on Wanting More
Amara Pardeshi has always been good at knowing what comes next. The Mumbai-born, London-based banker has built a life of precision, ambition and quiet elegance. But lately, certainty has begun to lose its appeal. Over tea, she reflects on money, success, family expectations and the unsettling realization that the life you’ve worked so hard to build may not be everything you want.
Studio Sirela: You have a very particular way of presenting yourself. Even today, when you’re technically off duty, you look as though you could walk into a boardroom and make somebody reconsider a very expensive decision. Do you ever get dressed without considering what the day might require of you?
Amara Pardeshi: Not often, which sounds terribly exhausting when you say it like that. I do have clothes I wear purely because I like them, although I tend to save those for evenings when I don’t expect to see anyone from work. There’s a red dress I bought last year that I’ve worn exactly twice. It’s beautiful, quite fitted, a little more revealing than anything I’d ordinarily choose. The first time I wore it, I spent twenty minutes deciding whether I looked sophisticated or simply conspicuous.
Studio Sirela: You seem comfortable admitting that you enjoy beautiful things, but rather less comfortable admitting that you might enjoy being noticed. Is there a distinction for you?
Amara Pardeshi: Of course. Although I’m not sure I can defend it very convincingly. I dislike the feeling of asking for attention. There’s a difference between entering a room and announcing yourself to it. At least, that’s what I tell myself. But I do like being admired. I like someone noticing that I’ve made an effort, particularly when the effort isn’t obvious. I suppose that’s still vanity, just with better manners.
Studio Sirela: You work in an industry where ambition is almost a social obligation. People are expected to want the next promotion, the larger deal, the better office. Are you still excited by that kind of success, or have you become good at pursuing it without stopping to ask whether you want it?
Amara Pardeshi: I am excited by it. I wouldn’t want to pretend otherwise because it sounds more interesting to say I’ve become disillusioned with banking. I haven’t. I like the work, particularly the parts that require concentration and judgment. There’s a satisfaction in finding something everyone else has overlooked, or understanding why a set of numbers doesn’t quite tell the story someone wants it to tell. And yes, I want to progress. I want people to trust my judgment. I want to be taken seriously in rooms where I’m often the youngest person sitting at the table. But sometimes I wonder whether I’m pursuing the next thing because I genuinely want it or because I’ve become so accustomed to moving forward that stopping would feel like failure.
Studio Sirela: Your father seems to have been an important influence on the way you think about work. When you achieve something professionally, is he still one of the first people you want to tell?
Amara Pardeshi: Yes. Usually. He doesn’t make an enormous fuss, which I appreciate. He’ll ask two or three questions that make it immediately obvious whether I’ve understood what I’ve been doing. Then he’ll say something quite understated, and I’ll spend the rest of the evening feeling absurdly pleased with myself. My parents have always valued education and independence, and I’ve been fortunate in that respect. I was never expected to be decorative. I was expected to be capable. But capability can become its own sort of expectation. Sometimes I phone home and realize I’ve spent fifteen minutes telling them how well everything is going without once mentioning whether I’m happy. They don’t necessarily ask, and I don’t necessarily offer. We’re all very accomplished at that particular conversation.
Studio Sirela: You say you were expected to be capable, which is interesting because you’ve also grown up with a degree of financial security that many people never experience. Has that made ambition easier, or has it made the idea of failing rather more embarrassing?
Amara Pardeshi: Both, probably. I grew up in a comfortable home, went to good schools, and never had to worry about whether there would be enough money for something essential. That gives you an enormous amount of freedom, even if you don’t recognize it when you’re young. But it also creates a peculiar pressure to justify what you’ve been given. I couldn’t bear the idea of being someone who simply drifted through life on her parents’ money. I wanted my own salary, my own decisions, something that was mine because I’d worked for it. The embarrassing part is that I still sometimes want people to know I’ve earned things. Which rather defeats the purpose of being independent of their opinions.
Studio Sirela: You earn your own money now. What’s the first thing you bought that felt genuinely indulgent rather than practical?
Amara Pardeshi: A handbag. A very beautiful, very unnecessary handbag. I’d love to tell you it was something more original, but it wasn’t. I went into the shop intending to look, which is what people say when they’ve already decided to buy something and want to feel responsible about it. I knew exactly how much it cost. I’d calculated what that money would amount to if I invested it instead, which is an appalling way to enjoy shopping. Then I bought it. I carried it home in its enormous box and felt slightly sick. I still use it. I still think it was overpriced. Both things can be true.
Studio Sirela: You seem willing to spend money on something beautiful, provided you can make a convincing argument for it afterwards. Are you equally comfortable spending money on an experience that might leave you with nothing tangible?
Amara Pardeshi: Less comfortable, although that’s changing. I can justify a handbag because I know I’ll have it for years. A weekend away, an extravagant dinner, a last-minute ticket somewhere, those things are more difficult because you can’t really measure what you’ve gained. Which is ridiculous, considering some of the evenings I remember most fondly involved very little money at all. Freya, my flatmate, once persuaded me to abandon an entire Sunday I’d planned around errands and go out with her instead. We ended up eating terrible chips far too late, and I remember being irritated that I hadn’t done my washing. I also remember being extraordinarily happy. I don’t think I’ve ever looked back fondly on an efficient laundry day.
Studio Sirela: Is there something you’ve wanted for a long time that you’ve kept describing as a hobby because calling it an ambition would make it more difficult to ignore?
Amara Pardeshi: Baking. That’s rather obvious, isn’t it? I love it. I love the precision, the ingredients, the fact that you can begin with a collection of ordinary things and end with something that makes people happy. I used to help in the kitchen at home, although I was much more interested in the sweets than anything practical. Now I experiment with flavors when I have time. Cardamom, pistachio, saffron, sometimes things that don’t work at all. I’ve thought about doing something with it professionally, perhaps a small bakery one day. But I know enough about business to understand that enjoying baking and running a bakery are two entirely different propositions. People tend to romanticize leaving a corporate job to open somewhere charming.
Studio Sirela: You became noticeably more animated talking about pastry than you did talking about promotion. Does that worry you?
Amara Pardeshi: A little. Although pastry doesn’t send me emails at eleven at night, so perhaps it has an unfair advantage. I don’t want to abandon a career I’ve worked hard to build simply because something else sounds lovely from a distance. But I have caught myself looking at small commercial properties online. Not seriously. Well, not entirely seriously. There’s one in Marylebone I keep returning to. The rent is absurd, and the kitchen would need completely redoing. I know this because I’ve looked at the floor plan. Please don’t make too much of that.
Studio Sirela: We won’t, but is the attraction really to baking, or to the possibility of building something where you make the decisions without needing anyone else’s approval.
Amara Pardeshi: That’s a slightly unfair question. Probably because there’s some truth in it. At work, I can be very good at what I do and still spend an enormous amount of time explaining my judgment to people more senior than me. That’s part of the profession, and it should be. But the thought of creating something entirely my own is appealing. Not necessarily because I’d be in charge. I don’t have an overwhelming desire to manage people. I’d quite like to be left alone with a recipe and a very good oven. The trouble is, I suspect I’d turn even that into a competition with myself. I’d be checking margins before the first tray came out.
Studio Sirela: We’ve spoken quite a lot about the things you want to achieve. What about the things you want from other people? Have you ever found yourself making your own ambitions smaller to accommodate somebody else’s?
Amara Pardeshi: Yes. Not always consciously. Sometimes it’s quite subtle. You start arranging your schedule around someone, or considering opportunities in terms of what they might mean for a relationship rather than what they might mean for you. And that isn’t necessarily wrong. If you care about someone, their life matters to you. Their ambitions should matter. I don’t want to become the sort of woman who treats compromise as a personal insult. But I do worry about how easily consideration can become accommodation, particularly when you’re accustomed to being the reasonable one. It’s possible to give something up very gracefully and only realize much later that nobody actually asked you to.
Studio Sirela: Have you done that recently?
Amara Pardeshi: I’ve come close. There have been moments when I’ve found myself considering a future that wasn’t quite the one I’d imagined, and being surprised by how willing I was to entertain it. That doesn’t mean I regret anything. There are people and experiences worth making room for. But I don’t want to make a decision simply because I’m frightened of what might happen if I don’t. I can be very persuasive with myself when I want something badly enough. I can make almost anything sound sensible.
Studio Sirela: You said earlier that you want people to trust your judgment. Is there someone whose opinion of you has become important enough that it occasionally interferes with your own?
Amara Pardeshi: There is. Although I’m not sure I like how quickly I answered that. It’s strange, because I’m perfectly capable of disagreeing with someone I care about. I can be quite stubborn, actually. But when you admire somebody, you begin to notice the things they value. Their standards, their habits, what they consider impressive or disappointing. And occasionally you catch yourself wanting to be the person they would choose. I don’t mean that in a tragic way. It’s a very ordinary human weakness. I just hadn’t expected to recognize it in myself quite so clearly.
Studio Sirela: That sounds rather different from the independence you spoke about earlier. Do you think you want to be loved for who you are, or do you still want to be the sort of woman someone would be proud to love?
Amara Pardeshi: Oh, that’s difficult. Both, if I’m allowed to be completely unreasonable. I’d like someone to be proud of me. I don’t think there’s anything shameful about that. I want to be admired by the person I’m with, and I want to admire them. But I don’t want to spend a relationship performing. There are days when I’m tired, or jealous, or not particularly interesting. Sometimes I’m quite petty. I can remember something someone said three weeks earlier and bring it up with an accuracy that is frankly unkind. I would like to be loved on those days too. And I suppose I’d have to offer the same generosity in return, which is where the whole arrangement becomes rather demanding.
Studio Sirela: When you imagine having more in your life, do you picture a larger life, with more opportunities and experiences, or a quieter one in which you no longer feel obliged to prove quite so much?
Amara Pardeshi: The second one, more often than I’d like to admit. I do want beautiful things. I’d like a home of my own, somewhere with a proper kitchen and enough room for books. I’d like to travel without calculating how many days of annual leave I have left. I’d like to be successful, and I certainly don’t intend to apologize for wanting financial comfort. But I sometimes imagine an ordinary Tuesday in a life I haven’t built yet. Coming home before it’s dark. Making dinner without checking my phone. Having someone there, perhaps, although I don’t always know who that person is in the picture. And not feeling that the evening needs to amount to anything. That sounds rather modest when I say it aloud. It doesn’t feel modest when I consider how difficult it might be to arrange.
Studio Sirela: You speak about that imagined Tuesday almost wistfully. What’s stopping you from having a smaller version of it now?
Amara Pardeshi: Myself, largely. That’s the irritating answer. I could leave work earlier occasionally. I could say no to things. I could stop treating every free evening as an opportunity to catch up on something. But I enjoy being busy, too. I like the feeling of having a full life, even when I complain about it. And I don’t always know what to do with myself when everything becomes quiet. I’ll make tea, sit down with a book, and suddenly remember six things that need doing. It’s not very romantic. I’m working on it, although even saying that makes relaxation sound like another project.
Studio Sirela: One last question. If we came back to see you in five years, what would you be most disappointed to discover hadn’t changed?
Amara Pardeshi: That I was still waiting for permission to do something I already knew I wanted to do. Not necessarily anything dramatic. I don’t need to resign from my job, move countries or make some enormous declaration. I’d just hate to discover that I’d spent another five years making very good arguments for postponing my own life. Although, knowing me, I’d probably have kept the arguments in a beautifully organized spreadsheet.
Studio Sirela: And the bakery in Marylebone?
Amara Pardeshi: Still too expensive. I checked yesterday.
Set between the polished world of London finance and the charged atmosphere of fine dining, Amara’s latest novella, Risk Appetite, is a character-driven contemporary romance about desire, identity, and the quiet courage required to choose a life that belongs to you.
Tropes Include Workplace Romance | Reserved Heroine | Dominant Hero | Opposites Attract | Forced Proximity | Good Girl Awakening
