There is a woman in a Parsi neighbourhood in Mumbai who has been making the same green chutney every August for forty-three years. Same recipe. Same bowl. Same unhurried morning. Her grandchildren do not fully understand yet why she starts before sunrise, why she insists on fresh coconut even when the market is far, why […]

Once in a while, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announces a change that quietly touches almost every part of our financial lives. One such change? The RBI repo rate. It might not seem like a big deal at first, but it plays a role in things like your EMIs, how much your FD earns […]

Introduction Let’s be honest – most of us learned more about the Mughal Empire in school than we did about managing money. I mean, when was the last time knowing Akbar’s reign dates helped you decide between a fixed deposit and mutual funds? Yet here we are, adults trying to figure out taxes, loans, and […]

October does not arrive like the other months. It arrives with a feeling. The mornings carry a gentle chill that was not there last week. The evenings smell different — somewhere between marigolds, fresh paint, and something frying in a kitchen two houses down. The local flower vendor has more stock than usual. And without […]

Picture the world of big money – loans, investments, all that jazz. For ages, there was this go-to number called LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered Rate. It was the yardstick for figuring out interest rates on tons of stuff. But, things change, right? People started wanting something a bit more transparent, something that really showed […]

It starts the same way every single year, in every single household across India. Someone — and there is always that one someone — drops a “Happy Navratri!” in the family group chat. Always with that same garba GIF. The pixelated one. The one that has been forwarded so many times it has lost whatever […]

Diwali preparation in most Indian households is organised chaos. There’s mithai to order, fairy lights to untangle from last year, relatives to call and somehow, in the middle of all of it, one reminder always finds its way through: Muhurat Trading. Don’t forget. And for those who know, they never do. It takes just one […]

There is a feeling that arrives sometime in late September, early October — hard to name but impossible to miss. The markets are still open. Your inbox is still full. But something in the air has shifted. The marigold vendors are back at the street corners. The dhak players are practising in someone’s courtyard nearby. […]

Somewhere around late October, it happens. Someone in the family – usually a mother or a grandmother – starts mentioning Dhanteras in passing. Casually at first. “Have you checked when Dhanteras is this year?” And then a little more urgently. “We should clean the puja room this weekend.” And then, suddenly, all at once, it […]