So… you want to date me? Or perhaps you’ve simply stumbled onto this page after matching with me and are wondering whether I’m worth asking out for coffee. Or perhaps I’ve sent you this link because I’d quite like to take you out on a date! I believe, every meaningful relationship begins with a conversation. And unfortunately, dating apps have reduced those conversations to the same handful of questions, repeated over and over again… I could answer those in a chat window. But I don’t think anyone can be understood through a handful of chat bubbles. And I’ve also realised that rewriting the same answers for the five-hundredth time feels like cruel and unusual punishment. For all of us! Besides… if reading this feels like a chore, we may already have our answer. 🙂 We are all stories… and this is mine! Or at least, everything I think you should know before deciding whether it’s worth asking me out for coffee. So I wrote you a letter instead… 😊 _______________________________ FIRST THINGS FIRST… I’m not dating for entertainment. I’m dating because I genuinely hope to find my person. The end game. The one I grow next to and grow old […]

On 22nd November 2025, at the Shaam-e-Baazgasht Kolkata edition, a dear friend and neighbour from the audience affectionately introduced me by saying, “He is a very passionate animal lover.” That evening, it felt heartfelt. Warm, even. But over the last few weeks, I have slowly started hating this term — animal lover. Especially because I have increasingly seen it being used by people who have a problem with feeding strays, taking care of their health, or ensuring their wellbeing. Very often, the phrase is not used as a compliment anymore. It is used as a sneer. A label. A weaponised word meant to alienate anyone who chooses compassion over convenience and indifference. “Here comes the animal lover again…” And the implication is usually clear — emotional, irrational, troublesome, impractical. But tell me something honestly. If people who show compassion towards animals are called animal lovers, then what do we call people who actively oppose kindness towards them? Would animal haters be an appropriate antonym? I’m genuinely open to improving my English. Because the irony is difficult to miss. The same people who mock compassion are often the loudest voices speaking about “health risks,” “danger,” “disease,” and “public nuisance,” while sitting […]

Not long ago, I was sitting in a café with my girlfriend when our conversation drifted towards my past. We spoke about old relationships, childhood memories, and experiences that I had long since moved on from. They were no longer open wounds, yet some part of me still carried traces of pain associated with those moments. As I spoke, I found myself touched by a quiet sadness—not the kind that overwhelms or debilitates, but the soft melancholy that remains after grief has already been processed and understood. Sensing it, she held my hand and gently said, “You know you can cry if you feel like it.” What surprised me was not her statement but my own response. Almost instinctively, I replied, “Of course not.” “Why not?” she asked. “I’m a man.” The moment those words left my mouth, I could almost see years of calling myself a feminist and speaking against gender stereotypes crumble before my eyes. Here I was, someone who had spent years questioning social conditioning, unconsciously carrying one of its oldest messages: “Men don’t cry!” That thought stayed with me. And this morning, while sitting by myself, I found myself wondering why we were taught this in […]

This morning, after lazying in bed for almost an hour or more before the world wakes up, when I finally dragged myself out, I shoved my face into the bellies of my kittens, one by one. And they smelled like… Autumn. I know it’s July and probably a bit too early to “smell” autumn. Nonetheless, it smelled like Autumn to me… fresh… cosy… perfect…!Like the smell that winter is around the corner, but not yet here. While on one hand there’s the anticipation of leaves drying and falling, on the other, there are fresh midnight jasmine blossoms quietly announcing themselves. And it triggered something in me.The old times…Texts from the bygone days…Waiting for a reply…or just… JUST an acknowledgement…Just a glimpse… Just a story… Just some kindness… Some reciprocation…Maybe just an emoji.Maybe just a “Seen.” We both know who we’re talking about. As I pulled open my curtains and looked down at the garden of my housing society—the very place where the Durga Pujo pandal rises every year in my housing society — I realised something. This is the same room, the same window, the same view… the same place where, not too long ago, I lay desperately hoping for […]

There will be days when your inner child wishes there were an adult to fall back on—someone to tell you that everything will be okay. Someone to pick up the pieces when life becomes too heavy. Someone to sit beside you in silence until the storm passes. I still remember one afternoon from my childhood. My mother and I had somehow locked ourselves out of our own house. A few neighbours gathered around, trying to rescue us—perhaps by breaking open the door or finding a way to reach the latch from inside. My father was away somewhere, and this was long before mobile phones. I remember crying uncontrollably, “Papa… tumi kothay go? Papa… tumi esho…” For years afterwards, my family teased me about those words. But when I look back at it today, I don’t see a child crying because he was locked out of his house. I see a frightened little boy searching for safety. In his mind, his father wasn’t merely another adult. He was safety itself. He believed that if Papa showed up, everything would somehow become alright. As I grew older, however, I realised there were many things I could no longer fall back on my […]

On fountain pens, love, and the stains people leave behind Built out of an old journal entry __________________________________ I sit through this lonely melancholy night with soft piano instrumentals stirring the strings of my heart, refilling my fountain pens — green, plum, chocolate brown, and black — wondering if I am dry and empty too, just like these pens. Maybe I am all empty of love… or perhaps I am simply all empty of the desire to dream anymore — to imagine a future, to make things work, to put effort into wanting someone closely, intimately, vulnerably. You see, there is something strangely poetic about fountain pens. When a pen is refilled, it begins writing in the colour of the ink poured into it. No matter what colour the pen once carried, no matter what colour it is on the outside, what truly defines it thereafter is the ink within. It writes the colour of the ink. It becomes the ink! And perhaps love works much the same way. Little by little, you begin absorbing the colour of the person you love. Their language stains your thoughts. Their habits seep into your routines. Their laughter echoes in your silences. Their […]