Infinity Inklings #82
A non-edition of sorts (but still something to read)
The summer’s in full swing (although, as I write this, a troop of grey clouds has made a dramatic entrance above St Paul’s Cathedral in London), my parents are in town, and I’ve got something exciting brewing behind the scenes. Which means: regularly scheduled programming is on pause this week.
I’ve been busy (in the best way), and while I can’t share all the details just yet, I promise it’ll be worth the wait.
In the meantime, I didn’t want to leave this edition empty — so I’m taking a small shortcut and sharing a couple of pieces I’ve written recently for other places. If you’ve been following Infinity Inklings for a while, these will feel right at home: part personal essay, part historical musing, part existential spiral.
Moving on means mourning yourself too
Or, a funeral for a self that doesn’t exist anymore
I wrote this piece for my friend
’s brilliant newsletter Brown Bodies (highly recommend subscribing if you don’t already). It began as a long, meandering conversation in Holland Park about heartbreak and eventually became this essay; shaped through coffee, voice notes, rewrites, and a few “should I say this publicly?” moments.Here’s a little excerpt:
When the goodbye is done, when the grief begins to fade and the noise dies down, you realise there’s no funeral for the self that left with them. And I think it deserves one. Because one of the strangest things about breakups is that, as time goes on, people expect a clean slate. Like once you’ve made a decision, once you’ve said your piece, once you’ve moved on, you shouldn’t feel anything anymore. As if you can start fresh and live as though what happened hadn’t happened. But it doesn’t work like that.
[…]
What we grieve after love isn’t always the person — it’s the particular version of you they unlocked. The one who cooked that kind of breakfast. Who laughed a little differently. Who spoke with a certain amalgamation of gestures and cadence shaped by your shared languages. Who believed, with an unguarded heart, in something lasting.
And when they go, so does he.
You can read the full piece here:
What is South Asia, really?
A region drawn, redrawn, and still becoming
This one’s a piece I wrote for Brown History, exploring how the idea of “South Asia” came to be — and how modern and political these borders really are.
As the world slides further into conflict in multiple fronts, I wanted to trace the lines we treat as fixed, and what it means to exist both within and beyond them.
(If it’s behind a paywall and you want to read it, just let me know — I’ve got you.)
