So how is it that I ended up in a city on the opposite end of the world, in a society completely different from the one I grew up in, and yet found myself at home from the day I started living in the west end of Toronto?

The west end represents everything the teenage me dreamed of— live music, old architecture, independent boutiques, close to the water (which always feels like the sea to me), and more events happening here than I could possibly attend. On my first few walks I headed straight down to the water. Queen St. West and then south. I crossed graffiti alley and grunge stores, making mental notes on the restaurants offering everything from Nigerian to Vietnamese cuisines, feeling let down on seeing the boarded-up venues that once must have been where one rocked out to, to observing the must-have-beverage-in-hand culture that I thought was only for social media posts but now witnessing in reality. I sensed that this street had lived out its nonconformist days, with some shops and blocks still holding onto its crumbling glory. I could see myself from my angry punk days— roaming aimlessly, sitting in front of record shops, and hanging around bars with friends— I wish I had been here then.

As I got more comfortable on my walks, understanding the grid in which the city was mapped, I expanded my walking radius, from Queen to Dundas to College to Bloor, one west end street at a time. Each one with its own charm with some of the connecting residential streets becoming my regular paths only so that I could stare at the beautiful houses.

After a few months, I decided that Dundas W was my favourite. The dive bars still remained, the vintage stores still thrived, the coffee shops seemed less pretentious— somehow it had struck a chord with me.

In a home sandwiched between Queen and Dundas streets, within months I was living a dream, walking everywhere, noticing everything, suspended in disbelief that of all the neighbourhoods I could have lived in, I lived in this.

Some of it is surely luck. When I was looking for a place to rent, I had no idea about the westside. My search had started from just east of the valley in Danforth, taken me to midtown and finally to this part of town. The day I came to take a look at the home, it had been drizzling and the streets were nearly empty. I couldn’t place a finger on the pulse of the neighbourhood, but I felt like I would belong here. Two days into moving here, I knew this was exactly where I needed to be.

After a year of walking and some more walking, sometimes even in the east side, I rely less on Google maps to take me places. I’m even somewhat of a guide to new friends who have moved recently to the city, or to some who moved years ago but never explored! When I see photos online from the west of town, I can more or less guess which spot it was taken in. I even started a walking club to get to meet more people! If I tell you this was NOT who I was in my 20s, you would not believe me.

From being an extremely introverted girl, who was tremendously conscious of her capabilities, I find myself so much wiser (if I say so myself) and open to change. When I think back to my time in India, I do see this change having begin to rise in me in the past few years, but in Toronto, I have been able to fully unleash this version of me— with still a little bit of punk left.

So has my life progressed in a meaningful way in a year? You know it.

xx

The new replaces the old:

Arras had been operational only for a few months by then. It was formally registered in April 2019 and I started selling via Instagram by October. I was so unprepared that even the packaging boxes had not arrived when I received the first order for a saree. When the first few sales came in, I was both surprised and grateful that strangers were trusting an unknown page on the internet with their money. So when the opportunity for the trade show came through, I was confident that it would do well. It did not. The event had not been advertised at all and there was practically zero foot traffic. I did not bother to attend on the last day of the 5 day exhibition and instead went off to explore the city and had a good time by myself.

Soon after I came back to Guwahati, there was only one thing that was on everyone’s mind and as the situation got worse, business was soon forgotten. I had no work for the following 4 to 5 months. The supply chain for handwoven silk, already fragmented to begin with, was completely broken down. The only option was to wait and be patient. By November I was able to start again. The first few customers who had now become supporters welcomed Arras back with open hearts. I was motivated again. The second round of the pandemic hit back harder in another 6 months.

Work kept being on/off in this way. I had started with a vision but to be honest, I did not or rather, was not, able to execute it fully. I did pop-ups, I listed on marketplaces, I partnered with other small businesses, I came up with more and more products, but I was still stuck. In between all of this haphazard product & distribution strategy, I kept searching for the right vendor because one shut shop without informing me, others ghosted me and some were charging insanely high prices or quoting high minimum quantities that would not have been financially feasible for Arras at that stage. It was figuring out everything, all at once, all alone. Each time I got something right, another thing came undone. I could not keep the momentum going.

At the back of my head, I also knew I was moving to Canada within a few years time. Whether I would have to get employed or whether I would be able to start the business in a new country was a question I did not want to entertain. In the midst of a tough personal time in early 2025, I booked my one-way ticket to Toronto for June 2025. My friends wondered why I was stupidly moving when I had my work & home set up in Delhi. My mother said I was escaping. She was probably right- I had always thought of myself as a ‘flight’ person. But after the past few years of wisening up, I knew fears keep coming back if one does not step up to face them. This move felt like the biggest & last fear I would ever have to face within myself. Truth be told I have clawed my way through 2025 and early 2026. Life was not easy and if it were not for moving to this city last year, I’d have had a tougher time putting all the pieces of me back together.

But on May 10th, 2026 I participated in the first pop-up in Toronto- exactly 11 months after stepping foot in Canada. I made the first sale 1 minute before the market even opened.

This city has fulfilled me in so many ways. Deep down I knew it would because I felt at home within days of living here. I look at one of the post-its on my wall of affirmations in front of my desk- I moved countries and kept going. I am capable.

I am a happy girl.

xx

I have been physically and mentally drained out for the past two weeks. Truthfully, even the arrival of the boxes did not excite me all that much. Maybe it’s because things got real? Now I have them here, now I need to photograph them, talk about them, sell them. The thought of so much to do freaks me out. It takes a lot to show up and get to work.

When I was younger my mother would joke that I am a “jack of all trades, master of none”. I would pick up projects left & right and leave them all midway. Although she was right, her remark did sting a bit. I carried this belief for the longest time that I was not good at any one thing.

Until I started my business. This is the only thing I have ever done in life that I have stuck by despite all the challenges. I always told myself that I would close it the day I stopped “feeling” it, and that day hasn’t come yet. While there have been many many low periods, there is a part of me that keeps asking me to be patient. Maybe that is foolhardy, but I reckon it’s also worked out for me.

3 years ago when my Canadian PR came through, I was not even sure I would actually come to live here. I’m a let’s-decide-when-we-only-absolutely-must kinda person. But 10 months ago I moved here, and now I have managed to set everything up. Alone. Foreign country. Didn’t give up. Younger me would never believe it.

I am proud of myself. That’s my other personal KPI— it’s not something that can be measured but it’s this feeling when I know I am doing my best. Even if things don’t work, I will have no regrets or second thoughts about what I could’ve done.

And while my mother never meant to hurt me with her teasing, it stayed with me enough that I doubted whether I was someone who could run a business. Would I be able to stick with it or give up at the first sight of trouble?

Funnily, what my mother didn’t know then, is that the very thing she made fun of about me, is what makes me love my work. I love being a jack of all trades. I love fiddling with different parts of the business, of learning new things, of fixing broken bits, of being able to communicate with the experts on something else. It’s what makes me show up.

Many others have doubted whether I would stick to being a business owner. Most people I grew up with still see me as a quitter or as someone who doesn’t have it in her. No, it’s not a projection, people have actually said it to my face.

So you can let words bother you, or you can just cut everyone off and get to work. I have chosen to cut off many and I’m better off for it. (Not my mom, I love her.)

I think the only reason I have been able to come this far is because I pay attention to my mental & physical health. I listen to my body and I give it what it needs. And that’s the only person you ever really need to listen to.

xx

I spent a whole day yesterday feeling low and tbh, ignoring a bit of work I had to get to. The first two days of the week were spent furiously working on the new website. I woke up suddenly at 5 am on Monday morning and decided to not try to go back to sleep. I guess insomnia can be useful at times. Opened Shopify and had it all done by 11 am.

April 15th is celebrated as the spring new year according to the Hindu calendar, rooted in agrarian traditions. Known as Rongali or Bohag Bihu, it is the most festive day for an Assamese person. In case you are interested, I wrote a blog about it on the Arras India page about how I celebrated it as a child and what it means to me. I decided to align the launch of the first draft of the website with this special day- as I am someone who tries to find meaning in everything. Do take a look here. (I know launching a website these days takes a matter of minutes but I am quite proud of it!)

Once this was done and often when there is no urgent deadline to meet, I will waddle my way through the day- maybe catch up on some admin work, maybe write a short note on some musing I have, or watch cat videos. Very soon this lands me in anxious territory as I realize I am tab-switching without really doing anything. That’s when the spiral starts…

I am aware of this cycle, yet somehow have not found a solution to it. Sometimes I decide to close down the laptop and pick up a book, although the anxiety lingers in the background. Yesterday was exactly one of those days.

Today, however, I woke up at 8.30 with this will and excitement to get to work. My first thought of the day was, literally, “it is going to be a glorious day!”. Some weird magical transition thingy happened overnight.

That’s the part about working on your own or having an overthinking brain that tells you to do a 100 things at once. Sometimes you end up doing nothing and sometimes you get a furious 4 hour window where you complete everything from building a website to writing a Substack article about it.

On my walks around the city, I have often thought about how work is structured in society. We talk about freedom, but we are, kind of, not...free. Does it not bug you that we have to earn money just to live? For water & food & basic housing? It drives me nuts.

And that is something that has also bugged me about “productivity”, not just the old 40 hour work week but also the experimental 4 day work week. I know I am efficient and effective for 4-5 hours on a day that requires it. If I don’t have a deadline to meet, I should be able to float through/ check out of work without feeling guilty about it. We were taught 'work-life balance' as if the work we do is the natural antithesis to the lives we want to live. I want to live a life where the two aren't in conflict.

When I was working in a retail job in India, I spent 6 days indoors (inside a mall) and got just one day off a week. Monsoon was a short season in Delhi and one fine day, I realized I had not seen the rain come down for over 2 years. This annoyed me, because I was born in tropical Guwahati where torrential rains were everything the water-bearer Aquarius in me loved.

While this wasn’t the sole reason for starting a business, I was sure that I was meant to be my own boss, make my own rules about MY life, to make sure to enjoy nature- every day- and not just on weekends or on the annual 14 days paid leave. Work is part of our lives; I am not going to sacrifice my life for it. I want to enjoy it. And thankfully, I do.

It’s been an erratic past couple of weeks, I have to say. Maybe this is just the way I work, and it’s time to embrace it instead of holding myself accountable to a standard I did not subscribe to. After all, I am getting things done!!

Anyway, that’s my rant for the day. It has turned out to be a beautiful day in Toronto today, so I am going to close my laptop and head to Trinity Bellwoods with my book. :)

I also recently started a walk club in the West End, so if you are in the city and ever want to meet up- this is where I can be found.

Until my next.

xx.

This is no longer the case.

Now I have to look at my calendar before making plans with someone and it’s even taking me less time to recharge my social battery. Just this week I went out/ hung out with people 6 days in a row. That is not something I ever thought I would be able to do.

Maybe it’s because there’s always something to do or see; maybe it’s because I’m less than a year in and still observing Toronto life; maybe it’s because most of my cells have regenerated in the past 7 years! Whatever the case may be, I have enjoyed meeting folks from different parts of the world. Often I have found that we share more similarities than differences— stories about the communities we come from or a desire to understand each other’s cultures better, or if you’re in the West End of Toronto then sharing my distaste of 9 to 5 with creative folks. Side note— living in the West End came as a total surprise to me. I could talk about this part of the city all day long.

However, as much as I would love to continue to keep exploring the city and lying under a tree in Trinity Bellwoods, I also do need to build a routine for work. After tackling a few items on my to-do list for the day- register for an Importer’s account with the Canada Border Services Agency, drafting email newsletters, working on some SEO for Arras India, I opened email hosting with Zoho. At at $15 a year for the basic plan, I highly recommend it. However, this last part got technical for me- verify TXT, MX & SPF records (???!!!) on the domain hosting site. I got stressed. I followed the instructions, hoped Zoho would “propagate the records”, and closed my laptop.

All these terms were buzzing in my head as I headed out for a first date. Normally I would have cancelled but I’m trying to do this thing where I stop being flaky. I’ve also noticed a pattern: the moment I step out I feel refreshed. I walked west on Dundas, which is my new favourite area to explore. Quaint shops, dive bars, art galleries, affordable florists- what’s not to like. I walked almost 35 minutes before meeting up with my date, walked around a bit more chatting, before finally ending up at a bar near my house. Hah.

After a pleasant night of good conversation I got home, sat down to work to check to see if Zoho had verified my domain. No! So I tinkered some more with the instructions but finally decided to email support. Closed out a couple of other admin work and thought about this odd schedule I’m currently on. Tonight was a first- where I slipped in a date (!) and then got back home to work again. There are times when I feel like I should cut down on socializing and hunker down on work, but I have to remind myself that I am not even 10 months into this new country. Although I made some good friends soon after moving, there were also moments where I felt quite alone and thought that I needed a closer, more nurturing circle.

Walking around in the different neighbourhoods not only helped me understand the city and its people for the purpose of living or working here, but also rejuvenated my mental health. A month ago a new housemate joined and we bonded fairly quickly. There were also a couple of personal challenges that I was facing that seemed to suddenly lift. Looking back, while I was having fun and was content with my life, overall I would describe the past 2.5 years as cloudy and unstable. In March 2026, it seemed like I had finally opened the front door and stepped into sunshine. So why should I worry about living life?

The Khasi society is matrilineal, which means lineage and inheritance pass through the women. Families are centred around the mother’s home, and it’s often the man who moves into the woman’s household.

I remember once, in a social studies class in school in Guwahati, this came up. All the girls laughed at the idea that a man would go and live in the woman’s house and I felt awkward because it never occurred to me that it could be an issue.

My mother is an Assamese Hindu and although my father did not move into my mom’s home after marriage, I grew up embracing two religions and two cultures, never told to choose one over the other. I guess I never found reason to complain because my holiday calendar was full.

Easter weekend was about quiet reflection and practising gratefulness. On Sunday, we would go to church and come back home to a hearty lunch. That was it. It was simple but it stayed with me because of that. Over time as I moved to Delhi and parents lived elsewhere, I stopped going to church. There was a rising conflict in me about following the teachings of two religions that obviously clashed in their core philosophy. A part of me also rebelled against going to a place of worship as I contemplated God’s existence and against man made rules. As I think back on my twenties, the first word that comes to mind is ‘confused’. I had outgrown some customs and was exposed to people where it seemed taboo to talk about believing in God. I was practicing some Hindu rituals at home but it often felt like I was doing it without really thinking about what I was doing.

It was only after I started my business in 2019 that I truly started believing again. I spent two years with my parents back in my hometown, and I was inspired by them. My parents raised me and my brother equally and in a household where I never once heard them argue about religion. Without being explicit about it, they had taught us to be open-minded and inclusive. I began to feel more grounded, but because I do love to be rebellious, I began to believe in my own way. I pray to one universal being but I feel the urge to visit a temple once in a while and find some calmness in simple rituals like lighting a diya.

My business is the main reason I believe. I started without a clue of where and how. With no fashion degree or experience, I literally sat down with just a pen & paper and writing down the idea for Arras after having left my sales job in a huff. It was not easy to start because it was so hard to find information online. I was moving back to my hometown after almost 15 years in Delhi. It was like moving to a new place where I had no friends, no professional contacts while interspersing my broken Assamese with English— something that the local populace definitely don’t like. Where was I going to find the weavers and suppliers? And how as I going to communicate with them about technical terms in Assamese?

But as I began, information and help just kept coming my way. There were specific moments where I wanted something particular but had no idea where to source it from, but it would present itself to me in the most random way. Some call it faith, some call it manifestation, some scoff at all of this but it has worked out for me. I don’t force my beliefs on anyone, I don’t judge others for theirs— I just live my own way, and it has helped me navigate running a business that started in a small town in East India and now finding its ground in Toronto.

My parents’ lived differences are my strength and one of their biggest teachings to me. I’m grateful for that today.

For those who celebrate, wishing you a blessed Easter. :)

Since registering the business two weeks ago, time has flown by like a jetliner. Production is underway, branding and packaging materials needed to be designed and printed, web & social media presence built for the new business while I try to improve the SEO, edit the website, create email auto-flows, post on social media, for the India side of the business. In the midst of all of this I am trying to network and find the right room- harder than one might think- where I can learn from others, especially women, who have done this before me. As I’m also only 10 months into being an immigrant in this vibrant city of Toronto, I am also trying to have fun! Phew.

Not that my business is not fun. When I started the research work in January of this year, a part of me felt a bit bogged down that I was having to set it up all over again. However, most of me was excited. I had done it once before, and I was ready to do it all over again. Start a business from scratch.

It’s easier said than done. Besides the fact that time has been a blur for me recently, I also wondered just what I would write about on here. How do I put down what led to these sleepless nights, red-eyed mornings and aching head in text? Tangible outcomes don’t happen every single day. I worked 2 hours on SEO yesterday but Google won’t index it until a month later. You know what I mean? I am also not an SEO expert. I am not a designer. I am not a merchandiser. I am not a content creator. I am not an email marketing expert. But I am bootstrapped and I have to try to be all of these all the time. I loosely slot these different functions in my weekday schedule and because I am trying not to get overwhelmed, I am setting achievable KPIs and focusing on the process, not outcomes. March was about reigniting website traffic and social media views for the India site so the KPIs were soft- did I post 1 blog, send 1 email newsletter and post 1 note/ post/ pin on social media each week? I did. Did I see results? I did. Traffic to both website & Instagram had dropped to abysmally low levels- I had completely ignored my work from June-Dec 2025 (moving to TO, personal challenges, etc) but after I started posting profile views increased by 50% on IG and website. I was not focused on conversions, however I did see a rise in conversions as well. Consistency matters. For April, I’ll be doing more of the same and setting tougher KPIs. Will update here by the end of the month!

The work for the business on this side of the world was mostly research in the month of Jan & Feb. I was recovering from an incredibly sad state of mind but somehow in Jan I decided to wake tf up. I documented business registrations and other legal requirements in Ontario- how to register, what are the priority licences, trademark issues, funding, shipping from India to Canada, so on and so forth. While Googling for grants in Ontario, I came across a programme by Scadding Court. I applied for an entrepreneurship skills development programme held in conjunction with Toronto Metropolitan University and got admitted into the programme. So I was going back to school! I’m not a very academic person but I thought 6 weeks would not be too bad- I looked forward to the in-person interactions with fellow business owners and to experience studying in a foreign uni for the first time in my life. The classes did help me with rethinking the positioning and audience targeting. One of the mistakes I made in India was introducing too many things at once and not focusing on the marketing for one thing at a time. The brand positioning for Arras had started out strong, but somewhere along the way I got lost.

One of my personality characteristics, which I love btw, is thinking, ideating and strategizing. The downside is that I execute slowly. By the end of Feb, I had all the knowledge I needed to start. Classes were done, business registrations figured out, production due to start- all I needed to do now is adopt a bias for action.

And that’s where I am right now. That is how the past month has been spent. I used to be the person who always downplayed what I did, actually I still do it, but I have to say- I am pretty freaking proud of myself. I keep a level head, I set my task lists, I made my strategies and I am getting things done.

I am also planning to start a walking group in my neighbourhood because it turns out that that’s my personal brand. On weekends I walk, I’ve made new friends, I fall more in love with this city and thank God every day that I am here. Surviving, nay, living.

Catch you on the next one.

I was born in Guwahati, India, a smallish city back in the 90s. At 15, I moved to the capital, New Delhi, where I lived for 2 decades, before finally gathering my courage to make my home in Toronto.

For the past 9 months, I’ve done a lot of things alone. Not that I’m not used to it— I’ve lived alone for a long time now, and have never been scared of being with my own company- but I have had to tackle more things by myself than I expected.

Everyone I’ve met asks why I came to this city. Most people have clear answers to why they moved anywhere- studies, career growth, a change in relationship status. I always hesitate before answering and sometimes change my answer according to what I think they want to hear. Truth is, I never had a life plan. Way back from my high school days, while everyone was talking about what they wanted to do and having a response to “where do you see yourself 5 years hence?”, I found myself floating along to wherever the current led me.

After graduating I sat for law exams because my father said I would be a good lawyer, but my scores were not high enough to secure admission into a good university so I ended up studying Economics, which was his second choice for me. I did not think about whether I wanted it— I had liked the subject well enough in school to continue learning it further. It did not cross my mind to check on what I would do once I had earned this degree.

I didn’t perform very well. I was an average student and after the first year of college I started feeling dumb (about the first time I started feeling such things about myself). It did not help that some of my peers actually called me that. Towards the end of our undergraduate program, my friends started talking about their future plans. They wanted to branch into international relations, development economics, already being active participants in debates, Model UN and youth leadership programmes to strengthen their applications to foreign universities— Harvard, Oxford, and other fancy places that intimidated the heck out of me. I truly began to believe that I was not smart and that I was far, far behind everyone else.

I ended up (once again) getting a business degree because that’s what the majority of folks in my circle were doing. I was relieved that I got admission into a reasonably well-ranked university in India but it turned out to be another stage of life where I felt out of place. People told me I was not ambitious enough, they scoffed at me if they saw me reading the Financial Times, one time the senior year president pulled me aside— the only girl hanging out with 5-6 guys to ask why I was smoking weed on campus— I wasn’t. It was the guys who were, but they were never questioned. I was also called a slut because I was from Northeast India— a “chinky”— and because I mostly hung out with my then boyfriend and his group of male friends.

From the age of 14 to 21, I was teased about my body, my ethnicity and my intelligence— sometimes by classmates, sometimes even by family members. I couldn’t begin to process one aspect of it, before someone hit me with something else.

I thought I was handling these things well. I never stopped to think that they were so potent that they chipped away at my sense of self-worth little by little. By 25 many of my peers were in well-established jobs with clear, linear career paths and there I was, looking back on mine with a sense of ‘ugh’.

But somewhere in my mid-twenties, my brain somehow started fighting back against all the negative conditioning. I started believing I am capable of more than what I am told and what I had come to believe about myself. It took me a few more years before I started my business, back to my roots, in the city where I was born.

Even after that, I had— can I call them friends?— tell me that they did not think I could ever do such a thing. It seemed to them I was still an airhead, a silly girl who said stupid things, no one ever took me seriously.

The good news is that— I did.

Still, it was never a concrete plan that I would move to Canada. I’m not very good at long-term planning. Life has rarely unfolded according to plans anyway. So I still can’t tell you for sure on why I moved to Toronto.

But I do know the answer to the follow-up question: how have you liked it so far?

For that I have a clear answer- that this city made me whole again. I came to Toronto at an inflection point in my life. I didn’t know it then but things would have gotten worse for me before it started getting better.

I came to observe how environmental factors shaped me in how I viewed myself, what I know, how I learn and most importantly, where I found myself having to catch up to those who were already nurtured in a more matured ecosystem.

These are my notes on how a dumb girl became a smart girl.

(A lot of em dashes here, but no AI was used in the writing of this post!)