The blog
An assortment of thoughts, opinions and stories
Books I’ve enjoyed, notes from my workshops, and stories about writing, dance and travel
My Year in Travel
I’ve seen and experienced so much this year! I brought 2019 in in beautiful Pench, shivering in the cold and rejoicing in the sight of a jackal and a leopard amongst so many other…
Top Ten: Young Adult Books
Being a young adult is to inhabit a complex and confusing world. When books address this phase of life beautifully, they can be breathtaking. Here are my top ten YA books of 2019. Stargirl…
Top Ten: Middle-Grade Books
Narrowing down to my top ten middle-grade books is always the hardest of all! Some of these books are younger than others, as always, because age ranges are hard to define. A few of…
Top Ten: Chapter Books
Calling all the books that I’ve listed here ‘chapter books’ is perhaps unfair. Some are quite a bit longer than others. I’m uncomfortable defining books on the basis of age too, as reading levels…
My Year in Dance
2019 was not an easy year for me as a dancer. In February, I fell and sprained an already weak ankle and nursed a swollen ankle for three months or more. I continued to…
My Year in Writing
Being a writer is never easy. Things take too long, and there’s little to show for it. Long silences, endless waiting and wondering, a general feeling of isolation … Yet, the highs are so…
Dance Exams
We didn’t have dance exams when we were children, and I think I’m glad of that. Sometimes, though, I wonder – if we had appeared for exams, would we have been more driven to…
A Theme-Based Reading Programme
A Theme-Based Reading Programme
A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post for StoryWeaver about a training programme I have been conducting for the last three years for librarians in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, and the…
Dear Fictional Character
Yesterday, to round off our letter-writing activity, we wrote two more letters. One began with ‘Dear Reader’, and this is an activity I’ve done more times than I can count. I tweaked it slightly…
Letter-Writing at the Writers’ Club
Letter-Writing at the Writers’ Club
I’ve been waiting to do this activity ever since I thought of it, and it was well worth the wait — particularly because two children said this was the best Writers’ Club session ever!…
