"I'm currently trying to belong to myself."

"If you ask ‘pahadis’ from Uttarakhand how their life changed during the lockdown, they’d tell you not much changed. Their homes are separated by orchards and terraced fields. They spend a great deal of time outdoors, whether it’s walking or sitting under the shifting sun during the winter or farming in the spring. The writing of ‘Swimming in Our Oceans’ began when I was living in Uttarakhand. This was pre-COVID-19, and so it seemed very prophetic that the co-existence of isolation and vastness I experienced in Uttarakhand, as a product of landscape and culture, was mirrored by the world a year later. It takes a certain kind of person to be able to live in the hills. I learned that I’m not that person."

Read the full interview in The Navhind Times about Swimming in Our Oceans here.