It’s been a while since I showed up here. Life has a way of swallowing days whole. But lately, there’s been an itch to write — not out of clarity, but out of restlessness.
Mumbai continues to pulse — loud, chaotic, unforgiving. A city of endless ambition and very little soul. People run here. All the time. For promotions, for partners, for some idea of progress that no one remembers questioning. But most are just running in circles, dressed in purpose but hollowed out by it.
The roads are dug up like permanent surgery scars. The skyline is a scaffolding jungle. Nothing here ever feels finished. Not the city. Not the people. Not even the dreams.
And yet, in all of this, small cracks appear.
A podcast has become a weekly ritual — a burst of creative chaos that lights up the otherwise grey calendar. It started as an idea in passing. Now it has shape, voice, and a tiny but growing audience. Creating something for the sake of creation — no metrics, no managers — has been a kind of quiet rebellion.
There’s also been a new, unexpected escape: video games. The kind where hours disappear, and so does the noise outside. It’s childish and comforting — and for once, the world makes sense.
Somewhere between deadlines and deliverables, I booked flights — to Kazakhstan, to Vietnam, to Thailand.
Each trip was a rebellion, a reminder that I was still allowed to choose adventure.
That I was more than a job title or a meeting invite.
In Almaty, I remember standing in front of lakes so beautiful, it made me fall in love with nature all over again.
In Bangkok, I danced with strangers and remembered what it felt like to be young and untethered. In Ho Chi Minh and Vung Tao, I got time to meet up with a Girlfriend and spend a few quiet days sipping coffee, enjoy beaches and doing stuff I cannot talk about here.
Travel has a way of peeling back the noise.
When you’re far from home, far from routines, it becomes easier to hear yourself again.
Mumbai’s dating and nightlife scene is both exhausting and electric. Some nights are a blur of neon and conversations with strangers. Other nights are about long walks by the sea — Marine Drive holding secrets the city refuses to. There’s beauty in that contradiction. Nights spent out — with friends, with flings, or simply with solitude — have become small acts of staying alive.
The work culture? A different story. If the soul of work was already fraying, now it’s practically threadbare. Empty buzzwords, longer hours, and less humanity. The culture doesn’t need fixing — it needs replacing.
And still, amidst all of this, a different city lingers.
Berlin.
The memory of it is sharper than most realities here. Cold mornings. Cheap Currywurst at that one stall that always had a line. Parties that didn’t chase a climax — they just were. Strangers who spoke like old friends. A rhythm that didn’t demand you keep up — it simply let you exist. That freedom, that rawness, still echoes.
Mumbai is not Berlin.
But sometimes, in the cracks of this concrete city, something soft emerges. A quiet thought. A late-night idea. A spark.
Maybe that’s enough, for now.