Author: Raulito

  • Small Things That Instantly Improve My Mood

    I’ve realised something about myself over the years.My mood doesn’t need grand gestures. It doesn’t need life-changing news, big wins, or dramatic moments. Most days, it just needs… small things.Very small things. The kind that feel almost silly to admit, but work every single time. Like walking outside at night with my AirPods on, noise…

  • The Movie I’ve Never Seen

    The Bollywood classic everyone quotes… except me. There’s a Bollywood film called Sholay.If you’re Indian, or even loosely Bollywood-adjacent, you already know exactly which one I mean. It’s quoted endlessly.It’s sung.It’s parodied.It’s treated like scripture. And me?I’ve never seen it. Whenever this comes up in conversation, the reaction is immediate and dramatic. Shock. Mock horror.…

  • Why I’ve Stopped Explaining Myself

    There was a time when I explained everything. Why I spoke the way I spoke. Why I dressed the way I did. Why I liked certain restaurants and not others. Why I was selective about the people I kept close. Why I made some lifestyle choices that didn’t look “normal” or “necessary” to others. For…

  • Mandrake, The Phantom, and the Indrajal Comics That Kept Me Reading

    Mandrake, The Phantom, and the Indrajal Comics That Kept Me Reading When I think about the comics that shaped me, The Famous Five is not the first memory that comes up. Before that, there was another stack of books that I absolutely devoured: Indrajal Comics. Indrajal Comics were published in India by the Times Group…

  • Casa Orellana: A Classic Madrid Lunch Done Right

    Some lunches are about the food.Others are about the people.And every now and then, you get one where both line up just right. Casa Orellana was that kind of lunch. We were three. Friends catching up after years, maybe even a decade, without any awkwardness, no forced updates, just easy conversation that picked up where…

  • Things I Quietly Judge (But Keep to Myself)

    I like to think I’m a fairly tolerant person. I live in a big city. I’ve learnt patience. I’ve learnt to mind my business. I’ve learnt that everyone is fighting their own battles and that judging people rarely leads anywhere useful. And yet. There are things I quietly judge. Internally. Silently. With no intention of…

  • The Wishing-Chair Adventures and the Books That Started It All

    Before The Famous Five, before long series and thicker novels, there were The Wishing-Chair Adventures. These were, as far as I can remember, the very first proper novels I ever read. I must have been around nine or ten. I was living in Mumbai then, and I wasn’t going out much. I used to fall…

  • Why I Started Blogging in 2026

    If you had told me a few years ago that I’d be starting a blog in 2026, I probably would’ve laughed. Blogging felt like something from another internet era. Something we all did, or followed, in the early 2010s. Then somewhere along the way, it faded into the background. Replaced by feeds, reels, stories, algorithms,…

  • Why I Love Walking Alone

    I love walking alone. Not in a dramatic, soul-searching kind of way. Just in a very practical, everyday way. Put my AirPods in, press play, and let the city do its thing while I do mine. I always walk with headphones. Always. Ever since I got the AirPods Pro, the noise cancellation has been a…

  • Confessions of a Taxi Lover

    Why you’ll never catch me on the metro Everyone has habits they can’t shake. Mine? Taxis. Or Ubers. Or, back when I was living in Mumbai, rickshaws. It became such a running joke that even an ex-colleague once wrote a song about it. Complete with the line “taxi w***e.” Not my proudest nickname, but it…