Sarika Bhatta

Digital Garden

A collection of ideas, stories, and things I’m tending to — some fully formed, others still growing. Not a blog, not a feed. Just thoughts, planted in the open.

Group photo at the SDG Future Action Summit in Bangkok
On the Record

The Weight of a Page

At the SDG Future Action Summit in Bangkok, a friend from South Sudan made a request that confused me: with one hour before her flight, she desperately wanted to find a bookstore.

We rushed through the streets, weaving through heat and crowds. I remember watching her browse shelves with such intensity and thinking — why is a bookstore her final bucket-list item?

She told me the truth later. Because of ongoing conflict, bookstores in her country have been devastated. The simple freedom of browsing for knowledge doesn’t exist in her daily reality.

We talk about Quality Education in conference rooms with microphones, but for her, empowerment was literally the books she could carry back in her suitcase.

Curiosity

The "Month-End" Puzzle

We’re all caught in the same loop: work hard, earn a paycheck, watch it vanish before the month ends. I realized that working for money is only half the story — the other half is understanding how money works for you.

I’m currently asking myself:

  • •How do I break the “earn-and-spend” cycle?
  • •What are the low-risk entry points for a beginner?
  • •Can I apply the same “calculative energy” from badminton to my finances?

Currently reading up on the difference between assets and liabilities. Very much a work in progress.

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Sometimes the most important rules aren't the ones in the official handbook, but the ones we create to keep the game going.

Playing badminton
Analog Interests

Badminton: Precision and Restraint

My first badminton coach was my mother. Our court in Dhangadhi was bordered by a neighbor’s house, and we knew that if the shuttlecock crossed that boundary, it was gone forever.

I learned to play with calculative energy: hit it hard enough to pass the net, but never strong enough to lose it to the neighbor. It wasn’t about power — it was about precision and restraint.

Today, when I’m exhausted from staring at my laptop, badminton is my reset button. I’m back in that headspace of finding the perfect balance, away from the scary boundaries of daily stress.

Into the Wild book cover

The Library

What I’m reading, and what I’ve read — books that kind of shifted something in me.

Currently Reading

Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer

Reading only half the book already feels intentional. The story invites pauses — moments where you sit with discomfort, freedom, and contradiction.

What’s staying with me is the tension between idealism and reality. The quiet question it keeps asking: How much solitude is liberation, and when does it become isolation?

Deliberately saving the film for after. I want the text to form its own landscape first.

Stayed With Me
Cover of Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory

Raphael Bob-Waksberg

Cover of Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

Matthew Perry

Cover of Digital Fortress

Digital Fortress

Dan Brown

Cover of The Diary of a Young Girl

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank

Cover of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky

Cover of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon

At the SDG summit
On the Record

Three Takeaways from Bangkok

  • Information is privilege.
    As a technical writer, I create information every day. This taught me never to take that for granted.
  • Resilience is quiet.
    Advocacy isn’t always a loud speech. Sometimes it’s the quiet determination to bring books back to a war zone.
  • Our starting lines are miles apart.
    We are all fighting for the same goals, but our contexts couldn’t be more different.