I wasn’t sure whether to write this note. End-of-year reflections often slip into accounting exercises or worse into self-congratulatory applause. That hesitation stayed with me for a while. What finally pushed me to write was not the number, but the feeling that, over time, consistency becomes a conversation. And conversations, if they are to mean anything, need a pause where listening matters as much as speaking.
2025 was not an easy year. It was full, demanding, and deeply personal. My daughter’s wedding alone turned months into a blur of planning, emotion, logistics, and joyful exhaustion. Writing continued. One blog a week, sometimes more. Uninterrupted. A habit that has now stretched to over 638 consecutive weeks, more than twelve years of showing up at the page.
Seen only in hindsight, that rhythm translates into over 100 articles this year, overall more than thousand published articles, some 75 million words and countless hours spent thinking, revising, discarding, and trying again. These numbers don’t feel like achievements as much as markers of time. Time spent questioning things I didn’t fully understand, attempting clarity where there was confusion, and occasionally getting it wrong in public.
Sometime around mid-November, I noticed the article count for the year had crossed 85. For the first time, “100 articles in a year” didn’t feel rhetorical or aspirational. It felt attainable. That realisation brought a quiet surge of energy, not because of the milestone itself, but because momentum, once built, has a way of carrying you forward without asking why.
That is how the year ended at a little over a hundred pieces.
I have resisted ranking or judging my own writing. Each article began as a genuine irritation, curiosity, doubt, or observation. Some landed better than others. Some may have confused readers because of the range: marketing, advertising, internal communication, religion, storytelling, books, movies, social behaviour, and occasional detours into satire. But that spread across 100 articles reflects how I see people, including myself: layered, contradictory, professional and personal at once. Writing across subjects feels truer than staying in a single lane.
Much of this has been learning in public. Not every thought was original. Other writers, conversations, and disagreements often sparked ideas. Thinking rarely happens in isolation, and pretending otherwise feels dishonest.
If there is one thing I’ve tried to hold on to, it is honesty. That has meant strong opinions at times, sometimes uncomfortable ones. It has also meant changing my mind when presented with stronger arguments, without being defensive. That process of holding, releasing, and recalibrating mattered more to me than being “right.”
This year, I also nudged my writing style in a different direction. More satire. More humour and a sprinkling of a few Hindi idioms. Occasional references to Osho, not as answers, but as provocations. Social media responses suggest some of this works, but impressions and likes are blunt instruments. What I genuinely want to know is more specific: What feels engaging? What feels indulgent? And what should I do more of?
I also experimented with topical, tactical pieces, which travelled better than expected. Video is something I’ve approached cautiously and late, but it is now on the table—tentative starts, imperfect attempts, learning in real time.
Looking ahead to 2026 feels slightly uncomfortable because plans are fragile things. “I have a plan” remains one of the shortest jokes we tell ourselves. Still, a few directions feel clear enough to share.
Writing will continue, not at the same intensity, but frequently. Silence, once you’ve written long enough, feels unnatural. What I need help with is direction: which subjects should I go deeper into? Marketing and advertising? The Ignorant Hindu series? Book and film reflections? If you’ve been reading, what stayed with you? If any.
There are also books in motion. Pahaadi-6 and Pahaadi-7, Inner Voices, Coward, and a novel currently shaped around romantic crime, planned for late 2026. A couple of other manuscripts hover close to completion. The list already feels crowded, and that, in itself, invites reconsideration.
Alongside this are ideas for workshops: short story writing, doodling, KotAngle- meditative doodling and a possible writing retreat. There’s also a half-formed thought about taking the Pahaadi concept to another geography, possibly Mumbai, in a way that invites co-creation rather than replication. If it is Mumbai, should I call it Mumbai Shorts or Mumbai- Story ka Dabba or should I first get to Kolkata or Jaipur.
None of this is fixed. These are not announcements; they are questions taking tentative shape.
If you’ve been reading my content, reacting occasionally, or even just quietly following along, I’d genuinely like to hear from you. What should continue? What should pause? And if there is anything I must change.
This feels like the right moment to listen. I do want to read more and doodle more.
BLOG/102/638/1160 To connect, send an email . Twitter S_kotnala
And a day that Djokovic crashed my 500th Week Party
FLASHBACK to 2023, when I celebrated the 500th uninterrupted week.
