Ani Talwar

Author, bookworm, environmental scientist. Saving the world 'one tree at a time' as I like to say. https://www.anirambles.com / https://www.mischiefweavers.com

[ani-talwar]

A study in being frustrated (and the colours of emotions)

Green is a versatile colour.

It's the colour of grass, the smell of spring, the colour of plants and calm and rejuvenation and all things new.

It's also the colour of jealousy. Of beady eyed monsters and clawing frustration. It's innocent and pure and beautiful but it's also the feeling of the scraping loss of your cool as you desperately try to cling to the calm plush blue of optimism.

Green isn't bad, but the buzzing under your skin as it turns yellow and acrid and as the heat of anger taints it and turns it into swallowed razor blades that prick behind your tongue; words you think to release the pungent pressure of unfairness but refuse to say.

Green is beautiful, but frustration is not. And it's a pressure behind your chest of sprints you can't run and goalposts that don't stay put and a list you shrink only for it to spring back up.

Don't think of the deep green of seeded anger you don't want to grow. Think of grass. Think of sunlight between leaves. Think of small creatures helping our planet under the breeze.

Think of all the good things green was before they compressed it and pressurised it into the monster they tried to make it become.

Think of green as it deserves to be.

Feel green again. 🌿🌱

[learndirt]

We don’t inherit the soil from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

[ani-talwar]

An excerpt from my new article:

"CHOCOLATE: delicious confectionary, good as a gift, a snack, and a treat.

CHOCOLATE: a versatile ingredient in many recipes, able to be customised in several ways.

CHOCOLATE: a food in the form of a paste or solid brick made from roasted and ground cacao seeds.

Hmm. Let’s rethink that last one shall we?

Chocolate, the chocolate we all know and love, has traditionally been made with cacao seeds. I bet you’re thinking “well yes…where’s this going…there’s no other way” and until this morning, I would have thought the exact same thing. Until, that is, I came across a set of words I’d never considered using before: Lab Grown Chocolate. Unsure if this was some sort of social media hoax, I researched this so you don’t have to, and discovered that these words are in fact strung together for a reason…"

To read on for free, head to my blog post here:

https://anirambles.com/lab-grown-chocolate-where-sci-fi-meets-reality/

Lab grown chocolate: where sci-fi meets reality? - Earth news and literature with Ani

Ani Talwar explores how lab processes are aiming to reduce the agricultural burden of growing cacao for chocolae, and some of the debate aro

[ani-talwar]

Short prose: 'Sugar shards and treacle'

It is a curious feeling, the pink crystalised sugar sting of loneliness against the soft treacle glow of company. You would think the two could not exist as adjacent emotions, but like the honey glow of sunset recedes into the dusky pink of the evening sky beyond, so can sugar shards and treacle.

 

It is a constant balance, not to drown in the honey; not to feel so safe and embraced in the sticky gooey goodness of it all that you forget the layer of it is barely thick enough to cover you, and beyond it lies the cold air. You sink into the warm, wanting to revel in the burst of it when you get it; wanting to drink in every second of the rush so intoxicating like adrenaline but without any of its harsh urgency that you nearly forget that this honey is only a thin net keeping you from dropping onto the stinging shards below.

 

You try and always be aware of the chasm underneath; of the soft airbrushed distance between you and any true honey warmth, and poke the bubble of safety with a little sugar point like you ran you tongue over the gap left by a fallen tooth when you were small. It infiltrates your treacle goodness with a cold breeze, the breeze of an uncomfortable thought, of a truth you might not want to acknowledge, and all you want to do is roll over and turn your back on it but you can't.

 

You can't ignore the silence beyond. You can't ignore the empty space outside the translucent, ever thinner, little syrup coating you hide inside. You can't pretend the shards aren't waiting underneath ready to catch you when you fall, because without more honey surely falling is only a moment of time?

 

You can't because remembering the shards are there must surely make it sting less when you fall out of the honey, when the cold air of realisation and distance hits your skin, and when you fall upon the shards. You fancy yourself shielded from their sharp edges by the stoic knowledge that at least you were prepared, and  wear that self awareness like an armour.

 

But deep down inside you know: armour is cold metal, and the honey warmth was your sweater, and despite all the preparation in the world, when the bubble bursts, you're still able to feel the cold.

[writing-prompt-s]

“They say we’re the worst judges at knowing what we really want, so how about you just give me whatever you think is missing in my life?” The genie ponders for a moment, then smiles and snaps his fingers.

[ani-talwar]

And then I turned into a cat.

[ani-talwar]

Short prose:

My best kept secret

"You're chatty" they say, I laugh nervously. No point wasting precious words to agree, I've already expended enough illustrating the point for free. I smile as I laugh, it's no insult, and they notice the absence of my trademark words.

 

"It's good!" they say, "you've no secrets, you speak as you think" and I smile wider, nodding. I speak what I think, yes I do, but it doesn't indicate a lack of secrets. They'll never know the best kept secret, the one I've learnt to silence and stifle, the words I don't let out.

 

Why would I confess, when they tell me their favourite food, that I remember it for when we next eat? Why would I say their favourite song came on in the car because I put it in the CD player when they mentioned it once. Their favourite colour shoes I gifted them? It wasn't deliberate, none of it is. In fact, I deliberately fail at it. The shade of blue is slightly too dark, the food is a little too salty, the song is the wrong one off the right album, all deliberate.

 

Why would I confess that every ounce of personality shared is a treasure received; an indication of the progressive bridge of trust by which they convey the precious cargo of their character to me saying unspoken 'here, you may know this extra piece that makes the puzzle of me'.

 

To gush and appreciate and acknowledge the care with which I fill the ever growing textbook of their character so that I might peruse it and write for them the perfect words would be to expose it, to pull it out from under its soft shadows into the harsh light of judgement and unintentionally say 'watch your words, for they are recorded' when in reality the words don't matter, it’s the act of sharing them that carries the true message.

 

So I must scribe each word with care myself. Under the covers of shyness and in a shadow of concern, hoping that when I read them back to you, it is appreciated, and not scorned. That you know I mean to say 'I cared that you told me' and not 'I kept tabs', and that you won't take an eraser to my book, and pull back the bricks of our bridge step by step until the words on torn pages in the mud are all that remains of the puzzle you once drew me.

 

Why would I confess that my best kept secret is you?

[ani-talwar]

It's my 3 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

[ani-talwar]

Hi guys! I've designed a new website and I'm super proud of it and ready to advertise. (Ready may be a strong word....nervous lol) but I'd love for you to check it out!

All my articles are up there- sustainability, lifestyle and novel- and you can filter for what you'd want to read with fun tabs and leave comments with suggestions

Love to know what you think!

The URL is www.mischiefweavers.com

Explore our planet through literature, learning about ecosystems, and novel production.

[ani-talwar]

Vacillation

(Noun) indecision in speech or action

(Verb) To sway. To waver. To be unsteady.

[ani-talwar]

Is AI Sustainable, an article written by Ani Talwar (link underneath)

Hello friendly readers and welcome back to another attempt by Ani to advertise her website and writing….this time I’m not advertising my novel (titled Atro-City the Flood if you are interested) but an article I produced last month all about AI and how sustainable it is. I consider the environmental costs of installing the data centre capacity, maintaining data centres, training AI and finally using AI, to see if it is as sustainable as you or I thought…

And remember I’m open to suggestions about what new sustainability thing you want to learn about next- be it how your favourite animals help their ecosystem or how you can achieve a more sustainable lifestyle, my inbox is open, and I have an open forum on my site.

  Hello friendly readers and welcome back to another article on the environment and living a sustainable lifestyle, this o

[ani-talwar]

Upcoming Environment News:

24-28 February 2025

IPCC

From February 24-28th 2025, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be meeting in China to agree on three key contributions for the Seventh Assessment Report (known as AR7)

According to the provisional agenda, amongst discussion of the budget, also included in the discussions is a Scoping for the next IPCC AR7 report- considering the three working groups.

Also included in the agenda is the discussion of proposed expert meetings and workshops for the next cycle of IPCC assessments. Some of these are already submitted online and include

A workshop on High Impact Events and Earth System Tipping Points,

Methods, metrics & Indicators for assessing Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation.

Also in the provisional agenda is the scoping of a method report for carbon dioxide removal, capture, use, and storage.

All links used are presented underneath for any further reading. And note this is a provisional agenda, and my understanding of events so far, so we shall see if/how any changes occur as the meeting occurs.

Sixty-second Session of the IPCC (IPCC-62), Fifteenth Session of the IPCC Working Group I (WG I-15), Thirteenth Session of the IPCC Working

Opening of the Sixty-second Session of the IPCC — IPCC

[ani-talwar]

Happy birthday to my book!

So it was my book’s birthday this week and it’s 8 years old now! How time has flown.

The book is called Atro-City the Flood and I wrote this book when I was in school, doing edits and cover art around homework and learning how to advertise on the go…as you may be able to tell I’m still learning to advertise it haha but I hope this attempt isn’t too bad.

If you’d like to purchase it, give the name a google, by Ani Talwar, it’s available online to order, and if you’d like to know more about writing and some of my non fiction work check out my website https://mischiefweavers.blogspot.com I would really appreciate the reads and sharing the news if you can’t purchase.

Welcome to Ani's Notebook!

Your pocket handy blog for all things Earth news, from sustainability articles, to fictional environmental themed adventures.

[ani-talwar]

Me: I need to do more posts advertising my own book and site to try and become more known as an author.

Also me: Starts watching The Artful Dodger, finishes watching The Artful Dodger, and starts doing art on the costumes and telling her friends to watch it.

…At least I’m spreading the word about something?

[ani-talwar]

I’ve been on Goodreads forever and never used anything else so I don’t really know about other apps, what are your opinions on the new Goodreads yearly reading challenge set up?

[ani-talwar]

“To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost every thing that could make it a blessing."

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

[ani-talwar]

Just started reading the last book in the Mistborn trilogy (never read it before no spoilers please) and it has me GASPING within 10 pages. Never read Brandon Sanderson before this and HOW did I make it this long?!I almost don’t want to finish it because it’ll be the end

[ani-talwar]

In case anyone wanted an update: I finished the book. I gasped, I nearly yelled, I miss the characters and I had THINGS TO SAY about the end. (Again I won’t spoil it other than to say many people since who have started a conversation with me have listened to me rave, rant and ramble about this).

What an absolute joy.

[ani-talwar]

“aggrandizement, aggrandisement: “the act of increasing the wealth or prestige or power or scope of something”

Been reading some Jane Austen and learnt some new words.