Seun, Author at Masala Mug

Why some people gravitate to some places

Why Do People Gravitate To Some Places & Why Is Goa That Place For Me?

On September 27, 2022 By Seun In Travel

Reading Time: 5 minutes I recently read an article on why Manali never gets old for some people. And it made me think most people had a place like that for themselves. Did I have such a place for me? Where would I go to be me, all the time, anytime? Goa came and stuck in my head. So, let’s talk about why Goa is that place for me. Over the years Goa has become home. Not home in the way that I have shifted residences, settled down, or found work (maybe someday I will). But Goa has become the place where I will …

Limiting Climate Change – How Many Of These 17 Things Are You Doing?

On April 9, 2022 By Seun In Lifestyle, Opinion

Reading Time: 9 minutes So, are we going to talk about the big elephant in the room already? What started off as global warming, and got panned all round because hey, I am getting snowed more often, or we are getting a lot more rain – formally had a name change to be called climate change. Cue eye roll. As if changing the name of the disaster changes the disaster itself. Check out an interesting take on the 2020 Natural Calamities Are you like me, someone who has developed climate anxiety, who worries and frets that we aren’t doing enough? I am sorry, I …

Check out the list of feel good books to read

Tales Of Reading: 8 Books You Must Grab Right Now For Some Escape Vibes

On February 13, 2022 By Seun In Lifestyle, Opinion

Reading Time: 6 minutes Hmm…let’s see. Two years of intense lockdowns, second, third waves, Delta, Omicron, isolation, weekend curfews, reopening of offices only to get back to WFH again…a rollercoaster life is what we eventually got used to, am I right? What have you been doing? Cooking and Baking Gardening Movies Blogging Tailoring (because why not?) Painting Reading Learning a new skill(s) You get the drift. Every possible way to engage the brain has been used up. New innovations have seen the light of the day. Records are being broken in writing and clearing professional and non-professional exams. New ideas are becoming startups. And …

A Short Poem: ‘As The Long Day Ends’

On April 28, 2021 By Seun In Fiction

Reading Time: < 1 minute As the long day ends, I stand and take stock. Of wounds old and new, shallow and deep, While the weary mind looks for sleep. Of friends far and near, of loves lost and found. Of hearts that beat to my name, of songs that have no sound. As the long day ends, I stand and take stock Of the pains I caused, and the joys I spread. Of the souls I nurtured or the untruths I said. Of the truths that hurt and the truths that didn’t. Of who I wasn’t and who I became.

Here’s How We Slayed “Work From Anywhere” – Oh, and Thank You Uttarakhand!

On August 20, 2020 By Seun In Travel

Reading Time: 10 minutes 4 months of being at home; 120 days of staring at each other and at others through virtual calls; an eternity of wondering if this would ever end. We were done. Couldn’t work from home 1 more minute, couldn’t hear the same sounds day in and day out, couldn’t attend one more online class with the child, or sit through one more webinar. We were done. But obviously COVID didn’t know that. It kept spreading, kept scaring everyone. As the fear of infection and dying morphed into exhaustion and frustration, we knew we had to get away. But go where? …

Temporary street shop in Kolkata, India during lockdown

COVID-19: I Think We Fucked Up

On May 30, 2020 By Seun In Opinion

Reading Time: 6 minutes I think we fucked up. But also got lucky. We will also have tremendous collateral damage. Am talking about India’s COVID-19 response and below are my non-data based inferences and a retrospective view of the last 3 months. Let’s start with why India entered a lockdown We are unarguably the world’s largest third world country. Some parts may look like the first world and even have those benefits, but never be fooled. We aren’t even second world. And even the most deluded of governments cannot make the mistake of thinking so. Thankfully, ours didn’t. The lockdowns were needed and have done …

A Habit Called Sleep

On May 2, 2020 By Seun In Lifestyle

Reading Time: 8 minutes “Burn the midnight Oil” “I will sleep when I am dead” “There will be sleeping enough in the grave…” There are more where this came from. Gluttony and laziness (usually defined by sleeping) must be the most reviled of vices. While I didn’t really hate sleeping, I didn’t condone it either. For all my adult life (and that’s quite a few years if you were asking) I have needed 7 to 8 hours of sleep to remain sane the next day. If I could count the number of times my friends lost their tempers at me for falling asleep or …

A Dream…or not!

On April 30, 2020 By Seun In Fiction

Reading Time: 4 minutes It was a dark and stormy night. I wonder why though. It’s almost some kind of a cosmic script is it, that events have to happen on a dark and stormy night? Actually, it wasn’t a dark and stormy night. It was a normal sliver moon kind of night. Som was sitting on his table next to the window watching the trees sway in the mild breeze, enjoying it on his hair. He could almost taste the salt in the air. This close to the sea, the air was full of the smells, and occasionally, the taste of the sea. …