It is a Monday morning. While others may be groaning at their alarm clocks reminding them that workweek has, in fact, begun once again, I jolt up at 6:30 am — half an hour before my alarm is scheduled for. I down a bottle of water and feel the cold liquid slowly wake my body up from the chest outwards. My shoulders crack and my legs pop as I wiggle and stretch myself around. Some mornings I use this routine to give me the momentum I need to get up, change and go for a run, but not today. Today…

I have from time to time felt that the dose of irony in my life gets suspiciously high. Sometimes it creeps in unwelcome, preying on what’s good and pushing buttons. Other times, it forces me to open my eyes a little, and give into what feels uncomfortable. This time around, it was a little bit of both, and the timing was absolutely unbelievable.

The COVID panic hit India in early March. I remember this because the last “social” thing I attended was on March 7th: a Vir Das show. I went with a group of relatives and friends. Seated on…

I was a junior in college when I downloaded Headspace. I remembered opening some Buzzfeed article or the other and looking at ways to keep stress-induced anxiety in-check. I was double majoring, I was working a few jobs, I was living away from my family, and I was also just trying to exist as a human being. The least I could do was find some way to give myself space to breathe — especially when I was so good at pretending like I didn’t need it.

I went through a few courses on Headspace. I did the foundational courses, and…

How fun is writer’s block? So fun. It kind of hits whenever it wants to, doesn’t it? Recently it’s been hitting me at a particularly weird instance.

I’m somewhat of an impulsive writer. I’ll find myself in the middle of a routine activity and suddenly a thought will pop into my head — a prompt, a piece of dialogue, a flurry of colorful imagery that needs to be noted down. …

When I was ten years old, we moved to India. At that time, around 2006, most of the families that made up the Indian family friend circle in Portland’s Beaverton district had started to relocate, some to other cities, and some to the other side of the world. Parents moved away and, consequently, do did their children. With each friend that departed, I was more ready to pack up and leave as well.

My parents had actually been thinking about it for a while themselves. My dad had never really lived in India, being the child of a diplomat, and…

1. Salad: Don’t get me wrong, a cherry tomato here and there, even small olive slices, don’t do much harm. With salads, my main fear is the hero component: the leaf. Be it spinach or lettuce, arugula or rocket, there is just no elegant, efficient way to really get leaves folded neatly on a fork. Every time I’ve tried, it’s taken me absurd amounts of focus — usually forcing me to bite my tongue and squint suspiciously at my utensils — and hand-eye coordination (that I do not have) to get the leaves scrunched into manageable sizes. I don’t think it…

Stephen Turner arrived in Chiang Mai from Chicago 15 years ago after a stint of travelling around the world. An artist at heart, he soon found himself seeking out opportunities to engage in theatre around the city but was disheartened by the lack of a scene. At the time there was no English language theatre community, leaving little room for a native English speaker to engage in a meaningful way. There was a gap for the western theatre lover, a gap that Turner knew he needed to fill.

Soon after retiring from the international school where he taught, Turner, with…