ESSAYS
Long-form writing on literature, cinema, creativity and life.
Stories, books, films and the lives we lead have never seemed to me like separate conversations. Each continually informs the others. A novel changes the way we watch a film. A landscape alters the rhythm of a sentence. An ordinary encounter with a stranger quietly becomes a character years later. The essays collected here explore those intersections through three recurring themes: storytelling, the creative life and the ordinary experiences from which both ultimately emerge. They are not intended as instruction or criticism, but as reflections written from the perspective of someone who has spent many years writing novels, making films and discovering that the most enduring ideas usually arrive not through dramatic revelation, but through careful attention to the everyday. Although each essay stands independently, together they form an ongoing conversation about literature, cinema, creativity, curiosity and the quiet ways in which art helps us understand both the world and ourselves.
On Stories
Why Stories Matter
An essay exploring why storytelling remains central to literature, cinema and the human experience, and how stories shape memory, empathy and identity.
The Books We Grow Into
Why the greatest works of literature reveal new meanings at every stage of life, and why rereading is one of the deepest pleasures of reading.
Watching Films Slowly
Why the greatest films reward patience, attention and repeated viewing, and what literary cinema teaches us about the art of truly seeing.
On Making
The Solitude Of Making Something
What does it mean to live with an idea that no one else can yet see? An essay on creativity, uncertainty, perseverance and the hidden psychology of making art.
The Courage To Finish
Why finishing creative work demands as much courage as beginning it, and why completion is the moment when private imagination becomes public art.
Living With Uncertainty
An essay on the hidden interval between finishing creative work and its reception, and why uncertainty is an essential companion to every artistic life.
On Writing
The Long Road To A First Novel
What writing a first novel taught me about patience, revision, memoir, fiction and the slow craft of becoming a writer.
When A Story Demands Two Mediums
Why do some stories become both novels and films? Drawing on the experience of developing A Song for Eresha simultaneously as a novel and a feature film, this essay explores how literature and cinema illuminate different dimensions of the same story.
The Invisible Work Of Cinema
How editing, sound, rhythm and countless unseen decisions quietly shape the emotional experience of watching a film.
On Living
The Hills That Changed My Pace
How the Nilgiris transformed my understanding of time, attention, creativity and the rhythm of everyday life.
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives
How curiosity, observation and empathy transform ordinary people into unforgettable characters, and why every life contains a story worth understanding.
On Growing Older
Growing older is less about losing youth than gaining perspective. An essay on discovering that fulfilment lies not in arriving somewhere else, but in seeing the ordinary with greater clarity.