I’ve always written, but it was only after I began writing professionally—and started facing the inevitable question at readings, “Why do you write?”—that I began to ask myself that very question and articulate the reasons. My responses vary. I’ve said I write to answer questions about the world for myself. In other words, to think my way into clarity.
Last month, at a conference at Notre Dame University, I was asked about my motivation for writing, and I responded with one word: rage. Afterwards, I thought that I should have said rage and passion. Maybe they are, debatably, the same thing.
Over the past four years, this column has been my space to rant and rave about the things I care passionately about; to talk about the change I hope to see, and to contribute to conversations that matter to me. Writing, for me, is a way of life. In her brilliant Nobel Prize acceptance speech, the indomitable Toni Morrison said it better:
“Be it grand or slender, burrowing, blasting, or refusing to sanctify; whether it laughs out loud or is a cry without an alphabet, the choice word, the chosen silence, unmolested language surges toward knowledge, not its destruction…we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
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‘Doing language’ here has been immensely fulfilling. However, as they say, all (good) things must come to an end. And so, this column ends. Thank you for keeping me company here. Nevertheless, as ‘doing language’ is the measure of a writer’, I’ll still be ranting and raving on social media and writing books to explore the themes that won’t let me be. I’m always only a rant and a rave away.
As my final op-ed, I’d like to share the Christmas poem I wrote for my family’s card this year.
Wishing us all a Merry Christmas, a fabulous 2025, and a bold new world! Stay safe, be kind and be responsible.
Consider this: A habit becomes a ritual becomes a lifestyle
It is entirely possible that if you held some honey in your mouth
A little a day, you’d become fluent in sweetness
Your mother tongue:
love & kindness & gentleness
No one’s ever said the world’s had enough love, enough kindness, enough gentleness
Sweetness in the world is not cloying
It’s a warmth under the skin & a light around us & stars in the darkest night & prayers answered
No one’s ever said: file away the soft bits of yourself that shine;
No one’s ever said: shower us with pellets not rain;
No one’s ever said: lay us on a mat of broken things with sharp edges like the tortoise in my favourite folktale
Speak sweetness
Speak flowers in full bloom
Speak the joy of children playing in the sun or in the snow or in the rain
Wear your language on your sleeves
A habit becomes a ritual becomes a lifestyle
Becomes our new world
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