Ratika Deshpande
Ratika Deshpande
Hey there! I’m Ratika Deshpande (she/her), a writer, reader, student, and global citizen. My articles have appeared in Reactor magazine, Authors Publish magazine, Submittable, and The Learning Scientists blog. I earned my B.A. (Honours) in Applied Psychology from the University of Delhi. Born in Indore, I studied in Nagpur and New Delhi. Currently, I’m pursuing an M.A. in Education. I love fantasy books, Studio Ghibli movies, Indian classical music and cooking.
July 2026
August 2026
Top Words
- books
- list
- reading
- picture
- readings
- children
- letters
- world
All posts (33)
August has not been kind to me. Work draws taxes from my soul and the weather from my body. I read in deep, hours-long gulps on the weekend, then spend my time craving the feeling of crafting good sentences. On a day when the cold-induced sludge couldn’t get heavier, the light peeked through my closed glass window,...
Lately, I’ve been rereading the articles that I’d previously shared here. The goal was to go back to pieces I’d considered important enough to save, and to see why. I also wanted to discover parts of myself I’d forgotten. What were the topics I’d been interested in? What did my agreement with the authors of those...
Constant quiet may not be a good idea, just like constant busyness. It’s the latter that makes the former more meaningful. Still, I have to make sure I find stillness during my personal hours, too, and not just on the weekends. I should not expect myself to live all of life in just two days every week. I need to be...
“Back in the 1940s, when we became independent from Denmark, our economy was extremely poor, and there was a very strict quota of importing goods. So before Christmas there were very few gifts to buy. But there was no quota on paper. We had printing plants; we had authors. So the tradition of making books and...
Some books are heavy. Others have weight in them. I just finished a book of the second kind, a book I’d been meaning to read for a long time, a book I waited to buy a copy of even though my college library had it so that I could mark it freely with my pencil, a book I’d started reading yesterday. Even before I’d...
Before I zeroed in on education as the area I want to focus on, I’d spent years reading all I could about the climate crisis. This is a collection of links from that period that I still have, all in one place. I’m sharing them in case they help others. Not all of these links will be relevant since they’re a couple...
Sometimes, I have a really strong urge to write a small, quick poem. And sometimes, I just find the right inspiration, as in the following case, on a night when I wanted to play with words but my window and the night outside felt dull: “Usually I like riding on trains, especially at night, with the lights on and the...
Some rules and guidelines after spotting patterns, gaps, and disappointments in my reading list: Read physical books; do not read online articles. Physical books allow for longer engagement with an idea and do not have a comments section you can immediately refer to to see what others think about a topic, giving you...
“Nothing we keep around us is only for décor, is it? We select and surround ourselves with objects that speak to or for us, whether we are aware of it or not.” – Samantha Sotto Yambao, Water Moon, pg. 139 These days, I am thinking again about the beauty of everyday objects, of creating a house that looks good. I...
Since writing is the only thing I can do very well, I wondered recently if there was a way of doing some good in the world by using this skill, other than authoring books or becoming a journalist. I was thinking of the impactful letters I’ve read, sent by everyone from Vincent van Gogh to Rabindranath Tagore and...
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