Commonly asked questions at parties, interviews, and to my parents:

The short answer is whichever is easier for you to confidently pronounce.

Piyali [pronounced: Pee-yah-lee] is my birth-name, chosen for me by my grandmother and it means “wood/tree” in old Sanskrit. Here’s the list of people who prefer to call me Piyali:

• Colleagues at work who are still getting introduced to me.

• My parents (when I’m in trouble)

• My government documentation (tax forms, passport, ID’s)

• People who like saying the name

Peels is an alias that was bestowed to me in high-school and has become an easy nickname to fall back to when I immigrated. Here’s the list of people who prefer to call me Peels:

• Most people who know me and work with me fairly closely (my manager, my close friends, etc.)

• Strangers and acquaintances I make through theater and comedy circles

• People who fear mispronouncing my birth name and/or do not wish to cause offense by doing so.

• The Starbucks Barista who has to spell my order

• Almost everyone else not included in the above

I am neutral to either and respond to both.

In my work and creative discipline, I’m looking for the transplantation of patterns. My sources of inspiration are usually work that contains historical elements and themes that have withstood the cultural tumult of history and still remain cultural bastions: legends, myths, languages, storytelling and the fundamental human need to connect.

With my training as an engineer however, I like to see more than just ideas. I’m interested in implementation, design, approaching a problem, creating a problem and identifying the problem (in increasing order of difficulty).

Finally, since I have a fondness for intellectual rabbit holes, the creation of paradoxes and solving mysteries and piecing together answers are also my hobbies.

The following is a (non-comprehensive) list of idea types that I like to work with. If you have something that falls within this category, please feel free to reach out to me:

• Re-application of a bio-mimetic solutions: If you have an idea or work along the lines of extending the solution of one problem to that of another at scale (for e.g. What can an octopus teach us about designing a subway?) then I’d love to connect.

• Detecting patterns within stories: the origin of cultural stories, Jungian psychology, connecting stories to the shared human subconscious memory. Why do humans as a species repeat patterns in stories and over time what have they come to represent about us? Whose stories aren’t told?

• Applying the techniques of practitioners in one field to a very different field: With a fondness for parody, pastiche, collages and hybrid mutants, I love creating work that stitches together two antithetical domains of expertise. I absolutely detest creating work that is a superficial comparison, such as “What can comedy teach us about product management?”

• Creative problem creation: Creative problem solving is for LinkedIn job requests. But if you have a design for a nefarious exercise for puzzle-solvers, mystery-solvers and the like, I would love to work with you in more deviant scheming.

• Satire (sometimes): My satire stems from my need to make sense of the absurd world we live in. I prefer to punch-up where possible, but unfortunately seem to center on the hubris of tech twitter. Creating satirical work requires me to get really angry about a lot of things, so I try not to do it too often.

As I mentioned before, and this merits repeating, the list described above is not comprehensive or static. As a creator, person and artist I continue to grow and would be happy to learn of something new that pushes these boundaries. Please feel free to refer to the section below for the kind of work I do not want to make.

Please note that if I’m not the person for you, I’d be happy to recommend you to other designers, engineers, writers and creative people.

The following is a (non-comprehensive) list of idea types that I prefer not to work with. This should not be a deterrent but you are also welcome to pitch me to change my mind about these as well.

• Self-help content / life advice: I do not feel qualified to be writing or creating content that tells other people how they should be conducting their lives. Expounding on how I achieved my model of “success” is unproductive and useless because the definition of success is ambiguous. Also, the journey to that state has been hard work, luck and some privilege. These are not replicable factors, and there are better sources on the internet that can describe how to be more productive. I do talk about some resources and some ways of working, but please note that what works for me might not work for you.

• Bland copywriting: I enjoy working with branding teams because it’s fun conceptualizing a brand as a social identity through its users. If you’re looking to achieve a particular tone in your copywriting, then please feel free to get in touch. But if you need text that just converts, and describes “Click here to buy thing”, then I am not your person.

• How to get rich quick/ make money/ growth marketing material: I am happy to be compensated for my creations but this falls under self-help. Also, just no.

• “Make this funny”: There are many ways of how to achieve your laughs: dark humor, slapstick, intellectual storytelling, sarcasm and good old puns. I cannot work on simply making something “funny” without any idea of the taste in which you want the material to land. I also do not want to create work that ridicules someone’s trauma, marginalization or physical body (shape, form, presentation, ability or expression). Here is a piece from earlier in my writing career in which I talk about the kind of jokes I want/ don’t want to make.

As I mentioned before, and this merits repeating, the list described above is not comprehensive or static. As a creator, person and artist I continue to grow and would be happy to learn of something new that pushes these boundaries. Please refer to the section above for more notes on the kind of work I want to make.

Please note that if I’m not the person for you, I’d be happy to recommend you to other designers, engineers, writers and creative people.

Ghosting is bad manners. I refuse to let ghosting be a passive sort of activity that someone else is allowed to do to me. Therefore, I’ve established certain timelines by which I consider the conversation closed.

For collaborators, business follow-ups or contracts:

• I will follow up at least two times, each a week or so apart.

• If I hear no response within a week after the second time, I consider that lead cold.

For dates:

• My soft deadline: 72hrs since the last time we were in touch.

• My hard deadline: one week since last contact.

• I try to stay open-minded and flexible about extenuating circumstances, but I’m also not easy to win back.

If you’re hearing mixed signals or unexplained hesitation, say your goodbyes and unsubscribe them from the free tier to your energy and friendship.

In 2016, when I graduated undergrad and moved to a new city where I knew basically nobody. This was a fresh chance at life that I wanted to make the most of.

I acquired a journal and decided that every week I would do at least one thing in my life I hadn’t done before, and write about it. If it was a good experience, I would write what I learned and if it wasn’t, then at least I would have a good story.

This resulted in sampling a wide variety of hobbies, since I was focusing on breadth rather than depth. I learned, for example, that I am a terrible DJ but I am a decent salsa dancer.

One night, I was walking back from a salsa class when I noticed that a comedy studio nearby had free drop-in classes. I showed up one Saturday for an improv class, and have never looked back since.

I follow one rubric consistently: show up to places where you are not expected, and also do so in the most respectful way possible. Well-behaved curious guests are welcome in most spaces.

My rants on Twitter and on my newsletter are affectionately called “Peels Peeves”. Unfortunately the list of things I dislike in the world is just as long as the list of things I like in the world. The ten most common Peels Peeves™ are:

1. Twitter Thought Leadership™

2. That the loudest voices on tech Twitter tout the hype bandwagon as the only thing worth doing, creating and building in. Here’s a piece I’d written when publishing newsletters was allegedly the route to a quick buck.

3. Creators who create to seek participation credit rather than seek genuine connection through their work.

4. People who self-identify as funny, interesting, amazing, a nice guy or a cool guy. If you have to spell it out, you’re either insulting my intelligence or you’re lying.

5. Exclusionary or obfuscating jargon to mask superficiality.

6. Tautological writing that is marketed as insightful for stating the obvious. For example, The future is technology. Tomorrow is another day. Depth is deep.

7. People who tell me to chill, relax or calm down.

8. Enforcing or practicing moral self-righteousness as a public performance.

9. Theory. I understand that, as a daughter of a mathematician, I’m at great risk of saying this. But there’s a difference between a science and an applied science, and I will preferentially choose the applied discipline because it brings abstract ideas into the tangible / perceptible realm.

10. The fact that the healthier a vegetable is, the more disgusting it tastes.

An incomplete list of definitions based on who is asking and where I am in my life:

1. For the bio section of journals, podcasts and magazines:

   • “Piyali is an Indian immigrant in New York, trying to evoke anything besides humour. Her day job includes working in AI research, specifically around the development of clustering models and neural networks. She moonlights as a sketch-writer, comedian, producer, and actor. Since 2020, she has translated her performance skills to writing satire and is unfortunately fueled by the insufferable hubris of tech culture. She’s also interested in learning more about linguistics, mythography, and the audacity of people who write emails opening with “I hope this email finds you well.”

2.  For my friends and people who love me:

   • “Mischief, joy and sometimes chaos. A good friend and a jolly good time.” 

3. For my parents:

   • “The best daughter we’ve ever had” (this citation is unverified)

4. For myself: 

   • “A work in progress” 

My gym instructor once shouted at me,
"You gotta imagine your perfect body!”
But as I lay vanquished on the floor,
Having run the circuit before,
With 45 pounds strapped to my waist,
I could only imagine having replaced,
The expense for the extra checked-in bag,
With the pride of a carry-on, densely-packed.
With solitary strength and in one smooth swing,
I would heave it into the overhead compartment bin.
That this fantasy remains an aspiration,
Should adequately answer your question.

In short, no.