In his wonderful website HSP Notes, Peter talks articulately about what it means to be an HSP or a highly sensitive person. He talks about how life always seemed louder than him and the world “bigger, louder, more violent.” That’s probably the experience of everyone who identifies themselves as being HSP. When I think of myself as a sensitive child, what I remember first is going to a crowded neighborhood market in New Delhi, India – the kind of market that sits next to sets of DDA flats – with shops where you could buy groceries, with a tailor, and a stationery store plus a halwai (sweet-seller). […]

A new place is an open space for making discoveries. For me, one of those discoveries has been realizing that the things I like are very different from the things that I “think” I like. […]

In today’s culture, there is a growing myth that suggests that extroverts are happier than introverts. A lot of research too seems to support this theory and tacitly, even introverts buy into this. But how true is this research? In her engaging book, The Introvert’s Way, Sophia Dembling cuts through all the smoke and mirrors. […]

As Indian women (or is it women in general?), we’ve been taught that taking care of others’ feelings is our job. This includes listening to unwanted advice, shape-shifting our own behavior to fit other people’s beliefs, and complying with norms so we don’t offend. But who are we truly responsible for? Only ourselves? Ourselves and a little bit of others? Ourselves and others equally? Others, at the cost of our self? […]