On Reading: And Why I'm Still On Vol. IV of IX In a world of BookToks and Goodreads list, a writer explores the virtues of reading slowly and again.

There's a version of you inside every book you've loved.

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This is the related prompt from the Homing section of my PDF:

What was your favorite drink as a child? What was its color? What was its flavor? Did anyone make it for you? Have you had it recently? Why or why not?

Download all 16 here: tinyurl.com/The-Long-Vie...

#writing

For me, summer starts with an emerald green glass of Khus Rasna in Baby Mami’s kitchen. It’s a memory of being seen and cared for.
I’ve turned these kinds of memories into 16 invitations for when the world feels like too much.

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I’ve gathered 16 ways to stay human when everything feels like too much. Not instructions, just invitations to move with care.

Why 16? In the Vedanta, 16 represents the phases of the moon, a complete cycle.

Grab the PDF and join me for The Long View Letters: tinyurl.com/The-Long-Vie...

In a world designed to overwhelm, this space offers an opportunity to return to an embodied form of attention.
You are welcome here, where being human is being enough.

📗🍃“16 invitations to staying human (when everything feels like too much).”

tinyurl.com/The-Long-Vie...

I made something gentle for hard days.

“16 invitations to staying human when everything feels like too much.”

It’s free. You can get your copy here: tinyurl.com/The-Long-Vie...

#freebie

Soul + words/wards

Durga riding her tiger. Madhubani School.

7/ Swami Vivekananda used to quote a line from the Upanishads, which translated into: Truth is one, the sages speak it variously.

We might feel more grace in today’s world if we didn’t only strive for purity, but learned to hold space for plurality.

May the Great Goddess guide and protect us.

6/ So, Navratri is as many-formed as the Great Goddess we worship during this time. And yet, the modern instinct is often to flatten these differences, to coerce them into one 'pure' version of a practice that has always been plural.

5/ When I grew up, it was fascinating to me that the people who really wanted a drink during Navratri would argue that it was allowed.

Why?

Because alcohol is vegetarian.
😄

Turns out abstinence is rarely absolute.

4/ For me, as a child, it was sabudana khichdi, aloo tamatar (potatoes in a tomato curry) subzi & fried pooris. Also, the store-bought falahari namkeens. What fun!
I looked forward to my parents fasting because it was a feast for me.

3/ But it’s worth remembering: this is not the only way to observe Navratri. Many parts of India only celebrate only in autumn. Gujarat with the garba, communities in Maharashtra with thikkat & sweets. Then there is the splenderous Durga Puja of West Bengal with its non-vegetarian fare.

2/ Some people eat only fruit and water. Some eat once a day. Some avoid onion and garlic. Some go gluten free. A majority turn strictly vegetarian.

A red sketch of the goddess Durga slaying Mahishasur on a cream background by Nandalal Bose

1/ Today is the first day of Navratri — the nine nights of the goddess. In many North Indian homes, it begins a nine-day fast, but even that word, “fast,” contains multitudes.

#india #festivals

She's definitely better than Eurus, I'd agree. I just wondered if overhearing Silas whispering to Sherlock was enough to break the spell he had on her? To me it felt a bit rushed. Maybe it's the scope of the series format itself but (to me) it was one that limited her dimensionality.

Yeah, absolutely. I just want to see women as their own people instead of just being aids & devices :)

a woman in a green dress with the hashtag #polo on the bottom right ALT: a woman in a green dress with the hashtag #polo on the bottom right

11/ Women don’t need to be additions to a canon when they can offer departures from it.

#SherlockHolmes

10/ Honestly, I’d rather see a series on Ann Lovsey, a police searcher in Birmingham for 36 years. Or Kate Easton, who used her acting skills to go undercover. Or Antonia Moser, who ran her own agency.

#VictorianWomen

9/ In this way, as with Eurus, Beatrice Holmes doesn’t disrupt the canon.
She confirms it.

#YoungSherlock

8/ So inserting a woman into that system doesn’t liberate her. It just gives her a new role within the same hierarchy. 🤷🏽‍♀️

#YoungSherlock #FeministCritique

7/ And that centre matters because Holmes stories are built on a single axis:
one mind, everything else orbiting it.

That is the design.

6/ Beatrice’s resentment shapes Moriarty’s becoming. She is one man’s muse, another man’s wound.
Either way, the center remains at a distance from her.

#YoungSherlock

5/ Adaptation after adaptation gestures at the “missing women” in the canon. But writes them only to hold together the gaps in men’s stories.

#SherlockHolmes

4/ But on screen, she’s mostly a catalyst.
Without a narrative of her own, she becomes a device that explains Holmes (and Moriarty).

#SherlockHolmes #YoungSherlock

3/ In Guy Ritchie’s version, Beatrice Holmes is a long-lost sister. A gothic shadow. A figure meant to anchor (and unsettle) Holmes's interior life.

On paper, it sounds progressive...

#SherlockHolmes #FilmandTV

2/ We’ve had Eurus. Then Enola. Now Beatrice.

It looks like revision. It feels like apology. But on closer inspection, it’s still conservative.

#SherlockHolmes #NarrativeTheory

1/ Just finished Young Sherlock. It's uneven, but carried by the Sherlock–Moriarty chemistry.

Now my real question is: why do Holmes adaptations keep inventing sisters?

#sherlockholmes #canon

It was a pleasure to write this essay as India's dogs became the centre of judicial & civic debates. I hope you will enjoy this exploration of their mythic stature & personal bonds 💛

#essays #dogs #nonfiction

A gorgeous magazine inside & out though I do say so myself.

#essays #nonfiction

“The Keys to Heaven’s Gates” by Skendha Singh – Plott Hound Magazine A sharp nose for amazing animal stories

We love essays that bring poetic luxury to powerful prose. "The Keys to Heaven's Gates" by @skendhasingh.bsky.social does just that. Take a minute and give it a read.

We love it, and we hope you will, too!