Welcome to The Whole Works, where I write about, well, writing, freelancing, small business ownership, productivity and more.

Who are you?

Hello hello! I’m Ranjani. I’m a writer, entrepreneur, film critic, advice giver and kuppai padam enthusiast.

Have we met before?

Possibly. I’m _tharkuri on Twitter. Most people find me there.

I am the owner and founder of Emdash, a B2B tech content agency. You may have heard about my work there.

I write essays and reviews of Tamil films. My work has been in Huffington Post, Firstpost, Scroll, The Hindu Thread, Film Companion, News9 and The News Minute. You may have read my work.

I’ve interviewed people at events — with A R Venkatachalapathy, Karthik Srinivasan, and Shobu Yarlagadda, to name a few. I have also been on the jury panel of ScreenLit at the Bangalore Literature Festivals.

What is The Whole Works?

It’s my home for good gyaan. At The Whole Works, I write about a wide range of things — writing, freelancing, negotiating, CV-making, organising, time management, workplace behaviour etc.

What will I get here?

• Blog posts
• ebooks
• Tools and frameworks
• Answers to anything

Who made you god of these things?

Myself. Why not! I’ve been in employment for nearly 15 years. This includes doing branding for wellness centers, selling computers (and additional insurance) to Scots, getting Bangaloreans to vote, selling application forms for higher education courses, planning, writing, designing, development, problem solving, leading, being led — it’s been a fun ride.

I’ve learned a thing or two in the process and I’m happy to share.

Why should I read The Whole Works?

Because it’ll help. I write posts that are relevant to working in India today, albeit limited to knowledge work. I don’t think of any problem as too small. And I’ll share what I know about solving it.

I’ll make all posts actionable. You will walk away with concrete things to do, I promise.

The illustrations are nice. Who does them?

Shub of The Hungry Palette does the custom ones. Others are done by Ranjani’s team on Figma, with stock illustrations.