My Simple Manifesto

The first bite you take – from the flakiest croissant, the moistest cake, or from the most succulent burger – is the tastiest. The following bites are pleasing too, but – in the language of a lapsed economist – they suffer from a diminishing marginal return. So the bites that follow the first delirious, sensational bites are no less tasty, but you have altered. You’re a little less hungry, a bit more used to the taste of the sublime. The next bite is that little bit less satisfying, and the one after that is even less so.

The same must apply to life. That first tweet that connects you to the rest of the day, and to your universe is life affirming, the hundredth a little less so. My aim with the blog, as with my life, then is:

• To declutter my life in much the same way I have my career. I’m no longer working corporate hours but writing. This brings me infinitely more pleasure than my past job of valuing cash flows did, and it allows me to work to my schedule. I can work 100 hour weeks if I’m in the midst of writing something, or I can take days, even weeks off while I wait for the next story to come to me.
• To engage with social media in as much as it encourages discipline and conversation, but not so much that it distracts me from work, or that necessity, life.
• To spend quality time with my children, family and friends, but not to the extent that I lose sight of myself. I work for myself, and believe me, it is all too easy to get sidetracked.
• To take long walks, to go to more museums, to sit in cafes with pads of paper – or its modern day avatar, the tablet. To report all that delights me, and to remember there is still much around me that delights.

This then is my plan. I’m a writer, a mother, a wife, and an Indian in London. A Lindian, if you will. I will write about writing (as long as that’s not too tedious to read – I sat in front of a blinking cursor for an entire day, ugh!). I will write about my children, and my many joys and occasional struggles with them. I’ll write about London, and about an India I’m in equal parts proud and wary of. Those interested in socio-political and economic commentary on a changing India can find it on Indianaccents.wordpress.com. I’ll write about myself, and hope there’s something in it to delight more than just myself.