny black dress. And the girl eating chips in oversized clothes at midnight.

The woman who commands attention in a room. And the woman who falls asleep halfway through a movie. Because I don’t think intimacy should compete with confidence. A man should be able to adore the version of his girlfriend that feels private to him while still hyping up the version of her that exists confidently in the world.

Because clothes don’t switch intimacy on and off. A tiny dress doesn’t suddenly make someone less loving. Less safe. Less emotionally available. The version of her heading out the door looking incredible can still be the same person who’ll call you on the way home, steal your fries later, and fall asleep on your shoulder during a movie.

Which is why women deserve appreciation in both versions. Not just when they’re curled up next to you in an oversized T-shirt. But also when they’re excited about an outfit, feeling confident, and about to leave the house. Whether they’re going out with you or without you. In fact, especially then. Because if somebody loves you, shouldn’t secure love be able to handle both?

Shouldn’t it be able to say, ‘You look amazing. Have fun’ and trust that the intimacy you share doesn’t disappear the second somebody gets dressed up?

Those moments matter more than people realise. A woman who leaves feeling celebrated carries that feeling with her. A woman who leaves feeling judged, scrutinised, or quietly punished for looking good often carries that too. And eventually, it becomes difficult to understand why the people outside seem more excited for your confidence than the person who’s supposed to know you best.

We all deserve relationships where we can feel soft without feeling reduced.

Desired without being controlled. Comfortable without subconsciously shrinking.

Maybe that’s why this topic feels so messy. There’s a tenderness behind it, and how easily tenderness can become possession if nobody’s paying attention. And maybe that’s the difference I keep coming back to. Does your partner love the version of you that’s off guard? Or do they only feel comfortable when you take up less space? Those are not the same thing at all.

The post The Internet Keeps Romanticising the ‘Messy Girlfriend.’ I’m Trying to Understand Why appeared first on Voicey World.

The girl falls in love. Screws up a little. Gets her heart broken. Cries in giant hoodies for three episodes straight. Then suddenly she’s in a new city, sitting in cafés alone, journaling near windows, developing a mysterious playlist, and becoming “herself again.”

Like Belly in The Summer I Turned Pretty, going to Paris after everything falls apart. Or honestly, every coming-of-age show where the universe watches your nonsense for a while and then goes: enough. Identity shift time.

Belly in Paris, The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3.

For the longest time, I thought this was fictional behaviour. Pretty lonely. Cinematic healing. A rich-white-girl-with-soft-lighting problem.

Then it happened to me. Not the Paris part. The horrifying “I can no longer peacefully exist around myself” part. And I think that phase changes you more than heartbreak itself.

I Had Three Apartments and Zero Boundaries

I don’t think I had ever truly been alone before I moved out.

Before that, there were parents. Indian parents specifically. Which means love, concern, protection, and someone calling you seventeen times if you don’t pick up once, because obviously you’ve either been kidnapped or died.

Even after moving out, I always had people around.

I lived with my high school best friend, let’s call her M. Then there was S, my oldest friend from school, who had re-entered my life after years and somehow became part of the ecosystem too. She lived far, and I travelled to see her constantly because her apartment had something ours didn’t: freedom. Her place felt airy. Warm. Like you could breathe there. Then there was A, from college, we went to college together, attended lectures, did our assignments, and clicked on aspects where she knew the pain of fashion college. 

And I was the common denominator between all these people. None of them initially knew each other properly, but slowly everyone merged.

Which meant someone was always with me.

Always.

And listen, it was fun. Truly. We were young and chaotic and constantly moving. At one point, we had three apartments between four girls. One day at someone’s place, another day at someone else’s. Sleepovers. Tea. Fights. Random boys. More random boys. Loud music. Louder conversations.

But here’s something nobody tells you about being the “easygoing” friend.

If you struggle to say no, people slowly start occupying your life without even meaning to.

And one day you wake up emotionally exhausted because you haven’t heard your own thoughts properly in months.

The Pandemic Said: Character Development

Then COVID happened, which honestly feels like the opening sentence to every Gen Z trauma story.

People drifted. Relationships changed. We all had to grow up very quickly and separately.

M got into a serious relationship and wanted to move in with her boyfriend. S and A wanted to move in with me. I agreed initially because that’s who I was. A human yes button.

But somewhere in between, things shifted. Friendships cracked in quiet places. The vibe became off in ways too complicated and boring to explain fully.

And honestly?

I was relieved when it fell apart.

I loved them deeply, but I knew I could not survive living like that anymore.

I couldn’t handle clothes permanently living on sofas (and that’s the tiniest of filth). Random groups of people enter the house every second day. Hair everywhere except people’s heads. Constant “let’s go here” and “let’s do this.” I couldn’t focus on my assignments. I couldn’t focus on college. I couldn’t focus on myself.

Their presence started giving me actual nausea.

Which sounds dramatic until you’ve experienced emotional overstimulation so intense your body physically rejects it.

And suddenly, for the first time in my life, I was alone.

Truly alone.

I Accidentally Fell in Love With Myself There

 

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At first, I cried.

I cried because nobody was around anymore.

Then I cried because I realised I liked it.

That part felt illegal somehow.

The second COVID wave happened, and I went back home for a while. But when things started reopening, I fought HARD to return to Pune. I convinced my parents by using internships as an excuse.

The internships were real, by the way. I was not a girlboss lying. Just emotionally motivated.

And when I finally came back, I hugged my apartment.

Actually hugged it.

That tiny apartment felt like proof that I had built something for myself.

And god, I loved that place. The rent was still cheap because post-COVID landlords were also going through emotional damage. I had flexible work timings. New friends. New routines. A cute guy I had started talking to during lockdown.

Life felt soft around the edges again.

I would come home excited.

Excited.

Do you understand how rare that feeling is?

I worked out in the hall. Built a Netflix nook. Watered my plants like they paid rent. Played music while cleaning. Took ridiculously long showers because I was obsessed with my bathroom. Rearranged corners for no reason except serotonin. Sat under fairy lights pretending I was in a Paris apartment instead of Pune with questionable plumbing.

And slowly, I started loving my own company.

Not in an “I have healed” way.

In a very ordinary, deeply personal way.

I liked knowing my friends existed somewhere in the city, but I loved coming home to myself.

There’s this thing psychologists say about solitude. That intentional solitude calms your nervous system because your brain slowly stops associating aloneness with danger.

At the time, I didn’t know the science.

I just knew peace had entered my body.

Woh kehte hai na, jab life mein sab theek chal raha ho toh chul machti hai

My apartment should have been enough.

But then life started nudging me elsewhere.

The commute to work (my first job, after internships) became horrible. Like genuinely soul-removing. I would leave early, come back around 9, exhausted, clean, eat, sleep, repeat.

Then came water shortages because old buildings apparently wake up every morning and decide which new problem to develop.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, I started feeling guilty about my rent, because the landlord had never increased it after COVID.

But honestly? There was another thing quietly happening, too.

I had become too comfortable there.

Which sounds ridiculous because isn’t comfort the whole point?

But I had built such a perfect little cocoon around myself that suddenly the idea of being left alone inside it started scaring me.

My job was far away. My best friend at the time, N, had already shifted closer to my office area. The commute was exhausting me. And my boyfriend had started apartment hunting too. Somewhere deep down, I think I was scared that if everybody slowly drifted elsewhere while I stayed back in that apartment alone, the magic of it would disappear too.

 

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Everything slowly pointed toward one thing:
move.

Practical.
Romantic.
Financial.
Emotional.

Like life itself was nudging me toward the next chapter.

Then my boyfriend started apartment hunting properly.

And I did too.

We moved in together.

It felt romantic. Mature. Right.

Like the next chapter.

And for a while, it genuinely was beautiful.

Then Love Entered Very Politely and Ruined the Ecosystem

So yeah, the cute guy had become my boyfriend.

The boyfriend became my live-in partner. And slowly, so slowly, I didn’t even notice it happening, my life stopped belonging entirely to me.

Not in a toxic way. That’s what makes this harder to explain.

It happened lovingly. We cooked together. Cleaned together. Gymmed together. Worked together. Ate together. Travelled together. Napped together.

God, especially the naps. And here’s the thing about love nobody warns you about: dependency doesn’t arrive dramatically.

It arrives chemically. First, you lean a little.

Then someone starts helping with your commute. Then someone starts waiting for dinner with you. Then suddenly, all the rituals you built alone become two-person rituals.

And when someone keeps telling you “you don’t have to do everything alone anymore,” a part of you relaxes so deeply you don’t realise how much of yourself you’ve handed over.

I still liked being alone then.

But not the same way.

The girl who once cancelled plans because she wanted alone time was slowly disappearing.

And the scary part?

I didn’t notice.

Nobody Talks Enough About How Physically Horrible Heartbreak Is

We broke up once.

Got back together.

Then broke up again for real.

And this breakup destroyed me in a way I genuinely didn’t see coming.

Not because heartbreak was new.

But because I had unknowingly lost my ability to exist peacefully with myself.

This wasn’t relieving, like it had been when my friends left. I felt like I had ruined something, like something so good had been destroyed.

The first night after it ended, I had a panic attack.

I couldn’t sleep in my room because too much of him existed there. The night lamp started scaring me because its light reminded me of the conversations that ended us. I slept in the hall for days because my bedroom felt emotionally haunted.

And what made it worse was knowing he had found someone else emotionally before fully leaving me.

People love closure.

I hate it. I wish he had just vanished instead.

Some nights, I cried so hard it genuinely felt like someone had reached inside my chest through my throat and crushed my heart with their hands.

And the most terrifying part wasn’t losing him.

It was this:
I could no longer be by myself.

The same girl who once loved solitude now needed constant noise to survive.

TV sounds weren’t helping anymore.

Music wasn’t helping anymore.

Nothing was helping anymore.

The Night I Realised I Had Abandoned Myself Too

My office shifted to work-from-home around the same time.

Which meant no colleagues. No commute. No accidental human interaction. No distractions.

Then my friends got busy.

Then my flatmate left for a month.

And suddenly I was trapped alone with my own brain.

I know what you’re thinking.

Weren’t you the same girl who once loved people leaving so she could finally have space?

Yes.

That’s exactly why it scared me.

One night, I spiralled so badly that I started calling everyone I could think of just so I wouldn’t be alone.

Nobody picked up.

And then I did something deeply desperate.

I called a man I would never normally call because he constantly hit on me and made me uncomfortable.

He took me to a party.

And the worst part?

It worked.

Not because I liked him.

Not because the party healed me.

But because there were people around.

That night scared me more than the breakup itself.

Because I realised I had outsourced my emotional safety entirely.

So I Rebuilt My Nervous System in Cafés

Healing didn’t begin at home for me.

It began outside.

In cafés. In random communities. In awkward events.

In psychology clubs and salsa socials and aimless runs and stupid little meetups where sometimes nothing happened except proving to myself that life still existed outside my sadness.

I started working from cafés because being around people regulated me. Not interacting necessarily. Just existing near humans helped.

There’s this thing called the “solo table theory” online. The idea that sitting alone in public without desperately distracting yourself builds emotional confidence.

And honestly?

I get it now.

Because slowly, something shifted.

I stopped planning my life around who was available.

I started planning it around building a life I actually enjoyed living.

I romanticised my routines again. Bought scented candles. Rearranged my furniture. Met new people, even if it went nowhere. Forced myself outside. Planned trips. Joined communities.

I reversed the problem entirely.

Back in college, I had too many people around me and craved space. Now I intentionally filled my life with enough movement that coming home finally started feeling peaceful again instead of terrifying.

And one day, I physically felt it. Like a burden leaving my body. I got myself back.

I Let People Be, I Let Myself Be Too

People always tell you to “keep yourself busy” after heartbreak.

In my experience, it does work like a charm. 

So I did; I became busy being more present.

Busy enjoying myself.

Busy building routines I looked forward to. Busy trying new cafés. Busy going to salsa socials, psychology clubs and random events that may or may not become core memories. Busy romanticising my commute with good music. Busy organising my room. Busy finding new corners of myself again.

And because of that, I stopped obsessing over outcomes all the time.

If my friends were late, okay. I’d sit with a drink and people-watch. If traffic was bad, fine, more songs for the journey. If a date disappointed me, at least I still enjoyed dressing up and stepping out.

And weirdly, I became softer with my friends too. Earlier, if they didn’t show up exactly the way I wanted, I’d spiral a little. I’d get anxious, frustrated, tense. But slowly, their presence in my life started feeling enough. I stopped expecting people to carry emotions that I had to learn how to hold myself.

I stopped needing every experience to “work.”

Will this be good?

Will they disappoint me?

Will I feel lonely?

Will this be worth it?

Now I just let experiences happen.

Good, bad, awkward, beautiful, boring. Everything became part of being alive.

Because once you know you can be okay with yourself, disappointment stops feeling catastrophic.

I let people be.

I let myself be too.

And honestly, that kind of calm is a very powerful thing to get back.

I Think the Real Flex Is Becoming Emotionally Safe for Yourself Again

Not independent. Not detached. Not “I don’t need anyone.”

Actually, this whole experience taught me the opposite.

People matter immensely. Good people matter immensely.

My friends helped me survive this. Their existence helped me survive this. Knowing there were people I could call helped me survive this. But I also learnt something harder: People can support you, but they cannot build your inner world for you.

That part is your job. And honestly, I’m glad this happened to me.

The heartbreak.
The panic attacks.
The loneliness.
The rebuilding.

Because now I understand the difference between enjoying being alone and feeling lonely. I understand why your gut should be trusted the first time.

And mostly, I understand this: If you abandon yourself long enough for friends or love, eventually you will have to come back home to yourself anyway.

Now, if you leave me alone in a city, I know I’ll be okay. It’s even better at home or in Pune; I can happily enjoy alone and not feel lonely, because there are beautiful people around me who’d be available at second call if not first, haha! 

I’ll find a café.
Order a beer.
Open a psychology lecture.
Maybe make a friend.
Maybe not.

Either way, I’ll still enjoy the evening. And I think that’s the quiet kind of confidence every coming-of-age show was trying to tell us about all along.

The post After My Breakup, I Had to Learn How to Exist Around Myself Again appeared first on Voicey World.

My eyebrows relaxed, my shoulders felt light, and I felt a huge sense of satisfaction.

But how did we get here?

Let’s roll back a little…

One Interview Hit Me in the Face

It all started when I was interviewing for a content writer role, and my current manager was asking me about the things that interested me, like geopolitical issues, mythology, and feminism. And she asked me,

“Do you know about Substack?” and I nodded confidently.

The confidence lasted until this question. She asked, “Tell me about the last article you read on Substack.”

Then there was a 10-second pause.

Because I had been reading blogs and watching videos to gain information about different places and cultures. But going on Substack and reading for myself was something that I was not doing at all.

My head at that moment spiralled and went back to an ancient time when I used to read for myself, and the realisation hit me.

I Did Not Read Anything for Myself for One Whole Year!

Yes, I read about places and consumed information for my job, but what about the things I actually liked?
What about the vast world of Indian and Greek mythology that I had loved for years? What about those nights when I had to be at the office the next morning, but was still reading The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni at 4 am?

What about that kind of passion that would completely take over my mind until I wanted to do nothing but stay with my book?
And everything started making sense to me. There was nothing that I was looking forward to. The simple joy of turning a page had disappeared. The little smile that came from opening a new book and sniffing it was gone. Even the excitement of carrying home a stack of books from Daryaganj, the kind of excitement that makes you wonder which one to start with first, was dead.

[Photograph: @L’summer🌞🏄🏾‍♀️/Pinterest]

But why was this happening?

Because I Had No Hobby

I had indulged in multiple hobbies over the years, the longest being karate, which I practised for 13 years before the pandemic brought it to an end.

After that, I tried taking up other hobbies, including boxing and running, but couldn’t commit to either.

And because I wasn’t doing anything for my joy, my life began to feel strangely flat. Days became predictable: wake up, go to work, listen to the same songs, come back, eat, sleep, and repeat. There was nothing I was eagerly looking forward to.

That’s when the questioning started. Whenever I wrote something, I’d immediately start wondering:

Will people understand this?

What if I have to send a PDF to explain the perspective I wrote from?

What if they don’t get what I’m trying to say?

I started doubting my own thoughts before anyone else even got the chance to.

And I realised that with the disappearance of my hobby, my vision and my confidence disappeared too.

Then came the interview. That was the day when I promised myself that I had to read because if I was not doing something that I used to love, what was I doing then?

So, I Started With 10 Minutes

So I made myself a promise. I would read again. It may not be 50 pages or a book a week. It may be just 10 minutes of reading every day.

And surprisingly, that tiny promise worked!

The books I finished reading within six months

I read almost eight books. Some of the best books were:

1. The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

2. Myth = Mithya by Devdutt Pattanaik

3. The Brave: Param Vir Chakra Stories by Rachna Bisht

4. The Battle of Haji Pir by Kulpreet Yadav

5. The Odyssey by Homer

And I remember the feeling after finishing each book for at least six months; I was coming back to the same little feeling of satisfaction.

I Started Reading to Understand, Not to Remember

This satisfaction helped me in different ways. I was learning new things; I knew a little more than I had the day before. I had things to talk about and ideas to share. There were things I could actually engage with—not just with other people, but with myself too.

Books gave me something to focus on when I was overthinking. And you know what? I even started reading the newspaper.

The post The Interview Question That Made Me Start Reading Again appeared first on Voicey World.

Two suitcases! That was my life for a while. Them, a few boxes dumped at a friend’s place, a temporary apartment situation, one deeply confusing relationship, a job that felt like a social experiment, two freelance gigs, and one brain (cell) that would not stop asking: Why the hell do you keep making wrong choices?

You know that phase where life doesn’t gently transition? It just picks you up by the collar and says, ‘New chapter, bi*ch!’

Yeah. That.

Staying in the same city felt like it was killing my soul. If you’ve ever broken up with someone and had to exist, roaming the same cafés, roads, and grocery stores, and breathing the same air, you get it. The city starts feeling like a shared Google Drive you no longer have access to but somehow still keep getting notifications from. So I went back home, to a small town called Katni, in Madhya Pradesh. Not in a dramatic ‘I’m healing in my childhood bedroom’ way. More in an ‘I cannot afford an apartment in Pune alone, and also I don’t know what I’m doing with my life’ way.

I needed space. I needed to clear my head. I needed a job. I also needed to not spend metropolitan-city rent unless I was actually making metropolitan-city money. Very spiritual. Very practical. Very Indian-daughter coded. And then, within a month, I landed two jobs. One was back in Pune, the same city I had just run away from. The other was in Mumbai. Naturally, like a woman committed to character development and questionable plot twists, I chose the job in Pune. I know. You can judge me.

But in my defence, both jobs were paying the same, and we all know Mumbai is adorably more expensive. Romance may make you stupid, but rent makes you practical.

So I went back.

I started hunting for an apartment near my new office in Camp, and the area is… let’s just say it has the emotional texture of a bad decision. It felt like a huge step down, as I had lived in Baner for a year. Not ‘quirky old neighbourhood’ down. More like ‘will I become a true-crime headline?’ down.

There was one apartment I really liked on SB Road. Better neighbourhood and a better chance of me not texting my friends, ‘if I go missing, start here.’

The only problem? It was a good 10 km from this office and was going to be under renovation for the next month. Anyway, because I still needed a roof and could not rely on potential, I kept looking around Camp. And despite the general energy that made up the neighbourhood, I did find another place there. Just more immediate and only slightly shady.

I was about to pay the token amount. Then life, being life, dropped a LinkedIn message into my inbox. It was from an editor at one of my favourite magazines. They were looking for someone like me.

Someone like me.

Do you understand what those three words can do to a 22-year-old girl with a dream, a breakup, and no stable address?

I didn’t pay the deposit. Obviously. The selection process would take nearly a month, so I continued with the job. I didn’t commit to my apartment either and waited to see if this dream opportunity would turn into something real. Except now I had a new problem. Where was I supposed to live? Who gives a 22-year-old an apartment for a month? Who trusts a girl with two suitcases, unresolved emotions, and hope that came in the form of a LinkedIn message?

Drumroll.

My ex enters. Yes, that ex. God bless him (lol). How he re-entered the picture is a story for another time, because that relationship had its own syllabus. For now, all you need to know is that he helped me find a temporary apartment.

The flat was his best friend’s investment in Narhe, a far corner of the city, an area I was hearing about for the first time in my life. It was not ideal for so many reasons, but desperate times do not care about your standards.

Seeking that help was killing me a little. My self-respect was standing in one corner with a clipboard, judging me. But I also couldn’t afford to self-respect my full-time accommodation plan. So I took the help. Not because it was uncomplicated, but because sometimes survival is not aesthetic.

A nervous system running on vibes and Google Calendar.

AND THEN the job I had moved back for started showing its real face.

While it had a decent setup, a coffee machine, and some sense of freedom, within days the company moved us into a bare room with white walls, white desks, white lights, and the emotional warmth of a government waiting room. I had moved cities for this job, and suddenly I was wondering if this was character-building or just a bad decision. But the office was only part of it. I had joined to write but was suddenly handling client communication I hadn’t signed up for, while being micromanaged over every message, line, and piece of research.

And then there was the politics. ‘Let’s take a walk’ never meant fresh air. It meant someone was about to tell me who to avoid, who was ‘too slow’, and how I, the junior-most person there, should manage conflicts between people twice my age.

It felt less like a workplace and more like high school with invoices. Then my appointment letter arrived with a salary lower than what I’d been promised. If they couldn’t get that right on paper, how was I supposed to trust the magical three-month hike they’d sold me?

There were some perks, though. I made a great friend there who was also being professionally tortured like me. There is nothing like trauma bonding in a corporate office. But the setup? The workflow? The toxicity? The fake promises about hikes? The way juniors were used as pawns?

It was, and I say this with editorial restraint, F*CKED UP.

I was trying to act like this was all part of a plan. It wasn’t.

It was a pickle.

Actually, not even a pickle. It was the entire achaar jar falling off the shelf.

And through all of this, my brain’s (last) cell was doing what anxious brains do best: turning every inconvenience into a full-blown investigation.

‘Should I have stayed home? Should I have chosen the other city?’

‘Should I have made the relationship work? Should I have taken the apartment?’

‘Should I have thought more carefully? Oh shit, I have not been eating healthy!’

‘Should I have become a person who makes better decisions and drinks more water?’

But somewhere in the middle of all this, one Sindhi saying kept coming back to me: ‘Na waqt kha pehro, na naseeb kha zyada, kehke kuch milan do aahe, na milando.’

What it meant was that everything in life comes in its own time, and what’s not meant for you will never arrive, no matter how tightly you hold on.

The phrase is annoying when one is anxious but useful when life is held together by suitcase zips. The saying is not asking you to sit down and wait for your future to arrive via Swiggy. It’s about understanding the difference between effort and obsession.

Effort is sending the assignment. Obsession is refreshing your inbox every seven minutes and deciding your entire future is over because no one replied by 4:12 p.m.

Effort is looking for apartments. Obsession is deciding that one bad neighbourhood means you’ve ruined your life forever.

Effort is applying for jobs. Obsession is mentally punishing yourself for every decision that didn’t immediately turn into a Pinterest board.

Well, I kept doing what I had to do. That saying gave me something I badly needed at the time: surrender. Not the kind where you give up, but the kind where you do your part and stop trying to control everything with anxiety.

Slowly, things shifted.

The apartment I had liked earlier on SB Road? Far better neighbourhood, under renovation! Ring a bell? It became available. Because, of course, the month I spent floating around in chaos was the same month it needed to come together.

I quit the shitty job and found another one just two kilometres away. Two kilometres. No, this was not the one with my favourite magazine; I never heard back from them. But still! After all the drama, life handed me a commute that was basically a warm apology. Around the same time, I found a roommate. I had heard enough horror stories to expect another plot twist, but she turned out to be an absolute gift. We found each other surprisingly quickly, moved in, and ended up living together for the next three years. That could have been another disaster waiting to happen. Instead, it became proof that maybe the hard part was finally over.

I continued with my freelance gigs and jobs.

AND THRIVED.

And I stopped feeling like my life was a badly edited draft. Now, it’s easy to make it sound neat. Like everything happened for a reason. Like the chaos had a clean little moral hiding inside it the whole time.

But when it was all happening to me, it felt unstable and embarrassing… as if everyone got a well-stitched rulebook, while I got a PDF forwarded multiple times, and that too with missing pages. I didn’t know that the job I moved back for wouldn’t be the best for me, or perhaps that the apartment I almost gave up on would become my home. The Sindhi saying came as a reminder, not blind faith. Because things take their own time, and all I could do was my part. I can do everything in my power and still not control the final shape of things. I can apply. I can move. I can leave. I can try. I can make the call. I can send the email. I can pack the suitcase. These few months weren’t about giving up on effort but about learning when effort has done its job and anxiety has started doing overtime.

Confused, semi-homeless, overworked, underpaid, and still somehow being carried by a timing I couldn’t see yet. I didn’t know the temporary mess was buying me time to land somewhere softer.

The post I Was 22, Heartbroken, Homeless-ish, and Somehow Exactly Where I Needed to Be appeared first on Voicey World.