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Continue reading →: Will It Soda? Take Two with Nai Miris
Most people have churches or temples. I have Mother Dough, a beloved bakery-café I visit at least once a month, especially when I need to restore faith in humanity. And who better to do that than the very special human beings who bake bread? Located in the nostalgic Kampong Glam…
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Continue reading →: The Tamil Jazz Collective Live in SingaporeBefore I ever heard the Tamil Jazz Collective, I was already craving for them. In the aftermath of watching Crazy Rich Asians, I remember feeling so conflicted. The movie captures a Singapore I am aware of but do not recognise, and this, too, is part of the Singapore experience: living…
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Continue reading →: A Love Note to Hong KongThis essay had me hotfooting it to the library to get my hands on an Eileen Chang short story collection! Returning to a writer I once loved feels like reconnecting with a lovely friend I hadn’t met in ages, taking in the sweetness of her words, still beguiled by her…
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Continue reading →: Banana Bread, But Make It Art: “Caking” a Core Food Memory
A small disclaimer: I know there’s a lot happening in the world right now. And yet, here I am contemplating cake because what else is there, when everything feels a little like the end of days? Eat cake! Be merry! When I finally got sick of the fruit flies circling…
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Continue reading →: One Part Woman, in Dance…
While my feed is teeming with reactions to the latest Wuthering Heights adaptation, I got to catch a different adaption over the weekend, a rendering of a controversial Indian novel through dance theatre. Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman needs no introduction but here’s a primer. It was the book that…
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Continue reading →: Single & Singaporean? What’s in Budget 2026 for you
Consciously uncoupled, but I would like those payouts, thank you! So I’m in my “NO” era. There is something subversive about being single in Singapore. It’s not exactly a life template anyone in the family before me modelled. It feels like a liminal space. Not quite a householder! Not quite…
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Continue reading →: Romancing a Poem: Red Earth Nail Polish & Kurunthokai 40
I am irrationally attached to the much beloved Kurunthokai 40. So when I randomly noticed a brick-red, earth-toned nail polish at a drugstore a few days ago, I stopped. Was this the hue of sempulapeyal nīr (செம் புலப் பெயல் நீர்), red earth drenched in rain? I was not entirely sure.…
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Continue reading →: Translation-in-Progress: The More Loving One
Auden’s The More Loving One has been on my mind of late. For me, this poem exists in a strange, beautiful tension. Astrophysicist Janna Levin’s reading reminds us of our smallness and yet the human capacity to love within the universe. And the poem also turns toward something deeply human:…
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Continue reading →: Will it chutney? An Unrecipe using Bhutanese hazelnutsI had grand plans when I was gifted a box of Mountain Hazelnuts, a company I first learned about while attending a work conference last year. I was so taken by their work that I went on to write about them and feature their story in a magazine I edited.…
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Continue reading →: A poetry playlist & on becomingHave you ever had times when the mind becomes too crowded a place to inhabit, dank and eaten away by self-criticism? A few weeks ago, I found myself lost in that labyrinth, haunted by the weight of two mistakes I had made at work, a speck in the world’s eye,…
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I’m J.
I am a writer and literary translator living in Singapore. Welcome to my cosy corner of the internet dedicated to all things literary, lifestyle and other things that catch my fancy.
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J.Panicker 