As I write this, rain pours non-stop in parts of north India. My mother, 68 years old, tells me she's never seen this much rain, not at least at the end of September. Friends from Delhi and other northern Indian cities share reels of water pouring through the streets of places I've lived, studied, worked. Crops of wheat and rice have been destroyed. Rural areas stand without power. Temperatures have dipped by 5°C. Parts of my hometown lie submerged under 5 feet of water. People are trapped indoors, sleeping with blankets at night. 

Meanwhile, 1,450 kilometers away in Maharashtra, where my brother lives, the state declares a drought across 75% of its territory. 

One half of my world drowns while the other deals with a deficit.  

Meanwhile on this side of the Northern Hemisphere, I navigate autumn's entry. The sun is calm, even as the wind carries a chill. Orange, brown, and red hues steadily replace greens and blooms. Streets have grown quieter, season for Danish hygge and Swedish mys is close. As late summer bids its long-overdue farewell, I take long walks outside, bracing for occasional wet, windy evenings. Soon a darkness and an unrelenting cold will capsize our lives here.

My day job as a climate communicator requires me to mentally navigate more than one plane of climate catastrophe. It's 2026. We have certainly backtracked on many global sustainability responsibilities. When it comes to climate think tanks and climate comms, it feels as though we've created a snug, jargon-speckled bubble where we speak mostly to ourselves. Instead of presenting human-centric, active solutions to the problems millions suffer from, we have put ourselves in a corner.

The developing El Niño has already become the strongest on record, weeks before its expected peak. Scientists warn the intensity could push global temperatures into new territory, with floods, drought, and wildfires intensifying across continents.

Climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe, in her recent Time magazine op-ed, writes about making climate communication less partisan. Then there's also a need to reduce emphasise on personal behavior as it reduces willingness to engage in collective action. It has to be said that while work has felt lugubrious and tiring these past two years, I’ve tried to shift focus, searching for hope.

I picked up the NYT bestseller What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson to feel hopeful. Power lies, she writes, in being hopeful. Nonsense headlines about AI killing us all rob us of hope, that potent fuel that helps us build futures that actually work. I refuse to cower down, reading, looking for hope.

I also decided to challenge myself by finally starting my Swedish lessons all over again. This month I spent three months polishing my German to remain at B2. Arriving at Swedish after German makes it feel like a cakewalk. I write emails, respond to Swedish subreddits, watch Swedish TV and read local news to keep up with the language. It gives a little bit of hope, I won’t lie.  

I also pay some attention to fitness, physical and mental. Sessions with the therapist, sessions with the self – both, to ward off the incumbent December blues. Working out at home or a gym takes so much more from me as compared to running, skipping rope or taking long walks in the nature reserve. How do you put to words the intangible something you receive as a check-in token when you complete a satisfying hour-long weighted run?  

As the sweat accumulates, the anxieties seem to fade into the background. I’m also a little pepped about my winter projects. In addition to a pretty solid language goal, I also want to hunker down and read a long book in a month’s time if possible. A friend gifted me a beautiful collectible copy of The Brothers Karamazov and I believe its time has come.

As the days grow shorter, I want to spend more time outdoors. Take in the warming rusty autumn hues. Breathe. More weighted walks. More runs. Listen to Geese's Getting Killed on loop. Even if it all falls into disrepair, at least I’d have listened to and cried with Au Pays du Cocaine a few hundred times before the year closes. I will spend time in the library. Write those poems. Write in Swedish. Write in English. Write. Write. Write.

Tomorrow, hopefully the rain will recede in my hometown. Hopefully also people will see more clearly in the calm that comes after the storm. Meanwhile here in Gothenburg, I will zip up my fleece and walk into the amber afternoon, carrying both halves of this strange, new world with me. That's the thing about hope. Sometimes it looks like a decision more than a choice. A decision to keep learning, keep writing, keep moving. The rest will have to fall in place.

PS: A prayer to Geese - please write more songs, it’s crazy how good the ones you already wrote are.

Reading I’ve enjoyed:

1. Amanda Petrusich on Geese: Will Geese Redeem Noisy, Lawless Rock and Roll?

   

2. Addison in great form writing on The Question Of “Beauty In Architecture”

3. Ben Faccini for Aeon on the myth of eternal return that keeps the Italian diaspora in a state of longing: Chasing la dolce vita

4. Raksha Vasudevan’s gorgeous essay on the thorny passages of identity we often unknowingly trudge through for Off Assignment. Functionally White: What I Didn't Say About Being South Asian in Uganda

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