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Miles & Musings

The other half of a curious life, gathered in one place. Travel that went further than planned, notes from family life, words worth keeping, and whatever caught the eye when no agenda was watching. Some of it is here purely for the pleasure of telling it, and some turned out to mean more than I expected. Wander through in any order. That is rather the spirit of it.

An empty cricket ground at dusk, white picket fence in the foreground, floodlights and city skyline behind

The Undefeated

Ajinkya Rahane's name means "the one who cannot be defeated". He retired this week by calmly counting his defeats, which made me wonder what defeat actually is, and whether he ever truly met it.
A tabby and white cat resting on a person's shoulder, looking straight at the camera

Cats the Musical in Mumbai, and the Poet Who Started It

The only real cat in this blog post is the one above. The rest were people pretending to be one. All of it built from the silly cat verse of a poet who never knew what it would become.
A wooden pallanguli board with tamarind seeds in carved hollows, placed on a dark desk.

The School of the Open Street

A friend keeps a pallanguli board on her desk. Between meetings, she moves tamarind seeds from pit to pit. As I watched her do this, and something from decades ago walked in and sat down.
Street puppeteer Filip performing with marionette Mr. Filipo on a Saigon pavement outside the French Post Office, Ho Chi Minh City

No Strings Attached. The Puppeteer of Ho Chi Minh City

A puppet show on a Ho Chi Minh City pavement. A Polish performer with a lot on his mind. And a conversation that stayed with me long after the strings were packed away.
Crispy masala dosa served on a banana leaf with tomato and coconut chutney

The World Ranked Our Dosa. We Have Feelings.

Masala dosa just made it to sixth on a global pancake list. Sixth. In a country where 99.99 out of hundred makes parents wail in despair. But that is not why I am unsettled. It is the list itself that is the problem.
A baggage handler in an orange shirt arranges suitcases on the carousel at Delhi's Terminal 3

The Airport That Never Loses Your Bag

A process can be copied. A checklist can be shared. But the thing that makes someone arrange a stranger's bag at 4am, thirty years in, with nobody watching and no applause coming, that cannot be transferred in a training manual. It has to be believed. One airport understood this. The results speak for themselves.
A baby cot in an emptying room during renovation — on letting go of things that hold too much memory

The Art of Letting Go of Things (When Things Won’t Let Go of You)

A dining table, a Texas ticket, a bright red perfume box. On why letting go of things is harder than acquiring them, and what it quietly costs us.
Green kinetic sand creature with googly eyes and antennae, looking mildly bewildered

What your IQ says about you. And what it doesn’t.

IQ began as a tool to help children. Alfred Binet did not design it to be lobbed across a press briefing. And yet, here we are.
White sculpture of a seated figure on a garden bench, gazing sideways, with bougainvillea and trees in the background.

Someone Called Me Names

Someone called me a flâneur last week. I thanked her, because that seemed like the right thing to do. Then I went home and looked it up.
Green municipal waste bins on a street, a quiet reminder of what happens after someone decides to act

The Quiet Ones

Two wonderful people. Two quiet habits. No announcements, no posts, no applause. Just the thing, done. This is what sustainable living in India actually looks like.
A collage of traditional Ramayana masks mounted on a wall, including characters Anchara, Surpanakha, Lava, Sita, Lakshmana, Bali and Bishamitra, painted in vivid reds, blues, yellows and gold.

When the Mask Comes Off

Every mask in this photograph has a name underneath it. Ram. Surpanakha. Sita. The Ramayana knew something about this. So did Banksy. So did the man who invented Bitcoin. The mask is not the disguise. The mask is where the power comes from.
A street dog sleeping on a sandy beach, curled into the sand, eyes closed, entirely unbothered.

Why Did We Believe the Story of the Seven Dogs?

Someone let the dogs out. The rest of us wrote the screenplay. The question is not why we believed it. The question is what we needed it to say.
Street puppeteer Filip performing with marionette Mr. Filipo on a Saigon pavement outside the French Post Office, Ho Chi Minh City

No Strings Attached. The Puppeteer of Ho Chi Minh City

A puppet show on a Ho Chi Minh City pavement. A Polish performer with a lot on his mind. And a conversation that stayed with me long after the strings were packed away.
A baggage handler in an orange shirt arranges suitcases on the carousel at Delhi's Terminal 3

The Airport That Never Loses Your Bag

A process can be copied. A checklist can be shared. But the thing that makes someone arrange a stranger's bag at 4am, thirty years in, with nobody watching and no applause coming, that cannot be transferred in a training manual. It has to be believed. One airport understood this. The results speak for themselves.
Coffee in a grey ceramic cup beside an iPad showing a draft in progress, on a wooden café table

A Short Education in Coffee (Or: How a Simple Drink Taught Me I Knew Nothing)

From filter kaapi in a steel tumbler to Kopi Luwak in Bali, coffee turned out to be the most humbling education I never signed up for. Avvaiyar, the ancient Tamil poetess saw this coming. I did not.

The Weight of Forever

I stood there and could not move. Hundreds of thousands of locks. Every size. Every colour. Each one carrying two names and one enormous hope. That this would last. That nothing would change.

The Admiral That Embarrassed an Empire

He controlled the entire Maharashtra coastline from Sawantwadi to Mumbai. Every ship paid a levy called jakat. Those that refused lost the ship. He also founded Alibaug and issued his own silver currency, the Alibagi rupaiya. The ferry to his island leaves from the town he built.

The Bowl That Holds Everything

Painted black. Hollowed from a Mexican fruit shell. Travelled oceans. Then settled quietly into temple life, as if it had always been there. Accumulating wisdom through the ages when all I thought it collected was coins.

Tourist, Go Home

A wall in Barcelona said exactly what it meant. On travel, humility, and whose home you're actually standing in.

Cu Chi: What the Ground Remembers

He arranges the leaves over the hatch. In seconds, the entrance is gone. This, he says, is how an army disappeared.

An Unforgettable Wall Street Queue

I expected queues for coffee and museums in New York. I didn’t expect one behind a bull, or for it to stay with me long after I left.

The Fort That Forgot Its Kingdom

Thick walls, stubborn stones, and a silence that carries the weight of centuries.
A serene Sayalkudi beach with gentle waves, empty sands, and a wide, calm sea meeting the sky.

The Road Ends, the Sea Begins: Notes from Sayalgudi

Some beaches ask for attention. Sayalgudi behaves like it has better things to do.

A Hill, a Haze, and All of Pune Trying to Say Hello

Lavale in the morning. A hillside, a haze and a landscape that keeps changing its mind.
An empty cricket ground at dusk, white picket fence in the foreground, floodlights and city skyline behind

The Undefeated

Ajinkya Rahane's name means "the one who cannot be defeated". He retired this week by calmly counting his defeats, which made me wonder what defeat actually is, and whether he ever truly met it.
A tabby and white cat resting on a person's shoulder, looking straight at the camera

Cats the Musical in Mumbai, and the Poet Who Started It

The only real cat in this blog post is the one above. The rest were people pretending to be one. All of it built from the silly cat verse of a poet who never knew what it would become.
A wooden pallanguli board with tamarind seeds in carved hollows, placed on a dark desk.

The School of the Open Street

A friend keeps a pallanguli board on her desk. Between meetings, she moves tamarind seeds from pit to pit. As I watched her do this, and something from decades ago walked in and sat down.
Crispy masala dosa served on a banana leaf with tomato and coconut chutney

The World Ranked Our Dosa. We Have Feelings.

Masala dosa just made it to sixth on a global pancake list. Sixth. In a country where 99.99 out of hundred makes parents wail in despair. But that is not why I am unsettled. It is the list itself that is the problem.
A baby cot in an emptying room during renovation — on letting go of things that hold too much memory

The Art of Letting Go of Things (When Things Won’t Let Go of You)

A dining table, a Texas ticket, a bright red perfume box. On why letting go of things is harder than acquiring them, and what it quietly costs us.
Green kinetic sand creature with googly eyes and antennae, looking mildly bewildered

What your IQ says about you. And what it doesn’t.

IQ began as a tool to help children. Alfred Binet did not design it to be lobbed across a press briefing. And yet, here we are.
White sculpture of a seated figure on a garden bench, gazing sideways, with bougainvillea and trees in the background.

Someone Called Me Names

Someone called me a flâneur last week. I thanked her, because that seemed like the right thing to do. Then I went home and looked it up.
Green municipal waste bins on a street, a quiet reminder of what happens after someone decides to act

The Quiet Ones

Two wonderful people. Two quiet habits. No announcements, no posts, no applause. Just the thing, done. This is what sustainable living in India actually looks like.
A collage of traditional Ramayana masks mounted on a wall, including characters Anchara, Surpanakha, Lava, Sita, Lakshmana, Bali and Bishamitra, painted in vivid reds, blues, yellows and gold.

When the Mask Comes Off

Every mask in this photograph has a name underneath it. Ram. Surpanakha. Sita. The Ramayana knew something about this. So did Banksy. So did the man who invented Bitcoin. The mask is not the disguise. The mask is where the power comes from.
A street dog sleeping on a sandy beach, curled into the sand, eyes closed, entirely unbothered.

Why Did We Believe the Story of the Seven Dogs?

Someone let the dogs out. The rest of us wrote the screenplay. The question is not why we believed it. The question is what we needed it to say.
Coffee in a grey ceramic cup beside an iPad showing a draft in progress, on a wooden café table

A Short Education in Coffee (Or: How a Simple Drink Taught Me I Knew Nothing)

From filter kaapi in a steel tumbler to Kopi Luwak in Bali, coffee turned out to be the most humbling education I never signed up for. Avvaiyar, the ancient Tamil poetess saw this coming. I did not.
Abstract patterns in wet beach sand at Alibaug, Maharashtra, photographed from above.

The Man Who Planned His Own Ending

The man who understood endings better than anyone chose his own. Two years on, the question he leaves behind is not how to live longer. It is how to live well.