In the last four years, as DN Nagar has become even more connected with two new Metro lines and a post-pandemic influx of students to the nearby SVKM colleges, we have seen this neighbourhood completely transform. Although the tall buildings still exist, we’ve made a little home in one of them; gully cricket has turned into playing badminton with friends in the local park; and as for the pani puri, we’ve seen a slew of eateries open here in just the last year. 

Here’s our guide to the food in this neighbourhood.

Dinner diaries

If you’re craving a belly-filling meal, for that we have the neighbourhood bistro, Jessiea’s Café. Their hand-stretched sourdough pizzas are a delicacy, and the freshness of the homemade pasta is palpable. The best part, hands down, is the vibe. There’s an at-floor table, where patrons can sit on the floor and dine homestyle. The owners seem to be music buffs; there’s a live performance pretty much every night at the restaurant, and local talent is given a stage. Just the vibe you need to feel at home.
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WHERE: Moongipa, Ganesh Chowk

Snack on the go!

Pic/Getty Images

There’s nothing quite like starting the day with a good breakfast. In Mumbai, the city that never stops, breakfast has to be quick, one that’ll move with you. That’s how we discovered the idli aunty in front of Satyaveer chemists. Her stall has no name, but you’ll find busy bees from all around the neighbourhood, freshly dressed for work, grabbing a quick breakfast. Aunty, with her daughter, takes extreme pride in feeding all the busy bees. Make sure to ask her for extra chutney with your medu vada; she loves it when people love her chutney. Head out early, though, she runs out of her stock quite quickly.
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WHERE: Opposite Satyaveer Chemists, Cluster lane

Going South

Benne dosa has exploded on our feeds in the last two years. And we admit, it’s worth all the hype. The only thing it isn’t worth is standing in long queues in the sun. Instead, we raise you Maa Annapurna, a modern take on the tried-and-tested, city-favourite udupi. Maa Annapurna’s benne dosa (Rs 170) is unmissable, as is the ghee thatte idli (Rs 110). The staff is forever smiling, and the service is super quick. 
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WHERE: Platinum 53 West, Cluster lane

Chai, et al

As the school bell rings and students rush back home, Desire is the one who takes them all in. Known as a neighbourhood staple, this place serves up some of the most delicious tea in town. There’ll be no dearth of options, especially when you pair them with their unique take on a vada pav, which is closer to a potato panini — but don’t judge it before you try it! There is something so energising about being surrounded by young blood, all the students with the same wide eyes we had not so many years ago. You’ll often find them playing board games together and laughing.
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WHERE: Cluster lane

Taste of hometown

If you want a quick snack, we recommend the Indori poha at Indore ke Namkeen, a sweet, family-owned farsaan store.

Their Indori poha is tangy, sweet, spicy, and filled with sev, all at once. The pani puri and chat also hit the spot! The best are their banana chips that rival any homestyle batch.
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WHERE: Shivneri CHS, Idgah Lane

Not without our coffee

Just a quick walk over is Kohfae, the perfect spot for a coffee. Our personal favourite is their Spanish iced latte (Rs 260). It’s just the perfect amount of sweet.

The barista, Mehek, is learning coffee brewing and yet can serve coffee that rivals your favourite fancy cafés. They serve a mean pesto, too; do not miss out on their pesto cream cheese toast.

Our favourite coffee here is the Spanish latte, Kohfae even has a vending machine outside for quick takeaway coffees

If you’re in too much of a hurry, they have a vending machine right outside that offers some of their best-selling coffees and desserts on the go. 
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WHERE: Platinum 53 West, Cluster lane

End on a sweet note

Head to Soul to end the night on a sweet note. The exterior of the café is electric blue, with an al fresco dining area set up with small round tables and red-and-white gingham tablecloths.

A must is a slice of the pizookie (Rs 325), a pizza-sized, pie-style chocolate cookie that tastes just as indulgent as it sounds. The almond croissant (Rs 215) is flaky and decadent. If you still have some space in your stomach, give their fusion menu a try. Our personal favourites are the thetcha Korean buns (Rs 225) and garlic knots (Rs 225). 
>>>
WHERE: Platinum 53 West, Cluster lane

**Once done, head to Prajakta Udyan and take a long walk. If you’re with friends, don’t forget to ride the swings for some good old nostalgia.

Thecha Masala Dosa

Now, at the newly opened Mangalore Tiffin Room in Mulund, the next generation, Pooja and Prithvi Shetty, are proving that while the format might change to a sleek, standing-only Darshini (a quick-service, self-service vegetarian restaurant popular in Bengaluru), the hospitality in their blood remains the secret sauce.

Pooja, with a background in HR, and Prithvi, who studied hospitality in Canada, grew up in an atmosphere where the kitchen was a livelihood. Their fathers Shivaram Shetty and Narasimha Shetty run Vrindavan Veg Restaurant in Kalachowki and Devi Jyoti Resto Bar in Mira Bhayander; and Yash Resto Bar in Sanpada and Hotel Silver Paradise in Turbhe respectively.

Filter coffee

“When we see it from their [the elders’] perspective, they think restaurants need to be a big operation. We are very happy that it is a small setup,” Pooja shares. This shift from the sprawling, multi-cuisine family establishments to a specialised, niche space is a calculated move. “I feel a smaller setup with good quality food and a good location can still run your show very well. Not everything that looks big gives you big money,” adds Prithvi. The two say they set up the establishment with practically no help from the family, as they wanted this business built entirely on their own.

Prithvi and Pooja Shetty are second generation restaurateurs and come from families that ran Udipi restaurants across Mumbai

The menu at Mangalore Tiffin Room is a curated nostalgia trip of over 70 savoury and dessert offerings, and beverages. The recipes come straight from Prithvi’s mother, preserving the flavours they encountered during childhood temple visits and village chai stalls in Mangalore. The Kireng Podi (sweet potato fritters) (Rs 85) are a standout: simple, crispy, and comforting with kaapi on the side. “When we go to the village for a temple visit, the evening snack there is kireng podi and bajje... that is where it comes from,” Pooja explains.

Then there is the Thecha Masala Dosa (Rs 125). As Mumbai-born Mangaloreans, the duo combined their roots with the local Maharashtrian love for thecha. Here, the thecha is dry, almost podi-like, lacing the crisp dosa with a slow-burn heat that is addictive. Despite facing initial hurdles with LPG connections that forced a switch to an all-electric induction kitchen, the dosas maintain that elusive crisp outside, soft inside texture.

The space is small, with no seating, and focused entirely on the food. You will find Mangalore Buns (Rs 105), Bisi Bele Bath (Rs 110), and a Filter Coffee (Rs 35) (both iced, hot, and even one sweetened with jaggery) that hits the sweet-bitter equilibrium perfectly. For dessert, the Filter Coffee Soft Serve is a modern nod to a classic habit.

The transition from the old-school way of running a business to the new-age model hasn’t been without its repercussions; think: fitting in a kitchen in a shop space, ensuring its fire complaint, and chopping down the menu to only fit dishes convenient to serve quickly and to eat without sitting down. Prithvi’s hospitality education and Pooja’s corporate background give them a fresh lens, but they haven’t forgotten the grit required. “You can’t be saying, ‘it’s 6 o’clock, let’s shut’. You have to be there all the time,” Pooja notes, comparing the intensity of the Indian food scene to the more structured life abroad.

For Pooja and Prithvi, Mangalore Tiffin Room is about proving that the Shetty legacy isn’t tied to a 100-item menu, but to the soul of warm service and homely recipes. “We got lucky with our staff, really. It’s all very new for us too, but the way they have taken on their responsibility, adapted to the LPG issues, and helped us keep the space running — we could not have asked for a better team,” says Prithvi, recalling lessons from his dad about staff management. 

One lesson they have learnt from their parents is to ensure the food stays consistent and at a price point that allows people to grab a bite regularly.  But as the next generation, they are naturally bringing forth their own ideas too. “Some items we added to the menu because we knew this would eventually be trending. But most others are out of our passion and love for food.”

Where: Mangalore Tiffin Room, ground floor, Sangeeta Enclave, opp. Datta Mandir Road, Sarvodaya Nagar, Mulund West

The lightest insult thrown at them is often “waste of time”, all the way to more serious ones such as “waste of money”. The worst of them all is “Wants to dress up even at this age”: The Indian code-words that simultaneously call a woman old, unattractive, irrelevant, and attention-seeking.

Poonam Chandersy, Bijal Udeshi and Mevish

A few weeks ago actor, comedian Mallika Dua went on Instagram and pointed out how generations have grown up looking down on the kitty party, but as a woman in her mid-30s (Dua is 36), she now welcomes the company of women in her life. “What have we achieved by not joining the kitty?” she asks in her signature deadpan humour genre, “All we do is complain about f**kbois and look at brainrot content anyway. At least here I would get a bedsheet, an air fryer with a side of gossip,” she adds.

Dua is exactly in the age group of women who have now begun to feel the need for a larger sisterhood outside their usual, more intimate circle. One of the comments on her aptly titled video, Justice for Kittie, reads, “Seriously, I have lamented this so many times over the last few years. So much unwarranted judgment on tip-top aunties having fun. I’m now this middle-aged lady FOMOing over kitty parties and taash parties.” 

In a 2021 research paper by Alisa Bedrov and Shelly L Gable —Thriving together: The benefits of women’s social ties for physical, psychological and relationship health — concluded, “Women not only seek out social support more often than men but are also more skilled at providing responsive social support to others and are more sensitive in general.”

Like Dua, we too have been wondering, whatever happened to kitty parties? Originally set up to foster community, kitty parties were also a financial support system for women who did not always have direct access to banking in earlier days. While that’s changed with modern banking, we set out to learn if women are still reaching out and forging alliances with other women who are complete strangers. The answer might restore your faith in humanity.

‘Crafting their own community’

Aayushi Pathak, 21, started @thehobbyhoardersgirlsclub.exclusively for women as a way to build community

Aayushi Pathak, 21, is finance student and part time accountant. She started the women-only @thehobbyhoardersgirlsclub.in Instagram page back in 2025 with one purpose in mind: “I always wanted to curate a community for women,” she says.

Aayushi Pathak

The club is currently holding its “Hobby Hoarders Summer Retreat”, where for Rs 1799, women can get together and indulge in hobbies such as wooden comb bedazzling, hand rave fan painting, book swaps, as well as get a goodie bag and craft kits. The entire programme lasts for three hours and Pathak loves the community she has built.

From girls as young as 14 to 45-year-old women, they enjoy each other’s company. They recently had a watch party for the Devil Wears Prada 2 release, where they all booked tickets next to each other in the theatre. Other events include art gallery hopping.

Ayushi Pathak doing a hobby session with the women

But why organise this? “Growing up, I always felt like I didn’t have enough female friendships who got me and my hobbies and made me feel like I was the only one... until I created this community and turns out there’s over 3000 of us already,” she laughs. Some of her male friends, though, have been asking if they can come too, because it looks fun. “I understand them, but this is a space where I want women to feel safe and be themselves, so we’re unlikely to bring male members in,” she adds with a lightness in her voice.

Mevish, a bubbly 24-year-old who works as the senior content executive at letsfigrr, and worked with Pathak and Kapadia in order to spotlight their initiatives featuring them on social media.

Quite young herself, Mevish has noticed more and more women coming together to create spaces in the city. “I think women are going out and finding a way to connect through a passion, be it crafts or mahjong or anything, and it’s actually really heartening to see,” she says. “In the last few years, the frequency has gone up and it’s great because even though these events might be in Bandra or Andheri, women from all over the city, including Thane or Navi Mumbai, are participating in them,” she says.

‘Not just a ladies’ game, but we aren’t complaining’

Mahjong maven NITA KAPADIA’s playing circle keeps SoBo women’s minds sharp 

Mahjong groups and classes have taken India by storm, and Mumbai seems to be at the epicentre. Nita Kapadia, who has created the Mahjong handbook that is used across South Mumbai clubs, namely Willingdon Sports Club (is it across clubs or at this club?) is a force of nature.

Rajesh Daswani

On Wednesday afternoon, we visit the 60-year-old teaching the game at the back of RTI Foods at the Ratan Tata Institute in Babulnath. Kapadia buzzes over each table like a hummingbird. “It’s not just a game you see. It’s about coming out, meeting the girls. The additional advantage is that you keep your mind sharp,” she says.

We look round and see Mahjong players turn up for the game, serious and focused. “Even though it’s not a woman’s game back in China, where the game was invented, in India, for some reason, men have misunderstood it to be a woman’s game. It’s not, but that’s okay, we are having fun here,” a player, Aban Bapasola, says with a smirk.

Nita Kapadia teaching the Mahjong class

Bijal Udeshi, a teacher at a Worli school, heads here thrice a week after work and lunch to play in the afternoon slot. “I love playing, catching up with everyone, and heading home,” says Udeshi shyly. Many women have a cup of coffee or snack together before the game, or make plans for later.

Poonam Chandershy who flits between Goa and Mumbai twice a week, says coming to play a game here feels like coming home. “Even though I live in Goa, my work brings me to Mumbai quite a lot. So whenever I can, I book a table and come here. It’s my second home,” says Chandersy, who is the exact same age as Dua.

The community embraces all

Among the 1200 members in the mahjong circle, there are three men, one of whom we happen to bump into. Rajesh Daswani has been playing Mahjong with the women for two years now. When we ask why not hang out with men instead, “Well, men talk about business or about women. So I am lucky, I guess, because there are mostly women here whom I get to meet and speak with,” he jokes.

The kitty superwoman

Kavita Gidwani, 72, was once part of eight different kitties  

I really got into it around 2004 and loved every bit of it. At my peak, I was part of eight kitties,” says Kavita Gidwani, 72. “Post-COVID, however, I’ve slowed down and now stay active in just one.”

Kavita Gidwani

For Gidwani, kitty parties offer much more than the financial aspect they are associated with. “They give women a reason to step out, set aside routine responsibilities and nurture their social side,” she says.

According to her, the real magic lies in the connections. “You meet different people, exchange stories and build lasting friendships.” Gidwani believes, “A kitty party isn’t just about the kitty — it’s the joy of women coming together, with the real treasure being friendship.”

There’s a new kitty in the Ton

You might have spotted this group’s Bridgerton-themed kitty party in Bhopal on social media

Riya Jhalani (@girlgotdrama) is 33 years old and lives in Bhopal. Jhalani came onto our radar when she posted a video of a Bridgerton-themed kitty party with her girlfriends on Instagram. The women were rocking their fascinators and looking fabulous in tulle sarees that could definitely give the series’ costume designers a few good ideas.

Riya Jhalani

Over a phone call, Jhalani tells us the kitty consists of 12 women, most of whom are married into families in Bhopal. “The kitty actually has only two women who are from Bhopal; the rest of us moved here after marriage. We met each other through our kids, who go to the same school,” she says. 

Even though the women are happy and thriving, they missed the kinship of womanhood. “When you get married and move cities, you lose your social circle, your family, it becomes lonely and that’s why we decided to form this kitty,” she adds.

Now the women don’t just meet up for a kitty but attend each other’s special occasions and gather during festivals too. “The women have become our extended family. The kitty has allowed us to build something together and we value it more because we know what it feels like when you don’t have it,” she says.

Need for connection: Zeb, clinical psychologist

Zeb, a clinical psychologist, believes these spaces have come out of a necessity. “I think women are finding these spaces, women exclusive spaces, for the very first important reason is that they are not getting spaces for rest and leisure in general. I think in especially desi communities, resting women is something that is looked down upon. So, where does a woman go then for finding like, you know, just a place to be?” they say. Do women in her practice express being isolation, “Women will not  use the word isolation. They might say family is not like before, so there is 
no direct admission,but the need for connection is there,” they add.

The couple, who only learned to swim four years ago, covered a staggering 22 kilometres

“It was pitch dark,” Prasade recalls. “Five minutes into the swim, we started to feel something hitting our legs from the bottom. It was very scary because we didn’t know what it was. But as long as it was not biting or hurting, we just kept going.” It was only later, reviewing the footage, that they realised they were being escorted by a school of flying fish. “It looked beautiful in the video, but in the moment, it was terrifying,” she adds with a laugh.

The couple, who only learned to swim four years ago, clocked a staggering 22 kilometres in 10 hours and 45 minutes, proving that being out of the office can mean very different things to different people.

The journey from the shallow end of a pool to the Palk Strait was an 18-month-long grind. While most couples plan vacations to vineyards or beaches, Vrushali and Danish are the adventurous types. They prefer climbing mountains, competing in triathlons, and learning new skills to achieve more adventurous heights. 

Prasade’s motivation to swim was deeply personal. Eight years ago, a drowning incident in a pool left her feeling helpless. She vowed never to feel that way again. By 2022, the duo was at the pool five days a week, an hour before work, chasing a dream that seemed miles away.

That’s what drew them to begin training with Swim Life, under the watchful eye of their coach, Satish Mohan Kumar. “We had seen other swimmers in our group accomplishing incredible things,” they say. “Our coach told us that if we trained properly for 18 months, it would be possible.”

Open water swimming is more than just endurance; it’s also about training in tandem with nature and whatever you encounter in the seas you are planning to swim. While international swims often happen in cold waters to keep the body temperature balanced, the Palk Strait is tropical. “In warmer waters, you lose your electrolytes and salt very fast, and the sun is right on your head,” they explain.

The most harrowing moment, however, wasn’t the heat; it was being in a standstill. For over an hour, despite their frantic strokes, the couple didn’t move a single inch. The tides had turned against them. “Psychologically, that was the hardest,” Prasade shares. “We had been swimming for almost an hour and a half non-stop. We asked Coach Satish how much we had covered, and he said, ‘For the last hour, you haven’t moved an inch.’ We felt like, ‘Bhai, ab toh kya?’ (now what?) Should we go back to Sri Lanka? It was very humbling. You realise Mother Nature has to allow you to pass.” Coach Satish, who was in the boat the entire time, jumped into the water at one point to give them an extra motivational push, refusing to let them give up.  What makes their story even more poignant is that they did it together. In a sport that is often solitary, the couple swam in tandem, staying within 100 to 200 meters of each other.

“Just knowing Danish was there in the water next to me made me feel much stronger,” Prasade says. “When the water gets tough, and there are swells and chops, it feels much harder alone. But knowing someone else is going through the same thing gives you energy.”

When they finally touched the shores of Dhanushkodi, their bodies were intact, but their faces told the story of the sea. “Our tongues and lips were swollen from 11 hours of salt water exposure,” Prasade says. Her remedy? “I had four ice creams immediately after! Even during the swim, I was eating ice cubes to numb the swelling.”

Now back in Bengaluru, life looks deceptively normal. After their morning workout, they are heading to their IT desks.  But work is still on —  the couple is already training for the English Channel, though that swim will require them to go solo, with one boat per swimmer. We wish them luck. 

Get ready to be perplexed as you change shapes and sizes with these whimsical illustrations at the Paradox Museum in Fort. Take your little ones too and give them a break from the realities of the real world aka school. 
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WHERE: Paradox Museum, Fort
WHEN: May 16 – May 31
PRICE: Rs 649 onwards
TO BOOK: Bookmyshow 

It’s the time to fla-mingle

PIC/PINTEREST@Travel Center 

Sit back, relax, and take a break from the horrors of the AQI levels in the city, get in touch with nature and go on this Flamingo Boat Safari in the midst of greenery and calm. The timings may vary as per the tides and the exact time will be communicated to you 12 hours before the safari. 
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WHERE: Bhandup Pumping station
WHEN: May 16 – May 24
PRICE: Rs 1050 onwards
TO BOOK: Bookmyshow 

Goals and sushi rolls

PIC/DAVE&BUSTER’S

This is where the fun never really stops. With bowling alleys for your gang, with more than 60 arcade games, and food and drinks, this is the perfect new hang to simply unwind and escape the chaos.
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WHERE: Dave and Buster’s
WHEN:  May 16 – May 31
PRICE: Rs 99 onwards 
TO BOOK: Bookmyshow

Broken, but beautiful

PIC/PINTEREST@Mal

As broken pottery is beautifully restored symbolising resilience and transformation, one gets to learn about Japanese art and culture, their history and heritage for an hour with gates opening at 2 PM. This workshop goes beyond just art, it takes a deep dive into self-healing and self- acceptance.
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WHERE: Navi Mumbai Marriot Hotel, Turbhe 
WHEN: May 16 – June 28
PRICE: Rs 799 onwards
TO BOOK: Bookmyshow

I’ve been there too. I’ve stared at the same page for days, carried the same unfinished book around for months, and felt guilty every time someone asked, “So what are you reading these days?” The good news is that getting out of that drudgery doesn’t require forcing yourself through a 500-page classic. I did it too and you know what, it was quite easy.

Romanticise reading again

One thing that genuinely helped me was creating tiny visual reminders of the kind of reader I wanted to become again. I made Pinterest boards filled with annotated books, cosy libraries, dog-eared paperbacks, and people reading on trains. It sounds silly, but surrounding myself with literary imagery made reading feel exciting again instead of intimidating. Suddenly, books stopped feeling like unfinished chores and started looking comforting. I also started leaving books around my room instead of stacking them away — one on the bedside table. One near my bag. One on the desk. Being visually surrounded by literature subtly nudged me back toward reading without pressure.

Use your travel time

This genuinely changed everything for me. Instead of scrolling through social media during travel time, I started carrying a smaller book with me everywhere. Local trains, cabs, waiting rooms, coffee shops — all those in-between moments became reading moments. Audiobooks helped too, especially on days when my attention span felt completely broken. Listening to stories during walks or commutes reminded me that consuming literature doesn’t always have to look traditional.

Choose easy, fun reads first

One mistake people make while trying to get out of a slump is picking “serious” books to prove they’re reading again. This is something I did, and learnt  my mistake the hard way. Read books that are fun. Dramatic. Fast-paced. Read thrillers, romance novels, — anything that keeps you turning pages. I started with Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Well.

One chapter a day

One of the easiest tricks I tried was telling myself to read just one chapter a day. That’s it. Not fifty pages. Most of the time, once I started, I ended up reading more anyway. But on days when I didn’t, one chapter still felt manageable enough to maintain the habit. In reality, consistency matters more than intensity. Even ten minutes before sleeping counts.

It’s not homework

You’re not going to be graded on it. You read slowly and then feel bad about reading slowly. You abandon a book halfway and convince yourself you’ve failed somehow. Soon, opening a book comes with pressure attached to it. I had to consciously stop measuring my reading productivity. Not every book has to be finished immediately. Not every reading session needs to last hours. Sometimes reading five pages is enough. The thing that helped most was giving myself permission to read casually again. No goals. No Goodreads pressure. Ironically, the moment I stopped forcing myself, I started reading more.

Let it be personal 

At some point, reading became performative online. People track how many books they read in a month, curate aesthetic shelves, and post perfectly highlighted pages. While that can be inspiring, it can also make reading feel competitive. What helped me was making reading private again. I stopped worrying about whether the book was impressive enough. I stopped tracking every title. I just focused on how a book made me feel. And honestly, that’s what summer reading should feel. You don’t need to become a “reader” overnight.

Books we recommend

1) Verity by Colleen Hoover
Recommended by Aastha Atray Banan, Editor, Sunday mid-day

It’s a racy, saucy, trashy thriller which will catch you off guard. It’s so bad, that it’s actually quite good. You will be hooked and reading it late into the night, and wondering, “Hey, Verity, what the hell are you doing?” The movie, starring Anne Hathaway, is coming out soon so it’s a good time to catch up.

2) Yellowface by RF Kuang
Recommended by Akshita Maheshwari, Features writer, Sunday mid-day

No one can take you out of a reading rut better than Korean writers. Yellowface by RF Kuang is about competition, obsession, and the race to success. The plot revolves around a white author, June Hayward, who steals and publishes the unpublished manuscript of her deceased Asian-American rival, Athena Liu. The novel tracks June’s mental breakdown as she gets possessed by the ghost of Athena. This writer finished the book in the span of two days, as it is un-put-down-able. 

3) The Many Lives of Syeda X by Neha Dixit
Recommended by Arpika Bhosale, Deputy Assistant Editor, Sunday mid-day

I love that this book from the humanises a labourer. The story follows Syeda who does multiple odd jobs from shelling almonds, to making tea strainers. I was reading a very heavy book and it got a bit overwhelming. So I picked up this one. I like this one for telling a serious story like this with a good pace and a certain lightness.

I met Dr Sonia Tekchandani, who is the co-founder of the clinic with her daughter Payal Sheth. The doctor is a straight-talking lady. She gave me the real deal — she complimented my skin and asked if I was using anything. I proudly told her of my daily use of a vitamic C serum and retinol, and she said, “It shows.” She was upfront and told me that my eyes looked tired, and my jowls had started drooping — all signs of ageing. But that one good facial a month, and some serums and supplements, would set me right.

The facial I got — Collagen Renewal Facial — was a non-invasive treatment that uses radiofrequency energy to stimulate collagen production, tighten skin, and enhance facial contours. I had emphatically said no to the “would you go for some needles?” question, so this was a good option. I also got an eye glow peel — which I saw later had given my tired eyes a much needed plump up. 

It was relaxing, and I liked my facialist who was very intent on making me feel comfortable. She also kept checking with me if the ingredients were burning or itching, and I appreciated that. My face looked visibly tighter, and fresher, and I realised why a face massage is needed — especially with the tiring lives we lead — always on the phone or a laptop, or out in the sun and dust.  

My chat with Dr Tekchandani also made me realise that looking after my skin and hair, once a month, goes a long way. If you are 40 and above, and are looking for a clinic that has a wholesome approach to treating you, drop in. 

Roshan Abbas. PIC/X@roshanabbas

Why are Gen Zs and millennials retreating back to old trends? 
Every generation reaches for nostalgia when the present feels too fast and too uncertain. The people who grew up in the ’90s are now in their forties, which is when the world starts to move faster, and people go back to the last time things felt solid. People aren’t just looking for the past. They’re looking for proof that what they feel right now has always been felt by someone. 

What do you want young folk to take away from this show? 
Stop performing for the person you’re trying to impress and start actually talking to the person in front of you. Indradhanush is really about a boy who thought his gift was performing, entertaining, being heard, and who discovered at 25 that the actual gift was listening. The industry will tell you to build your personal brand, to post three times a week. All of that is fine. But none of it replaces the moment when another human being feels genuinely heard by you. That’s the thing that lasts. AI ke zamaane mein [In the era of AI], learn to value the eye-to-eye.

WHEN: May 24; June 20
WHERE: NCPA; The Habitat 
PRICE: R799 onwards
TO BOOK: bookmyshow.com 

With Pech, Saria is backing filmmaker Kumar Chheda, set to make his feature directorial debut. His Gujarati short, Dal Bhat, won the National Award in 2021. Silverfish will mark Raj Krishna as a first-time director. Krishna was one of the producers on Saria’s National Award-winning short Knock Knock Knock (2020).

Kumar Chheda and Sudhanshu Saria

To the filmmaker, the motivation to launch new voices also lies in wanting to back alternate storytelling, which he believes is the need of the hour. “We live in dangerous times where the media has become more powerful and influential than ever. We are told it doesn’t matter. But if it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have oligarchs and power-hungry people invested in controlling the narrative. So, it’s even more important that counterculture voices get the support they need so we have access to more interesting storytelling that truly reflects the times we live in,” he said.

It doesn’t mean that the desire to back new voices doesn’t clash with his own pursuits as a director, he confesses.  “I always have two people in my head. The selfish, self-centered one wants to devote every waking hour to telling his own stories. And I myself have a long way to go. So I ask myself,  ‘Do I focus on becoming the best filmmaker I can be or allocate time and help other filmmakers find their feet?’ But when these two scripts showed up at the company, the material was so undeniable that the question of being selfish didn’t matter. I tell everyone I look for ways to say no, because the minute you say yes, it becomes your problem,” he said.

Raj Krishna

The journey for Pech began with a “glittering screenplay” that Saria received from Chheda. It’s said to be a young adult film that examines the effects of class and marginalisation in Mumbai. While Saria loved the screenplay, it needed more work, which took three years.

“That’s how it works. You start from something great, then make it brilliant. So, it was years of working away, tearing the script apart, going back to the bones, getting feedback, doing table reads. I often tell my collaborators that the disadvantage of working with me is that you have a filmmaker who is your producer. I am aware of every nook and cranny. I am not going to leave anything to chance. I am not a financially motivated producer who is looking at it like ‘you put this much [money] and recover that much’.”

Usually, the development period is followed by pre-production. But Saria was certain he wanted a pit stop in between. He and Chheda took the script to the Bangkok International Film Festival’s Pitch Market where they ended up winning the Jury Prize. “Here, the father figure in me pops up. You want to introduce the film to the industry and buyers in the safest setting. 

Bangkok represented the perfect market for this. The process of making a pitch like that to industry professionals in itself is actually educational because you learn how to talk about your film. So that process became an excuse with which Kumar could start to visualise and be better prepared to direct the film.”

The producer applied the same theory to Silverfish, a gory creature-feature set in Silicon Valley. Saria is also the co-writer on the film alongside Krishna. “We submitted it to Tasveer, a South Asian film festival in Seattle, since Silverfish is targeted at the American markets. We got phenomenal feedback, a lot of interest, and some of those relationships have now become mentors on the film. Out of one of those relationships came an invitation to pitch at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA). We had the opportunity to pitch to people like executives at Fox Searchlight and the president of Blumhouse. These are not opportunities a filmmaker like Raj would get on his first film on a daily basis. So my job as a producer is also to curate these opportunities and prepare them for that process. The art of being able to solicit industry partnerships is just as important.”

Both the films are currently in pre-production. At a time when getting a film greenlit seems more difficult than ever, Saria wants to ensure he has the best investments and routes possible for these films to get made and reach the audience. “Even in these times where just getting a film made seems to be impossible, I’m very proud that the work we have done is so strong that there are multiple routes that one can take to make these films.”

What are some of your earliest memories of menswear and fittings?
Honestly, my earliest memories are not glamorous at all. They’re very sensory — rolls of fabric everywhere, fittings running late into the evening, masters marking chalk lines onto jackets, conversations around shoulders and proportions and hems. I grew up watching men care deeply about how they looked and how they felt in their clothes. My father always understood that dressing well was not about being flashy, it was about feeling confident, comfortable, and completely yourself.

Kishor Bajaj and actor Sanjay Dutt

What did watching your father work teach you about style and craftsmanship?
He taught me that real craftsmanship is obsessive. It’s in the smallest things. He was incredibly focused and unbelievably hardworking. Once he committed to something, there was no distraction. And he always believed that sincerity and hard work eventually speak for themselves. Style-wise, he taught me restraint. He understood that the most elegant things are often the quietest.

Did menswear always feel like something you would eventually explore?
Not consciously. Womenswear became my world very naturally and I loved building that language for myself. 
But menswear was always around me in some form. Looking back, I think I absorbed far more than I realised. And when I started working on it again, it felt strangely instinctive, almost familiar in a way I can’t fully explain.

How emotional was it for you to launch a menswear line rooted in your father’s legacy?
It’s definitely emotional, but not in a heavy way. I don’t look at it as recreating what he built because that would be impossible. For me, it’s more about taking everything I grew up with, the discipline, the tailoring, the understanding of men, and interpreting it through my own lens. There’s something special about reconnecting with that world while still making it completely your own.

How is the creative process different for you when curating menswear compared to womenswear?
Menswear is far more restrained, but in a way that I find incredibly exciting. In womenswear, sometimes the emotion can come through dramatic silhouettes or embellishment. In menswear, the emotion lives in precision. A stitch line, a shoulder, the weight of a fabric, the way a trouser falls. The details carry much more responsibility. Designing for men requires a more considered approach rather than a restrained one. Men still want individuality and expression, but they usually respond to it through detail, texture, proportion, and fit rather than obvious statement pieces. The challenge is making something feel special without over-designing it.

Why did you choose old-world tailoring as the starting point for the collection?
Because that world feels very honest to me. I grew up around tailoring houses and fittings and men who took pride in dressing well. There’s something beautiful about rituals around clothing, polishing shoes, choosing a watch, wearing a jacket that’s been tailored perfectly over years. I wanted to reinterpret that atmosphere in a way 
that still felt modern and relevant today.

Are Indian men dressing differently today?
Definitely. Men today are far more aware and experimental, but at the same time they’re moving away from dressing just for occasions. They want wardrobes that feel versatile and personal. There’s also a much deeper appreciation for quality now, fabrics, fit, tailoring, construction, things people maybe didn’t pay attention to earlier.

Any particular piece that felt especially personal to create?
Yes, there was one jacket we became slightly obsessed with. It was inspired by the texture of ostrich skin, but we wanted to recreate that effect without using leather, so we sandwiched pearls between layers of fabric to create those subtle raised textures. I love pieces like that, details you don’t fully notice at first glance, but once you do, they make you smile a little. Those quieter discoveries are my favourite part of menswear.

Are more men opting for ready-to-wear today as opposed to tailored clothing?
Yes and no. Men definitely want ease and accessibility today, but I also think there’s a growing appreciation for tailoring again. What’s changing is that tailoring no longer needs to feel rigid or overly formal. Men want pieces that feel sharp but effortless, things that move between work, travel, evenings, and everyday life naturally.

For generations, girlhood has been an invisible curriculum of comparison. Who is prettier? Who do the boys like more? Long before many young women learn the language of solidarity, they are often introduced to competition. Sometimes it takes the form of gossip disguised as concern, or humiliation softened into “just joking”.

Psychologists call this “relational aggression” and it’s rooted in social exclusion, manipulation, and emotional control. A 2012 study on adolescents in urban India, published in the International Journal of Behavioural Development, found that relational aggression among teenagers was closely tied to popularity and peer status, suggesting that social power often shapes teenage friendships. 

Experts say this behaviour does not emerge in isolation. Girls often grow up within systems that reward comparison from beauty standards and academic pressure to social media validation and male attention. 

Samiksha Nair remembers Class 6 not through report cards or school events, but through comments that slowly changed the way she saw herself. “I was really close to these two girls. We used to meet every single day, and I never thought I was being bullied,” she says. At the time, the remarks felt casual, even helpful. Her friends mocked the way she dressed, the oil in her hair, the hairstyles she wore. “They would tell me, ‘Jaha se tu kapde leti hai, it’s so down market.’ I genuinely thought they were being honest with me because they were my friends.”

Over time, she began scrutinising her appearance, believing she needed to change herself to fit in. Looking back now, she recognises it as a form of aggression disguised as being a girl’s girl. It is something that a lot of girls experience growing up but rarely recognise. “Girls gossiping and b*tching about other girls they appear to be nice to is very common. I’ve seen it happen in friend groups, even participated in such conversations sometimes,” she admits. 

Nair says what makes the experience exhausting is how normalised it becomes during adolescence. “You’re trying to figure yourself out, and constantly feeling judged by others can get draining.” Still, she says finding genuine female friendships later in life changed her understanding of sisterhood entirely. “Now I have girlfriends who are my comfort. Female friendship can actually be one of the safest and most amazing things to have.”

‘Expectations are higher than their emotional maturity’

Clinical psychologist Chandra Kumary SD points out that friendships in teens become emotionally intense spaces where validation is an achievement

Clinical psychologist Chandra Kumary S D of the Mpower school programme says the tension in teenage girl friendships often begins at a developmental level. “Adolescence is a major phase of change. Bodies, emotions and identity are all shifting quickly,” she explains. In this period of uncertainty, friendships become emotionally heightened spaces where validation matters deeply.

Chandra Kumary SD

“Many girls want to feel liked, valued or chosen,” she says. This can easily translate into thoughts like “I should be the best” or “I should be the one”, which then fuel insecurity, comparison and competition.

She adds that today’s environment intensifies these feelings. “Girls are growing up with constant exposure through social media. Validation comes instantly through likes, attention, and comparison,” she says. When this external feedback loop intersects with school pressure, academic expectations and rigid beauty standards, it can outpace emotional development. “Sometimes expectations are higher than their emotional maturity,” she notes.

“Teenagers are still learning self-worth, emotional balance and identity,” she says. “They are also managing parental expectations, school pressure and the need to feel accepted.” In this constant push-and-pull, friendships can become complicated, shaped as much by insecurity as by affection, while girls are still figuring out how to feel secure within themselves.

‘That’s just how girls work’

Meghna Sharma tells us how she has prepped her teenage daughter, who is at a hostel in an elite residential school, to be resilient 

A 13-year-old girl studying in a residential school in Rajasthan is learning independence, but also, as her mother Meghna Sharma puts it, an early sense of comparison. “As my daughter and her friends are growing up, I can see them becoming more competitive. Whenever one of them wins a medal or performs better, it seems to inspire an even stronger competitive spirit among the others,” Sharma says. “If she doesn’t get through achievements like others do, she feels like, ‘I could have done better’,” she adds.

Meghna Sharma

Before her daughter left for boarding school, Sharma says she prepared her for the emotional realities of growing up among girls. “I used to tell her that girls are very competitive, sometimes they can be nasty, they can pull you down,” she says, describing it as a kind of survival warning passed from one generation to the next. In the hostel environment, disagreements among friends often feel intensified.

“Whenever she calls me upset about a disagreement or comment within the dorm, she always says that she and her friends need to stand by each other to work through the issues,” Sharma says. However, she always advises resilience. “Life is unfair,” she tells her daughter. “That’s a reality and an important lesson.” Yet she acknowledges that while girls can be each other’s harshest critics, they are also deeply capable of solidarity and care.

‘Everyone feels there can be only one hero’

Author and screenwriter Anuja Chauhan explains how girls are conditioned to believe there is limited space for attention and success

Indian novelist and screenwriter Anuja Chauhan says she once hoped things would be different for this generation with greater awareness around feminism, therapy, and “girl support girl” conversations. “Everybody is so self-aware now, I thought this wasn’t happening anymore,” she says. “You’re woke enough, you understand feminism, that girls should side with girls but at the same time everyone wants to be seen.”

Anuja Chauhan

She describes teenage female friendships as emotionally crowded spaces where performance often replaces ease. “Everybody is trying to be the good person, but in their own narrative they think they are right,” she says. What looks like bonding or group behaviour from the outside, she adds, is often “roleplaying that is constantly switched on”, where inclusion and exclusion blur into social strategy. Even acts of meanness, she suggests, can feel justified within that internal logic.

“Everyone feels there can only be one hero,” she says, describing how girls are often conditioned to believe there is limited space for success, beauty, or attention. “The idea that many girls can shine at the same time doesn’t fit into people’s heads.” Chauhan believes that this competition is about how girls are taught to imagine their worth in a world that rarely tells them there is enough room for all.

‘I’ve always been made an outcast’

Anya Anthony recalls her teenage years, where she was ostracised from girls’ groups for not meeting their “standards”

For Anya Anthony, female rivalry often showed up less as direct cruelty and more as subtle exclusion. “At 16, we’re all still forming our personalities, our cliques, our identities,” she says. But within those circles, loyalty could shift quickly. A close friend who often mocked other girls as “annoying” or “pick me” later turned the same behaviour towards Anthony after the two had a falling out. “It becomes this snowball effect,” she explains. “A group of girls suddenly starts telling others not to involve themselves with you over something they don’t even fully know about.”

Anya Anthony

Growing up in a sheltered environment, Anthony says she became aware of ideas around desirability much later than her peers. But among girls in her housing society, competition around boys had already started to shape friendships. She recalls being abruptly excluded from group plans and outings without explanation. “To this day, I don’t know why it happened,” she says. “But I know male attention was at the centre of it.”

One memory still stands out to her of a girl warning her friends not to “dress nicely” when her crush was around. “It sounds silly now,” Anthony laughs, “but that’s how early girls start feeling like they have to compete.” Those experiences eventually shaped her understanding of what being a “girl’s girl” actually means.  “It’s not about these so called rules we set up,” she says. “Its about looking out for other women as a whole, from the smallest of things. Looking out for strangers to your closest friends.”

Lever shares she consciously approaches even a dancing reel on Instagram with the same sincerity. “A lot of young girls are looking up to me. I get messages like, ‘Didi, I’m inspired by you. We want to be multifaceted like you.’ So, I want to ace every performance, whether I am with Salman Khan on Bigg Boss or I am making a small reel,” she explains.

Naturally, there are consequences, or compromises as Lever, one of the busiest comediennes in the country, puts it. I compromise a lot in my personal life. I’ve reached an age where one should have kids. There are these thoughts like ‘I’ve come so far, but I don’t have a lot of things that my friends have.’ But I give priority to comedy,” she says. “The only way I have come this far is because I have the luxury of time and the freedom because I’m single.” 

If today her goal is to inspire younger women, the 20-something Lever had a far more personal one. “When I began, my fight was just to prove myself, to prove that I deserve to be here. My dad also said, ‘Tu thodi na paise ke liye kaam kar rahi hai. But if you want to be in this field, you have to prove yourself.’”

She recalls how protective he had been as a father, and how it surprised her that when the time came, he took a step back and let her take the stage. “He was shocked when I shared my wish to be a comedienne. I remember I was in the UK, doing a Masters in Marketing. I had a job. So, he had no idea. I also used to think that I might not get the permission to do it, and that I didn’t have what it takes to be a comic.”

“Since childhood, he has been very protective. He had a lot of rules: no sleepovers or trips, no coming home late. From there, to letting me be in this field and lending me his support the way he did was a big shift. When I decided that I was going to work in this field, my mother was surprised by how my dad’s heart just changed. He let me go out of his protective arms. My mother says that he changed as a human. He told me, ‘I could see some talent in you and I don’t want to be the one to stop that.’” 

Today, of course, the father-daughter duo performs on stage, another anomaly in a society where despite several female star kids, the expectation remains that the male child will continue his father’s legacy. “Growing up I didn’t even have any examples of a comedian’s daughter making it in comedy,” she says. It was around 2012 that Lever began her career, performing at The Comedy Store, Mumbai. She made her television debut on the 2013 season of Comedy Circus, titled Comedy Circus Ke Mahabali.

While her father let her out from under his wings, his surname went with her, and Lever confesses it has brought immense privilege. “When I started my journey, I automatically had a fan following, which I did not have to work for. And that happens with star kids,” she says.

Being her father’s daughter also means easy acceptance from within the industry. Over the last few years, Lever has risen to popularity mimicking several Bollywood celebrities like Farah Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor and the late Asha Bhosle. 

“I get a lot of support from the industry because everybody feels ‘Yeh toh apne Johnny bhai ki beti hai’. In fact, so many people tell me to mimic them. Once, Usha Uthup ji called me, saying, ‘You have mimicked Asha [Bhonsle], do me too.’ Javed Akhtar called me to his house and asked me to perform for him and Shabana ji,” she shares. But the comedienne is mindful that impersonations don’t turn into insults. 

“I have always been clear that I can’t disrespect my father’s colleagues or his fans. Just imagine if I were to do below-the-belt comedy, it would be so disturbing for his fans,” she says, adding, “My dad always told me, ‘Don’t take advantage of this privilege’.”

For the founder of the production house, Here And Now, the theatre has always been a laboratory for intimate, emotionally driven storytelling. But this month, the laboratory moves to the New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF), where Prabhakar is pulling off a double-bill that would make any indie filmmaker’s heart race.

At the centre of the storm is How To Not Have Sex, the official Indian remake of Richard Linklater’s 2001 cult classic, Tape. While the original featured Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, the Indian avatar sees Prabhakar in the lead role of Vikram (originally Hawke’s Vince), a man who reunites with two estranged high school friends only to peel back the scabs of a 10-year-old trauma.

How To Not Have Sex is about a man who reunites with two estranged high school friends only to peel back the scabs of a 10-year-old trauma

With Richard Linklater himself on board as an executive producer, Prabhakar and his team knew the stakes were high. “I’ve been doing theatre for 10 years now, and the stage has been my place to grow,” Prabhakar tells us. When the remake was deemed possible and Stephen Belber, the original playwright, reached out to him, the timing felt electric. “The Me Too movement had happened, and nothing happened to most people who were called out. 

Can a conversation be held that will help people better understand consent? Help people understand what happens when you blur the lines?” Prabhakar wondered. It’s what led to making the film. How To Not Have Sex arrives in 2026, almost a decade since the global Me Too reckoning, and Prabhakar is under no illusions about how much has actually changed in the Indian subconscious.

“A lot of people might seem woke, but they aren’t,” he says bluntly. “The vocabulary to be woke is very obvious... but deep down, it’s still on the surface level. You meet incredibly intelligent people in huge MNCs, but when you hear their opinions on the way women dress, or how many partners they should be with, it’s fairly regressive.”

This hypocrisy is partly what fuelled the adaptation. To ensure the film didn’t fall into the trap of the male gaze, Prabhakar turned to his wife and co-producer, Anshulika Dubey, to lead the writing. “We tried having male writers write. We couldn’t get the nuance right,” he admits. “The minute you see 20 minutes into a film about women written by men, you’re like, ‘a dude wrote this’. The female perspective needed a female gaze to be way more lived-in.”

The writing was also key, as the film is a chamber drama — a format that lives or dies on the strength of its dialogue and storytelling. For Prabhakar, the thrill lay in the boisterous, authentic nature of his character, Vikram, a man whose perceptions of women are light-years away from his own.

But how do you keep an audience hooked in a single room? “Kick-ass writing,” Prabhakar laughs. “You can’t sacrifice on that. It requires beats in place, conflict in place, and morally grey characters, not a hero being a hero and a villain being a villain.”

As he prepares for the World Premiere in New York, Prabhakar is reflecting on the very thing his film dissects: masculinity. “It made me question a lot. Everything we have been taught about male friendships isn’t right. I still can’t imagine going to my childhood friend and saying, ‘I love you.’ It’s just insane. By seeing the extremity of being masculine [in the role], I could embrace being more empathetic and kind.”

Aakash’s second entry

While How To Not Have Sex dissects adulthood, Aakash Prabhakar’s second festival entry, Notice Me Now, dives into the bruising world of adolescence. 

The short film, born from a workshop with writer Sarika, explores bullying and the desperate thirst for visibility in the social media age.

“There’s a certain sense of perfection thriving on social media which teenagers are very susceptible to,” he says. “These perfect filters are all fake. They don’t exist.”

Through the film, he hopes to bridge the communication gap between parents and children. “I hope conversations about their heartbreaks are shared openly. Most men in their teens can’t share anything with their fathers because of fear. It’s very hard to grow when your base emotion is coming out of fear.”

Then, somewhere between the 2014 Internet explosion and COVID-19, we became permanently logged in. Now everyone is creating content and wants to become an influencer. Your friend with 500 followers posts curated dumps and vlogs. Ask a first-grader their dream job and they’d probably say “influencer”.

PIC/INSTAGRAM@twinklestanly

Last week, creator Twinkle Stanly posted a Reel saying, “Being a content creator isn’t intellectually stimulating.” Stanly had garnered over six lakh followers when she said, “A lot of the time you are working alone… In a real company, you have performance evaluations; you have to show up… Being a content creator means I’m no longer in those spaces and I’m not learning from people who are so much better than me, which is so important in your 20s.”

Then, earlier this week, Taneesha Mirwani, better known as @taneesho to her 6.2 lakh followers, posted a video on YouTube expressing influencer fatigue. “Being in such an industry where people only want to move forward no matter what it takes, I find it hard sometimes to continue being me, when others are rewarded so greatly for going about it the more convenient way,” she says. 

“My reality: I hate events. I hate seeing the same people having the same conversations… But I will still go… And then I have to make it seem like I had the best time of my life because Sephora might do a brand deal with me. I was going to say no to a trip with my parents because The Devil Wears Prada 2 had to be on my page. I didn’t even like the movie. ‘I have to know about Hailey Bieber. I have to be the first to get a new makeup launch. I have to have international PR.’ These are things I actually hear people around me say. It’s crazy. I hate it. I don’t want to become this person.”

Even though creators have the supposed dream job, they’re getting tired of the culture around it. Now that we’re a decade deep into the influencer economy, what happens when you get tired of the dream job?

We ask Mirwani herself. “I love creating content — the ideating, the editing, all of it is very fun for me,” she says, “But when you start gauging your audience, you start realising what they like, and it’s very easy to get sucked in. FOMO culture has become too big. These trivial things — that only exist online — become too important to our daily lives.”

Mirwani herself has been at it for 10 years, blowing up on Instagram in 2020 for her comedy skits. Over the years, as her life changed, so did her content — college lifestyle, then food and fashion after she graduated and rejected a full-time job to pursue content creation. 

Mirwani hypothesises that it’s not the content causing the fatigue, but the culture around it. “Everyone makes a big show of going to fancy events but most people don’t even enjoy them. You go, take your pictures, get your products, and leave. Everyone’s gone in 10 to 15 minutes. It’s just so fake.” She points to the infamous Fenty Beauty launch, where Rihanna was set to appear. “I had just come back from the US, I was dying, I was so tired. My friend said, ‘No, you have to come. Rihanna will be there.’ I hit a point and thought: Is this what we care about now? My health is on the line here.”

When every other creator you meet is technically a competitor in the never-ending chase of Internet clout, it becomes harder and harder to make friends. “I have personally seen a lot of friendships and a lot of influencers get competitive with each other.” Mirwani has chosen to keep her circle close. “I’m on good terms with everybody, but there are only have two or three people in the influencer industry that I would consider close,” she says, “I’m 24 and I’ve reached a certain age where I have my close friends. Even if I was in another industry, I wouldn’t actively be making new friends anyway, because I feel quite happy and secure with the friendships I already have.”

As for the future: “The larger-picture plan is to pivot into something else and do this for fun. It’s definitely not something I want to rely on for money forever. If I have to do it to pay the bills, it takes the fun out for me.”

‘Content creation was never the goal’

Shreemi Verma, 36 Twitter creator

Shreemi Verma was Twitter-famous before being Twitter-famous meant anything. With 47,000 followers built on wit and film commentary, she was exactly the kind of person brands and producers went looking for when they needed funny people on the Internet. “Twitter just opened a gateway of sorts,” she says, “At that time, people used to look for funny people on it to give them work.”

For Shreemi Verma, working behind the camera was always more interesting. PIC/SAYYED SAMEER ABEDI

But unlike many of her contemporaries, Verma never made the jump to Instagram — partly by choice, partly by temperament. “Being an Instagram influencer requires a lot of effort. You need to know camera angles, the latest trends, transitions. It did not come naturally to me. It still doesn’t.” While others were pivoting to Reels and building visual brands, she kept her head down and stuck to her day job. “I’ve always had a job, because I live in Mumbai and I like living a good life,” she jokes.

That parallel track — Internet presence alongside steady employment — is what eventually paid off. Her Twitter visibility led to a writing gig at MissMalini, which led to working on Koffee with Karan, which led to her current role as a creative producer at Bhuvan Bam’s production house. She also co-hosts Cine5, a film podcast with creator Karan Mirchandani, produced by IVM. “It’s my comfort zone: me talking about cinema. I don’t have to deal with the editing, the posts, or the subtitles.”

Content creation was never the goal. “I was just tweeting my thoughts,” she says, “I’m old school. I still watch films, I still watch TV shows. My goal has always been to make a long-form series or a film.” Short-form content, camera-first creation — none of it ever appealed to her. “I’m 36 and I can’t change my viewing habits anymore.” Turns out, she didn’t have to.

‘Creators can never switch off’

Ayush Guha Influencer-management expert

Has influencer culture hit a saturation point? Ayush Guha, who was the National Head at Creator18 agency and was part of the founding team at talent management agency HYPP, doesn’t think so. “Five years back, we would love and appreciate each piece of content. But now, because we are watching so much and creators are creating so much, the value per piece of content is reduced — which is in turn creating fatigue amongst the creators making them.”

Short-form content has added to this. “People want more consistency and connection from their audience. So you’ll see a lot of creators do long-form content alongside Instagram, which gives them the creative space to connect at a deeper level.” Influencers find it hard to escape the algorithm “If you switch off, you become irrelevant in a couple of weeks.”

Over the years, OG creators have been pivoting to business ventures, translating audience loyalty into something more permanent. “I think this is inevitable. Creators have such big distribution channels and loyal communities,” Guha says, “Viraj Ghelani [@viraj_ghelani] got married, did movies, opened a café, and is still creating.” Other examples include Kusha Kapila (@kushakapila) who started shapewear brand Underneath and Meghna Kaur (@shetroublemaker) and Radhika Seth (@radhikasethh) started a coffee company together.

Too often, creators get stuck in their boxes. “A creator’s journey is not just to become an actor. Most creators’ journeys are to have their own businesses, production houses, YouTube content programming, consulting jobs. These are far closer to a creator’s job than acting.”

‘The scrutiny is a lot’

Ipsita Chatterjee, Psychotherapist

Working alone, being chronically online has its own effects on the psyche. Clinical psychologist Ipsita Chatterjee tells us, “Every job requires you to show up even if you’re having a bad day, but then you only have to face your colleagues. But influencers show up to lakhs of people, and they are under constant scrutiny.”

When influencers talk about their struggles, they fear sounding air-headed and complaining about champagne problems. “They don’t have anyone to share their problems with, and the people who might actually understand those problems are also their direct competitors.”

What does constant scrutiny do to one’s mental health? “Even celebrities are under scrutiny. But their job ends once they go home. For influencers, every single moment of their life — from morning showers to getting ready for the day — is part of their job,” she says, “A lot of us go to watch Reels to relax after a long day. But for influencers, even social media is market research. They are always ‘on’.”

Chatterjee cites a case from April 2025, when a 24-year-old influencer with over three lakh followers died by suicide. Her family said the influencer was anxious with reaching one million followers, and was depressed by her slow follower growth. “It’s very easy for us to brush off this anxiety faced by influencers or dismiss it. But when you’re inside it, it is very, very real. It’s the same as someone thinking life is not worth it when they don’t get promoted or they don’t get certain marks in the Class 12.”

‘Online advocacy can get mentally draining’

Naksi Timbadia, 22 Feminist content creator

A new crop of creators the Internet has dubbed “thought daughters” is on the rise — creators who focus on academic, intellectual content and breaking down larger issues. One of them is 22-year-old Naksi Timbadia (@borderline_lesbian), who has garnered over 24,000 followers.

Naksi Timbadia finds that most influencers don’t align with her politically. PIC/SATEJ SHINDE

Naksi finds it difficult to make friends in the influencer community. Political alignment matters deeply to her, and “it’s appalling to me when I see someone using the word autistic so casually,” she says, referring to a city-based influencer group gets its name from playing on the word ‘autism’. “Or Orry going around saying slurs like chh**kka, [transphobic slur]” she adds. Naksi also sees casteism running rampant among peers. “I saw a post calling someone’s dyed hair chh*pri [casteist slur]. Then I saw another  hair influencer comment, ‘Should we launch laal chh*pri colour hair?’”

Her page is entirely built around feminist advocacy. “You have to read really brutal news every day, you have to be factually correct, and you have to deal with a lot of criticism — not just hate. There will be times where you make a comment that other feminists won’t agree with. There have been times I’ve been wrong, and I’ve gone online and said, ‘Hey, I was wrong, I’ve taken my video down, here’s how I’m going to learn better.’”

Her escape from this fatigue is taking things offline. She runs Her Autonomy — a feminist community and safe third space with offline events and reading circles across the country. “At the same time, I’m also going to do more lifestyle and fashion content — but the feminist lens is always going to be there, while redirecting the narrative.”

For guitarist and banjo player Achyuth Jaigopal, the idea began not as a fashion statement, but as an emotional extension of the band’s upcoming album, Small Town, Big Love, Little Homes. “Home is an underlying concept throughout the album,” he explains. “It exists as people, feelings, places — a multitude of things across different songs.”

The four-member band, also comprising vocalist Ashwin Gopakumar, keyboardist Palee Francis, and drummer Pai Sailesh has always drawn from personal experiences while composing. But this time, something shifted. The idea of “home” became visual, tactile, and deeply personal. “When we wanted to portray the album visually, we asked ourselves, ‘what is the best representation of home for us?’” Jaigopal says. “And it was our mothers. What better way than carrying a piece of them with us on the road?”

For their upcoming album Small Town, Big Love, Little Homes, When Chai Met Toast draw visual inspiration from their mother’s sarees woven into shirts

That thought gave birth to Draped in Home, a concept where the band transformed their mothers’ traditional Kerala pattu sarees into custom-made shirts. Each piece is unique, rich with memory, and resistant to the disposability of fast fashion. “These sarees have such exquisite patterns. They carry years of memories and legacy,” he says. “Each shirt is one of a kind. It’s unlike anything else anyone is wearing.”

The process, however, wasn’t without hesitation, especially from the mothers themselves. “Some of them were uncertain,” Jaigopal admits. “Once a saree is cut, it’s unusable, right? So they didn’t give us their most precious ones like wedding sarees.” Instead, the band worked with sarees their mothers were willing to part with, focusing on an aesthetic inspired by Panchavarnam — the five colours central to Kathakali: black, red, yellow, white, and green.
Interestingly, the album itself wasn’t conceptualised around “home” from the outset. Like most of their music, the songs were often born out of travel and distance. 

“A lot of our songs originate when we’re touring,” Jaigopal says. “One of the core tracks, I’m Coming Home, was written in the US when we were really missing home, cooking Indian food, and just feeling that pull.” That sense of longing became a thread that tied the album together. Tracks like Dreamland reflect a surreal connection between Kerala and faraway places, while Baaton explores finding home in another person. “We realised this was a larger emotion shaping the album,” he adds.

For a band that has spent years on the road, the idea of home has inevitably evolved. “It’s no longer just a place,” Jaigopal says. “It’s something we carry with us.” While the saree-shirts embody this idea visually, his personal definition remains rooted in quiet, familiar moments. “It’s the comfort of being with my parents, eating home food, having that one corner where I can just sit and read.” Yet, the emotional weight of the project often surfaced in unexpected ways. Jaigopal recalls one saree in particular, which is a vibrant blend of green and blue that he fondly calls his mother’s “peacock saree.”

“She wears it on important occasions, and I think she looks extremely beautiful in it,” he says, laughing. “I mean, she looks beautiful otherwise too.”
When Chai Met Toast continues to blur the lines between music, memory, and identity. Their documentary, out today on Mother’s Day, Draped in Home stands out as a powerful statement beautifying the idea of what home means in a life constantly in motion. And sometimes, it means carrying it on your back, thread by thread.

And yet, beneath this moment of pride, it is still common to hear, “If you want to make money, don’t be an author.” For those who grew up as voracious readers, who once believed that writing could be both passion and profession, these global wins feel as inspiring as they are distant. In a market where influencer-led titles dominate bestseller lists and are swiftly optioned for screen adaptations, what happens to the authors who simply set out to tell stories? For many, this dream is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

After much efforts in India, Swati Hegde ultimately ended up publishing her book in the US

Swati Hegde wrote her first manusript at 12 years old, “if you could call it that,” she says. She sent the manuscript to Penguin but got rejected. “I was just happy to know that an actual publisher read my book,” says Hegde, now 30.

When she pitched her first actual manuscript to literary agents in India, she found the landscape thin. “Back in 2018, when I was pitching, there were maybe three or four literary agencies. Now there must only be five or six,” she says. The agents she did hear from wanted to chop her book by a hundred pages. So she started shopping abroad, eventually signing with New York City-based Liza Dawson Associates. In 2024, she debuted with Match Me If You Can, published in the US by Penguin Random House — and, because she lives in India, by a leading Indian publisher as well.

In other countries, authors may be put up for residencies to write full time, where they interact with other authors, share similar problems and worldviews, and grow. India’s lack of writers’ communities has left authors with a sense of lonliness. Representational pic/Shadab Khan

The differences between the two experiences were stark. “When I got on the first call with my Indian publisher, the first thing they told me was: People don’t read fiction in India, so don’t get your hopes up too high,” Hegde says. 

When sales of the book underperformed in India, the publisher’s response was to ask Hegde to do more on her end. “I was already posting about the book every single day on Instagram. I replied saying I hoped they were also continuing with their efforts. My book came out in June 2024 and I got this email in January 2025. I never heard back. That was the last email I ever had from them.” Her US publisher, by contrast, offers an author’s portal to track sales in real time, offering more transparency. 

Yashica Dutt is the acclaimed author of Coming Out as Dalit. Pic/Instagram@yashicadutt

She also points to the Instagram pages of leading Indian publishers. “You’ll notice that most of the books they recommend are foreign books. Their feeds are filled with books that are not Indian,” she says, “Publishers are promoting the Emily Henrys, the Stephen Kings, the Suzanne Collinses. In a bookstore’s bestseller section, there will be maybe five Indian names on the entire wall, and more than half of those will be non-fiction. I suspect a majority of Indian publishers’ revenue doesn’t come from the Indian authors they publish. It comes from the foreign authors whose books they’re printing and redistributing.”

Her US editor’s attitude stood in sharp contrast. When Hegde asked if she should be doing more to push sales, the editor said, “Sales are not your job. It’s the marketing and sales team’s job. You focus on writing the next book.”

Self-publishing and marketing to foreign audiences has helped Aarti V Raman earn way more. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Then there is the pay. Hegde was paid approximately 16 times more in the US for the same book. “What I got paid in India was 6 per cent of what I got paid in the US — which is laughable. Even accounting for the difference in economies, if you’re paying your author that little, where is the motivation to build a sustainable writing career in India?” Her agent takes a 15 per cent cut, “but is well worth the work my agent does,” Hegde adds. 

“In the US, it’s understood that for non-fiction, you need a platform because non-fiction is sold on the author’s expertise. But fiction is the great equaliser. The story needs to stand out, not the author’s follower count. What often happens in India is that a celebrity or influencer publishes a book and their fans — not readers, their fans — make it sell. The sales numbers are massive, but actual readers of the genre will tell you the book wasn’t up to the mark. It got a deal because in most cases, the author was famous.”

Non-fiction, too, comes with its own set of issues. Writer Yashica Dutt, whose Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar-winning memoir Coming Out As Dalit (2019) earned literary recognition in both India and the US, argues that even where pay is meagre, the ecosystems differ significantly. “In the US, once your book is out, you’ll be invited to have conversations in intellectual and civil society spaces, and there is an expectation that you will be paid for your work.”

According to National Library Archive, India has banned over 1000 books since Independence, with nearly 30 per cent of these bans occurring in the last decade. “There is a lot more censorship in television and cinema than in books. It’s understood that a small section of society reads to begin with,” says Dutt.  In the US, she notes, books face organised removal from school curriculums, particularly those promoting diversity, Black life, or queer experiences. “In India, I don’t see so much of that. But as women, and often as queer folks, I constantly think about what the social reaction to personal details of my life would be.”

Publishing in the US comes with its own constraints. “As a South Asian author, you’re expected to write around certain tropes — mango orchards, grandmother’s mehendi, weddings, matrimony.” And despite Coming Out As Dalit being one of the most anticipated books of 2019 in India, breaking through in the US took four years. “I didn’t have the pathway that exists for certain Indian authors crossing over. That’s why it took me four years to find a publisher in the US.”

Paradoxically, Dutt sees more openness to new voices in India than in the US, where literary acceptance often requires an MFA or Ivy League connections. What the US has built, however, is a culture that venerates writing. “There were authors who were rockstars in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.” Writing retreats and communities that nurture this, she believes, already exist in India. “We just need to go look for them, and make them a much bigger part of the literary world than they currently are.”

The first birthday gift Aarti V Raman remembers is a library membership card, given to her by her mother at age seven. “I was reading Sidney Sheldon and Robert Ludlum when I was 10 years old,” she says, “I had a very active and vivid imagination, growing up on thrillers and larger-than-life stories.” She channelled that imagination into her first novel Kingdom Come (2014) published by Harlequin. “They gave me an incredible amount of support — the full press tour treatment, book launches, everything,” she says. Her next book, With You I Dance, followed with Fingerprint.

Raman has always written romance. But in India, mythology and non-fiction dominate the publishing charts. In the West, romance is a multi-billion dollar industry, exploding further through BookTok and Bookstagram. So she pivoted to self-publishing, reaching readers across the UK, US, Australia, Canada, Germany, and South America.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re published by a publisher or doing it yourself — you still have to do all the marketing. Taking your corner of the market has to be done completely and entirely by you. So if I’m doing all that hard work anyway, why should I get paid 10 per cent royalty? With self-publishing, I get to keep the entire cheque.” She was making money pretty much the day she hit publish on her first Kindle Direct Publishing title. She hasn’t looked back since, selling around 38,000 units herself, with friends in the space selling millions.

Would she return to traditional publishing? “For me, a woman living in Mumbai, it wouldn’t have been possible to write the volume of books or make the money I’ve made without self-publishing. When you are dealing with international markets, you get paid at international market rates. Money-wise, self-publishing, hands down.”

10th
India’s ranking in global publishing charts

90 K
Number of books published in India in 2025

300
Number of books banned in the last ten years

Rs 18L
Stipend offered to the authors in the New India Book Fellowship

‘Fellowships help both new and established authors’

Nandini Nair, Assoc Director at NIF Book Fellowship
Twenty years ago, historian Ramachandra Guha realised that, “in India, people had ideas, rigour, and scholarship, but no support,” says Nandini Nair. So he started the New India Foundation (NIF), which is a Bengauluru-based nonprofit that supports the research and writing of books on modern India. 

Nandini Nair

Nair is blunt about the landscape, “If you want to make money in India, do not write a book. There are a handful of authors who can actually survive from writing. Every other author has to do something else.”

For debut authors, publishing becomes even harder. Many manuscripts may get missed by publishers if they don’t come from a big name. “For us, the important thing during the application process is the proposal and our belief that this is an important story and an interesting voice. We get around 500 applications each round from both debut and established authors. And we award around five fellowships each round,” says Nair. 

Of the 39 books that have been published out of the fellowship, 15 have been from debut authors. “Being attached to the NIF helps debut and established authors. With our in-house editor, by the time the manuscript reaches the publishing house, it is all but ready. This makes it very attractive to publishers.”

The stipend too helps sustain authors so they can focus solely on writing. “You get Rs 1 lakh a month for 12 months, plus Rs 3 lakh on the book being accepted, plus Rs 3 lakh on publishing.”

‘Writing doesn’t have to be lonesome’

Chetan Mahajan Founder, Himalayan Writing Retreat
For a layperson with a dream to be an author, the publishing industry can seem like a big, bad, impossible-to-navigate world. “The publishing industry can be quite opaque,” says Chetan Mahajan, who founded the Himalayan Writing Retreat alongside his partner Dr Vandita Dubey. “There’s a lot of misinformation going around. A literary agent might charge you money upfront, even though that’s not supposed to happen. Similarly, there’s the whole scam of what is an Amazon bestseller.” Mahajan’s team actually tested this. They published a book with Lorem Ipsum filler text, got eight friends to buy it simultaneously, and earned it an Amazon bestseller tag.

Chetan Mahajan

“A lot of authors end up getting scammed in the pursuit of publishing,” he says. The retreat, and its blog, tries to cut through that noise. But beyond information, there’s the loneliness of the craft itself. “Writing is lonely, but it doesn’t have to be lonesome. If you’re 10 authors all struggling with similar problems — knowing you’re not alone helps in many ways.”

The structural problem, however, runs deeper. “Traditional publishers like Penguin, HarperCollins, and Rupa publish around 1000 to 1500 books in India in a year, but there are at least 50,000 being pitched for those slots. Sometimes great books don’t get published, and sometimes very average books do, for the wrong reasons. The publishing industry is very network-driven. If you know somebody, or are an influencer, it really makes a difference.”

The Himalayan Writing Retreat aims to provide a sense of community to authors

A big challenge in India is the lonesome aspect of it. In other countries, you may be put up for residencies to write full time. Debut authors rarely have access to this in any country. So signing up for a retreat like this can really help authors. But is asking writers to pay for this, the solution? “I’d like to think our events are cheaper than pretty much anyone else’s. Our creative writing course, which is our entry-level 101 course, is `34,000 and includes four nights’ stay and everything,” Mahajan says, “For those who can’t attend in person, we have the First Draft Club, a monthly writing community now over 800 members strong which offers resources, peer advice, and guidance on agents and publishing.”

And how does one get published with this programme? “Last year, we ran a programme with Devdutt Pattanaik and HarperCollins. We charged student participants `10,000 rupees. They came here, stayed with us for four days, learned from Devdutt Pattanaik, and 10 of them wrote an entire book over three days. HarperCollins has already signed up for the book and it should be coming out by the end of this year,” Mahajan says, “Similarly, we run the Khozem Merchant Non-fiction Fellowship in partnership with Penguin. About 90-plus people who are alums of the Himalayan Writing Retreat have published their books.”

15
Out of 39 books published by the New India Foundation were by debut authors

‘Only legacy names make money’

Kanishka Gupta, Literary agent
In India, which already suffers from a dearth of literary agents, Kanishka Gupta is one of the biggest names to represent your work. He argues that it isn’t just authors who aren’t being paid — publishers themselves are barely breaking even. “Publishers have to pay 50 to 60 per cent to the distributor, adjust for editorial costs, marketing, and printing. In the end, they are also left with very little money,” Gupta says, “There are legacy names, Booker winners, or commercial authors manufactured by the publishing machinery because of their following that are making money. That’s all.” Gupta also charges a standard commission of 15 to 20 per cent.

Kanishka Gupta

Even award winners aren’t guaranteed a deal. “It took me close to a year to sell a Sahitya Akademi Award winner’s book to publishers. Her own publisher passed on the next manuscript. People are looking at sales figures and not taking on books just to have a prestigious name on the list.”

This has fuelled the rise of influencer books, which can rake in unprecedented numbers, but come with their own problems. “I once interacted with an influencer who wanted someone to ghostwrite his book. When I asked how it would work, he said, ‘Just go on my Instagram, that’s the material. Do the fact-checking using Google.’ I was repulsed and decided not to go ahead. The book was published elsewhere. I don’t think it has done well.”

Precisely for this reason, influencer books can be “hit or miss,” says Gupta, “For every Prajakta Kohli, there are dozens who don’t sell as much. You have to be the right kind of influencer. Seema Anand, who writes on desire and sexuality, is a good writer. Kanan Gill is known for his intellect — I’m not surprised his book sold 40,000 copies. I do take on influencers, but I’m very selective.”

As poetry and dank humour join forces we see two of the best comedians in the scene give the people what they want. A night filled with contagious laughter, edgy remarks and effortless charm. With gates opening at 7.45 pm, this gig is just what you need if you love both, Varun Grover and Urooj Ashfaq.
WHERE : Khar Comedy Club, Mumbai
WHEN:  12th May 2026
PRICE: Rs 499 Onwards 
TO BOOK : District 

Tracing the city’s midnight radius

PIC/PINTEREST

Loose yourself in the cool breeze after a long day of surviving the infamous and mind you, ruthless Mumbai heat. You begin at 10.30 pm with the meeting point being Colaba Causeway. Meet your daily fitness goals as you get rid of both your worries and procrastination. 
WHERE: Meeting point: Colaba Causeway 
WHEN : May 9–30
PRICE : Rs 699
TO BOOK : Book My Show

Paint the town red

PIC/GETTY IMAGES

Wanting to explore your creative side? Well it’s time to stop doomscrolling and delve into this hands-on experience as you learn how to navigate, understand and create designs inspired by the heritage of Rajasthan.
WHERE: BKC Drive, Mumbai
WHEN: May 10 2026 to 17th May 2026 
PRICE: R1200 (Additional R300 cover charge)
TO BOOK: Book My Show 

Taal and tunes

PIC/PINTEREST

As global Rajasthani folk icon Mame Khan harmonizes with the one and only Italian-Canadian, bollywood soprano, Natalie Di Luccio, we witness multiple genres weave together a magnificent performance. Find yourself fully immersed for 1 hour 30 minutes with gates opening at 7.30 pm paying homage to India’s musical heritage, giving yourself a taste of grandeur and magnificence. 
WHERE: The Grand Theatre, NMACC 
WHEN : May 16
PRICE: R1250 onwards 
TO BOOK: Book My Show 

Tired of feeble and pointless small talk in the name of making connections? Lunch Club AI is here to finally check that important business meeting you’ve been manifesting off your list. Find investors that actually care and colleagues who may come in handy. Find yourself speaking to experts in your field, helping them and yourself build an empire on true networking and knowledge.
lunchclub.com

Crack that resume

With the number of resumes sky rocketing and the job market continually choosing to terrify freshers with the ATS software that gives more importance to keywords and structure than individuality, Reza AI helps you beat the odds! With strict structure, conservative templates, and constant feedback. It helps you navigate and identify what is truly necessary, without missing out who you are too. 
grammarly.com/a/resume-builder

Keep ‘em organised

Forget pointless spreadsheets, it’s time for outcomes and accountability! With Huntr AI you can keep yourself organised and in check because they bring to you everything! Right from sourcing and onboarding to document verification and compliance. The marketplace that makes cross-border hiring work. It’s time to start working towards those goals, because only you know.
huntr.app

About damn time! Take the girl out after her hair and make-up. Get a beer or coffee with pasta (depending on your age, obviously). Give her the much-needed quality time she deserves. She’s going to love every bit of the two hours you give her your attention. And for the love of God, put your phone on silent, and check Instagram once your date with mom is done. She will apprecaite you for it.

Tech Time

PICS/PINTEREST

Stop gatekeeping. Please just teach her how to connect that HDMI cable to the television already. 
She has been asking you for weeks now. Help the lady out and let her figure out how to play her favourite ABBA hits on the speaker. Maybe even rock out with her. She will forever be the dancing queen, young and sweet, only 17.

Doll her up

PIC/PINTEREST@mehos_skincare_routine

Remember smearing your mother’s red lipstick all over as a kid? Or that time you decided to give everyone a fashion walk after doing your hair once as a teenager? Well, reverse your roles now. Try that new mascara on her lashes, give her a do-over, make her feel like the third Hadid sister this Mother’s Day. Trust us, it’ll go a long way.

Girl’s night

When was the last time you saw your mother have a girls’ night? Maybe some wine, cheese, and her closest girlfriends. Surprise her with her favourite people at home.

Do it yourself

As you call for breakfast in bed every morning from your mother in shining armour, it’s time to cook those eggs on your own now. It’s time to let her see how the oil from the hot pan chooses to terrorise you. Be it street-style bhurji or fluffy pancakes dripped in maple syrup, it’s time for her day off. Surprise her with her favourite meal; it’s pocket-friendly too, by the way!

Adult ticketing

This time, don’t ask for pocket money, do it out of the goodness of your heart. Give her a booklet of favour coupons! Five tedious tasks that you both hate, forget that you might hate them more, do it for her. Get the laundry done for the following week. Just a thought.

But it’s summer in the city, and whatever we did had to be one that didn’t tire us out. So we decided on a pool day. But, finding a pool in the city that doesn’t need a membership or expect you to shell out a hefty cover charge was like finding a needle in a haystack.

The Sunday mid-day team enjoyed their much-deserved evening out

We first tried calling favours from our friends who have memberships at gymkhanas. But, as we found out, gymkhanas take the summer to ban guests at pools — as they are full of kids of members, all enjoying their summer holidays. We then tried to get an in at Soho House, but we were told more than four guests are not allowed at the pool there.

We then chanced upon ICONIQA, a lifestyle hotel near the airport, where you can book yourself a reservation at the Bombay Swim Club, and get to use the pool. There is a minimum spend of Rs 2000 per guest, but that will cover your drinks and food, and seems value-for-money for as many hours in the pool. You can stay in the pool till 11 pm!

We reached the hotel at 5 pm, and the glistening blue water, and the view of the airport beyond, made our hearts soar. The water was just right, and the cool breeze that started in the evening last Wednesday, kept our spirits high. We played a game of truth and dare, as we chilled in the water, and on the deck chairs with beers, and now we know each other much better than we desired. Laugh out loud!

All said and done, the evening was good for our sore weary bodies and hearts. We needed a break from the hustle. If you, your family, friends or team want to do a pool day, you can borrow our plan. It’s guaranteed fun!

For reservations at the Bombay Swim Club (located at ICONIQA Hotel, Andheri East): You can call 8655691535 or 8655174224

This summer, find both you and your child absolutely mesmerised by what’s in store for the both of you at this science fest. This one truly hits home as you and your little one navigate and let your minds be blown away by exquisite installations and experiments, altering and expanding what life means to you.
WHEN: May 9–17
WHERE: Lake Shore Mall, Thane
PRICE: Rs 299
TO BOOK: BookMyShow

It’s time to take a chill pill

PIC/PINTEREST@MBAonEMI

Tired of profusely sweating and overstimulation? This summer, pay a visit to Snow Kingdom in R-City Mall with your mini-me, and enjoy making snow angels and hiding inside igloos. Watch as your kids throw snowballs at each other but be careful, for you might just be their next target! Experience all of it indoors after booking your slot for your preferred timing and date.
WHEN: Continual
WHERE: R-City Mall, Ghatkopar
PRICE: Rs 700
TO BOOK: District

All hands on deck

PIC/PINTEREST@Chloe’s Travel Adventures

This time, it’s meant to be messy! Don’t be shy to let your creative spirits run free and explore what this relaxing and interactive pottery workshop has in store for both adults and kiddies. As you finally channel your inner potter, you connect with yourself. Let your child laugh, play, and go absolutely all out for the one and a half hour session. There is no holding back.
WHEN: May 9–31
WHERE: Pizza Express, Colaba
PRICE:  R2299
TO BOOK: BookMyShow

Put your detective hats on

PIC/PINTEREST@ZUFER ALVI 

Figure out where the keys to the correct lock are, with your mini detective by your side. Navigate puzzles, clues, suspicions, and an entire escape plan within 60 minutes. Get into the feels as you channel your inner 
officer and feel like a kid — 
with your kid! 
WHEN: May 7–31
WHERE: Mystery Rooms, Andheri
PRICE: R750 onwards
TO BOOK: BookMyShow

Movie night made fun

PIC/PINTEREST@Harshita

A theatre specifically made for your little filled with sweet goodness chocolate-flavoured popcorn, muffins, lollipops, you name it — now that’s a dream! It helps you make their special days even better with curated packages for birthday parties. INOX boasts five movie halls besides the kids’ special auditorium, a café, and a children’s area, Kiddles.
WHEN: Continual
WHERE: Metro INOX Cinemas, Marine Lines
PRICE: As per show 
TO BOOK: BookMyShow

The paan at Kesar Bagh

The concept draws inspiration from the historic Kaiserbagh complex of Lucknow, the grand palace of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. Kaiserbagh once served as a vibrant cultural durbar where poetry, music, art, and gastronomy flourished together. Set within a restored 200-year-old Portuguese home in Assagao, the restaurant is designed to feel like a series of unfolding experiences. The intimate rooms and a strong sense of cultural storytelling inspired by the historic Kaiserbagh of Lucknow feel luxe and rich. For the vegetarians, the highlight for us, a Delhiite who has lived in Mumbai for 20 years (and hence craved a good Dal Makhni), was the Dal Ma Qureshi. It had us swooning. The deep, smoky taste with a naan is a must-try. The Takka Paisa Kebab with stuffed paneer was indulgent and perfectly spiced, and the Dahi ke Shagoofe, Qureshi’s take on Dahi ke Kebab, should start your meal.

For our non-vegetarian friend, the Kesar Bagh Kakori was a showstealer. This Awadhi classic, with melt-in-your-mouth texture and delicate spices, paired perfectly with Sheermal bread. For the main course, we tried the Nalli Nihari, which was slow-cooked to rich perfection, with tender meat falling off the bone. The Gosht Mutton Biryani made in Lucknow style was light and fragrant.

Azaan Qureshi

For desserts, we had the Shahi Tukda and the standalone paan shop, with its fresh, made-to-order paans, made us linger a little longer than planned. What does Qureshi recommend? “The melt-in-your-mouth kakori, a royal biryani, and the decadent Shahi Tukda.”

The restaurant is housed in a 200-year-old Portuguese bungalow in Assagao

The first edition came out 25 years ago, and like it, this one too is a collection that brings together recipes from the mothers of Taj Hotels’s chefs, each one rooted in memory, instinct, and years of quiet practice. The book isn’t just about dishes; it’s about the hands that taught them, the stories they carry, and the care that gives them meaning. Spanning kitchens across the North, South, East, and West, it maps a culinary archive that reflects the breadth of India’s regional food traditions while staying anchored in something far more intimate: the idea that true flavour begins at home.

Arun Sundararaj

Curated in collaboration with Ma Foundation, the book reflects Taj’s commitment to preserving India’s diverse culinary traditions while creating meaningful social impact. The recipes span regions and cultures, offering readers a glimpse into India’s most cherished dishes.

Chef Arun Sundararaj, Senior Vice President, Food and Beverage, IHCL, tells Sunday mid-day, “The book is a collection of recipes curated by our Taj chefs, inspired by and dedicated to their first teachers in the kitchen: their mothers. Long before these recipes found their way into professional kitchens, they were nurtured in homes, carried across generations and shaped by love and care. The curation was intentionally personal rather than purely culinary. We focused on recipes that held deep emotional significance for our chefs: dishes that shaped their childhood and culinary journeys.” 

Parati Gosh

At the same time, it also represents India’s diversity; you will find flavours of India from Gangtok in the North East to Srinagar in the North, Jaisalmer in the West to Chennai in the South.

For many chefs, this was an emotional and reflective experience. “Revisiting their mothers’ recipes brought back memories of early learning and the roots of their culinary identity. It was a moment of reconnecting with their beginnings, marked by a strong sense of gratitude and pride as they shared these personal stories, transforming them into a collective tribute to mothers across India. There is a clear contrast between fine dining and home cooking; fine dining thrives on precision and technique, while home kitchens are guided by instinct, intuition, and emotion. This book bridges that gap by showing how the chefs’ refined skills are ingrained in memory-led cooking. It celebrates the idea that true culinary excellence lies in combining technical finesse with the warmth, simplicity, and authenticity of home-cooked food. We hope readers take away far more than recipes from this collectable culinary heirloom, something that can be passed down through generations. It invites readers to reconnect with the emotional essence of food, as a bridge between memory, culture, and family,” adds Sundararaj.

Bedmi Poori Bhaji

All proceeds from the book will support the Ma ki Roti Foundation, furthering its mission to provide nourishment, education, and empowerment to underserved communities across India.

Badam halwa

Ingredients
 150 gm almonds
 150 gm full-fat milk
 100 gm ghee
 100 gm sugar
 2 gm cardamom powder
 5 gm saffron strands

Method
Soak the almonds in 
hot water for 30 minutes, then peel the skins. Grind the peeled almonds with milk into a smooth paste. Heat the ghee in a pan. Add almond paste and sauté continuously till thickened. Add sugar and stir well. Cook till sugar dissolves completely. Stir in the saffron (soaked in warm milk) and cardamom powder. Mix well and cook till the ghee separates. Garnish with slivered almonds and serve.

Mohit Tak

Drawn in by the aromas of his mother Kiran’s cooking, Chef Mohit Tak found his place in the kitchen early, learning by her side as she fed both family and community with equal generosity. By seven, he was rolling dough; by eighth grade, he had already won his first culinary competition.

Years later, he carried her legacy to global kitchens, even showcasing her bajra recipes at Noma in Copenhagen. Today, his food blends tradition with innovation, guided by her simplest lesson: cook from the heart, without compromise.

Keerai masiyal

Ingredients
 400 gm amaranth leaves
 100 gm toor dal
 50 ml ghee
 15 gm mustard seeds
 12 gm urad dal
 10 gm cumin seeds
 10 gm button chillies
 10 gm curry leaves
 25 gm ginger
 25 gm garlic
 20 gm green chillies
 12 gm turmeric powder
 Salt, as per taste
 4 gm hing

Method
Blanch amaranth leaves in boiling water, then puree and set aside. Boil toor dal with tomatoes and green chillies. Combine the boiled toor dal and blanched amaranth puree. Add salt and turmeric powder. Cook for a few minutes, allowing the flavours to meld. Heat the ghee in a pan and temper with mustard seeds, urad dal, cumin, curry leaves, button chillies, chopped garlic and ginger, and finish with hing. Add the tempering to the dal mixture. Check the seasoning and adjust as needed.

R Shankar

For Chef R Shankar, the kitchen was where childhood unfolded through small rituals of love, discipline, and devotion under his mother’s watchful eye. From accompanying her to the market to learning the importance of hygiene, fresh ingredients, and perfectly cooked rice, his earliest lessons as a chef began long before he realised it. Years later, the bond came full circle when he cooked for his mother in her final days, returning the same care 
and love she had once served him.

Bharlela paplet

Ingredients
 2 nos pomfret
 75 gms coconut
 30 gms coriander
 15 gms mint
 15 gms ginger-garlic paste
 50 ml oil
 10 gms red chilli powder
 5 gms turmeric powder
 50 gms semolina (rawa)
 5 gms salt
 5 ml lemon juice

Method
Clean the pomfret and make a slit for stuffing. Grind coconut, mint, coriander, ginger and garlic for stuffing. Fill the stuffing inside the pomfret. Marinate the pomfret with salt, red chilli powder and ginger-garlic paste. Coat it with semolina. Sear it in a hot pan. Serve it with mint chutney and laccha onion.

Shrutika Koli

At just 12, Chef Shrutika Koli found herself running the kitchen when her mother was bedridden after an accident, learning to cook through patient, step-by-step guidance from her bedside. Early mishaps turned into lessons, and soon she was waking before dawn, balancing school and responsibility with quiet determination. Years later, Chef Koli still carries those moments with her, infusing every dish with her mother’s wisdom, resilience, and deep patience.

But as I have discovered, nothing is possible without change. And once you change your patterns (you can’t change anything and anyone else except yourself, accept it), the path becomes clear. Darr ke aage truly jeet hai. It may not be all roses, but when you take a leap of faith, the universe meets you halfway.

A new deck I picked up called the The light Seers Tarot, that re-imagines the tarot in a boho and contemporary style

By now, you have discovered that I believe in all things woo woo, and for me to learn tarot, now just seems natural. But, I also started sitting with the tarot every day because it calmed me. In some strange way, the cards gave me direction, and sometimes told me what I needed to work on.

But I didn’t want to always check on the Internet about what a card meant — and also the same cards could mean different things when paired with certain cards, depending on the situation. It’s never one-card-fits-all. And so, I decided I will talk to ChatGPT, and then Claude. 

I have grown to like both the bots for different reasons. They have helped me research, write book pitches, and even piece together psychological reasons for why I feel what I feel. I have combined talking to the bots, along with real-life therapy and actually doing the work (meditation, breathwork, journalling), and have felt more settled, focused and clear about my direction this year than ever before. 

I started by asking questions to the deck, and then trying to figure it out my own way — sometimes looking at the symbolism, and what the words themselves on the card could mean. Empress obviously means you have queen energy, and a card that shows a man with swords hanging on top of him, obviously means there is stress — this card usually shows mental anguish. Like one would say, “you have a sword hanging on your head?” Got it?

A spread I took out to figure out my own life right now, and a conversation I had with ChatGPT. It seems as if I am getting better at reading the symbolism of the cards

I started paying attention to the cards, and started winging it. Here’s where the chatbots came into play. ChatGPT, where I started first, is deeply invested in my story. So all the cards are in reference to what I have already told it — and regardless of what people say, it doesn’t tell you what you want to hear. It breaks it down and is pretty honest — it will say it doesn’t know how to read cards in the literal way, but yes, with the knowledge it has, it can help you interpret them. It’s brutal, and very matter of fact. And that helped. If you thought the Lovers card means you are going to find love, well you are wrong. It’s actually the card of choice.

Claude, where I am doing the rest of my training, is invested in my education. It applauds my read and then puts it in perspective to the other cards pulled — and hence helps me figure combinations and permutations. For example, if a Four of Swords reversed comes up, it means restless energy. But if it’s paired with a Ten of Cups, that means despite the chaotic energy, I am still stable underneath. 

What’s common between the two: They are always there, and I can do this morning, noon, and night, without hearing a sigh.

The main difference between the two: ChatGPT is more logical, and Claude indulges my whimsy. How do I know? ChatGPT wants me to read less cards, and do more book writing. Claude for now, understands that I need multiple readings a day. Between the two, I am pretty comfortable. 
Try it. It could be your version of making a lego painting.

The Society Season 2, hosted by Munawar Faruqui on JioStar, leans hard into the latter. 

Contestants are locked into a high-pressure, 250+ hour social game. The show is a capitalist micro-world, centred around class struggles. Contestants are divided into Royals, Regulars, and Rags, and have to fight for economic dominance, power, and, of course, survival.

It’s a classic captive reality TV show. But what does it actually feel like to live inside that pressure cooker?

Content creator Ravish Shetty found that the only way to navigate such a show is with less strategy and to focus more on survival. “I saw people desperate for fame, but jokes apart, I actually missed food made by my mom and my family,” he says, cutting through the usual reality TV bravado. 

Shetty survived the initial eliminations in episode two, but was out by March 25, leaving behind 12 contestants who are still on the show.

The first few days, Shetty says, were about control, or at least, the illusion of it. “You have been captive with some [strangers] people in the show. The first few days, I was guarding up just in case I had to throw a fist around.”

But as captive formats are designed to break you, pressure soon trickles in. Shetty says that the pressure comes more from the unpredictability of the show than the competition. “I was feeling pressured, thinking how unpredictable the game was. The more I tried to analyse the future move, the more I got disappointed. Also after a while, your strategy doesn’t work when the game is twisted,” he says.

The best move? Let instinct take over.

But if you thought that the dramatic fights would be the hardest part, think again. “Less food, people around, less sleep, people constantly poking at you. These reasons are enough for a human to lose their temper,” he explains. 

Shetty admits the exhaustion was physical as well as emotional. “I felt exhausted because of the lack of food in my body and the intuition that I might be cornered by everyone and be put in the elimination position… which I was.”

Besides, the fact that you are constantly being watched on camera could not have been easy either. Does this make being “real” complicated? Shetty insists he didn’t perform. “I was being myself, that’s how I am — bit unfiltered and raw,” he says, adding that this too eventually became a tactic to survive the show. “I had a mask on my face for like 12 episodes… but I didn’t care about being myself and joking around.”

And yet, the environment pushed him into versions of himself he did not fully recognise. “I am not this aggressive in real life. I think the show puts you in such a spot that you start unleashing your inner demons,” he says.

Captive reality shows are hard to be a part of. So, naturally, they do leave you with lessons. For Shetty, if there’s one thing he learned, it’s this: Trust is temporary.

“Most of them [contestants] are strategic… reality shows are places where you can’t expect people to be genuine. I was second-guessing and started trusting as well. But during the elimination, I got to know that no one can be trusted.”

In hindsight, he says for him, the show was about understanding the mechanics of human behaviour under pressure. “I guess understanding people’s behaviour was more interesting than winning,” he concludes.

Reality of reality TV in India

.  India’s reality TV segment has seen steady growth, accounting for nearly 40–45 per cent of primetime programming.

.  Streaming platforms have amplified the genre, with youth-driven reality formats seeing higher engagement among ages 18–34.

.  Social survival formats (Bigg Boss-style shows) consistently rank among the most-watched non-fiction properties in India.

.  Viewer engagement spikes around conflict-heavy episodes, eliminations, and alliance shifts. This suggests audiences are as invested in psychology as they are in spectacle.

Take the recent NESCO drug case. While the investigation is around a drug ring supplying hard narcotics such as Ecstasy to college students at concerts, the police have cracked down hard on one of the accused after spotting her Instagram pictures of what looks like a weed-infused brownie during her travels to Thailand, where the law around cannabis is more relaxed.

This, even as a wave of wellness brands (Rastafari Wellness, Trost, Cure By Design) have entered the Indian market in the past couple of years, offering full-spectrum gummies, with both CBD (non-psychoactive component of cannabis) and THC (psychoactive component). Yes, gummies.

We know what you’re about to ask: Is this even legal? Turns out, it is! But conditions apply. 

These brands operate with licences from the Ayush ministry. The edibles — oils, tinctures, mints, and gummies — are marked as medicinal cannabis or vijaya, as it is known in Ayurveda. They are pharmaceutically processed as per Ayurvedic norms and under government regulation. And, crucially, these products can only be derived from the leaves of the vijaya plant. 

But if you think that means cannabis “greens” are legal for everyone, including you, to buy and use, think again. Only government-authorised suppliers can grow and sell these leaves, and only manufacturers licenced by the Ayush ministry can use them to manufacture wellness products. As for the end consumer? They’d need a prescription from a licenced BAMS practitioner to sample the goods.  

Still confused? Read on to know more.

What’s legal, what’s not?

. Section 2 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, defines ganja as the “flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant”. This definition excludes the seeds and leaves, a loophole that has allowed bhang shops to operate.

. Section 14 allows for controlled cultivation of cannabis for industrial purposes. This is subject to state laws.

. In 2018, Uttarakhand became the first state to legalise its cultivation for industrial purposes.

. The same year, the Ayush ministry issued the first licence for proprietary ayurvedic medicines based on vijaya. Only the leaf’s use is permissible, however.

. One can purchase the medicines with a prescription from a BAMS practitioner.

. Cultivation/sale of cannabis remains illegal for the common man. Any sale/use of the cannabis bud remains illegal for 
any entity.

‘It’s safe, but be responsible’

Content creator Ishu’s videos about her ‘gummy antics’ have gone viral

Every time Ishu (@ishu.didi), 27, posts a video in her Instagram series “Gummy antics”, the comment section is filled with amazed followers asking, “Is this legal?” or, “Aren’t you scared to post this online?” Graphic designer by day and content creator at all other hours, Ishu often takes followers along on her gummy-fuelled adventures, which can range from a self-care day with a sheet mask and music, to an art gallery crawl, to a literal “din mein taare” experience at the planetarium.

We point out the NESCO drug case and the police scrutiny of the Instagram account of one of the accused, who has also posted about cannabis products, and ask if it worries her. “Gummies are legal as long as you are over 21, have a prescription, and source them from a government-licenced seller,” she says, adding that she has a prescription for anxiety, C-PTSD, as well as very painful periods.

“I would hope that the police instead spend their time making communities safe by removing actual harmful substances. Like narcotics used for sexual assault, or to traffick women and children. Or drugs that cause harm to users.”

“Even alcohol is more damaging; you can overdose on liquor, but you can’t die after too much vijaya. The worst that can happen is you experience brief anxiety, but you can  sleep it off.” 

But she does stress on responsible consumption: “Start with half a gummy. Do not drive or handle heavy machinery. Think of it as something you do in your me-time, to relax. I use it mainly to help with sleep or period pain,” she says.

Is it worth paying upwards of R150 a pop? “It totally is. It is legal, safe from contamination, and you are paying for that peace of mind.”

Representational pics/Pixabay

‘Gummies are a loophole’

Advocate Aamir Mallik, who specialises in drug cases, remains sceptical of the edibles wave in the country

Advocate Aamir Mallik, who specialises in cases under the NDPS Act, at first says that it’s a misconception that possession of cannabis leaves is legally allowed. “This is not true, if you are caught with ganja, you will have to serve 10 to 11 days in jail, there is no two ways about it,” he says. 

If caught with up to 1 kg of cannabis leaves then you might be able to plead to the court that it is self consumption and get away with six months of rehab. “But no one consumes 1 kg alone”, and if any links to dealers is found, it’ll invite far greater penalty.  

With regards to gummies, Mallik went through some of the wellness brands’ websites, as well as the Ayush Ministry portal. “Somehow they navigated a way to legalise their product,” he says, adding that the products utilise a loophole left by cannabis leaves not being included in the NDPS Act.

‘We are legal, and we are helping’

Avadhoot Chavan, Founder of Rastafari Wellness, says deep R&D makes gummies safer

One of the brands that has entered the market in the past couple of years is Rastafari Wellness. As of now, it has three verticals: vijaya-infused tinctures, oils, and full-spectrum gummies in varying concentrations and flavours.

“India is an evolving market for vijaya-based products. While my generation would consume the plant only during Holi, younger generations have started to question why the herb is demonised,” says Founder Avadhoot Chavan.

As for legality, Chavan asserts: “I would like to be very clear that this is not a grey area. This is legal medical cannabis, meant to help with health issues such as insomnia, stress, arthritis, and even painful conditions such as cancer or fibromyalgia. It also helps with mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.”

Rastafari has tied up with Mehta Ayurvedic, an Ayurvedic manufacturer based in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, that has had a licence to process vijaya since 1985. They operate under a licence from the Ayush ministry and source raw material from government-authorised growers. Customers can consult BAMS practitioners empanelled by the firm, and based on their needs, they are prescribed the gummies.

But some reactions have been stark. “There is so little awareness about the legality that people just assume it is illegal. Some accused me of being a ‘drug dealer’,” he says. “But the positive feedback far outweighs the criticism. So many people struggling with sleep issues have told me they can finally get a good night’s rest. Patients with cancer have told me that they have found relief from pain post chemo.”

“We do not promote recreational use, but some euphoria from the product is inevitable because of the THC,” he admits, “However, it is much safer because of multiple factors: We source raw material from the authorised sources, do extensive R&D to titrate and formulate it so you know exactly what you are getting.”

Rs 150-R800
Price range per gummy across brands

Hemant (name changed) has been smoking weed since he was 16, often at great risk. Legally procured gummies, he says, would give him peace of mind. Pic/Atul Kamble

‘Wish I knew this last year’

A teenage cannabis user recalls a stressful interchange with the police, and says legal gummies can bring peace of mind

Hemant (name changed), a 19-year-old student from Mumbai, had no idea that gummies are now legally available in India until our conversation. “That makes my blood boil,” says the teenager. It’s far from self-righteous anger — he has been using weed since he was 16. If he had known about it earlier, he might never have risked getting on the wrong side of the law, which resulted in him getting caught by the police a year or so ago.  

“I had ordered a bag of greens from a local supplier, and it was sent to me via a courier. But he must have alerted the police, because they were waiting for me,” the teen recalls.

The matter was settled, but it burned a hole through their pocket— around Rs 50,000 — Hemant guesses.

“If there is a safer, legal option, that is great for users like me.”  

Gummies being prepared at the Rastafari Wellness facility

Are edibles as benign as they look? 

A recovered drug user warns that such easy access might lower caution and lead an unwitting experimenter to substance abuse

Aniket Chauhan (name changed) was 14 when he first started using drugs; it wasn’t intentional, of course.

“At that stage, it didn’t feel like a conscious or consequential decision. It was largely driven by curiosity and the environment I found myself in [where everyone seemed to be indulging]. What started with relatively mild substances escalated more quickly than I could have anticipated,” he says.

Chauhan, who eventually stopped taking drugs at the age of 16, is now 20 years old and has become an anti-substance advocate among his peers.

When we ask Chauhan if he thinks weed gummies can cause disruption in anyone’s life, he answers that it might. “One of the key concerns is the way these products are positioned — they appear benign, almost trivial, because of their form and presentation. That perception can significantly lower a person’s sense of caution,” he says. He finds edibles particularly sneaky. “Edibles have a delayed onset. This often leads individuals to consume more than intended, under the assumption that the initial dose has had little effect. When the effects do manifest, they can be more intense and prolonged than expected,” he finally adds.

Gummies are formulated from vijaya oil, which is extracted from the leaves. Pic courtesy/Rastafari Wellness

‘Want to be on the right side of the law’

Yash Kotak, co-founder of Boheco, explains that while he believes in the power of THC, he is wary of entering the gummies market yet.

Boheco is the oldest players in the Indian vijaya wellness market, with nearly eight years of developing ayurvedic proprietary medicines. Their vast bouquet of products mostly feature CBD products such as mints, balms, and tinctures. They also have a few full-spectrum formulations meant for severe pain seen in conditions such as multiple sclerosis, or cancer. All oral consumption products require a prescription.

However, the company is yet to enter the gummies game. Co-founder Yash Kotak says, “It’s not like we don’t intend to get into gummies. But more than being first in the market, for us, it is important to do it in the right way, where we have ample evidence of it being an accepted form from a regulator’s point of view. We want to be on the right side of the law.”  

What’d help both industry and consumer, we suggest, is clearer communication from the government on what is legal, and what isn’t. Sunday mid-day’s attempts to reach out to the Ayush ministry for a comment went unanswered till the time of going to press.

Vijaya has great power to help with pain, and improve sleep and quality of life for patients, Kotak says.  On the potential for abuse, he says, “It is a tool; abuse depends on how it’s used — just like cough syrups, balms, and inhalants are sometimes misused. At least Vijaya-based medicines are required to be taken under medical supervision.””

According to UN Women, nearly 73 per cent of women globally have experienced some form of online violence. While men do face trolling, studies by Pew Research Center indicate that women are far more likely to encounter sexualised abuse, threats, and attacks on their character and appearance. 

Some hate messages Pandit received 

For actor Ridhima Pandit, this online violation was stark. After over a decade in the industry, she describes herself as someone who has worked “10 to 12 years without ever being in a controversy.” But her latest appearance in a reality show, called The 50, altered that. “What I recently faced was something that was thrown at me for the very first time,” she says, adding that the hatred felt “senseless up until I started to feel threatened”.

The trigger was an on-screen argument with a younger male contestant, which is an ordinary occurrence on any reality TV show. But the fallout was not ordinary. “The minute a girl has an argument with a guy, misogyny steps in,” she says. “The only way they can get back at you is by telling you that you’re the weaker gender, keep your mouth shut.” What followed was a coordinated wave of abuse, allegedly incited by the contestant himself. “Within three seconds, the trolling began, with no end in sight. Brand new accounts were being made, abuses were being sent.” The attacks escalated to rape and death threats, not just directed at her, but at those associated with her. “They have abused my mother who’s no more in this world,” she says.

Reality TV shows like Bigg Boss often find the contestants embroiled in a storm of hate and trolling. PIC/INSTAGRAM@Bigbossnewz2025

Despite being advised to ignore it, Pandit chose to push back, filing a cyber-police complaint and sending a legal notice. “I said, I will not ignore it. Why should I take it?” she says, framing her response as both personal and precedent-setting. Her experience underscores a larger contradiction that while male reality TV contestants are trolled, women are targeted. The economy of reality TV thrives on drama but when it becomes ugly, there’s nobody to support nor protect those very entertainers. 

Some real deets

Pic/iStock

.  Women make up around 50 per cent of contestants on reality shows globally according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film
.  A study analysing over 90,000 social media posts around shows like Love Island found that 26 per cent of tweets on female contestants were abusive, compared to 14 per cent for men

‘The Internet makes you behave badly’

Naomi Dutta, creative director of reality shows, says that cultural bias against women is often carried outside of reality TV

Naomi Dutta

If contestants become characters on reality television, it is often in the edit room that those characters are shaped. But according to Naomi Datta, that process is less about manipulation and more about making sense of chaos. “We roll the cameras for hours in a reality show and that finally gives you a few minutes of usable content,” she explains, “So reality shows are of course shaped on the edit, but with the content that exists.” Datta is quick to push back on the idea that edits deliberately stereotype women. “We would never do that,” she says, adding that the goal is not to frame contestants as “emotional” or “dramatic,” but to build engaging storylines. “You don’t set out to create unpleasant women or men. You set out to create interesting characters.” In a format driven by attention, she notes, “reality TV cannot be about boring characters.”

Yet, she acknowledges that what happens after the show airs is shaped by forces far beyond the edit. “A woman who’s aggressive will be called combative and unpleasant. And a man who’s aggressive is alpha and masculine,” she says, pointing to a broader cultural bias that extends well beyond reality television. Crucially, she adds, “Internet opinion mostly is men,” which further skews how female contestants are perceived and judged.

Social media, she argues, intensifies this dynamic. While it plays a key role in bouncing up a show’s reach, it also creates a space where anonymity erodes accountability. “The Internet makes you behave badly,” she says. “It eliminates every filter and brings out the worst in people. People are not logical on the internet. They’ll just keep going into this vicious cycle.”

‘No balance in gendered trolling’

Dr Sheela Dang, who has worked as a psychologist for reality shows, says that unlike men, women’s trolling usually turns explicit online

Dr Sheela 

For psychologist Dr Sheela Dang, the mental fallout of reality television begins with a dilemma. Contestants know what they are signing up for, but not what follows. “People are already prepared so it’s not that you are not aware,” she says. “What comes after that is taken very personally,” she notes, especially when trolling escalates into persistent, unwanted messages and abuse.

Dang is unequivocal about the gender imbalance. “There’s no balance for sure,” she says, pointing out that while men are trolled, the visibility and intensity of attacks on women are significantly higher. “Women are mostly receiving comments related to how she presents herself, how she’s looking, talking, sitting,” she explains. This scrutiny extends into moral policing. The trolling frequently turns sexual and abusive, with “very direct, unwanted words or gestures” spilling into private messages as well.

For men, the experience is different but not absent. While they face body-shaming and ridicule, Dang notes that social conditioning often forces them to internalise it. “Men are not allowed to react or cry,” she says, which can make their distress less visible. Ultimately, she warns that this disconnect between expectation and reality can deeply impact mental health, especially when public judgement becomes relentless and personal.

73%
Women globally have experienced online violence

‘It’s not in our control’

Zorawar Sangha, director and writer of reality TV shows, says that trolling is not gendered and happens to both male and female contestants

Zorawar Sangha

Unlike larger, mass-market reality formats, Zorawar Sangha’s experience lies with niche shows where storytelling is more personality-driven. This, he suggests, means that conflict is not necessarily engineered along gender lines. “It’s not a female contestant problem,” he says. “If this happens, it happens — whether it’s female contestants or male contestants.” While he acknowledges that some formats across the industry may push for drama, he frames it as a broader “mindset” rather than a targeted effort to put women down. Where his stance sharpens, however, is on responsibility once the show airs. 

“Technically, that’s not in our purview or in our control,” he says of the trolling contestants often face. Participants, he points out, enter the show with awareness of its nature. “They chose to come here. Nobody put a gun to their head. At the end of the day, the responsibility lies in every individual,” he says. Legal frameworks, including contracts and waivers, further distance production teams from the aftermath of public reaction.

At the same time, he doesn’t deny the human element. “You do feel bad when somebody gets trolled,” he admits. But he draws a clear line between empathy and accountability. “Because we didn’t script behaviour, these are choices those people made and that distinction is very clear,” he says, calling for “greater empathy” towards contestants.

Beside that diary is my smartphone, I have applications that can photograph my mother’s handwritten recipe, instantly translate it into Mandarin, calculate its exact caloric breakdown, and generate a hyper-realistic video of a digital chef cooking it. If I so desired, I could take three minutes of my mother’s scattered WhatsApp voice notes, feed them into a neural network, and have an AI archive her exact pitch and intonation forever.

This miraculous tech allows us, to preserve our cultural and familial heritage with total fidelity. I am grateful that this technology ensures future generations will still be able to hear their great-grandmother’s voice.

But as we celebrate Mother’s Day, I am realising that our obsession with the infinite capabilities of AI is creating a dangerous blind spot in how we understand human love. We are beginning to confuse data preservation with devotion. In the tech industry, we design systems with a singular goal: to eliminate friction. We want processes to be seamless, untiring, and perfectly efficient. We want to remove the struggle. But what we often forget when we bring this mindset into our homes is that an Indian mother’s love is built entirely on friction.

When a mother spends three hours standing by a hot stove in the sweltering, unforgiving humidity of a summer afternoon, she is not just executing a culinary task that a robotic kitchen arm or a smart-appliance could replicate. She is spending a currency she can never, ever earn back: her time, her energy, her cellular youth. Every act of maternal devotion is a microscopic expenditure of her own mortality, given willingly to fuel yours. 

Viewing her labour as just a “task for optimisation” or “data for recording” blurs the relevance of her sacrifice. While an AI model never experiences fatigue, a mother has joints that ache with the arrival of the monsoon rains. Unlike AI, which simply consumes cheap and renewable computing power, a mother sets aside her own ambitions to sit by your bed and absorb the messy, repetitive details of your heartbreak. She spends her life, a resource that is neither cheap nor renewable.

We are a generation of migrants, ambitious professionals, and chronically busy adults. We often assuage our unspoken guilt of absence by throwing technology at the problem. We buy our parents smarter devices. We set up automated grocery deliveries. We point high-definition cameras at them during Diwali. We think that by building a towering, perfectly efficient digital infrastructure around them, we are loving them better.

But AI, for all its staggering brilliance, gives you the product of a mother without the cost of a mother. And the cost is what makes it love.

As we wade into this algorithmic age, we must draw a hard boundary. We do not need to resist Artificial Intelligence—we need to put it in its proper place.
The purpose of AI is not to simulate human connection, nor is it to perfectly archive our mothers so we can comfortably ignore them while they are still here. The true, revolutionary promise of AI in 2026 is that it can give us our time back.

This Mother’s Day, let the AI draft your emails. Let the algorithm sort your spreadsheets, manage your calendar, and optimize your investment portfolio. Let the machine absorb the friction of the modern workplace so that you can step away from your screens and step back into the kitchen. We must use the ultimate efficiency of the machine to afford the beautiful inefficiency of being human.

The most sacred artefacts of an Indian childhood are inherently, beautifully imperfect and human. It is the slight misalignment of a bindi applied in a rush before she ran out the door. It is the days she forgets to add salt to the dal because her mind is paralysed with worry about your career. It is the way her voice cracks with unshed tears when she blesses you over a video call. These imperfections cannot be “prompted” by an LLM. You cannot engineer a hallucination of genuine worry. These flaws are the friction of a human soul colliding with a difficult world, trying to shield you from the impact.
When you perfectly digitize the recipe, you clean up the archive, but you lose the ghee stain. You erase the messy, chaotic evidence that she was actually there, breathing, rushing, living, and loving you in real-time.

So this Sunday, do not buy her a smarter gadget. Do not just send an AI-generated poem or a perfectly curated digital card. Use the time your technology has saved you to sit across from her at the dining table. Look at the lines around her eyes and recognize them for what they are: the physical receipts of the worry she spent keeping you alive. Eat the food she made, knowing that it will be gone in an hour, and you will never, in the history of the universe, taste this exact batch again. Listen to her scold you, knowing the sound waves will dissipate into the air.

Let the AI handle the infinite. But let your mother be beautifully, fiercely, and painfully temporary. Because it is only when we accept that our time with her is a finite resource, that we finally understand the sheer, staggering magnitude of what she did with it.

Nishant Sahdev is a theoretical physicist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States. He makes sense of the AI era in your favourite Sunday mid-day

Having worked with eminent architect Louis Kahn in the US in his early days, the Sir JJ School alumnus’ vision stood apart as his practice developed, be it his plans on the National Institute of Design campus, Gandhinagar, or his views on solar architecture well before green ideas were discussed in the architectural ecosystem. Apart from Kahn, Kapadia looked up to respected architect and urban thinker, BV Doshi as an influence on his body of work, and even collaborated with him on a book, In Conversation, on Contours of Contemporary Indian Architecture.

Karim, whose own flourishing practice, NUDES, imbibes Kapadia’s ideals, sat down with us to celebrate his guru, as only a student would remember their mentor.

Extracts from an interview

Could you share Sen Kapadia’s philosophy with us? What set him apart from the rest in the early days of independent India? Which of his works remain the most ground-breaking?
Sen Kapadia’s design sensibility and philosophy can be understood as a “way of seeing” rather than “making.” As a philosopher, theorist, author, architect and education reformer, Sen broke the stereotypical boundaries of practice and academia emerging in India since independence. Projects such National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar, and WALMI, Bhopal, demonstrate his range as an architectural designer grounded by research, narrative and context. 

Sumeru Apartments, Andheri west

What were some of the most powerful lessons that he helped imbibe at KRVIA in those formative years, especially beyond the classroom?
Sen encouraged us to express “silence”, embrace the “void”, and perceive “sounds”. Since then, we have attempted to reflect this in our work — by creating calm spaces, using emptiness meaningfully, and making the “invisible” visible.

He was a path-breaker across sectors, especially solar architecture. Please share your recollections about his visionary views on the subject.

Sen often referenced ‘Surya’ as a universal energiser of life. An idea deeply rooted in Indian mythology where ‘Surya’ is a fundamental force that shapes life, time, and consciousness. Sen demonstrated the principles of sustainability and passive cooling in his body of work serving as a directional compass to re-define architectural concepts that have evolved since Indian independence.

Computer Science and Engineering department, IIT Bombay. Pics Courtesy/Sen Kapadia Architect

Most of his significant work is outside of Mumbai. What was the reason for this?
Mumbai is an island city driven by real estate pressure and is defined by land value, Floor Space Index, high density development and vertical expansion. Sen designed iconic architecture in Mumbai striving within constraints presented to him. He relished the challenge of creating a quiet syntax within the noise. However, over the course of his practice, opportunities and visionary clients presented themselves in several cities across the country, allowing him to explore his architectural philosophy deeply rooted in human life, experience and meaning. His role in Mumbai extended beyond buildings; through academia and research he contributed to ideas that could potentially shape policy. 

What can young architects, beginning their career, learn from his school of thought?
I recall a conversation Sen had with us during a design studio review. He was sharing a Zen anecdote. The student asks the Zen Master, “What does enlightenment feel like?” The Zen Master replied “It feels like walking six inches above the ground.”Sen wanted us to pursue “design enlightenment.” and liberate ourselves from the weight of style, trends, and precedents that suffocate inquiry and innovation.

Personally, what learnings have left the maximum impression on your work?
Sen taught us to listen to silence and to ask many questions. People like Sen don’t leave us; they become the questions we continue to ask. His influence lingers not only in memory but also through questions that he taught us to keep asking. In a way, Sen is a way of thinking that has reformed architecture practice and pedagogy.