“I was born in Delhi, rooted in Kerala, but I am a Madras girl. Madras is an emotion and in some ways, I like to think I am too.

I grew up in a joint family of nine people and two dogs, in a house by the ocean in Kottivakkam, Thiruvanmiyur. Back then, it did not even feel like the city. It was not, we were one of the first few houses around, and I was the only girl in the area. My childhood was spent with my brothers and the neighborhood boys. A lot of cricket. A lot of swimming. And most days you’d see me at the beach if not in school.

Mornings alwaays began early. I would cycle with my grandfather to different parks, hanging onto monkey bars and quietly hoping it would somehow make me taller. I was always moving. Squash, swimming, theatre, singing, dancing. Anything that kept me awake. Anything that kept me from being quiet I think. Our house was always full. Guests staying over, food on the table, music sometimes conversations always. Hosting came naturally in my family, and maybe that’s what stayed with me more than I realised. I also went to a school with about 500 students in each batch, where extracurriculars mattered just as much as academics, maybe even more. Which honestly explains a lot about how and what I do today.

I love people. I love stories and of course, with good food and sips on the table, always.

Five years ago, I moved to Bangalore and began building my creative journey there, somewhere between art, food, and great spirits; boy, what a fun ride it’s been but Chennai has always remained my place to return to. My bed. The constants and home.
Grounding. I think people really underestimate what being barefoot in the sand can do to you, even if it is just for five minutes. Sunrises were, and still are, my favourite. Standing there, watching the light arrive slowly. It makes you pause. Think wider. Horizontally, almost. Not like the mountains, it’s a different kind of vastness. Quieter. More patient. Sunrises at my beach did that to me.

Sometimes those mornings led to cravings for a hot ghee roast, filter coffee, or breakfast at Rayar’s Mess. Not always, but often enough that the thought itself felt comforting, like a small reward waiting somewhere in the day. Evenings had their own rhythm. Barefoot on the slightly cold sand and the charters of the walkers and corn guy. My neighbour and I used to do that almost everyday. Quiet therapy if I may say, even without saying much. Those moments taught me how to slow down without feeling stuck. How to feel grounded and charged at the same time. And even now, whenever life feels noisy, I find myself craving that same feeling(thankgod Blore has Cubbon). The one that kept pulling me back, even on cyclone days when we got school holidays and I still went to the beach.

When you move to a city without the ocean, you realise what you miss. For me, it was the moisture in the air. That strange comfort of it all. Chennai feels like simpler times. More a constant than a variable. It is the fishy smell in the air.

My friends, I have grown up with. My balcony. The beach walking uncles who still wave when they see me. The thought of how news travelled faster than light with beach aunties calling my grandmother to tell her they spotted me with some boy even before I got home. Coffee meets; my familiar routes into the city, now dotted with traffic signals shaped like hearts and flyovers that somehow make it more bearable, not less.

And of course, my bed and my balcony, where I can hear the waves while I unwind. But I have also realised that I like coming back home more than just being there. Chennai feels best when I return to it. When it grounds me, reminds me who I am, and lets me leave again to build and grow elsewhere.

Maybe some places are meant to be anchors, not destinations. No?”