Nidhi Paralikar

On returning to theatre and filmmaking after years away. A personal essay about saying yes again, facing past trauma, and finally taking that leap of faith.

Think of your manuscript as a complex dish you're preparing for guests. You wouldn't serve raw ingredients on a plate and call it a meal. You also wouldn't garnish a dish before you've even cooked it. Each stage of preparation has its purpose, its timing, and its technique. The same applies to editing.

And I knew there were others like me, young people carrying the weight of being told they're simultaneously too much and not enough. I wanted to reach them through drama, through applied theatre, through storytelling, through creating spaces where they could just be.