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About
I’m Sonam, and I live at the intersection of product, people, and problems worth solving.
What deeply matters to me is how technology actually changes lives. Not in the way Silicon Valley narratives frame it, but in the real, unglamorous sense. Where it reaches people who’ve historically been priced out, left out, or simply never considered. The habits it rewires, the friction it removes, the doors it quietly opens.
The fact that you are reading this from my desk, or I was able to come this far from where I do, is nothing but a testament to the above.
I spend my days figuring out what to build and why it matters. What I also find deeply interesting is the gap between what users say they want and what they actually need — or the stories that actually matter but get lost in translation.
Indulgences: reading anything in direct line of sight [including obscure labels], hiking trails [less often than I’d like to], figuring out how systems fail including entire civilizations, and writing stuff [something that my father rightly predicted I’d waste my life onto], and word games.
Things I’ve built or am building — some for work, most for the satisfaction of making something exist that didn’t before.
in progress
Stumble
A word game that doubles as a rabbit hole generator. Guess the word, get a piece of the world you didn’t know about. Built in vanilla HTML, CSS, and JS — no frameworks, no fuss.
coming soon
More to be listed here
This section is being assembled. Side projects move at their own pace.
Bookstack
Books I’ve read, what I took from them, and roughly when. Not reviews — just notes to my future self.
The Emperor of All MaladiesSiddhartha Mukherjeeread
A biography of cancer — its history, the people who fought it, the ones who lost. Made me understand how science actually moves: not in clean leaps but in long, messy, human-sized struggles.
Invisible CitiesItalo Calvinoread
Marco Polo describing cities to Kublai Khan — except none of the cities are real, and all of them are. Every city is some version of Venice, and every city is somewhere you’ve been in your mind.
Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel Kahnemanread
The book that made me distrust my instincts in the most useful way possible. Dense but worth the patience.
PachinkoMin Jin Leeread
Four generations of a Korean family in Japan. About identity, survival, shame, and what you inherit that you never asked for. The kind of novel that makes you want to call someone.
The Periodic TablePrimo Levireading
Each chapter named for a chemical element, each one a story from Levi’s life as a chemist and Holocaust survivor. Quiet, precise, devastating. Reading slowly on purpose.
The Remains of the DayKazuo Ishiguroqueue
A buttoned-up English butler slowly admitting everything he got wrong about his life. Ishiguro does the thing where you understand the character better than they understand themselves.
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!Richard Feynmanread
Pure joy. A physicist who approached everything — physics, people, life — with the same irreverent curiosity. Made me want to be better at being interested in things.
Travelogues
Not itineraries. Just the bits that stuck — a smell, a conversation, the quality of light at a particular time. Places written down before they blur.
Chikkamagalur
Coffee estates in the fog. The kind of quiet that feels earned after a long drive. Woke up early one morning and sat with the mist and a cup of something bitter and warm. There’s a gentleness to this part of Karnataka that I wasn’t expecting.
Wayanad
Green on green on green. Every road curves into something you didn’t expect — a waterfall, a tribal village, a viewpoint that makes you feel like the earth is showing off. The rain there is different. More intentional.
Bangalore
Home base. The city I’ve watched change faster than I’ve wanted it to. The old pubs, the new glass buildings, the traffic that no longer surprises anyone. But then there’s a morning at Lalbagh, or a long conversation on a rooftop, and it still makes sense to be here.
Delhi
Delhi demands something from you. The scale, the history, the noise. I’ve been multiple times and each time it reveals a different layer — Mughal Delhi, colonial Delhi, chaotic modern Delhi. The winters are brutal and beautiful.
Kolkata
The most literary city I’ve been to. Everything feels like it was written first and then built. Old trams, crumbling colonial facades, bookshops on every corner. I want to go back and do nothing except walk and eat.
Odisha is underrated in the most satisfying way. The coast at Digha is honest and unpolished. Konark at dusk is genuinely haunting. Chilika in the early morning — flamingos in the distance, the lake a flat silver mirror.
Ahmedabad · Vadodara
Gujarat moves at its own rhythm. The old city of Ahmedabad has a density of history per square metre that’s hard to process. Vadodara felt more human-sized. Both places have food I think about more than I should.
Mumbai · Pune
Mumbai is a city that exists in a state of controlled emergency at all times. I find that strangely energising in small doses. Pune is Mumbai’s quieter, more self-assured neighbour — a city that doesn’t need to prove anything.
Mukteshwar · Haldwani · Nainital
The Kumaon hills have a specific quality of air that you notice immediately — cleaner, thinner, colder at night than you’re prepared for. Nainital in the off-season, almost empty, is one of the better things I’ve done.
Pachmarhi · Jabalpur
Madhya Pradesh is underexplored and Pachmarhi is proof of that. Jabalpur has the Marble Rocks at Bhedaghat — white rock, dark water, slow boat, no words necessary.
Banaras
There is no city in India quite like it. The ghats at dawn with the river fog lifting — you understand immediately why people have been coming here for thousands of years. I arrived thinking I’d stay two days and left after five.
Dehradun · Haridwar · Rishikesh · Kanatal · Burwa
The Garhwal region keeps pulling me back. Rishikesh at the riverbank before the tourists arrive. Haridwar’s Ganga Aarti — theatrical and genuinely moving at the same time. Kanatal and Burwa are places you only find when someone who knows better takes you there.
Manali
Went in winter. The Rohtang Pass closed, the roads iced over, and we stayed indoors for most of it. Still one of the best trips. Sometimes the plan failing is the trip.
Jammu · Kanpur · Lucknow
Lucknow has the best kebabs I’ve ever eaten and an architectural refinement that surprises you. Nawabi in the best sense — a city that was once a centre of culture and still carries that in its bones.
Pondicherry
French streets, Tamil temple bells, the sea at the end of every road. Pondicherry has figured out how to be two things at once. I walked a lot, ate well, and sat on the promenade long enough to watch the light change three times.
Andaman & Nicobar
The bluest water I’ve ever seen. And the Cellular Jail at sunset — you stand in the same space where independence movement prisoners were held and you feel it, physically. The islands exist outside normal time.
Guwahati
Gateway to the Northeast — a city that feels like a beginning, not a destination. The Brahmaputra is wider than you expect. Starting point for something I want to do more of.
Letters to My Father
Letters written across distance and time. Some sent. Most not.
A record of things I wanted to say and kept finding new ways to almost say. No particular order. No particular audience.
The first letter is being written. Check back when there’s something to read.
Fascinations
Things I’m thinking about, reading into, or can’t stop turning over. Essays, observations, rabbit holes. Written when something is worth writing down.
The first post is being written. Check back soon.
Contact
The best way to reach me is by email. I’m also on LinkedIn if that’s easier.
