So. I was published! In a Canadian anthology featuring stories and essays about menstruation from around the world. I was first notified in an email from one of the editors, Tanis, who wrote to me last year, about my essay being picked. I’m not quite sure why, but I wasn’t terribly excited then. It’s been a long time in the works since then, and I had actually even forgotten about it. Until I came back from Auroville last week, to a heavy package waiting in the mail for me.

From Canada? That’s unexpected, I thought, only to open it and discover two copies of this formidable anthology.

Opening up Gush: Menstrual Manifestos For Our Times, edited by Roasanna Deerchild, Ariel Gordon and Tanis MacDonald, though, I felt that familiar thrill creep in again. No matter how many times I see my name in print, the excitement never gets old.

One of the first instances of experiencing that feeling was when I was first published in a community newsletter when I was 12-13. My grandfather had insisted I submit some of my poetry to them, and when published, he neatly cut out strips of my published poems form the newsletter, stuck them on a letter and posted them to me in Bangalore for keeps.

It was probably one of the first instances of realising that I could be a writer. That this business of word-soup was actually fun and gratifying.

That same thrill has oft-repeated since then. Every time that I see my name and a byline in a newspaper or magazine, I remember that day where it kind of all began. And now I am in a book.

In a year that saw relatively less professional work (and aspirations, even) on my part, this felt good.

I was telling N in a long voice note last week that even though I knew I was slowing down with work this year, I didn’t know I was going to reach a point where everything “work-related” would completely take a backseat. For once in my life, I have allowed other kinds of work to take precedence. What little writing work I’ve done, I’ve done on occasion, only when I was particularly inspired or compelled to voice an opinion. I’ve had a steady, low hum of assignments that I took to keep me going, and my writing muscle in good use. But it’s extremely low-key and very, very basic compared to the kind of writing I was used to doing last year and before. However, it’s given me a few busy spikes and the income is always welcome. But this? This felt delightful at an all new level.

I’m now slowly going through the rest of the essays in the book and finding I’m in some fine company. If you’d like to read the essay, it’s a mildly edited version of this one I wrote for The Establishment on World Menstrual Health Day a few years ago.

Second, now that I can talk about this, I was one of the many judges for the Conde Nast Traveller India’s Top Restaurant Awards. I won’t be making it to the shiny awards ceremony in Mumbai next month, but I look forward to eating at some of these winning restaurants over the next few months.