While browsing through an Indie author forum on Facebook, Eisha finds Cincinnati-based Jacqueline Vollat's post about her children's book, How to Hug a Cloud, which is available for free on Kindle that day. Who doesn't like a freebie? She downloads it and reads the 36-pages from cover to cover, illustrated beautifully by Noor Alshalabi, a freelance illustrator based in Jordan (https://www.noorillustrates.com/). Will the dreamy rhyme about chasing a cloud and not giving up work for her...

Eisha religiously empties her Spam and cleans her Inbox to reduce load on the servers. It's one of the tiny things you can do for the environment and save power, she says. Before she hits "Empty Spam Now", she glances through the subject lines, some humourous, some not. From eggplant emojis in mails about penis-elongation to Russian women trying to sell her sex, to lottery and casino wins to blocked PR to hate mail from people she knew or didn't know, she finds them all. Then she talks about...

In this episode of The Write Creed, Eisha reads out a chapter from Mad & Moonly, the third and final book of her new romantic thriller series, The Goa Saga.  James, Aeram and Saysha are lying on the bed. Aeram recalls the time Danny belted him in the room and James gave him a hiding. He tells James that he loves him more than anyone in the world and he will take Oleg down. Only he can, because Oleg and Svetlana like him. Why? Mad & Moonly is available on Kindle, Amazon, Notion Press...

In her bid to reduce the number of plastic bottles in the bathroom, Eisha has ordered a couple of Earthy Sapo's Reetha Shampoo bars on Amazon. This is a product review after her first use. You might wonder why Eisha's reviewing a vegan shampoo bar on The Write Creed podcast. Well, it comes with a lot of literature, that's why. There are instructions on the brown box, an instruction manual about how to use the Earthy Sapo Reetha Shampoo Bar, another instruction manual about how to store or...

Eisha has just launched her first fiction series, The Goa Saga. In this episode of The Write Creed, she reads out from the second book, Gone Goa Gone.  Archbishop Patrick announces a press conference to refute all claims of child abuse made by James and other former students of the boarding school in Mapusa. Saysha is a bunch of nerves. James is cool. He has nothing more to lose, he says. At a crucial moment of the televised press conference, there is a commotion in the audience. Archbishop...

Dr Rahul Bhagwat is Gujarat's ace bird photographer. He is a visiting lecturer at Gujarat Forest Rangers College and his photographs have been published and used in wildlife sanctuaries across India. He also holds a doctorate in Indian Classical Music and is a tabla player. In this episode of The Write Creed, Eisha and Dr Bhagwat talk about birds, photography, eco-tourism and conservation. Dr Bhagwat tells Eisha that he's comfortable in Hindi only. Eisha tells him she can't talk about birds...

Eisha has just released her first fiction book series, The Goa Saga, which is a Romantic Thriller trilogy. In this episode of The Write Creed, she reads out a chapter from her first novel in the series, Shadow & Soul. When Aeram and James both have a shoot, Saysha waits in the vanity van. Once James finishes his part, she asks him to drop her at a boutique. While she is browsing through discount clothes, a couple of photographers take her pictures. James and Saysha run from the...

A graduate of Sophia College, Mumbai, and post-graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Armeen Kapadia Basavaraju thinks that words and design are not that different, after all. A few years back she returned to her old love — writing — and hasn’t looked back since. Her stories have been published in literary magazines such as Amarillo Bay and The Louisville Review and she self-published her novel, Crossroads, in 2020. Crossroads is a delightful window into the Parsi...

Eisha has just launched her first Romantic Thriller trilogy on Amazon Kindle this October. The three books of The Goa Saga are Shadow & Soul, Gone Goa Gone and Mad & Moonly. The first is the story of Identity, the second about the fight for Inheritance and the third is the path to Interdependence. The series is targeted at a global audience of 18-40 years who are English-speaking, urbane, social media savvy, OTT platform binge-watchers and travellers and features places and characters...

Vadodara's famed public garbas have had to be cancelled because of the ongoing Covid19 pandemic. However, that has not dampened the Navratri spirit this year as much as it had in 2020. Smaller gatherings, baithaks and dances in societies, homes and smaller halls are common. Eisha was invited to one such baithak and she shares a few recordings of that in this episode of The Write Creed.  #navratri #fineartsgarba #vadodara #baroda #msuniversity #dandiya #raas #durga #ambaji #durgapuja...

Over the last decade of teaching students in the fields of communication, media, journalism, etc, Eisha has had the same queries year after year from students, peers and friends who wish to spread their work far and wide but don't know how much to charge. To those of you who wish to get writers (all kinds, fiction/non-fiction, journalists) photographers, artists and designers to submit their work to you or "offer help" or "support you", you should PAY them for their help/support/job. They may...

Prerna Shah is a Dublin-based writer, blogger and journalist. In July 2020, right in the middle of the Covid19 pandemic, she and her friend Swati Subhedar started The Good Story Project which is a storytelling platform that allows ordinary people to write about their lives. "A safe space where interviews, personal narratives and features could be conducted with balance and empathy." In this episode of The Write Creed, Prerna and Eisha talk about the need and scope of slow journalism and then...

Hafeestonova is a digital strategist, photographer and the host of Cha Cha Music Review podcast in Lagos, Nigeria. In this episode of The Write Creed, Eisha tells him that when someone tells her about African music, she thinks about the African-American sounds of rap, reggae, hip-hop, blues, jazz and soul but not about music from the African continent. Hafeestonova tells us about how Afrobeats are trending everywhere and how Grammy Award-winning Burna Boy and Wizkid's Essence have introduced...

Untamed thoughts by Anita Sinha Notion, caprice or stretch of imagination.  Leave behind the nitty gritty of life.  Take a circuitous path.  Trudge along labyrinth.  Scale the heights of a summit.  Watch the snow-clad mountains  Rays of the sun in several hues.  Close my eyes and feel the blues  Shout at the top of my voice, echoes resonate the valleys  Gleefully I stand in ecstasy.  Strutting I spot valley of flowers  Enchanted and captivated  Stood mesmerised, drinking their...

Eisha's former student, Kushan Patel, is now a sought-after quizmaster who conducts quizzes for IITs, IIMs and other top institutes and quiz clubs in India. He has been quizzing for 25 years and been a quizmaster for over a decade. In this episode of The Write Creed, Kushan talks about how he got interested in quizzing at an early age, the shift of format of quizzes from information gathering and quick recollection to puzzle-solving thanks to the democratization of the internet, how Covid has...

Eisha started writing haiku a few years ago when she lived in Australia during poetry-jamming sessions with her friend from the US. When she bought her first Android phone, she downloaded the HaikuJAM app which was founded by Dhrupad Karwa and Andrew Leung. The poetic expression app allows for collaboration between three people to create haiku. She used it for a couple of years till motherhood put a break and she preferred binge-watching shows on Netflix instead of writing haikus. Then last...

This episode of The Write Creed starts with Eisha sitting in the Crystal Room of The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai as she gets nostalgic about the events she covered at the hotel when she was an intern at Bombay Times. It has been over a decade that she has spent some time at the hotel and she savours each moment she is there. The Gateway of India and Colaba Causeway are crowded as people make their way to immersing their Ganesh idols into the sea on occasion of Ganesh Visarjan. This year,...

Journalism is all about deadlines and Eisha loves keeping time. She is known for her fondness for unusual dials and wearing men's watches. Not a serious horologist, she did try to repair a few of her early watches during her teens with a set of screwdrivers. Then she outsourced it to old watchmakers in repair shops in Mumbai and Vadodara and took a step back in time. In this episode of The Write Creed, she talks about her favourite watches, journalism and advertising before reviewing her...

Eisha was woken up at 3.40 am on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 by a torrential downpour in her city, Vadodara, India, and a buzz on her cell phone. It was a message from her friend Henaa Salehi from New York about scheduling this interview a couple of hours later. Henaa left Kabul on August 15 by the last commercial flight out of the capital of Afghanistan before the city was taken over by the Taliban. Henaa is the Director of Procurement Policy and Legal Directorate, at National Procurement...

It's Ganesh Chaturthi and what better way to start the day but with an ode in Gujarati written to welcome the lord of all good beginnings, Ganesha or Ganpati Bappa. Dhruti Mankodi has created this garba specially for The Write Creed. Thank you! Cover art: Mumbai's famous Lalbaugcha Raja #dhrutimankodi #garba #gujarati #garbaforganpati #lordganesha #ganeshchaturthi

After 24 years, Eisha chats up her old schoolmate, Supriya Priya Arora, who juggles her career in a diamond firm with cameo roles in TV serials, reality TV, theatre parts, dance shows and modelling. Supriya (who used her screen name Anshikha Aurora until seven years ago) has appeared in various roles in TV serials like Sasural Genda Phool, Sapno Se Bhare Naina, Ahilyabai Holkar, Chhoti Sardarni, Mere Sai, Vighnaharta Ganesha, Ye Rishtey Hain Pyaar Ke, Kkoi Dil Mein Hai, Sarkar, Sapne Suhane...

Indian poet and lyricist, Gulzar, has published several children's books. Samay Ka Khatola is a collection of poems and songs he had penned over the years and later dedicated to his grandson, Samay. Eisha has been looking for books in Hindi to introduce the language to her toddler. This one comes handy. In this episode of The Write Creed, Eisha recites two songs from the book in her own style, that her son loves. Enjoy! #samaykakhatola #indianauthors #hindibooks #hindibooksforkids #gulzar...

In this episode of The Write Creed, Eisha tells Waleed that her friends in Herat and Kabul in Afghanistan are in a precarious situation and have, of late, been putting up quotes by Rumi. She asks Waleed why Rumi, who was originally from Balkh in now Afghanistan, is the most popular Sufi poet. They travel through central Asia, Iran, Turkey and the Indian subcontinent through the histories of kings and stories of Sufi poets and their songs in Farsi and Punjabi and talk about different kinds of...

A few years ago, Eisha watched a viral video of actor Daniel Radcliffe rapping Alphabet Aerobics by Blackalicious on The Jimmy Fallon Show. She looked up the lyrics and that inspired her to pen a poem about her second home, Australia, a country very close to her heart. Here's Alphabetically Aussie: Alphabetically Aussie! Australia, Ayers, Assange, asylum; Beaches, blokes, beers and bush; Cricket, coffee and conversation; Diplomacy, dollar, didgeridoos; Entertaining evenings,...