Beyond Code
There has always been more to me than the work. Writing was how I processed what I was living through long before I had the vocabulary to name it — chronic illness, identity, the experience of being a woman in spaces that weren't designed with us in mind. Art has been a constant too: painting, sketching, and making things with my hands as a way of staying grounded when the rest of life gets loud.
Most of what I wrote under Spiels of a Quill sits at the intersection of the personal and the political — the places where individual experience reveals something larger about how systems work, or don't. BookBites is quieter: short reviews from a lifelong reader who believes books are one of the best ways to understand someone else's world. And The Pigmented Palette is where the visual side lives — paintings, sketches, crochet, whatever I'm making.
This side of me has been quieter since late 2021 — a conscious decision. Life has been a lot: surgeries, marriage, a high-risk pregnancy, new motherhood, postpartum, a layoff. Writing and making things are practices I return to from a place of presence, and for a while, presence was going elsewhere. That may be changing soon.
Writing
Spiels of a Quill
Personal essays, health advocacy, and poetry. The blog began in 2016 and grew into a space for writing about chronic illness — endometriosis, PCOS, adenomyosis — at a time when those conversations were not easy to find. In March 2021, I ran a 12-day #EndoTheStigma awareness campaign, writing publicly about my own journey with a condition that had gone undiagnosed for years. The blog spans 68 posts across 2016–2021, and the writing eventually moved to Medium to reach a wider audience.
BookBites
Bite-sized book reviews by a lifelong bibliophile. Short, honest takes on what I've read — because books are one of the best ways to understand someone else's world, and not every review needs to be an essay.
Art & Craft
Painting, sketching, crochet, diamond painting, and whatever else I'm making. Art has been a way of staying present and grounded — a practice that asks nothing of you except that you show up and make something. Follow along on Instagram.
Dance
Bharatanatyam has been part of my life since the age of four. I performed my Arangetram — the formal solo debut that marks a dancer's transition to the stage — in December 2006, and have been practicing for 25+ years. It is an art form that teaches patience, precision, and showing up for something difficult day after day. I am currently three years into a formal degree in Kathak, a second classical Indian dance form. There is more overlap between classical dance and research than people expect: both tell stories through structure, both demand rigor, and both require you to hold complexity without losing the thread.
Public Speaking
Toastmasters speeches — a practice in the craft of public speaking, structured argumentation, and showing up in front of a room. Three recorded speeches from my time with Toastmasters.