About

THE BIRTH OF VOLATYLE

I started this blog in 2006. I don’t remember why I started it, coz I had another blog at the time, on blogspot. I think I just needed something to occupy me, at that moment. I clearly remember I had finished writing my story/ies for the day and was chatting with multiple friends, as I always did back in India.

It was a frigid December in Ahmedabad, one of the coldest I remember, and yet, I refused to wear anything warmer than my brand new IE sweatshirt. Click here to see a photo we took in Dec (me wearing the awesome sweatshirt) ((Pratik had awful hair at the time, I wonder why I didn’t figure out a better haircut for him then.. The first haircut he had in the States solved the dilemma of his awful hair))

As usual, I digressed. Anyway, so I was chatting with Vasu who is an ingenuous wordsmith. I wanted a blog name that defined me, something simple that encapsulated the person I am. After an hour or more of hostoric chatting, Volatyle was born. Ah, how I love the word. It does a beautiful job of essentializing me (Yeah Shash, in the end, even I needed to essentialize myself… Shash was my professor in Miranda House and we had many an engaging discussion with her on essentialization. Bah, can’t remember which author or essay it came up in!)

WHO I AM

The volatye person I am, I cannot remain stagnant for long. I need variety in life. I have varied and eveolving interests. One week, it could be typography, the next, an Etsy obsession, the third week might be devoted to a Victorian-era romantic thriller, and the fourth could find me renouncing books, the internet, and all sedentary pursuits of life.

I live a rollercoaster life. I would love to read Derrida all day, interspersing it with Blyton, JM Barrie, Lewis Carroll, and Wilde. If I have time for a coffee, I love the company of crazy chatterboxes. If I were going on a vacation, I like being with a bunch of nutty friends – making impromptu plans, traipsing up and down beautiful places, having a blast and breathing in deep.

I used to be a non-conformist when I was growing up. Miranda House turned me into a feminist, which I will be all my life. At the Asian College of Journalism, I was super-awed by P.Sainath and his book, Everybody Loves a Good Drought, and I almost pledged my life to the development of the plebeian. Then, I began working at the Indian Express, Ahmedabad, became friends with two of the best reporters in the world – Sreenivas Janyala and Saurav Kumar – and thought life is unlived until breaks a story s/he is remembered for until the end of time.

Now? I don’t think a single idea can ever sum up the present. I can’t point to one thing and say, this is what occupies me all the time now.

There has been so much fluz in the last two years – first I got married, then we moved to the States. Since then, there has been a succession of volunteerships and jobs, none of them which has stuck or I have enjoyed too much. I’ve traveled a lot and seen a lot of places I read about in books when I was growing up.

With Pratik, I dreamt of traveling the world, a fantasy which seems to be materializing finally. As often as I change the theme of this blog, I promise to update it more often. Now, I think, is the time to keep the promise to myself. Too many things are changing and I want to keep a journal that will track my life’s journey. So here goes…