Why I write
I’ve always loved words. Words in all forms and kinds: calligraphy, lettering, poetry, books, comics, fonts, and well-crafted copy. There’s something about the beauty of words, how it transforms complex ideas into meaningful narratives. The artistic side of words—calligraphy, murals, magazines—is equally captivating.
Growing up, imagination was my playground. My mother and I would create make-believe stories on our way home from school, building a shared little universe of characters, language and roles only known to us. It was quite fun. When my brother was born, he joined us and our tiny world of play-pretend expanded with new stories and adventures. The three of us would share these funny stories and play with each other’s imaginations. These early experiences taught me the power of narrative—how stories connect us, create shared understanding, and reveal deeper truths. Living far from home now, I often miss those moments.
The thing about imagination is, it travels at the speed of light. While that can be wonderful, it also presents challenges sometimes. Let’s start with the wonderful part. Imagination can be channelled in meaningful ways through creative outlets. For me, these included calligraphy, sketching, lettering, poetry writing and journaling. Another interesting outlet is reading, which allows us to enter someone else’s imagination (like teleportation at a different pace). As a child, reading fascinated me. It was a dance of ideas, colours and words. Time spent in bookstores felt like an adventure. Sometimes with parents, with friends and by myself. There was a fancy bookstore, ‘Crossword’, near my house where my parents often dropped me off. I adored its calm environment: beautiful little seats, comfy couches, soft ambient lighting, gentle instrumental music and books of all kinds. They also had toys, magazines, cool stationery and a jaw-dropping pen section. But I was all in for the books!! I would read endlessly. In hindsight, reading offered me a way to explore different perspectives and ways of thinking—essentially an early form of user empathy.
When the pressures of teenage life felt overwhelming, I wrote poems about it. Around that time, I discovered poetry by Robert Frost and P.B. Shelly in my English class. I really enjoyed the depth in their work, when poets wrote words filled with figures of speech; I liked deciphering the layers of meaning in their words—metaphors, alliterations, and oxymorons. These analytical aspects of poetry—developed my ability to look beyond surface-level information, a helpful skill in research analysis. In the early 2010s, blogs were in vogue. Most of the kids in my school had a blog. While I didn’t have one as a teenager, I created one during my undergraduate years. I realized, writing was the easiest way I could untangle the world’s complexities.
When I moved to a new country for my higher studies, there were a lot of new things to adapt to (climate, culture). Writing became my anchor amidst the hurricanes of adulting. I learned to ground myself through journaling.
Writing is a personal thing for me. As a person, it has always been my camera to the world. It’s how I say, how I look at things, what I look at. As a UX (User Experience) researcher, I combine writing and storytelling to explore human experiences. This approach shapes how I observe, listen, and translate user needs into meaningful design insights. As a researcher, it’s how I say what I want to say, what needs to be said in this world and how sense-making happens. Whether I'm sitting on a bus observing the world, conducting user interviews or presenting my findings, I'm constantly looking for the deeper narrative—the story behind the story.
The marriage of our imagination and feelings gives way to words that transport us to other worlds. This is why art that moves us (think movies, theatre, music, books, poetry) resonates so deeply, because, for a moment, it takes us elsewhere, into the artist’s world. Writing has always been my lens for sense-making, and I look forward to sharing ideas that connect people and the worlds we live in.