Thought Leadership & Insights

These essays explore storytelling, messaging, and leadership insights drawn from my professional work. They illustrate how discernment and narrative impact ideas and strategy.

Nimila Mahendran Nimila Mahendran

The paradox of meaning

This essay examines the paradox of meaning and meaning-making. It reflects on how the search for significance shapes narratives, influences strategy, and frames the ideas we share. Through reflection and examples from creative practice, it considers the tension between intention and interpretation, inviting readers to think about how meaning emerges, shifts, and resonates.

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Nimila Mahendran Nimila Mahendran

Why clarity is often a form of erasure

Over-sanitized content flattens identity. Narrative strategy that embraces gaps, pauses, and ambiguity preserves richness while still guiding the audience. And that is why literary attention matters. And why thoughtful narrative strategy matters. They are not opposed. They are partners. They remind us that words alone are not enough. Meaning is crafted. Meaning is lived. Meaning is shared.

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Nimila Mahendran Nimila Mahendran

The lost art of reading: how digital life shapes attention

We do not struggle with reading because we lack discipline.
We struggle because the conditions for sustained attention have changed.

Digital life trains us to skim, switch, and move on.
How we read now shapes how we think and what ideas we retain.

I explored this shift and why recovering focus is less about techniques and more about understanding the environment in which we read.

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This is my creative practice is where I experiment with language, narrative, and form, across essays, fragments, poetry and longer reflections.

The same curiosity guides my thinking on storytelling, communication, and meaning-making in client work.

Explore more of my literary work on Substack:

Creative & Experimental Writing

Life Un-Wanted: Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma by Nimila

A decolonial reading

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urban howls by Nimila

unheard

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grandmother child bride by Nimila

still alive in me

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