At first we looked for bags that had in-built key clips or D-rings so we could just clip on our keys. But all bags we saw were either not to our taste or not in budget. And then we found a way to retrofit our favourite bag with a key clip – “metal bag strap extenders”. They’re designed to extend the length of the straps on purses, so they’re quite aesthetic and come in a bunch of patterns, from plain gold/silver chain links, to butterflies, strawberries, hearts or stars. They come with lobster clasps or round spring buckles on both ends. I just snap one end onto my bag strap, and my keys on the other end and then let the chain fall into my bag. At the end of the day, I just unzip the bag and pull up the chain to find my keys. Easy peasy!

But why stop there – I’ve now got a second chain that I’ve attached my sunglass cover to. This chain is cuter, and sits outside my bag, so my sunnies are always within reach. You can do this with earphones, bag charms, or a small pouch for  lipstick/mints. Starting from Rs 300, it’s a pretty affordable retrofit and doubles up as some (understated) bling for your bag too. 

amazon.in 

That includes unlearning some patterns I know I don’t want anymore. The problem is that all of this exists as a pile of thoughts rather than anything resembling a plan on paper.

My Instagram algorithm kept feeding me an exercise that felt more like social media therapy than something genuinely useful. I scrolled away, and it kept coming back. So I tried this five-day map for feeling less lost and followed it.

Monday
Each day came with a set of questions. Monday began with the easiest place: What don’t you want?

I wrote down the obvious things — work that leaves me exhausted, constantly reacting to other people’s priorities, and working but feeling that it’s not building something tangible.

It was useful, if only because writing something down makes it harder to dismiss. My feelings were scribbled in ink on paper. 

Tuesday
Tuesday asked a more uncomfortable question: What are you good at? 

This was harder than expected. It is easy to just list your job description. It is harder to identify the things you are naturally good at. For me, the list included writing, finding stories, thinking about content, and connecting seemingly unrelated dots.

Wednesday
Wednesday was my favourite: What do you secretly want?

Some answers were practical. Others were things I have mentally filed under “maybe someday” a thousand times. The interesting part was that these weren’t new ambitions. They were recurring ones.

Thursday
Thursday asked me to put the answers together and brainstorm possibilities. 

This was where the exercise became less about self-discovery and more about pattern recognition. 
My skills, interests and frustrations started pointing in a few similar directions. I could see why certain ideas kept coming back.

Friday
By Friday, the instruction was deliberately unambitious: Choose one possibility and take one tiny step towards it.  Spend
15 minutes researching it. Send an email. Sign up for something. Make an account.

I liked that the exercise stopped before the inevitable Internet advice about building a five-year plan.

Takeaway?
Did I figure out my life in five days? No. I still have no grand revelation about exactly where I want to be.

But I did get something more useful. The questions made me realise that I actually had quite a few directions. I simply lacked a way to sort them. I know what to do next.

Perhaps this exercise is good for forcing the thoughts that are floating around in your head into separate boxes. And sometimes, that is enough to figure out which one you want to open first.

Our tip for each day

Day 1
What makes you unhappy? 
What don’t you want to keep doing? What kind of work or lifestyle drains you? Where 
would you hate living?

Day 2
What you’re good at
What do people come to you for? What advice do you enjoy giving? What can you do even when you’re tired? What can you focus on for hours?

Day 3
Map what you secretly want
If money didn’t matter, what would you choose? What would you try if nobody knew? What do you see others doing and think, “I wish I could do that?”

Day 4
Brainstorm possibilities
Look for overlaps between your skills, interests and answers. What could you combine? What could you adapt? What sounds exciting, even if it feels unrealistic?

Day 5
Take one small step
Pick the idea that interests you most. Spend 15 minutes researching it and identify one action you can take today. Keep it small: an email, application, class, account or conversation. The point is to have an idea, even if it is vague, about how to turn these realisations into something you can actually work with.

Wadia recently completed 55 years of conducting the same choir, a milestone that PAC felt deserved a celebration. “We decided that now was the right time to celebrate not only the milestone but her whole conducting career of over half a century,” a member of the committee says. The concert will bring together the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) and old friends from guest choirs in Chennai and Colombo, performing some of Wadia’s favourite music.

The concert will bring together the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) performing some of Wadia’s favourite music

“What set her apart was her zeal to perform Indian music written in Western choral form, and to encourage Indian composers to write for the choral medium. She really embodies the choir’s motto of promoting ‘International Harmony through International Music.’”

A perfectionist who expected her singers to give their best, Wadia was known for her extraordinary concentration. During a rehearsal disrupted by roadwork outside, when a chorister complained about the noise, she replied, “Why? I can’t hear anything except the music!” Yet, “She had a fun side too and loved her choir like family.” 

The concert will feature three works by her favourite classical composers, including Bach’s Magnificat. “She inspired a lot of Indian women to take up choral conducting, which is a traditionally male-dominated space. Everyone who sang under her baton, emerged a better musician.”

Right now, our screens are too noisy, with visuals designed to distract more than truly entertain or move the viewer. We grew up on shows like The Last Airbender, which has graphics that were both spectacular but also calming, and the plot and character arcs lent an understanding of complex emotions such as empathy at a young age.

In an era of brainrot like Fruit Love Island and relentless rows on reality TV, these are our recommendations of shows that will leave you feeling warm and comforted. 

Flop Show

The satirical show aired for only 10 episodes back in 1989. PIC/YOUTUBE@DOORDARSHAN NATIONAL

The show that seemed to have expectation baked into it was Jaspal Bhatti-starrer Flop Show. The show was loved for its Mr Bean-like humour sans the physical comedy; it was a laugh riot.

We still can’t forget the show’s theme song “Ye hai flop show, flop show, flop show” — you just had to be there in the ’90s to get how iconic this was.
The execution of tongue-in-cheek, dry humour by Bhatti and Vivek Shauq was just too good.
 
The show lasted only 10 Sundays. The final episode was as meta as it gets, parodying the TV industry’s producers and broadcasters who, despite being loaded, did not want or fund quality content. 

The show’s name was also a satirical take on how the common man of India was made to feel like a flop show because of government apathy. 

Nukkad 

The first time we watched Nukkad was in 1993, which is when the revived version, Naya Nukkad, aired

The original series ran initially from 1986 to 1987, and the revival from 1993 to 1994. Nukkad roughly translates to “the corner”, or “our corner of the neighbourhood”. The show was about urban youth trying hard to make a living. Our favourite character was Khopdi, a loveable drunk with a sad origin story. 

The show is set in an unspecified city, and our “nukkad” is just one corner with a mix of middle-class and lower-income residents. One of our arcs was the love story between the characters Guru and Teacher ji that didn’t go anywhere but was nevertheless enough to get our pre-teen heart racing.

Watch this if you want to actually see the magic of writing and acting meeting organically on a modest budget. 

Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi

The series was part of the early careers of Satish Shah, Shubha Arya, and Tiku Talsania. PIC/YOUTUBE@Shemaroo Indian TV Classics

The series aired between 1984 to 1985 and was about a middle-class married couple, Ranjit Verma (Shafi Inamdar) and his lively wife Renu Verma (Swaroop Sampat) and the ups and down in their relationship. It also starred Dhrandhar-fame Rakesh Bedi when he was a fresh-faced 29-year-old. 

It stuck in our memory because of the theme song, sung by none other than Kishore Da, filmed against the backdrop of Mumbai. 

Bedi played Renu’s unemployed brother who would often create some drama between the couple, dispute living on his brother-in-law’s dime unapologetically. 
The show aired before our time, but we enjoyed the reruns. With almost 67 episodes, today, it would count as a show with about five seasons. 

Please catch it if you want to watch something sweet with the family this festive season.

Small Wonder

Small Wonder aired in India in 1995. PIC/YOUTUBE@Electric Coffee Mug

This American show aired from 1980 to 1985. It’s an innocent story about the Lawson family. We loved Jamie, the mischievous, wisecracking son of Ted and Joan Lawson, but it was their goddaughter Vicki — who was actually a robot — who won our hearts when the show finally came to India in 1995.

Today, we’re scared out of our minds as to what AI-powered robots will mean for humanity. In our childhood, though, a robot girl was the coolest thing we could imagine.

Ted is a robotronics cybernetics engineer working on a project titled “Voice Input Child Identicant” aka VICKI. She is brought to life by Ted, who then brings her home to see if human beings can be fooled into believing that she is a real child.

The show ran for four seasons, and the plot largely revolved around Lawson’s attempts to hide that Vicki was a robot, until she actually starts emoting human emotions and the family ends up thinking of her like a family member. I especially loved the fact that this tiny robot could lift a car and a couch. She had a superpower before the Avengers.

My favourite character was the ginger-haired Harriet Brindle, who was always close to figuring out the Lawson’s family secret.

It’s a soothing watch for me!

The Navam Utsav at ITC hotels celebrates the simplicity and richness of festive Indian cuisine through a selection of sattvik preparations made without onion and garlic and with Sendha Namak..
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WHERE: Across all ITC luxury hotels  and through the ITC app, Swiggy and Zomato
WHEN: Till October 19

Nine days, nine fasting foods

Chef Virendra Rawat at Good Food Concept (GFC) is serving a different fasting-friendly dish each day. Expect Sabudana and Potato Grilled Pancake, Singhara and Fruit Chaat, Falahari Paneer Tikka, Kuttu Cheela, Roasted Shakarkandi Chaat and Quinoa and Aloo Tikki, followed by Singhare ka Paratha with Aloo ki Sabji, a Makhana Green Bowl and a Kuttu Paneer Wrap.
▸ ▸ ▸
TO ORDER: 9821005063

A thali with a contemporary edge

Comorin brings a festive vegetarian thali to the table, with Subz Shikampuri Kebab, Kashmiri Dum Aloo, Khatte Meethe Kaddu, Suran Pepper Fry, Paneer Khurchan, Kathal & Makhana Qorma, Quinoa and Cashew Pulao and Kuttu Poori. End with Kesar Badam Milk Cake and Pear Murabba.
▸ ▸ ▸
WHERE: Comorin, Mumbai and Gurugram
WHEN: Till October 18

A Gujarati festive spread

Kamat’s Legacy marks Navratri with a festive spread of 20-plus dishes, bringing together traditional Gujarati flavours and comforting favourites for a wholesome seasonal feast.
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WHERE: Kamat’s Legacy, all outlets
WHEN: Till October 20

Pandal and beyond

This two-day Bengali pop-up by food storyteller Pranav Joshi of Floydian Cookery and Chef Sohini Bhattacharyya at Public – Beerhall & Snackbar explores lesser-known Bengali dishes, seasonal ingredients and traditional techniques. Beyond the Pandal brings 15-plus vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes to the table, from Shapla Chingri and Chitol Machher Muitha to Shapla Posto, Chaal Potol and the painstakingly prepared Shor Bhaja. 
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WHERE: Public – Beerhall & Snackbar, Versova
WHEN: October 17 and 18

Maharashtrian-inspired fasting

Via Bombay gives familiar vrat favourites a festive, Maharashtrian-inspired twist. The Navratri Vrat Thali brings together Sabudana Vada, Farali Misal, Jeera Aloo, Kuttu Ki Puri, curd, seasonal fruit and Makhana Kheer. À la carte options include Sabudana Khichdi, Farali Batata Wada and Kuttu Dosa with Aloo Sabzi.
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WHERE: Via Bombay
WHEN: Till October 20

Vrat favourites 

Social brings a vrat-friendly festive thali featuring aloo jeera, paneer in tomato gravy, makhana, samak rice, falahari pooris, sabudana kheer, sabudana vada and papad. The spread brings fasting favourites for a comforting festive meal.
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WHERE: SOCIAL, all outlets
WHEN: Till October 20

Festive bakes and savouries

Kookie Cake Crumble has millet-based creations, traditional fasting ingredients and signature eggless bakes with a menu that moves between savoury and sweet. Think Methi Malai Palak Vol-au-Vents, Corn and Water Chestnuts in Tamatar Ki Launji, and Pineapple Parfait among others. 
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WHERE: Kookie Cake Crumble
TO ORDER: 9819844013

South Indian spin 

Banana Leaf gives fasting a South Indian spin this Navratri, with Sabudana Idli with Sweet Curd, Rajgira Sada Dosa, Rajgira Masala Dosa and Rajgira Masala Uttapam leading the spread. The menu also includes Sabudana Vada, Sabudana Khichdi, Varai Upma, Varai Khichdi, and Rajgira Puri Bhaji.
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WHERE: Banana Leaf, all outlets
WHEN: Till October 20

Revived earlier this year after a decade-long hiatus, Restaurant Week India (RWI) returns for its Autumn Edition from October 16 to November 1, expanding from three cities to ten, including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR and Kolkata. It brings together more than 100 restaurants to create special three-course menus at set prices, giving diners a focused way to experience a broader range of India’s dining scene. 

(L to R) Chaitanya Rele, Aatish Nath, Nachiket Shetye and Gauri Vij after a brainstorming session at a city restaurant

The previous edition was held in April across Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru. More than 6,000 diners made over 2,100 bookings, generating more than '1 crore in revenue for participating restaurants. Nearly 1700 additional diners remained on the waitlist when bookings closed. More revealing was the repeat behaviour. Eighty-one diners booked three or more times during the 10-day festival. The numbers  indicated that the dining festival addressed a particular need: diners were willing to try restaurants they might have otherwise overlooked, provided the prices were reasonable.

An old idea, reworked

Restaurant Week India’s original edition launched almost a decade ago under Cellar Door Hospitality, founded by Nachiket Shetye and Mangal Dalal. At the time, the prix-fixe (fixed price in French) format itself was unfamiliar to many diners. But it gave participating kitchens a concentrated audience. Fast forward to now, India’s restaurant landscape has changed dramatically. There are more restaurants, more ambitious chefs, and a dining audience increasingly interested in regional cuisines, new formats, and distinctive culinary voices.

For Shetye, who returns as mentor and original architect of the platform, it is this evolution that has made the revival timely. “When we started Restaurant Week India over a decade ago, the prix-fixe menu was still a new idea for many diners,” he says. “Today, diners are more adventurous, chefs are more ambitious, and India’s dining culture has evolved enormously.”

The new Restaurant Week India, therefore, is less a resurrection than a rewrite. The Dining Collective, which now operates the festival, is led by co-founders Aatish Nath, Gauri Vij and restaurateur Chaitanya Rele, with Shetye as mentor. They aim to build a platform that brings restaurants and diners together around the quality and character of the food, rather than simply price.

Explaining why The Dining Collective decided to retain the IP, Nath says, “A lot of people who have travelled know about it. It’s also something that was a very successful part of the Indian dining landscape till a decade ago, and we each had fond memories of discovering some of the city’s best restaurants at the time. We’re grateful that Nachiket Shetye, one of the co-founders of the previous edition can share his insights from running the event earlier, and we’re excited to make this a regular fixture on the Indian culinary calendar,” he adds.

What makes the cut?

With India’s restaurant scene expanding at pace, curation becomes the festival’s most important job. The selection is not based simply on fame, social media visibility or the ability to fill tables. The team eats at restaurants, speaks to chefs and owners, and considers whether the kitchen has a distinctive voice.

Nath explains, “We look for restaurants that have a clear culinary identity, are known for their craft and have a strong point of view. Each participating restaurant creates a three-course menu specifically for the festival. For some chefs, that becomes a creative exercise rather than a discounted version of the regular menu. Some chefs develop new dishes specifically for RWI, while others use the format to showcase the cooking that defines them. The difficulty, says Nath, is saying no. “There are simply too many good restaurants.”

Bigger, longer, broader

While the Summer Edition was deliberately compact with fewer restaurants and cities, the Autumn Edition is considerably larger, running for 17 days. The expansion is not simply about adding restaurants. It also lets RWI experiment with formats outside the traditional restaurant-week format.

Beyond the prix-fixe

In addition to the prix-fixe, one can look forward to the One Service Only format where each venue will host two sittings in an evening, serving a three-course menu created exclusively for RWI. A separate drinks menu will be available for purchase at the venue. 

The format is intentionally limited. One evening, two sittings, a finite number of seats. It also acknowledges how India’s dining culture has broadened. Some of the country’s most compelling food now happens in places that do not fit neatly into the traditional restaurant mould, from chef-led bars to increasingly ambitious pastry programmes. RWI is widening its frame accordingly.

Access to experiment 

With this edition, the experiment is national. And that may be the real evolution of Restaurant Week India: not simply a festival built around fixed-price meals, but a recurring platform that also documents India’s evolving culinary culture. On the one hand, a restaurant can attract a new audiences and encourage loyal diners to try unfamiliar dishes.  On the other, diners can look for new favourites and be open to experimentation. A win-win for all.

WHAT: Restaurant Week India Autumn Edition
WHEN: October 16 to November 1
TO BOOK: District app
PRICE: Lunch Rs 1,300; dinner Rs 1,600– Rs 2,200, plus applicable taxes. All bookings are prepaid.

In the span of a few months, the AISA president and student activist ­— who goes by they/them pronouns — has gone from one among several people in India’s protest ecosystem to becoming the face of young political dissent. Their speeches go viral. Their Instagram comment section is full of hearts, fire emojis, and declarations of admiration. One recent social media post even called them a “complete Gen Z icon” with an “absolutely ridiculous aura” — a compliment that CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke simply responded to with, “I agree.” 

Here, we see that the politics has begun to get lost in the personality.

Bora has been at the centre of several recent protests, including the student-led mobilisation over examination irregularities and, more recently, demonstrations demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. They were among more than 100 protesters detained at Jantar Mantar on October 2. 

But scroll through the Internet, and it is getting increasingly difficult to separate the activist from the celebrity that we have deemed them to be.

Aisa President Neha Bora. Pic/PTI

There are people calling Bora a “Gen Z crush”. There are comments that treat them as a love interest rather than a political organiser. On one of Bora’s Instagram posts, comments range from “NEHA BORA YOU ARE TOO GOOD” with a string of hearts and raised-fist emojis, to abusive political attacks calling them “desh ka gaddar” and worse. 

In an interview, Bora spoke about the “fetishisation of the individual” in Indian politics and specifically brought up Kanhaiya Kumar. Their point was that people become obsessed with finding one “pure leader” around whom they can rally, when movements are actually made up of many people. And yet we appear to be doing exactly that to Bora. There are artworks dedicated to the activist, fan edits being made of them. Some disgusting comments from opposition call them “Leftist ki Sydney Sweeney”. 

Remember Kanhaiya Kumar? A decade ago, he was the face of student politics for an entire generation. The JNU student leader became a household name after the 2016 campus protests, and the sedition case that followed. His speeches, slogans, and TV appearances turned him into a larger-than-life figure. Today, he is a politician in Congress, but the cultural frenzy around him has largely disappeared. The person remained; the Internet moved on. That’s politics for you.

Indian politics has a peculiar appetite for discovering a new face, crowning them as the voice of a generation and then moving on to the next one. Today it is Bora. Tomorrow it could be somebody else. 

You can admire Bora. You can agree or disagree with their politics. You can find their speeches compelling. You can follow their work. But the moment an activist becomes an idol, critical engagement becomes much harder. We stop asking whether an argument sounds good because we like the person making it. We start defending a personality instead of examining their politics. That gives any individual far too much power.

Bora is not a messiah. They do not need to be one. Neither did Kanhaiya Kumar. Neither does Abhijeet Dipke. Neither does any activist who happens to become the face of a viral movement. The irony is that Bora seems to understand this better than their admirers do. 

Let Bora be an activist. Watch what they say, challenge it. Support it when you believe in it. But the protest cannot become about the protestor. The moment that happens, we have already gone in the wrong direction. 

Hafizuddin Ahmad’s team is working to finish eight effigies for this year’s Dussehra

Leading the group is Hafizuddin Ahmad, a man who has been making effigies for over four decades and now directs the younger crop of artists under him. One of them is his son, Shehzad Ahmad. “We start helping out as soon as we are old enough to work,” says Shehzad, “I remember back in 2008, when I had just started, we had made two effigies. Now we are up to eight or nine.” 

Shehzad Ahmad and Hafizuddin Ahmad

They work simultaneously on every effigy, carefully building each part, from the heads to the legs. When finished, the group sets up the effigies for various mandals in Sion Koliwada, Girgaon Chowpatty, Azad Maidan, Malad, Chembur, and more. 

Muslim artists come from Noida and Dadri, UP to make effigies for Ramleelas across Mumbai

They are proud of their work. When we ask if people trouble them for doing work for a festival that is traditionally not considered theirs, pat comes Shehzad’s reply: “People can say whatever they want. Doesn’t matter. What we make is art and there’s nothing wrong in it. We do 16-18 hours of hard and honest work every day, for a month, so that the effigies can be made.”

Artists work on faces and bodies (left) simultaneously, working 16-18 hours  a day for a month

Seasonal work, though, has its own ups and downs. The group shrinks and swells depending on external factors, which sometimes means that there aren’t enough people and, therefore, a lot more work for less income. But the group does not dither. In supplying the most recognisable element of Dussehra, they keep presenting to us the rich, nuanced, and often overlooked connections different communities share in India.

Hafizuddin Ahmad’s team consists of 15 artists, all of whom do  different jobs for  the rest of the year

In the hours before one of the biggest face-offs we’ve seen between the state and its people in recent years, mail and express trains scheduled to arrive at New Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin railway stations between 4 am and 2 pm on Saturday were suspended, citing congestion in the Capital due to the impending protest by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). 

Transport historian and mid-day City Editor Rajendra B Akelkar tells us that while section-based freezes of the railways is not unusual during the times of unrest, what is unprecedented is the scale of the clampdown this time. “Many observers have been saying that this is the first time since Independence that such government-enforced restrictions on trains have been put in force by the Indian Railways. Historical records and archives show that there have been protests, train restrictions, and such instances of ‘security lockdowns’ in the seven decades since Independence. What is unprecedented in post-Independence India, however, is the ‘perimeter freeze’ at this national scale to avert a civil protest,” he says.

mid-day City Editor Rajendra B Aklekar

One of the most notable past examples of stringent restrictions on the railways is during the Partition. “During the Partition, the railways were in flux, assets and infrastructure were being split [between the two separated nations], and new systems were being established. Systems were under stress and there were riots across various parts of the country. So, traffic had to be regulated and movement was curtailed to control the situation,” says Aklekar.

The author of Halt Station India points out that the next big instance came when former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi implemented the highly criticised Emergency. “The next major instance of a large-scale, national-level traffic restriction or limitation came during the Emergency, 1975 to 1977. That was the time when there were documented instances of railway restrictions,” he says. 

Bombay, as the city was known then, also saw heavy curbs on the railways to control unrest in the ’80s and ’90s. “In 1982, there were police riots in Bombay when the Maharashtra Police went on strike, and trains were diverted and curtailed. Next came the Sikh riots of 1984, when trains had to be regulated for security purposes, followed by the Bombay riots a decade later in 1992-93, when there were instances of trains being diverted, detained and cancelled,” he adds.

Aklekar further points out that in the 21st century the Gurjar-Jat protests around 2011 and the Punjab farmers’ protests in 2020 led to similar crackdowns. 

“But the latest instance is the first government-enforced, national-scale perimeter freeze in modern times ahead of a planned civil protest,” Aklekar finally adds.

Why does it matter? Because when it comes to movement of the masses, the railways is still the heaviest lifter of all. It was AISA president Neha Bora’s transport mode of choice when she embarked on the Gen-Z Mahajutan Yatra across Uttar Pradesh to connect with the youth on students’ issues. When railway services were suspended during the COVID-19 lockdown, we saw the mass migration of workers on foot – yet another unprecedented sight. 

“The limitations of the public’s access to the trains or mass transit systems during the protests is something we never thought would happen but that’s what’s happening now,” says activist Samya Korde, adding that it is in line with restrictions seen during the last CJP protest too, when Korde was placed under house arrest. “Last time, I was one of the few who were detained at home. It is a reminder that protesting is our constitutional right and we must exercise it,” she says. Korde  was detained while on her way to August Kranti maidan and released by Saturday night.

DCP R Ragasudha, South Zone-2 confirmed that they have detained protesters as no permission were provided to conduct protests at August Kranti Maidan on Saturday.

With input by Aishwarya Iyer

‘Mobilising is harder now’ 

Aamir Kazi

All India Students’ Federation (AISF) Mumbai President Aamir Kazi, who was at the Azad Maidan protest on Friday, says that not only has mobilising become harder with trains to Delhi being stopped, but even closer to home, activists are under extraordinary scrutiny. “With the trains out, of course mobilisation is difficult. I was even asked by a police officer if I was headed towards Delhi. To which I replied, ‘How can I reach in time for the Delhi protest if I am in Mumbai on Friday and no trains are going there?’” 

AISF has claimed that 14 of its members have been taken off Goa Express and detained at Itarsi. The police have told media personnel that the students were released on Friday but refused to leave the resort where they were detained. When this reporter last spoke to Kazi, he said he was taking shelter in a building surrounded by police personnel. 

At institutions such as Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and Kolkata’s Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), cameras are not merely tools for making movies. Known for their free voice, film schools have often found themselves at the uneasy intersection of art and politics. 

Inside FTII Pune’s campus

Students at SRFTI were on September 27 subjected to a brutal attack by workers claiming to be affiliated to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). They allegedly tried to break through the gate so that their programme could be organised inside the campus. In Janurary 24, 2024 there were clashes inside the FTII Pune campus over banners put up by students condemning the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid.

Why do film institutes, in particular, get attacked for expressing opposing views? 

For Prakash Jai, a filmmaker and student at SRFTI, now based in Mumbai, the politics of a film institute begins with the diversity of the people inside it. “Studying at SRFTI itself helped me become aware of what is happening around the world,” he says. Hearing lived experiences of those who come from a completely different environment than yours is a privilege that Jai isn’t taking for granted. “A lot of people come to study from different backgrounds, different places, different cities. Even foreign students from Ethiopia and Japan. You get to know what is happening in their states and around you.” 

The Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in Kolkata. Pic/Instagram@srftioutloud

This exposure to the world and different people makes film schools uncomfortable spaces for rigid political ideologies. “We don’t judge each other here. We are open to differing points of view,” he says. The issue is not which political party enters a campus, but what happens to an institution when a political programme begins occupying a space meant for liberal thought. “SRFTI is a platform to hear all sorts of opinions and perspectives, which these political parties don’t really like. After all, their mindset is, ‘How can your ideology be different from ours?’”

He also sees the growing popularity of politically charged films as part of the larger battle over what audiences believe to be true. “Propaganda films have become mainstream,” he says, pointing to a spate of ultra-patriotic films released. What makes films like these particularly powerful apart from their politics, he argues, is their filmmaking technique. “You are showing documentary footage, CCTV footage, newspaper-like facts, and then merging it with fiction. People watching a three-hour film are not going to sit with Google or Wikipedia and cross-check everything.”

Nimish Gour

That, he says, is where the camera becomes a dangerous tool. “If you use the technicalities well with this medium, that is a big problem.” Jai believes such films can make violence feel celebratory. “People are rewatching it, listening to its music, and talking about it. Subconsciously, they are celebrating violence. Such films have become so normalised and mainstream today. On the other hand, a film having an opposing viewpoint is censored or barred from screenings. That is dangerous for free voice and the art of cinema itself.”

The politics around a film does not end when the camera stops rolling. 

Nimish Gour, an FTII graduate from the 2004 batch and now a film editor and professor at MIT Institute of Design, says, “Earlier we had this tolerance for everybody. We respected and appreciated each other’s opinions.” He recalls how actors with opposing political views could still publicly respect one another. 

Resistance art on SRFTI’s walls. Pic/Instagram@srftioutloud

Gour does not see the incidents at SRFTI and FTII as something new. “At my time, we were encouraged to have politics of our own. We would always challenge the establishment, but it would not receive as much media attention due to the lack of Internet. Now even if the issue is miniscule, it becomes a wildfire through online discourse.”

It’s best to conclude here with what renowned Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair once said on a talk show with Vir Sanghvi, “Every film is political; it’s how you see the world.” If film schools are under attack under the guise of fighting “anti-national sentiments”, the art of Indian cinema at large may be at risk of getting wiped out. Or maybe, we are just riding a bad tide, like Gour says, “We faced the same backlash back then, at a smaller scale. The cycle keeps repeating itself every few years from my experience. I have started feeling that we have been in Emergency since 2016, it has just not been announced yet.”

‘Films are now political proofs’

Film critic Anjali Pillai says that learning to make a film also teaches you to question it

Anjali Pillai

At a film school, learning to make a film also means learning to question what the film is making the audience believe. The distinction becomes increasingly important as political cinema occupies more space in the mainstream.

Anjali Pillai, a film critic who runs @thefourthwall.in page on Instagram, says propaganda becomes easier to recognise as it is repeated. “A growing number of mainstream films are built around a loud, overt majoritarian framing,” she says, “After enough films, you start recognising the same moves. Which history is simplified, which community is the villain, the music, and the framing want you to feel. It becomes muscle memory.”

For students learning to construct those very elements, this awareness can be crucial. Pillai believes cinema’s emotional power makes audiences particularly susceptible to confusing a persuasive film with fact. “Films are increasingly consumed as political proof rather than as art or entertainment,” she says, pointing to films that have villianised minorities in India. “A film expressing a viewpoint makes an argument and trusts you to weigh it. Propaganda doesn’t want you to weigh anything. It wants you to leave angry at a specific group, and assure you that what you saw was fact.” Ultimately, what political education a film school can offer is to teach them to see how images make people think.

‘Film is a great tool of propaganda’

Film lecturer and author Devdutt Trivedi explains why renowned film schools in India get the “anti-national” label attached to them

The politics of a film school, Devdutt Trivedi argues, cannot be separated from the politics of the cinema it teaches students to make. A film theoretician, lecturer, and author, he sees the “anti-national” label attached to film institutions as part of a larger misunderstanding of what art cinema does. 

“Political parties do not understand the idea of an art film. They understand a film which has messages; they do not understand what a film aesthetic is,” he says.

Trivedi points to the histories of institutions such as FTII and SRFTI, which he says have become associated with left-wing intellectual traditions. Their histories make them targets for political groups. The concern, however, goes beyond campus politics. 

“Film is a tool of propaganda,” he says, “Any ruling party has a particular agenda; it will follow that, and it has been using film and propaganda. So it wants to do that at the level of the institute.”

“The objective of film form is, after all, freedom,” he says. “You need to have compassion on both sides. It’s very difficult.” 

Trivedi advises, “As a professor, I think there is a way out of this by understanding the totality of the situation and not being reactionary like how both the sides are right now.”

‘Human beings by nature are political’

Film editor Antara Lahiri explains why free-thinking spaces get targeted

Antara Lahiri

Antara Lahiri — film editor of Delhi Crime, FTII alumna, and current guest lecturer at the institute — says the politics of a film school lies in its ability to let students think beyond the boundaries imposed by society. Having witnessed the institute as both a student and a visiting professional, she has noticed, “People are definitely more cautious when talking about politics today.” 

“FTII and SRFTI are spaces for free thinkers. Artistes by nature, and human beings by birth, are political beings,” Lahiri says. Film schools, she believes, naturally nurture this awareness. “The very point of being filmmakers is that you question control, you question the so-called societal frameworks, and question authority. I think it is natural for such spaces to be under threat whenever there’s any kind of authoritarian government.”

She describes these institutes as sacred spaces, where students watch films from across the world and encounter various perspectives. “The original intention was never to restrict thought of any kind,” she says. The attacks on such spaces, she argues, undermine the very purpose of film education. “Would a normal citizen not react if there were intruders in their homes? I think it is the same logic.”

“No matter how sad you think you are in life, remember there is a guy from your home town who still thinks he can become a rapper,” he chuckles. 

Of course, he is far from being sad. In fact, he is savouring a moment that he admits won’t last forever. But it’s a good time to remember that as a kid, he wanted to be a rapper, before he fell in love with the movies. He still writes rap, but for the boy, born and raised in Kohima, Nagaland, music exists in the stories. 

A still from the film, Angh

And winning the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival for Angh has only emboldened the voice in him. “I want to make films abroad as well. I grew up watching a lot of Hollywood films and film set in the UK. And that is also an ambition that I have. The first film I saw in cinemas was Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003). That stills remains one of the most impactful moments of my life,” he shares.

The desire to go global coexists with his affinity to tell stories of his roots. Just how Angh is the story of the past and the present of Nagaland coexisting. Set in the Mon district of 1960s Nagaland, Angh tells the story of different generations staying connected despite their contrasting realities. It began as a short film idea in 2018, which Rio brought to fruition in 2021. But his producer Nancy Nisa Beso knew he needed more time to make his feature debut. 

“When he wrote the short film, he mentioned that this had to be made into a feature but we lacked resources and infrastructure then. We knew it was going to be a feature someday but we didn’t know how, when, where. So we made the short film. It received an incredible response from the global community,” she tells us. 

“Then, he went to a film school, and I think he’d already written the feature version before that. But going to film school really helped him understand the way  a feature has to be made. And Theja has mentioned several times that the farther away you are from home, from your own roots, the thirstier you become to learn about your own culture and traditions. You also have a better idea of how you need to tell the story because there is that longing for home, which is a little more emotional than it is while being there,” she adds.

In his decade-long career, Angh is actually the first film that is deeply rooted in Naga culture. The award-winning drama served as a moment of realisation for the filmmaker-writer that he wanted to continue to tell stories of where he came from. And even as he went to the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in 2022, the interest in developing Angh remained intact. Something else, however, changed, “Making the short film, I realised I was taking a U-turn in the themes and subjects that I usually explore and I was starting to set my stories where I came from. While being at NFTS, that voice remained as is, but what the school changed was how I wanted to tell these stories and through what lens and perspectives I wanted to tell them,” he shares.

The feeling of climbing the global ladder of cinema as well as joining the race for the Academy Awards are slowly sinking in for Rio, but he says, as a matter of fact, that there were very few times in his filmmaking journey that he doubted the reach of his talent. He credits this belief to his dream of becoming a director even before he “reached the age of reason.” 

The surety about Rio’s craft allows Beso to keep betting on  him and be a constant collaborator on his journey. It also lends her strength, now that she begins planning the film’s journey to make it to the list of top five best international films for the Oscars. “While we have qualified for the Oscars, there’s a process to it. In the next two months, they are going to do shortlist 15 films. And then the final list will have five films from around the world. So, in the next 10-15 days we have to plan a strategy for how to do this, the US release, how to get in touch with the Academy members, how to do multiple screenings. There’s a lot of work to do. We have some offers from distributors in the US. So, hopefully in the next few days, you will hear a good news from us,” she shares. 

But before the Oscar madness begins, Rio, perhaps, needs a break from the “hectic interviews” the mention of which he makes twice during our conversation, even as he is grateful for the attention. “But I know that this is not something that’s going to last forever so I’m trying to enjoy the moment,” he smiles.

Getting a guitar wet in the rain was something our guitarist brother would hate even with the cover on, and this writer has childhood memories of getting an earful for this crime. 

When we told Mehran that that’s what made us pause, he laughs. “Yeah, a lot of people told me this. It started raining in the middle of my song and I couldn’t stop because it was finally sounding the way I wanted it to,” he confesses, with a hint of embarrassment sneaking into his voice over the phone.

The Thane resident, who turns 19 in November, is a Economics student at St Xavier’s College. Once we get past the shock of the wet guitar, Hodiwala’s voice rings through the pitter-patter of rain with an autobiographical tale of struggling with mental health as a young man. Hodiwala sings of conversations with his doctor: “Mrs Hodiwala, there’s nothing at all that you must worry about/ Your kid is fine, it happens all the time/ It’s just hormones acting out”. We were hooked. 

We ask Hodiwala about what the song means. “I wrote it in the immediate aftermath of the first few psychiatric sessions I went to. At the time, I was sitting there next to the doctor who was talking to my parents, and all I could think was, ‘Oh, this would make a pretty nice song,’” he says, and immediately starts laughing. 

This episode is from about four months ago; Hodiwala tells us he was feeling “under the weather”, and with the intention of respecting his privacy, we leave it at that. “I’d been feeling a little under the weather. That’s an understatement. But I told my parents and they were quite supportive,” he shares.

He then adds, “I think I make the therapist sound a lot worse in the song than he actually was. I think the poor guy was just trying to help.”  

Hodiwala’s mother is a doctor (medical microbiologist) and father is an adman, and it was the latter’s obsession with music that has influenced his own musical inclinations. “Ever since I was maybe a day old, he’s [his father] has been feeding me Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. So I grew up idolising all of them. I always wanted to write like them,” he says. 

Mehran has been writing songs since he was nine and playing the guitar from the age of 10. Cut to now: “I am planning to get an album out by next month,” he tells us.  For now, the song Conversations with my shrink can be found on his Instagram (@_hodiwala_), where it already has 22,000 likes, over a thousand comments, and has been shared over 5000 times.

Not bad for a boy with a guitar and a dream who’s caught in the rain.

While here, she visited the Ajanta and Ellora Caves, signed up for a Bollywood tour, even took a photo outside Shah Rukh Khan’s Mannat. Bird discusses the lessons she learned as a female entrepreneur in the crowded beauty and wellness market.

How does one keep evolving as a founder?
I think the journey is about saying yes, always, and never thinking, ‘I can’t do that’. 

It’s about always thinking, what else can I do? The expression we have in the UK is ‘Yes, and?’. That is what people have to do. If you want to get ahead, and you want people to recognise your worth, you do your ‘yes, and?’. You do say no — when something’s not morally right, like social media. It’s a challenge… [But] we truly believe that right now social media isn’t a safe place for so many, especially younger people who are easily influenced. We wouldn’t put a Lush store at the end of a dark alley because we wouldn’t want our customers to go there, social media to us is this dark alley. It doesn’t mean that we’re not on it. Because influencers see our products, they love it, they talk about it. And for that, we’re very grateful. 

Pic/iStock

What have you learned from taking a moral stand as a business owner?
I don’t think we’re political, we are humanitarian. We will give both sides of the picture — a balanced view — and educate. If making a campaign or sharing a public opinion, we always share both sides and then it’s for you to make a decision as to what you do with good, balanced information. For example, we would always say use your vote, but we wouldn’t say who to vote for. If we see an issue or a cause or we see harm or injustice, then we will use our business as a voice. For example. we sell naked products without packaging, which last three times more than the packed ones, [but] we have to do an offering of both. 

It’s the customer’s choice. So we’re all about giving you a choice, but hopefully steering you towards the more conscious choices. 

How do you balance product innovation, consumer demands, and sustainability? 
Not thinking there’s any other way. We have to make enough money because we are a business, so we reserve the right to have a profit to keep the company running so everybody’s employed. But not at the cost of the environment, at the cost of animal testing, at the cost of how we buy our raw materials. If another company bought us today they could immediately make more money and less impact, but that’s not the goal. For example, we used to have a colour cosmetics brand which used mica, and we learned that despite having fair certifications, mica extracting practices were still illegally employing and killing children, so we decided to not use natural mica ever. We always go for natural, but at this instance, went straight to synthetic. 

Advice for women who want to start their own brand? 
Be your own person. Men do not know everything — sorry, guys. Make sure you’re working with people that you really like and trust, and have a long-term relationship with. Don’t be taken over by somebody else. Understand what you want and how you’re going to do it and then stick with that.
 We work very well as a group of six co-founders. 

Each one of us has a different skill set, but all the skill sets interlock. Respect within a team is most important. If you’re working yourself, employ people to work for you that are stronger than you in the different areas.

Ambition vs risk, how important is it to tell yourself the truth? 
Believe in what you’re doing. If you’re starting a business and are not passionate about it, it’s easy for somebody to derail you and tell you it’s no good because you’re half thinking. You have to be like your Bollywood star that kept telling himself he was the best. Find people to support you. The beautiful thing about having six partners as founders is that when one of you has a wobble, you’ve got five people behind you cheering you on. 

It’d be very lonely doing it on your own, but it’s certainly not impossible. 

Imagine Godzilla, Batman, Goku, Snape, Wednesday, Gandalf and Sad Keanu Reaves chilling in the same room. Next to it is a fight club where Jackie Chan is beating Darth Vader, in another room Michael Jackson is sharing the dance floor with Vincent and Mia from Pulp Fiction. Next to that, Kong is fast asleep on a half collapsed floor while Ben Affleck smokes in the corner.

Sounds bizarre but fun, right? Welcome to Floor796, an animated and interactive scene which acts as a living museum of everything from Pop culture and the internet. You see characters and memes from various works on the same floor of a huge space station, the animation ever expanding, with new blocks and characters popping up as you scroll. It allows you to click on characters, find out their identities, look for Easter eggs, participate in games and quests. 

Floor796 is, in basic terms, a museum of discovery where you can test your knowledge of pop culture and memology. 

How to read between the lines: 2026 edition 

Cenk Uygur and Anna Kasparian; (right) Amy Goodman 

There are some people who always give us the perspective from the other side and they are vital in helping us build our world view.

Today there are few space that still cover events around the world with a lens that is not co-opted my Tech or big business and we always see what they were saying about a particular issue.

No. 1 for us has been Amy Goodman and the legacy she has build around Democracy Now. We would watch this show before YouTube existed and their barebones website would play the long hour world wide coverage. Goodman is an award winning journalist and is known to be on the right side of history and break down wars, civil unrest and false narratives for those who want to here.

YoungTurks is founded by Cenk Uygur a American-Turkish journalist and the prime time show is anchored by both Uygur and the fiery Anna Kasparian who comes from Amerinian descent. Which is why their breakdown of the Iran war, the impact of the Houthis and their unique backgrounds, gives us so much more nuanced coverage of Wests Asia and the Arvan world. Although sometimes we disagree with a few things but it’s always a healthy disagreement and we do appreciate them giving us a perspective that is rarely seen in both Indian and American mainstream media.

www.youtube.com

A site of mysteries

PIC/murdle.com

Who doesn’t enjoy head-scratching, complicated stories involving murders! Everyone loves putting themselves in the shoes of Beniot Blanc or Poirot or Byomkesh Bakshi, but they don’t know how they can solve mysteries of their own thanks to Murdle.
 
Based on the famous book series of the same name, Murdle shares daily mystery themed murders and puzzles, immersing them in genre apt storytelling. The games are simple. You’re told about the victim and suspects, given cryptic clues. Use logic and powers of deduction to make connections. These puzzles are genuinely challenging, which makes solving all the more satisfying!

Forgotten literature

PIC/grandoldbooks.com

What is old may never be forgotten. If you’re a geek for old literature, you don’t have to buy books online or run to the library. You can do it on the phone, without spending a penny!

Grand Old Books is a website dedicated to reviving ancient and forgotten literary gems from different countries and languages.

You can find Russian classics like War and Peace and Anna Karenina, religious texts like the Four Vedas, the Bible and Quran, American novels like The Great Gatsby and the Catcher In The Rye and much more. You can also enjoy many of the greatest novels in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Marathi, Malayalam, and dozens of other languages that have never been translated into English.

Keeping it lit

For a table lamp that does more than simply sit pretty on your desk, the RARECARE rechargeable table lamp makes a practical addition to a bedside table, work desk, or reading corner. Its cordless, rechargeable design means you can move it around the house without having to worry about finding a nearby power socket, making it particularly handy for spaces where flexibility matters.

The lamp has a compact table-friendly design, while its rechargeable battery allows it to be used without being continuously plugged in. That makes it useful for late-night reading.  The built-in pen stand is a complete lifesaver when you have to quickly jot down notes somewhere.

Last week, we caught up with the artiste for a very special update. His voice and melodies are part of Cosmic Rhapsody, the second part of The Lim Trilogy, a three-part musical and visual storytelling project which explores companionship, space and the origins of matter through music, animation, and science.

The project, spearheaded by Dr Susan Lim, who in her medical career spanning over 30 years pioneered liver transplantation in Asia, comprises songs, animation, and concertos such as Fantasy of Companionship (2021), Cosmic Rhapsody (2026), and Symphony of Oceans (unreleased).

Dr Susan Lim

The song in Cosmic Rhapsody titled Star among the Cosmic Clouds is about a star that is going down. Barua composed this song to Dr Lim’s lyrics after his father’s death. “I wrote it in Assam sitting at my father’s desk. It was recorded in Abbey Road Studios in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,” he tells us.

The first part of the trilogy focuses on companionship and loneliness. “As people become increasingly isolated, it asks: Can we live a life with artificial companions? The story follows ALAN, an AI-embodied plush inanimate who enters the life of its human companion, Christina,” Dr Lim tells us.  

Cosmic Rhapsody, sees the partnership of human and inanimate set out to space, driven by environmental challenges on Earth, in search of solutions in cosmic dust that may help save the planet. “In this fictional narrative, they encounter an exploding star, a supernova, yielding purple cosmic dust that falls back to Earth as confetti, soaking up the CO2 and impurities, narrated through the song Confetti Storm,” Lim says.

“I think every complicated story can also be told simply. If it cannot be told simply it means you haven’t understood it. I call this project The Ark of ALAN. Susan has built an entire universe with various talents from around the world,” Joi adds.

Ahead of the Space Week on October 2, the song Teleportation from the finale of LIM I, recorded at Abbey Road in April with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, celebrating quantum entanglement, was also released in two versions: one main English version by Britain’s Got Talent superstar Tom Ball, and a separate version in Assamese by Barua, who composed the song to Susan’s lyrics.

The news only gets bigger. Cosmic Rhapsody celebrates its North American Premiere at the Hollywood Bowl in July 2027, a month apart from NASA’s COSI mission to board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in August 2027, led by Principal Investigator John Tomsick.

Last year, Lim and her team presented Cosmic Rhapsody to the leadership of the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. “The screening revealed how intimately the musical story of star evolution aligned with the upcoming NASA mission. Human striving drives both, the imagination of scientists to build instruments capable of peering across light-years, and artistes to create works that stirs human spirit,” Dr Susan Lim told us via email.

The mission will study the gamma-ray sky to trace the radioactive glow of stellar explosions and map where the elements of the periodic table are forged across our galaxy. “The iron in our blood, calcium in our bones and magnesium in our cells were all forged in stellar furnaces,” says Dr Lim, adding, “We are quite literally stardust.”

Dr Lim met Barua at an INK Conference in Singapore where she spoke on the frontiers in medicine. She heard Barua present Rhaba, an Assamese song inspired by the story of Assamese revolutionary and cultural icon Bishnu Prasad Rabha, created in collaboration with American saxophonist George Brooks, and knew she wanted to work with him.   “While working on the songs, I realised that every bit of that endeavour is aimed at trying to find a solution. And then that whole endeavour requires a bigger purpose. It’s a privilege to be part of this,” says Barua, adding that Mumbai and Bollywood gave his career a platform.

“When you make music for movies, it has a commercial goal post but when you do your own music, it feels personal and their collective purpose. I will continue doing good projects and people will find me,” says Barua, who has been associated with Bollywood projects including Dev D, Udaan and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. “The ultimate message we leave with viewers is that no matter how far we push into artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, or deep-space exploration, empathy and love remain the universal currency,” Lim signs off.

It has been an absorbing commitment, and a welcome reminder of the many ways there are to tell the history of modern India. The books have taken me through constitutional precepts, political lives, migration, borders and the experience of ordinary people living through decisions made far beyond them. As a former diplomat, I am accustomed to reading the official record. Some of the most rewarding writing asks what that record leaves out, or show how a familiar event looks when viewed from another region, community, or household.

With the South Asian Symphony Orchestra, which Nirupama Rao and her husband Sudhakar had founded

I have especially savoured encountering work that combines patient research with the confidence to tell a compelling story. A prize jury also teaches you to read more attentively. A book may unsettle your assumptions without necessarily persuading you of every conclusion, and the discussion with fellow jurors makes you return to the text and think again. That seems to me a fitting way to honour Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, whose mind was like an ocean, and whose own life crossed so many of the boundaries we tend to place between politics, culture and public service.
 
What life lessons did the Foreign Service teach you?
To listen before drawing conclusions. That sounds simple, but diplomacy often places you amid strong convictions, partial information and pressure to respond at once. You learn to ask what the other person apprehends, what they desire to preserve, and what history they believe they are living through. Understanding their position does not require you to surrender your own.

The Service also taught me the value of preparation and the limits of certainty. Countries are more complicated than the neat descriptions we give them, and relationships rarely move in a straight line. I learned to stay curious, to treat people with respect whatever their rank, and to remember that words can have consequences well beyond the room in which they are spoken. Above all, I came to believe that a country represents itself through the quality of its judgment as much as through the force of its arguments.

Nirupama Rao

How did music become a key part of your life?
Music has been a companion through much of my life. I sing, and I know from performing how much feeling can be carried in a phrase that no spoken explanation quite captures. After I left the Foreign Service, I had more room to give that part of me sustained attention. Music also provided a way to carry forward something I cared deeply about as a diplomat: Bringing people into contact across borders.

My husband Sudhakar and I founded the South Asian Symphony Foundation in 2018. The orchestra brings musicians from across our region together to rehearse, listen and make something none could make alone. I do not imagine a concert can resolve a political dispute. But I have watched musicians arrive with different histories and leave with a shared experience, and that matters. The work has grown to include young musicians and our Silver Songbirds programme for older singers. It gives me enormous pleasure to see people find their place and fellowship in an ensemble, sometimes for the first time.
 
What can readers expect from your next book?
My book is about India’s image in the world: the stories we tell about ourselves, the images others form of us, and the space between the two. 

A diplomat spends a great deal of time in that space. I want to explore how a country as varied and inventive as India can make itself understood without reducing itself to a slogan. It is a work in progress, so I shall leave the rest for 
the book.

Mumbai on her mind

“A dear memory is the South Asian Symphony Orchestra’s debut at the NCPA in April 2019. We had spent so long imagining an orchestra that could bring together musicians from across South Asia. Hearing it come to life on a Mumbai stage was deeply moving. Mumbai is a wonderful city for such a beginning: It has long made room for people and ideas arriving from elsewhere, and it brings a generous curiosity to the arts.
On my next visit, I would like to attend a concert, as a member of the audience, browse a bookshop without looking at the clock, and take a long walk by the sea.”

Rapid fire

.  What are you reading? 
I’ve just finished Qiu Xiaolong’s Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder. I’ve long enjoyed how his mysteries evoke the nooks and crannies of Shanghai while giving you a glimpse of the Party politics and social change beneath the surface.

.  An Indian writer who impressed you? 
Jhumpa Lahiri remains an all-time favourite. Migration, a topic she tackles with such sensitivity and detail, especially fascinates me.

.  A musician you’d love to perform a duet with? 
Joan Baez. She was my childhood icon and idol. Her voice and the courage that sings with it have stayed with me all my life.

The question is particularly relevant now, as the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has revised its film-certification guidelines for the first time since 1991. The new framework retains the requirement that films receiving unrestricted public exhibition should be “suitable for family viewing” — meaning all members of a family, including children, should be able to watch them together. At the same time, the guidelines retain the U/A age markers, allowing films to be classified U/A 7+, U/A 13+, or U/A 16+ depending on their content, with parental discretion for younger children. They also introduce a specific statutory warning for scenes depicting the consumption or trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

But in 2026, what exactly does “family-friendly” mean? 

For Aditi Giri, 27, “family-friendly” cinema is less about a checklist of forbidden subjects and more about what she chooses to share with her mother. Having lived away from home for nearly a decade, watching films together has become a way of spending quality time. “My mom and I are hardcore Hindi movie buffs,” she says, explaining that their shared choices tend to be light, easy, and something they can laugh about together. Even a “brainrot” film such as Tees Maar Khan (2010) can work because, as she puts it, “we can watch it and then we laugh it off.”

Some films which are deemed family-friendly

That does not mean Giri consciously avoids films dealing with serious issues. She simply would not pick them for this particular kind of viewing. “I wouldn’t sit with her and watch a film like Padman (2018) just because I want to do timepass with her,” she says. Instead, she would choose something like Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) or Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008). “What might be easy to watch for you with your parents might not be to somebody else who watches with their parents,” she explains.

That subjectivity is precisely what concerns 24-year-old Abhinav Jha, who is an aspiring filmmaker and a film student. He feels that a directive to make cinema suitable for family viewing can feel like a creative “chokehold”. He sees the language of protection and morality in Indian censorship as part of a larger paternalistic relationship between the state and its citizens. 

He says, “The state looks at the people of this country like children who need to be corrected.”

24-year-old filmmaker and film student Abhinav Jha feels that a directive to make cinema suitable for family viewing can feel like a creative “chokehold”. Pic/Shadab Khan

Jha is particularly wary of what such guidelines can do to filmmakers before a film even reaches the certification process. “As people in the creative space, I think there is a great degree of self-censorship that is happening,” he says. More troublingly, he feels the guidelines are not always applied consistently. Films containing violence or degradation of women can pass, he points out, while consensual intimacy between adults can face scrutiny.

Giri, meanwhile, would rather have filmmakers tell audiences what they are getting into than have a certificate make that choice for them. “I would want a film or a film director to tell me about what the content is about rather than a certificate telling and controlling it for me,” she says. “Why do we need to be constantly reminded of drinking and smoking disclaimers?” Jha asks, “Why is a scene involving intimacy getting censored from a film for adults?” His despair also comes from the limitations visible in alternative mediums. 

At the heart of this debate, the problem lies with the CBFC giving the illusion of choice. The need to sanitise a film, irrespective of the movie rating, snatches creative liberty away. As Jha rightly puts it, “I know there is a lot of censorship in other countries because of which filmmakers have to rely on subject and a lot of nuance to tell their story. But why should I be nuanced because of certain restrictions? Why should I rely on subtext to tell a story the way I want to tell it?”

‘The phrase family-friendly is a word salad’

Dibakar Banerjee

Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee says, “Our puzzling over what is ‘family friendly’ is a perfect example of being cornered into the self-censorship trap,” calling it a “word salad” that diverts attention from who gets to decide what audiences should watch. “Some of our most thought provoking and confrontational films, mine included, have navigated those laws and have been exhibited. It happened because there was room to consider the ‘film’ rather than the ‘guidelines’. State censorship works in: Repressive laws. Unlawful censorship through goondagardi. Restricting spaces for free speech and thought.”

‘CBFC takes a reverse gear’

Film Youtuber Harshad Pawaskar talks about how CBFC has taken a regressive turn at a time when audiences have evolved

Harshad Pawaskar

The idea of a family film still conjures up a certain kind of cinema for photographer and film YouTuber Harshad Pawaskar, 46. “A typical family-friendly movie would be anything that is made by Rajshri Productions,” he says, pointing to films such as Maine Pyaar Kiya (1989) and Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994). These films, he says, had romance, comedy, and action, but “they don’t cross the limit”. The violence was lighter, the romance was restrained, and even the hero getting beaten up remained part of the fun.

Today, Pawaskar sees that balance slipping. “Take an example of this Dhurandhar (2025) movie. It’s a blockbuster movie but it is not something I can sit and watch with my son,” he says. Action, he argues, has become increasingly graphic, with filmmakers setting “a benchmark so high” that every action film seems to involve “ripping heads, chopping off hands”.

Audiences, he believes, have evolved, while certification has gone in the opposite direction. “They are taking a reverse gear wherein they want everything to be goody, goody,” he says.

For illustrator Sefi George, who runs Letters from the Wild, the appeal began with something simple: “I love receiving mails. It’s such a rare thing these days. And I get very excited when I get one myself.”

Her quarterly mail club sends out illustrated letters centred on wildlife. Each edition features an animal with a personality and a story. There is a love-struck praying mantis wondering whether to approach a female mantis, and a Gen Z-style kingfisher waiting to get out of its hole. Alongside the illustrated letter are a sticker, a colouring postcard, and an activity related to the creature, from board games to word searches.

Harneet Kaur (right), another subscriber, says, “I definitely think this is a great way of collecting art and supporting small artists because I think it’s patronage that you just pay in installments.”

“As an illustrator, since I have the opportunity to make it, why not just give it a go?” George says. Everything is made specifically for the club. “As of now, I’ve been making everything from scratch for the club,” she says, “There is an illustrated letter. It’s a narrative from the point of view of the animal and it has illustrations all around that tell a story. There is a sticker, a colouring postcard, and an activity that is linked to the creature.”

That little envelope is considerably more labour-intensive than it looks. George says it takes around two days to put together a complete set, with each element printed on separate paper and then cut. There are four or five particularly hectic days every month when she is printing. Yet, she says, the process of researching, writing, and turning information into something accessible to children is what she enjoys most.

And the people on the receiving end aren’t simply buying an illustration. They are becoming part of the process.

Artist Megha Saji (right), who runs The Kumo Mail Club from Kerala, began hers after discovering mail clubs online. What attracted her was the idea of sharing a piece of everyday life with a stranger.

For Mumbai-based subscriber Amruta Chad, that exchange is precisely the point. She subscribes to several mail clubs and has turned receiving them into something of an office ritual. When a new envelope arrives, colleagues gather around for the opening. “And then we have a whole show and tell of opening the mail, going through all the artwork,” she says.

Chad puts some of the postcards up on a wall at home and at work, changes them around periodically, and sometimes, gives them to friends. “I like to collect different artworks. I don’t have a very big house, you know how it is in Mumbai. But I like to keep changing the artwork that I put up.”

There is, she says, a difference between buying a postcard and subscribing to the person who made it. Her subscriptions typically cost around Rs 500 to Rs 550 a month. Individual postcards from some of these artists cost around Rs 150 to Rs 300, she says, making the additional amount feel less like a purchase and more like a contribution to the artist’s ongoing practice.

Amruta Chad (right), puts some of the postcards up on a wall at home and at work, changes them around periodically, and sometimes gives them to friends

“I would definitely say I’m supporting the artist’s practice when I subscribe,” Chad says. “I’ve spoken to some artists, and it’s a way for them to experiment without getting too serious about it.”

That is perhaps where these tiny envelopes begin to resemble something bigger than stationery. They offer a low-cost version of patronage. Instead of spending thousands on a single artwork, a subscriber commits a smaller amount regularly and, in return, gets to follow an artist’s work over time.

Harneet Kaur, another subscriber, describes it even more directly. “I definitely think this is a great way of collecting art and supporting small artists because I think it’s patronage that you just pay in installments.”

Kaur knows both sides of the equation. A marketing professional who was on a career break, she started her own mail club after noticing the resurgence of snail mail and creator-led postal projects abroad. She ran it for three months before becoming increasingly interested in the wider world of philately and postal culture. She has since subscribed to seven Indian mail clubs — Art Land of Juno, Bangalore; The Antaral Post, Jamshedpur; Post-a-Card, Mumbai; Paper n Prism, Kolkata; May’s Snail Mail, Nagercoil; Imaginistaa Snailmail Club, Thiruvananthapuram; Mail Studio Co, Jaipur. 

The first time she received all seven, she had just returned from a holiday. “They all came when I was not in town. So, I came and they were just laid under my door, all seven of them.”

The sight made her unexpectedly emotional. “We used to see all of this in the movies, that people are getting letters. Because I’m 36 years old, so I definitely haven’t seen letters passed around. And it has kind of filled me with so much joy, I can’t tell you.” She photographed the colourful envelopes and sent the pictures to her parents. “I don’t think anything else has given me so much joy as these letters have.”

The joy, however, isn’t simply nostalgia. There is something about the physicality of the objects that changes how they are valued. “I think you see something on Instagram, even if it’s an illustration, I don’t think you’ll remember it in a minute’s time,” Kaur says, “But this art I plan to frame and put on my walls so that it’s going to stay there for a while.”

The experience begins even before the envelope is opened. “Everything is put together really thoughtfully. It exists for a reason, even the packaging, the envelope, the theme, everything is very, very thoughtfully and carefully put together.” For artists, the model also offers something that selling individual works online may not: a little predictability.  George says that although the club isn’t a meaningful source of income yet, the subscription model allows artists to price work more accessibly because they have some assurance that there will be buyers.

Artist Megha Saji, who runs The Kumo Mail Club from Kerala, began hers after discovering mail clubs online. What attracted her was the idea of sharing a piece of everyday life with a stranger.

“That feeling of receiving letters and reading, that feeling that someone is there… I wanted to bring that back,” she says. Saji’s envelopes contain letters, art prints, bookmarks, postcards and little activities. Her recurring theme is nature, inspired by growing up in Kerala. She is only three months into the club, but already has repeat customers.

Yet she isn’t thinking of those subscribers primarily as patrons. “I see them as my friends,” she says, explaining how mail clubs also allow people to build a more tangible relationship with an artist. 

That might be the most charming thing about these clubs. The transaction is there, but it doesn’t feel like the whole point.  The subscriber gets something tangible to keep, the artiste gets a small community to create for, and somewhere between the two, a stranger becomes familiar.

Saji says the part she enjoys most is imagining the person receiving her letter. “When I’m putting the mail together, I’m thinking about the other person and what I should write to make them smile.”

Even the packing gives her joy, she says, because she imagines how they will open it and feel. 

In a time when much of our relationship with art happens through screens, these mail clubs ask for something wonderfully old-fashioned: a little patience. 

You subscribe, you wait, you watch the India Post tracking, and then one day an envelope arrives.

Chad even knows which artiste is likely to be sending something based on the location it is travelling from. “I track just to see whether it’s the Sleepy Cat Post or Stoberimoo, just to know who is sending it and where my next mail is coming from.” And then comes the best part, opening it. “It’s like a mystery art that you get every month and it’s delivered to your doorstep,” she says, “You don’t have to go anywhere, you just have to subscribe to it, and it’s at the cost of a coffee and a sandwich.”

Perhaps that is the new art collector these clubs are creating — someone who doesn’t necessarily have gallery walls, a large budget or a vocabulary for contemporary art. Just a small space on the wall, a few hundred rupees to spare, and an appetite for surprise.

Kaur puts it simply: “I don’t think there is anybody who is not into collecting art. They might not know that they are doing it.”

Here is mine. I had promised to be home for a festival — a week before, something urgent came up and I couldn’t go. I explained. They understood. There was no fight. As far as I could tell, it was fine.

Eighteen months later, in an argument about something else entirely, there it was: “You didn’t come”. And I heard myself give the defence I suspect every reader has given at some point. “I came every other time. Every single time. You remember the one time I didn’t, and forget everything else.”

If you’ve been on either side of that exchange, and most of us have been on both, you’ll know it goes nowhere. One person is fighting about a festival. The other is fighting about arithmetic. Neither is fighting about what’s really going on.

If you read me regularly, you know I’m a physicist. For the past few months I’ve been reading neuroscience, and lately I’ve been working through Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, a doorstop of a book by the Stanford neurobiologist. Its method is simple and humbling. To explain any single human act, Sapolsky asks what happened in the brain one second before it, what hormones were doing hours before, what the person lived through years before, and so on back to evolution. I mailed him and we discussed some points. Then I went looking through the research for an answer to my own small, domestic mystery: why does the one bad thing outweigh all the good ones?

What I found is that three ideas, one from information theory, one from neuroscience, and one from the physics of magnets, explain it better than any of us managed in the middle of a fight.

Good things go quiet

There is a beautiful idea at the heart of information science: the amount of information in an event depends on how surprising it is. If the sun rises tomorrow, you have learned nothing. If it doesn’t, you have learned everything.

Now think about my festival record. I came nineteen times out of twenty. By the nineteenth, my arriving was like the sun rising: expected, almost silent. My one absence was the surprise. If you do the calculation properly, that single missed festival carries around fifty times more information than any one of the times I came.

Our brains keep the same accounts. Neuroscientists have found that the brain’s reward cells respond most strongly not to good things, but to unexpected good things. Once a kindness becomes reliable, the brain stops registering it. And when something we counted on fails to happen, those same cells fall silent in a way that marks the moment.

Here is the cruel part. The more dependable you are, the more invisible your dependability becomes, and the louder your one failure sounds. She hadn’t forgotten all the times I came. They had simply become the background, like the hum of a fridge you only notice when it stops.

Hurt is written in heavier ink

Psychologists have a name for this, the negativity bias, and the evidence for it is overwhelming. A bad event lasts longer in the mind than a good event of the same size. The relationship researcher John Gottman found that couples who stay together tend to have about five good moments for every bad one during conflict. Not one for one. Five to one.

It makes sense if you think like our ancestors. Forgetting where the fruit tree was cost you a meal. Forgetting where the lion was cost you everything. So the brain learned to underline pain. When someone we rely on lets us down, it gets stored with a little red flag attached, whatever we say on the phone that evening.

“It was fine at the time” may be the least reliable sentence in any relationship.

The third answer 

In physics there is a phenomenon called hysteresis. Take a piece of iron and hold a magnet near it. The iron becomes magnetic. Now take the magnet away. You’d expect the iron to go back to how it was. It doesn’t. It keeps a little of the magnetism, a trace of what happened to it. To understand that piece of iron, it is not enough to know what is acting on it now. You need to know its past.

Love works like that iron. The festival was forgiven, the magnet taken away. But the relationship didn’t return to exactly where it had been. It kept a trace.

And neuroscience adds something physics doesn’t. Every time we recall a memory, we don’t simply replay it. We take it out, and we put it back slightly changed, coloured by whatever we are feeling at that moment. When we’re angry, the brain reaches for angry memories. So if that festival had been remembered two or three times in anger since, it had been saved two or three times in anger. The festival that came out that night was heavier than the one that went in. She wasn’t exaggerating. The memory itself had changed.

So what was she really saying?

I think it was this: “When it mattered, and something else wanted you, you chose the other thing. Am I really the priority?”

Seen that way, my festival wasn’t one day out of twenty. It was the only time the question had been asked under pressure. And counting the other nineteen answered a question she never asked.

I don’t believe there is a formula for love. But the science taught me a few things. Stop defending the count; you can win the arithmetic and still lose the person. Don’t let your goodness go silent; say the small things out loud, so kindness keeps registering as news. Don’t trust “it’s fine”; months later, a quiet I’ve been thinking about the festival I missed can mean more than any defence. And if you’re the one reaching for the old wound, ask whether you’re angry about that day or about the fear it left behind.

In physics, we say a system with hysteresis has memory. It isn’t a flaw. It is exactly what lets a magnet hold on to something after the moment has passed. A love that remembered nothing couldn’t hold anything either.

The festival I missed is still there. I’ve stopped arguing with it. Now I’m just trying to add to the record.

Nishant Sahdev is a physicist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He chases ideas that refuse to stay in laboratories, for your favourite Sunday mid-day

The LGBTQIA+ community in India is no stranger to violence. “Our mere existence makes people feel threatened. Being ‘out and proud’ has its own pros and cons,” says Yash, a Delhi-based queer rights advocate. “Being yourself is a basic human need. At the same time, for someone like me, it means risking death.” 

Non-binary drag artiste Zeesh says that more than feeling fear, the queer community is feeling angry, after the murder of Mad Sandhu. Pic/Roshni Kumar

Sandhu knew that too. In fact, he had faced homophobic threats from extremist groups for over a year. His family had even sought protection from the Amritsar police. 

Yash runs an initiative called Humans of Queer (@officialhumansofqueer), an Instagram page with close to 40,000 followers dedicated to documenting queer stories from India. “When Section 377 was first struck down, it was a hopeful time. There was a need to be more visible, to have our stories out there. Since 2019, a lot more people know about queer culture, which is so, so important. The more queer stories people know, the more they can be sensitised to us. But at the same time, we are that much more exposed,” says the 28-year old.

Queer folk say that there is a cost to being ‘out and proud’, it can also mean inviting unwanted eyes. Pic/Satej Shinde

“The hate I get on Instagram right now is way more than what I would get before 2019. The instances of physical violence also seem to be going up now. There is a certain pride in that hatred now,” Yash says, “For example, there was a popular page from Haridwar [now taken down], where a religious extremist used to find trans people and beat them up, positioning himself as a ‘saviour’. People not only feel safe committing these crimes, but recording the evidence. They know that they will be protected.”

Yash finds social media to be a unique dichotomy. “It’s tricky. Because social media ‘rewards’ you for being yourself. You get a platform, a stream of income — things that are denied to queer people a lot. Putting yourself out there is an act of resistance. But I don’t think many of us know what we’re getting ourselves into.” 

Mad Sandhu was shot dead by two men on a bike in Amritsar last week. Pic/Instagram@its_madsandhuofficial

The content creator recalls, “I have been in situations where people have stalked me. There was this one time one person stalked my gym. I have been chased by men on bikes in the streets. All of this because I put myself out there.” 

“I come from a privileged background. My parents know about me. But that’s not the case for most LGBTQIA+ people,” he adds, “And the system will never protect us. Meta doesn’t care [about online harassment], your family won’t help, your friends may turn their backs, the police won’t help.”

Yash runs an initiative called Humans of Queer (@officialhumansofqueer), an Instagram page with close to 40,000 followers dedicated to documenting queer stories from India

For queer content creators, social media can be incredibly affirming. “It feels like you made it beyond all odds,” Yash adds, “But the risks are enormous.” 

For Sandhu too, social media brought success that would have otherwise never found him. He built a following, was a successful makeup artiste, ran his own salon, and was primary breadwinner in his household. He’d earned dignity, but it wasn’t enough to keep him safe.

Filmmaker and trans woman Bonita Rajpurohit feels that even when queer folk earn a dignified life, safety isn’t guaranteed

For Yash, this has meant “toning down” their gender expression. “I try to protect myself. I try my best to not look ‘visibly queer’. It’s a very tough thing. Because no one ‘looks’ like something. It’s just elements and behaviourisms. So how do you protect yourself?”

After hearing about this case, Yash’s been reaching out to queer friends in rural Haryana. “I’ve been telling them to lay low for a while. It’s hard, but I just don’t want them to risk their lives.”

Nishtha Berry, a queer woman from Delhi, says that fearing your safety as queer folk isn’t that different from the fear women face

Mad Sandhu isn’t a one off case, says non-binary drag artiste Zeesh. We meet Zeesh at the LaLit hotel in Andheri East, where they are to host a drag night the next day at Kitty Su, a queer-first club. The heat isn’t too forgiving on us. And yet, Zeesh is here with a full face of makeup on. Their eyebrows are shaved at the ends and they’re wearing a dark lip combo that leaves this writer impressed.

“This time, the reaction from the queer community is not one of fear. We’re angry,” says non-binary drag artiste Zeesh, “Mad Sandhu isn’t a one off case. The amount of cases that don’t even get reported is enormous.”

Georgina Maddox

“We’re angry because the queer community always shows up for everyone. We are there at your celebrations, we are present when you’re angry, we protest alongside you, we show up for women’s rights, for students’ rights. Where is Gen Z now? Forget Gen Z, where are Millennials?” asks the 33-year-old, as their voice crescendos. 

Zeesh grew up in a conservative family. “I’m a Muslim, non-binary drag artiste,” they count off on their fingers, “I have been breaking norms since I was born. Thankfully, I found some chosen family who chose me too. And later, my family — my mom and sister — also became supportive, through conversations and education,” they say with a smile.

It’s this same drive to break the shackles of conformity that can be seen in their drag performances at unexpected public spaces, such as the Dadar flower market, often amid quizzical stares and hateful glares. But sometimes, this comes at a cost.

Zeesh feels that as a visibly queer person, fear is like a second skin. Violence may be just around the corner. “Many, many years ago, I was in Delhi for a music video shoot. After wrap-up, my cab dropped me around 600 metres from my OYO hotel at 12.30 am.”

“I started walking towards my hotel and noticed two men drinking, staring at me. Your immediate reaction is to just stay in your lane and get through it. But then they approached me, started touching and grabbing me. I was petrified. I was calling someone at the hotel, anyone who could help me.

“Then a staff member yelled at them to leave me alone. This attacker tells me, ‘Oh you’re staying at this hotel. I know now. Ab raat mein dekhna [I’ll see you in the night]. I couldn’t stay at the hotel for another second. I went in, grabbed my luggage, booked a cab to the airport, and left at midnight for a flight at 7 am,” they recall. 

Safety isn’t easy to find in the real world. For a while, social media and the online world was a safe space for queer folk. “That’s how I started. No one in my family knew about me. I would make videos in my bedroom and post them on Instagram. But now if you do that, you’re putting a target on your back,” Zeesh sighs.

The sad part is that I wasn’t shocked at all when I heard of Sandhu’s murder,” says Bonita Rajpurohit, a filmmaker and a trans woman, “I’m immediately reminded of Pranshu Yadav, who was 16 when he died, or Makeover Yash,” she says, talking about two queer makeup artistes who died by suicide in the last couple of years after facing immense homophobia and bullying. 

“When is it enough?” she asks, “You could have financial security and even support from your family. But there’s no guarantee that you’ll be safe if you’re a queer person. The minute you seem ‘different’, they’ll kill you,” she says.

Rajpurohit grew up in a small village called Dornari in Rajasthan. She’s no stranger to the need to fit in — or what she calls “merging” — to remain safe. “I would go to school or college knowing that I’m going to get looked at with eyes of hatred or ridicule. I had to be a soldier, ready for war every day. But why should I? I was just a child,” she laments, “That’s why passing becomes so important. It offers you safety.”

Rajpurohit feels a certain apprehension even when dating. “You never know what the other person’s reaction would be to finding out you’re trans. I have no sense of safety then,” the Andheri resident says.

Over the years, Rajpurohit sees herself changing more and more. “When I was young, I was much more audacious. I miss that. The more you grow up, you see how the world works. So you start thinking it’s okay to minimise yourself,” she sighs, “When I go back to my village, I find myself wanting to ‘merge’ more and more these days. I know that I can’t dress a certain way in front of certain relatives or there are some people I should stay away from. Because I want to 
live my life.”

Nishtha Berry is a marketing executive by day. After work hours though, you can find her on Instagram, sharing her opinions on the goings on in our world. 

As a masc-presenting queer woman in Delhi, the threats are double-fold. “I’ve gotten uncomfortable stares from people trying to work out my gender. But there have been scary moments. Once in a cab in Gurugram, the driver — who was drunk — assumed I was a man. He started saying disgusting things about women’s bodies,” she recalls, “I was afraid of him for a minute or two, then played along to stay safe and recorded him. When I posted the video on Instagram, it was taken down for ‘bullying and harassment.’”

“Another time, a group of teenage boys with cricket bats threw slurs at my gay best friend and me. My friend said we should keep walking, but I turned around and gave it back to the guy. He was telling me, ‘Chal taali baja aur naach kar dikha. [Clap your hands and dance for me.]’ I didn’t want to stand there and take it, so I gave it back to them,” she tells us. 

Berry says that fearing for your safety as queer folk isn’t that different from the fear women face. “A gay man who falls into the hands of a nasty man could be beaten and raped, and women carry that same fear,” she says. This writer is reminded of the 2025 death of Bathinda-based influencer Kamal Kaur Bhabhi, who was killed by a man named Amritpal Mehron for posting “vulgar content”. 

What will bring change, we ask Berry. “We need more queer-led events where allies and curious people are welcome too. We need businesses, like cafés, to openly say they’re allies. It costs nothing, but it tells us the staff and the space will treat us like anyone else,” she says, “We’re tired of walking into places where we’re stared at and judged. We want to belong, and we want to befriend straight people too. But too often they judge us by how we look without having one conversation.”

“No government has supported us really,” says Georgina Maddox, a queer woman who’s been performing drag for nearly three decades across Mumbai and Delhi, long before Article 377 was scrapped. “When Article 377 was taken down, it seemed to be a moment of hope. But since then, we lost the marriage equality case, and then the Transgender Act was amended,” she says.

Maddox believes that change has to come top-down. “Right now, our infrastructure makes them feel emboldened to hurt queer folk,” Zeesh concurs, “When [Article] 377 was taken down, there was an immediate change. I have always worked in night life, and I can tell you no one was open to queer people and drag artistes before 2019. All of that has changed now.”

Maddox adds, “All the good work we’ve done in the last few decades is taking a back seat. Right now, the most fundamental ideas of queer liberation are being questioned,” she says, “It’ll take a long struggle to re-establish our rights. It won’t be long before we raise our voices again.”

2 LAKH+
Number of followers of the late Madhusudan (Mad) Sandhu on Instagram

Laws against hate crimes in India

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, prescribes imprisonment from six months to two years, plus a fine for the abuse of a transgender individual. This law, however, only protects transgender individuals. 

According to the LGBTI National Policy Dataset from Princeton University, US, sexual orientation is covered by hate crime legislation in at least 45 countries, including the UK, France, Argentina, and in many states in the US.

Immediately, scrutiny fell on the survivors first: why were they out, who were they with, what were they doing. The next step in the formula, inevitably, was to shrink public spaces even further for women. Like clockwork, the Delhi Police restricted entry to public parks after 7 pm. Lady Shri Ram College, which is just 2 km away from Astha Kunj, took its classes online so its students would not have to step out.

Women in Delhi protesting unsafe conditions. PIC/PTI

Instead, women are stepping out in droves to protest. Women in Delhi and Jamui have been backed by thousands of others in the country, marching after dark with the same demand: make public spaces safer rather than make women disappear from them. Some of the slogans have taken on a life of their own, expressing female wrath in catchy phrases: “Ek kachori do samosa, in mardo ka kya bharosa” or “Tod ke rakhdo woh samaj, naari jis mein bandhi hai aaj”.  

And it’s not just “naaris” who are out protesting; visuals of young men helping women during the marches, a few even putting themselves between the police and their women friends, has been heartening to see. But for every man standing shoulder to shoulder with women, there are hundreds more spreading vitriol and misogyny on their keyboards.

An iconic image of women’s resistance at Delhi. PIC/INSTAGRAM@anushree_bisht12

The really toxic narrative online is that women are man-haters. “They are cheaters, they deserve it”, or “they need to stay at home”. Another take is “Men are not involved in feminist movements”, or “They are busy hating us instead of talking to us”. 

We speak to organisations headed by both men and women who have been proving this misconception wrong for decades, and have dedicated their lives to bridging the gap between the sexes. And guess what? Young boys and men are actually listening.

‘Always worked with men’

Dr Manisha Gupte, gender justic activist, says that while feminism has always seen participation from men, it’s not women’s responsibility to get men to participate

Dr Manisha Gupte is the co-convenor of Mahila Sarvangeen Utkarsh Mandal (MASUM) from Pune. We ask her about her thoughts on the rhetoric — mostly spearheaded by men — that women feminists do not include men in large-scale dialogue. She has a lot to say, “Personally, I have never worked in women-only spaces. We work with men in rural communities all the time, right from their early childhood. Having said that, is it really the responsibility of women to create space for men in the movement against the patriarchy, when men control almost every conceivable space in society? 

Street Plays by MAVA helps educate young men about gender justice

Should men not give up their entitlement of being the head of the household, denounce their exclusive ownership over women, children and assets, or desist from appropriating power outside the home before aligning with the women’s movement for gender justice and equality?” she asks. 

Gupte feels  solidarity doesn’t mean saying “Not All Men”. “The “Not All Men” campaign, which posits ‘good’ men as not being perpetrators cannot gain credibility unless men publicly distance themselves from and expose violent men or sexual predators,” she adds.

Gupte believes that behaviours are learnt at a young age. “Young boys are raised to become violent men inside the home. Our experiences of working with rural children has had positive outcomes in terms of shared household chores by boys and girls, and adolescent boys challenging bullies and molestOrs. Working with young married couples has also created better communication,” she says. At the age of 70, Gupte is one of the few feminists who can give history and context. She reiterates that feminist spaces are hard earned.

“Five decades ago, when the autonomous women’s movement was gaining strength, there was hardly any space for women to speak about sexual assault. Now, younger women, activists, and feminists are speaking out, not only about violence by strangers and family members but also by men from the social sector. Queer feminists are challenging the structural violence perpetuated by cis-heteronormativity. These are welcome changes,” she says.

Women protest after the South Delhi rape. PIC/PTI

As far as if this is a new wave of feminism that we are standing at the precipice of? She answers not only the question but what each wave often does. “Feminisms adapt to the changing nature of private and public patriarchies. We should support each new wave that challenges gender inequality because it enlightens us about forms of discrimination that we hadn’t noticed or addressed earlier,” she says.

Men should realise they are only allies reiterates, “Men must remain allies, but not leaders of the gender justice movement. In order to become genuine allies, they must refuse the undue entitlements accrued to them at birth, both in the public and private domains,” she adds.

She emphasised that men cannot be painted with one brush. “Men are not a homogeneous category. Those subordinated through caste, class, gender, sexuality, religious belief, or disability do not have the same power, nor do they enjoy the impunity that powerful men have. They, as well as queer and trans people who face the worst brunt of patriarchy could be our potential allies. 

Leadership for gender justice must necessarily remain with those who are excluded, marginalised, and subordinated. We also should have the courage to unlearn what we have been taught since childhood in order to attain freedom and equality at all levels,” she adds.

Teen love is not the problem

Jamui Assault What can teens possibly have to gain from dating? Love, support, and confidence, says a 13-year-old who’s dating her classmate under the safe gaze of her mom

After the Jamui assault, initially there was a lot of noise online about why a 15-year-old was out with a boy, and how that was not “safe” or part of “our culture”. And yet, as a mob of men assaulted and groped the survivor under the pretext of “moral policing”, it was her teenaged friend who stuck by her and refused to let her out of his sight. 

Jamui was an extreme case, but even in metro cities like Mumbai, teen love is not looked upon kindly by society, which predictably directs its reproach at young girls. We speak to a 13-year-old in Mumbai to learn how she navigates her relationship with a classmate.

Young girls are some of the easiest targets for assault, as  we saw in  Jamui, Bihar. PIC/ISTOCK

Radhika’s mom, Surbhi (names changed) vets us first before she agrees to connect us to the teenager. We understand. A common friend had already told us how fiercely protective Surbhi is of her daughter, standing up for her 13-year-old who was caught “pressing” hands with her boyfriend in school during recess. Surbhi was called by a school representative but momma bear was ready.

“The school officials said they [Radhika and her boyfriend] were pressing hands and that they spend recess together every day. They had called her in and reprimanded her; the minute they mentioned that, I lost it. I asked how dare they take my child out and talk to her as if she has done something bad. They were stunned, to say the least,” Surbhi laughs.

Surbhi says that she has always maintained an open dialogue with her daughter, and is always in the know about Radhika’s boyfriends. When Surbhi finally passes the phone to Radhika, we ask her what she thinks about her friends or school authorities treating her badly due to her relationship. She nonchalantly says, “It’s okay. Like, it’s understandable. I stay away from him in school so it doesn’t cause a lot of trouble. But it doesn’t matter to me; as long as my parents support me, I don’t really care.”

We ask if her friends are equally open with their parents? “Some of them are okay. But some have really strict parents, so they’re really good at lying,” she says. For this clever girl, the best thing about being in a relationship is “I can always talk to someone. If I don’t want to tell my parents something, I can always text him or I can call him.” 

When we ask her if she has realised something about herself in the last year since she has been dating her boyfriend, she says, “It made me realise that people can be scared of me. Like, you know, he gets scared whenever I’m mad at him,” she adds. We can hear Surbhi laughing in the background.

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Locations in Mumbai where women marched on Friday in solidarity with the sexual assault survivors

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Age of the girl assaulted at Jamui, sparking protests

‘Stop giving the mic to toxic men’

Journalist Sanyukta Dharmadhikari flags how content creators give a platform to problematic views, such as victim-shaming, just for clout

INDEPENDENT journalist Sanyukta Dharmadhikari (@dramadhikari) pointed out how several content creators who comment on current affairs and giving a platform to people with views such as victim-blaming in the Jamui assault and the Cornell University rape in the US. She says stop giving the mic to everyone with regressive views.

Sanyukta Dharmadhikari

“We need to understand that there are some content creators who are just doing it for the views that they will get from these rage bait interviews,” she says. “We need to ask them why they are giving platform to such men. One man keeps saying he is Savarna said modesty is important in his culture, but the interviewer never asks him the role of men in these crimes,” she adds.

‘Gender activism is just as much about men’

Pravin Thote is a senior gender trainer who works on changing men’s perception of gender violence

Pravin Thote, a Bhandara native, has been working in the gender space in Mumbai for over a decade. Thote is a Project Coordinator with MAVA, and conducts sessions with Vacha and Smile Foundation who facilitates conversations with adult men above the age of 35 as well as adolescent boys in the 10 – 14 age group.

“The problem is that when we talk about gender, everyone thinks that it is only a matter of women. Even now, the funders think that gender programmes only work with women. The traditional approach is to empower them economically, teach them civil defence classes so that they can defend themselves,” he says.

Pravin Thote during a gender sensitisation workshop

Things changed with Nirbhaya, “In 2012, we started talking about working with men. But we got very little response. Colleges were not open to speak about men’s role. But because MAVA had been working with men for a long time, we were able to make some headway. The conversation about working with young boys really gained momentum post-COVID and the web series, Adolescence (2025),” he adds.

The web series made waves with its themes of toxic masculinity and the manosphere, and gave activists a way in. “That series helped us build a conversation. Why are boys so violent in this age of adolescence? One of the key reasons was that the digital platform has changed very rapidly,” he says. 

He works with three different age groups: boys aged 10 to 14, college students, and men above 45. “We talk to each group differently. With those above 45, I ask them about the pressure of being a man. If I were to suddenly tell them that they are violent, or that they are criminals, I’d lose them,” he says. 

With those above 35, it’s a different challenge. “Here, we work specifically with intersectional communities. The men work in hard labour. In my first two sessions, I talked about the pressure. I asked them, ‘When did you last cry?’ ‘Did you hug your father?’ These are all migrant workers who haven’t been around family for years. They often say they don’t have a relationship with their fathers at all. Many say they cried only when their daughter got married or their mother passed away,” he says.

The work is slow but rewarding: “We talk about what is ‘natural’ and what is ‘gender’. We show them some films like Juice (2017) and Natkat (2020) and have conversations to identify what gender violence can look like,” he adds. 

For the group of pre-pubescent and pubescent boys, grabbing and keeping their attention is the challenge. “Their attention span is very short, so we have to do a lot of activities and games,” he says. In one of the games, “We ask questions about violence, such as is it okay to break a traffic rule? They say it’s acceptable when you are in a hurry. What about throwing stones at a dog? 

They say that is not acceptable because even animals feel sad. Then the next question is, is teasing girls okay or not? They say, it is violence and not accepted. But when we frame it as  misbehaving with their mother, sister, or sometimes their partner or female friend, they say, ‘But Sir, the girl spoke like this, so I responded like this’,” he adds. 

“Going forward, there should be some form of regulation a social media ban for youths,” he says, “But also we need more engagement with young men and boys, otherwise it is just going to get worse.”

‘Catch ’em young’

Vacha spokesperson

“Over the past few years, Vacha has also expanded its work to include boys and young men, acknowledging that they too face challenges. Experience has shown Vacha that empowering girls alone is not enough. The progress a girl makes can often be undermined by gender-based discrimination and violence within her own home and community. Ultimately, creating a gender-equitable society requires both girls and boys, women and men, to be part of the process.”

‘Indian men refused to be a part of the feminist movement in the 70s’

Harish Sadani, founder of Men Against Violence & Abuse, says times are changing and many men want to be part of the revolution now 

Harish Sadani has been in the gender space for decades, even back when it wasn’t popular to collaborate with women feminists. Having co-founded Men Against Violence & Abuse (MAVA) 34 years ago.

“During the autonomous women’s movement in the ’70s, attempts were made to engage men, but were met with very bitter experiences. Women’s rights activists, academicians found that it was nearly impossible to involve men, so they chose to focus on women,” he says. But this strategy has to be re-evaluated, feels Sadani, “For men, attitude is a part of the problem. They don’t want to touch it [the cause], because of  the fear they’ll lose their privileges. At the same time, there is a large section of men, especially young men and adolescent boys, who could be potential supporters. But the effort to make that connection  with them and engaging long-term is not happening as much as is needed,” he adds.

Harish Sadani 

He feels there few reservations in engagement with men among many women’s groups. Not all, though, he stresses. He mentions Manisha Gupte, a veteran feminist from Pune. “She is a stalwart in gender justice movement. And  she has expressed, ‘For several years, we have worked for the women’s movement. But now we should pause and listen to people like Harish as to what strategies work or don’t work regarding male-engagement on gender-related matters’,” he says.

Periodic gender sensitisation workshops are held. “Here, when girls start talking about what according to them is their idea of a man, young men in these workshops are taking a pause, listening, and they are responding. It’s a small number but they are there,” he adds.

But this invisibility of the Northeastern state goes far beyond the last three years of violence. “Outsiders probably think that Manipur has been seeing conflict for three or four years. But we have memories and trauma from war stretching back decades — community conflicts, wars between the British, Americans, Japanese, World War I and II… So this horror and anxiety is deeply embedded in our stories, words, and art,” he says.

This trauma, passed down through generations, shows up in unexpected ways. One of his recent works, Don’t Die Starving, is literally based on “words passed down from my parents and, before that, her parents”. The artwork features a series of drawings and traditional Manipuri recipes pencilled onto 35 ceramic plates with cane stitching, along with a Manipuri cookbook that Merci is still working on. 

One of 35 ceramic plates with Manipuri recipes pencilled on them from the Don’t Die Starving series by Thamshangpha ‘Merci’ Maku. Pic/Courtesy Anant Art

The title of the work comes from childhood warnings from his mother to eat quickly, “because there could be an attack at any time, and if he died hungry, his spirit would starve too”. “Dinnertime for us is around 5 or 6 in the evening for the same reason – we don’t eat late in the night,” he says.

Masood Hussain

The artwork is an extension of an interactive art performance he had done during a Goan residency in 2023, cooking the same Manipuri dishes for everyone and sharing the memories attached to the food. There was an instant connection in the audience, he recalls. “Sometimes where language struggles to convey one’s reality to others, art does it so simply and yet profoundly,” he says.

Don’t Die Starving is one of the works currently on display at Merci’s first solo exhibition, Phanstasms, at Anant Art Gallery in New Delhi. Like the title suggests, the exhibition is full of dark spectres or what Merci calls “ghosts” of Manipur’s hidden history and pain. That anxiety comes through particularly in his crayon etchings on paper, such as a piece titled Shia Krao, which depicts dark figures with limbs in chaotic positions, very clearly signalling peril. This artwork harks back to tales his father would tell of the ghosts of army men hiding in the trees — folklore dating back to the Japanese invasion of Manipur during World War II. “Shia Krao is a practice of appeasing spirits — they can be good or bad — with offerings or rituals. Villagers put a pole outside the village and make their offerings there so the spirit is contained there,” he says. 

Kashmiri artist Masood Hussain’s image of child carrying a doll blinded by pellet guns went viral in 2016

Art, says Merci, is how he can make others “see who he is, where comes from, and how he and other Manipuris live”.

Across the world, artists have turned to the visual mediums to make inconvenient truths more palatable for social discourse, from Banksy’s graffiti on Palestine, to Kashmiri artist Masood Hussain’s paintings on unrest in Kashmir. 

Georgina Maddox and Thamshangpha Maku

Closer home in Mumbai, the queer community has been grieving the passage of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, which has snatched their right to self-identification of gender, subjecting them to humiliating inspections by a medical board and the government for legal recognition. The amendment was passed despite sustained protests by the trans and non-binary communities, and extensive media coverage of the controversy. And yet, the movement found surprisingly little support among cis-het folk and even among the larger LGBTQIA+ community.

Perhaps that’s because people tend to “other” anyone different from them, putting more weight in the difference rather than the ways we are all alike. That is where art can help, says queer activist and art critic-curator Georgina Maddox, who curated Beyond the Binary, an art exhibition at Colaba’s Apre Art House last month, featuring works by 11 queer artists. The August showcase was one of the few exhibitions in the country to respond directly to the Trans Act amendment.
“This exhibition really celebrated the body and the togetherness of people who are non-binary. They want to tell people that gender is something which is constructed, and desire is something which doesn’t necessarily acknowledge this construction,” Maddox says.

Banksy uses graffiti to highlight issues, such as this mural outside a London court to critique the UK’s crackdown on a pro-Palestine protest group. Pic/X@malonebarry

But when protests, media coverage, and even social media debates have failed to some extent, can art succeed in making the invisible struggles of marginalised people more visible to society? “Art offers a way to imagine someone else’s life and perspective — something that might not even be visible to you otherwise. Sometimes it’s an image of a tender moment, sometimes it’s someone’s fantasy — it gives you a window to an idea one may not have had the language or vocabulary for before,” Maddox tells us.

Its chief weapon is to disarm the viewer. “Art appeals to the senses first, and then your mind starts processing and intellectualising it,” she stresses, “Words, on the other hand, require your intellect from the get-go, and it’s all too easy to slip into over-intellectualisation and resistance to anything new. Art is more open to interpretation, so it’s easier to see yourself in the story and relate to it.”

“This way, we make more allies. We need more voices to join the fight, and for that, we need the mainstream to understand us better. But where an essay might bore the non-marginalised, and a protest might provoke them, art can disarm and open the doors to their hearts,” she adds. While some of the art in the exhibition is loud and proud in its queer identity, many of the images are more subtle in their messaging — a faceless couple holding hands; one man gazing at another at a monument. As Maddox says, “It’s love, and who can’t relate to that?” 

For many, the paper leak protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi was the first time they were exposed to pellet guns, allegedly used against the protestors. And yet, Kashmiri youths have been living with this reality for decades. This pain — that the rest of the country has long shut out — is reflected in art by renowned Kashmiri artist Masood Hussain. 

As peace in the Valley deteriorated amid clashes between insurgents and the armed forces, Hussain has responded with art. In 2016, after several youths were blinded by pellet guns used to quell protests over militant Burhan Wani, he created a black-and-white series of images depicting blinded children. “I had visited the hospital and seen a lot of children with pellet injuries; I couldn’t bear it. This digital art series expressed my resentment against this violence,” says Hussain, an alumnus of the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai. 

The series, particularly an image of a child carrying blinded dolls, went viral. “In any other scenario, a child with a doll is a happy image,” says Hussain, who is now working on a series depicting Kashmir’s history. Artists in Kashmir in particular have paid for their outspokenness, at times shunned by galleries across the country because their work is themed on conflict, which is “not easy to sell”. And yet, many like Hussain carry on, because they believe art is meant to help people. “Art conveys the most primitive and profound feelings: hope, pain, violence. And human beings react to those emotions. My art, too, reflects the reality in Kashmir, both the hope and the pain.” 

Khursheed Ali and Nasir Hassan brought this same pain from Kashmir to New Delhi in 2024 with protest art depicting the erasure of Kashmir’s history of conflict and death. They use red ink and white shrouds to evoke death. They also draw attention to the unexplained disappearance of scores of young men amid the government’s crackdown on militancy. 

“How else can we convey our suffering? How can we get people to hear us?” say the artiste duo.

From the Beyond The Binary show, Something for Each Other by Veer Misra and Exiles - The Party by Sunil Gupta. Pics/courtesy Apre Art House

‘Art has changed perception throughout history’

“Art cannot legislate freedom, but it can change the way we see the person standing in front of us,” says Prerna SM Jain, founder and director of Apre Art House. “That shift in perception can be profound. Throughout history, art has shaped how we understand power, identity and society. Mughal portraiture constructed and reinforced the authority of the emperor; Raja Ravi Varma transformed Indian visual culture by bringing mythological imagery into homes across the country; Soviet posters turned ideology into mass visual language; and Picasso’s Guernica became an enduring symbol of the violence of war. Artists have also used this power to resist, from political movements to Gran Fury and ACT UP, where art and graphic design became tools of queer activism… Art does not simply reflect its time. It can shape what we see, remember and question. It can make visible experiences that have been overlooked and create a starting point for difficult conversations.” 

Last week, an American recruiter named Caitlin Wehniainen ranted on social media about a twenty-something candidate who showed up to her job interview with an iced coffee in hand. Wehniainen stated that such an action gives the impression that the interview is just another casual errand on the applicant’s to-do list and looks unprofessional. 

Gen Zs on the other hand have argued that they don’t care to put up the charade of “professionalism” that previous generations did. In an era of unprecedented unemployment and income insecurity — in India alone, 20 per cent of graduates aged between 25–29 are unemployed according to the latest State of Working India report by Azim Premji University — do we really have time to discuss whether iced coffee is professional or not? What happens when you get an education, graduate from college, get a masters degree, but still don’t get a job and maybe AI replaces you? You find an entire generation jaded, because despite doing everything right, they struggle to find entry-level jobs.

Palvi Angne (right), head of HR at Benne, with one of the founders, Akhil Iyer

“For Gen Z, professionalism means how well you deliver, your communication skills, whether you meet deadlines, your performance, and not your appearance,” says 26-year-old Raveena, “But traditional employers still expect a degree of formality.”

Raveena is a Gen Z manager managing a team of other Gen Z employees. “If you’re making the interviewer wait till you finish your coffee, that’s an entirely different conversation. But if you just have a coffee in hand, and you’re otherwise engaged and prepared, I don’t see how it matters,” Raveena says.

But this is a case-by-case scenario, she says. “Part of professionalism is knowing when to adapt. You need to see the kind of environment you’re in and show up accordingly. It’s important to remember that professionalism isn’t about removing personality, but it’s about reading the room,” Raveena says. 

Is it just another excuse to pile on the youngest — and seemingly most hated — generation in the workforce? “Every generation that is new to the workforce will be hated,” says Raveena, “Gen Z is just challenging norms, which every generation before us did too. But challenging norms doesn’t mean that we’re challenging professionalism. It’s just a preference for ‘purposeful professionalism’ instead of ‘performative professionalism’.”

Isha Rana, a 26-year-old working professional, calls herself a Zillenial (somewhere between Gen Z and Millenial). She says, “I wouldn’t personally bring a coffee to an interview. But it depends on who the interview is with. If someone is coming in for the first time, sure, a cup of coffee is fine. But if it’s an interview with the CEO of the company, I don’t know if bringing a coffee is a smart choice. First impressions are important.”

Shweta Sikchi and Isha Rana

For some employers, the change to purposeful professionalism is a welcome one. “I don’t think everyone hates Gen Z,” says Shweta Sikchi, a recruitment consultant, “I think Gen Z is the first generation entering workplaces that is openly questioning rules that previous generations simply accepted. That makes the friction much more visible.”

“There is also a selection bias here: the young employee who performs well doesn’t become a LinkedIn post. The one who says ‘Why do I need to come to the office?’ does. So we end up discussing the most provocative examples as if they represent an entire generation,” she adds.

At the same time, Gen Z isn’t automatically right, she says. “Confidence without context can become entitlement, and challenging authority is valuable only when it is accompanied by judgment and accountability.” Arguably, sipping on coffee is not the problem; many interviewers even offer a bracing cup of Joe to candidates to make them feel welcome.

Palvi Angne, head of HR at Benne, has been in an interview-coffee-debacle of her own. At Benne, almost all interviews are conducted at Benne’s outlets. “I was interviewing a candidate, he was 35+. We were right outside the outlet on the pavement and I offered him a coffee. Throughout the interview he didn’t take a sip. I insisted, too, but he said that he didn’t want to be disrespectful,” she says, “The interview went very well, but then the minute it ended, he gulped his coffee down and threw the disposable cup on the road. That was a big no-no.”

In sectors like hospitality, which are famous for rigidity and hierarchy, Benne is intentional with keeping the doors open and approachable. “We’re the kind of workplace where employees and guests are alike. The founders make dosas and open doors. Although these might seem like unintentional choices, they’re very calculated because they reduce the difference between us and our guests."

In the first year of inception, many of Benne’s employees were in their mid to late 20s. “We’re an incredibly young company. And because all of us are inherently like-minded people, that’s how we’ve built the culture.”

The shape of flavour

Earlier this year, Chef Rahul Punjabi, Founder of Bang Bang Noodles, spent two weeks travelling through Sichuan, mostly in Chengdu and Chongqing, with a trip to Leshan, exploring its flavours, ingredients and culture. Alongside sharpening his noodle-making skills, he learnt some Mandarin and experienced the Sichuan-hua way of life.

“I met so many cheeky, big-hearted and fun-loving people who are seriously opinionated about their food and how they like to eat and cook. I’ve experienced that level of stubborn opinion in fine dining throughout my career, where much of the focus is on finesse and appearance, as in Cantonese and Jiangsu cuisine. In Sichuan, there’s far more thought and technique devoted to developing flavour, texture and xiang, loosely translated as fragrance.”

Punjabi found the noodle culture particularly different from Japan. “In Japan, young apprentices are drilled in technique for years to make perfectly thin, straight and uniform noodles. In Sichuan, the noodles are intentionally rustic, made by craftsmen, not artists, who spend most of their time perfecting the sauces, chilli oils and soups.”

He learnt that lesson first-hand with dao xiao mian, or blade-cut noodles. “You hold the dough on your shoulder on a wooden plank and slice ribbons directly into boiling water. After three full days of failing to make decent-looking noodles, I can attest to how hard it is. An apprentice gets a stainless-steel dough scraper and has to bend, sharpen and shape it into their dao. It’s a living thing, flexible and adjustable, changing the shape of the eventual noodle. No two chefs make the same-looking noodles because no two dao are the same, and each lao ban has their own preference. Some like them thin in width but thick in height; others flat and wide; some want one side to taper and flare. They’re all right because it’s their personal cooking philosophy. But they all agreed on one thing: the noodles shouldn’t be exactly even and perfect. Where’s the fun in that if it all tastes the same?”

The food itself brought another surprise. “I was shocked by how not spicy the food was, despite looking like a megaton bomb. Then I let my guard down and was blown away by the nuclear explosion that is Chongqing huo guo, or hot pot,” he laughs.

Across Sichuan and Xi’an, texture and variety are central to noodle culture. “In Sichuan, the sauces are often made with minced meat, chilli oil or mian tang, the cloudy water the noodles are boiled in. So the noodles themselves need to bring texture and a sense of fullness. Think blade-cut noodles, po go mian or blanket noodles, tian shui mian, the super-chunky sweet-water noodles, and thin, round Chongqing xiao mian. In Xi’an, the sauce or soup is much more straightforward. It’s a colder area and the ingredients are limited, so they’ve developed incredible variety in the noodles themselves: biang biang, Lanzhou lamian, chive-leaf-shaped noodles, cat’s ears, rolled oat-flour noodles and sandwiched sorghum-flour noodles.”

But the culture stayed with him. “It changed my entire philosophy as a chef. I used to chase perfection. Sichuanese chefs showed me that the pursuit of flavour can be even more rewarding, and good food and great company always make for a good time,” he signs off.

Crafted to slurp

Chef Lakhan Jethani returned from Bangkok with more than a notebook full of noodle ratios. Four days at the Yamato Noodle Academy, hosted at No Name Noodle, a Michelin-recognised ramen shop, gave him a closer look at the craft, science and culture behind a bowl of Japanese noodles.

“What drew me to Bangkok was that Yamato Noodle Academy from Japan was hosting the class at one of my favourite places in the world, No Name Noodle. The fact that the academy and Chef Shinji Inoue were doing this together was a no-brainer for me. There’s another class in November, which I’ll go for too.”

The workshop brought together around 16 students, many of them chefs and restaurateurs from across the world. “We formed this global ramen community. Someone from Vietnam had a small ramen cart, a chef from China was going to open a ramen shop, and someone from Korea already had a restaurant and was planning another. We started talking about noodles, ramen, what each of us was creating, and sharing our experiences. That community was the most valuable part of the trip.”

In Sichuan, the noodles are intentionally rustic, made by craftsmen, not artists, who focus on sauces, chilli oils and soups

For Jethani, the course wasn’t about learning a single formula. “There wasn’t anything about noodle or ramen making that I had completely not appreciated. I went to learn more, understand different approaches and see how other people use their techniques.”

What surprised him was the precision with which some of these variables can be measured. “There are scientific instruments that measure the viscosity of a broth and the stretching of noodles. I don’t have these tools in India, but I can send my flour and the water I use to Yamato Academy in Japan. They can test them and give me the exact ratios I need to make good ramen and noodles.”

Lakhan Jethani with chef Shinji Inoue

He also came away with a greater appreciation of ageing, something that is central to Japanese food culture but less familiar in Indian noodle-making. “Ageing isn’t really part of our rich culinary heritage in India in the same way. In Japan, they age fish, and noodles can also be rested for a period of time so the gluten relaxes. That changes the stretch and allows the noodles to develop more flavour.”

Ultimately, the lesson was about intent. “What makes a bowl of Japanese noodles, whether it’s ramen or soba, truly memorable is that the noodles are made specifically for what you’re going to serve with them. In Japan, it’s common to have different noodle textures: soft, chewy or hard. You use different noodles for different broths. If my broth is super-heavy and rich, I’d use a noodle with more flour that can absorb the broth and give you a more satisfying slurp. With a lighter broth, I’d want something silky and softer. That’s what you learn: what do you actually want from the noodle? What do you want from that bowl of ramen or soba? Once you have that intent, you can work backwards.”

Yet the most lasting lesson may have been less technical. “The biggest gift was the people. My fellow students became family in a matter of days, and the No Name Noodle team welcomed us like old friends. The friendships I made aren’t going anywhere. This is a family I’ll be coming back to, again and again.”

The Truffle Edamame Upma is a good place to start. It has the familiar softness of upma, coconut chutney, and podi, then adds truffle, giving the Indian staple an unexpected detour. The Borough Breakfast puts a crisp potato waffle beneath a fried egg, with Bravas sauce and aioli. The Alter Ego Grilled Cheese brings sourdough and a fromage blend together with Bloody Mary ketchup that we think they should bottle and sell. Even the drink keeps the mood light: a Meloncello Spritz, made without alcohol, is bright, citrusy and easy to linger over.

Downstairs, Blanco gives a neighbourhood cafe feel; upstairs, Noir offers an elevated dining vibe. PICS/ATUL KAMBLE

Then we take the staircase. Upstairs, the mood shifts. Noir is darker, more intimate and a little more adventurous. A central island bar becomes the heart of the room, with seating gathered around it and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking SV Road. The room invites you to settle in, but the food makes you look twice. The Sol Kadhi Ceviche arrives with red snapper, sol kadhi and a kokum-ginger granita. Familiar but way too cooler and sharper.

The French Tuk Tuk is another playful collision: potato pavé, Sindhi kadhi, sushi rice and lacto Bhavnagari. It sounds like several different kitchens have wandered into the same dish, but it comes together like a hearty meal. Dessert continues the game. The Sticky Toffee Pudding pairs date cake with miso toffee sauce, oat streusel and mascarpone ice cream. The Mud Pie goes deeper into chocolate, with 70 per cent Callebaut cake, Nutella namelaka, Bournvita crumble and malt ice cream.

Sol kadhi Ceviche

It’s interesting how between the two floors there is an idea that holds the restaurant together, from artworks to design to food. They travel, borrow, change and come home as something slightly different. A private room on the first floor takes the idea even further. Called Eclipse, the 10-seater sits between Blanco and Noir and allows guests to order from both menus. One table, two personalities. 

The idea comes from founder Krish Shah, whose own journey has never been particularly linear. He was expected to join his family’s agro-chemical business eventually, but instead trained at Le Cordon Bleu, worked at PwC, and spent time in the kitchen at The Bombay Canteen. Perhaps that is why The Alter Ego feels less like a restaurant built around a single idea and more like a place comfortable with having several.

Green Apple Fennel

“I’ve always believed people don’t have just one way of dining. Sometimes you’re looking for something familiar and comforting, and other times you’re in the mood to discover something unexpected. The Alter Ego was born from that idea. I never saw comfort and creativity as opposites; they’re simply different ways of creating memorable experiences. So instead of asking guests to choose between them, we built a place where both can co-exist side by side, each with its own identity but united by the same intention: to make every meal feel worth coming back for.”

That’s what makes the experience work. You can come to Blanco when you want something easy. You can head upstairs when you want to try something different. Or you can do both. Because while it is technically one restaurant, the concept gives you rather more than one reason to stay.

WHERE: The Alter Ego, The Presidential, next to the Toyota Showroom, SV Road, Bandra West

‘Neither chef nor restaurant brings Michelin stars; the product does’ 
Gaggan Anand, Gaggan,  SATO, Ms Maria & Mr Singh, Bangkok; RAGA, New Delhi

“My journey began when I went to Bangkok in 2007 and dreamed of getting a star. In 2018, we finally got one, and then a second. But that journey is personal. Every restaurant in India will have its own story. When we started Gaggan, only a few Indian restaurants had a Michelin star; we were the first in Asia. What has happened in the last five years is phenomenal.

While everybody wants to come to Mumbai or Delhi, India has a much bigger future. Look at China, Bangkok, or Japan, where different cities have developed their own food identities. India could have 30 cities with 30 different food identities. But it has to build the foundation first.

Beyond the prestige, Michelin can create a major shift. If chefs want to work in India, they will have an incentive to build something of their own. I think we’re ready now. We should focus on a place’s food and let restaurants tell their own story. And very good chefs can come from ordinary restaurants, not just fine dining. Just stay rooted and do your own work; ultimately, the product earns the accolades. 

Government support can also help create food destinations, as it has in other countries. Tourism, transport and promotion create a larger ecosystem that makes people travel to explore newer culinary destinations.”

‘Chefs won’t have to leave India to gain world-class experience’
Garima Arora, Gaa Bangkok; Banng, Mumbai and Delhi

Michelin’s entry into India could be a major catalyst on two fronts: global validation and operational rigour. Indian cuisine has long been pigeonholed internationally as either cheap, comforting street food or overly spiced curry-house fare. It could push global culinary media to engage with Indian food through technique, micro-seasonality and ingredient provenance.

At home, the impact could be equally significant. Young cooks would have less reason to leave Mumbai, Delhi, or Bengaluru to train in world-class, disciplined kitchens. It could strengthen supply chains, encourage local farming for niche produce and build a culture where consistency, technique and precise hospitality matter. Beyond the hype, it could create a more structured career path for the next generation of Indian hospitality talent.

But Michelin cannot simply transplant its traditional French framework onto India. European service styles, formal dining rooms and wine-led pairings do not capture the breadth of Indian dining. The Guide has evolved in markets such as Bangkok, Tokyo and Singapore, and India will require the same flexibility.

Indian food is communal, emotional and deeply rooted in home traditions and hyper-local techniques that do not always fit neatly into tasting menus. Hospitality, too, is different. Warm, intuitive Indian service cannot be measured solely through the lens of formal silver service. 

Technique should matter more than luxury. A star should recognise a chef mastering fermentation in the Northeast, perfecting a slow-cooking technique in a tandoor or executing a complex tadka rooted in generations of knowledge, not simply a restaurant importing caviar or truffle.

If Michelin approaches India strictly through a Western fine-dining lens, it risks missing the depth of its food culture. But if it gives real weight to Bib Gourmands, historic institutions, regional cuisines and technique over tablecloths, its India chapter could be genuinely transformative. And the story cannot stop at Mumbai and Delhi. Kolkata, Chennai, Nagaland, Meghalaya and countless other regions have food traditions that deserve a much wider audience.”

‘Michelin is late in India by at least eight years’
Manish Mehrotra, Founder Nisaba, New Delhi

“Michelin in India will definitely help the industry, especially chefs and restaurants, in getting more recognition within the country and globally. It will certainly boost tourism here as well. More people will come to India for the food, as they go to Spain, Italy and Thailand for culinary adventures.

The chef community will get a lot of encouragement. Chefs will be taken more seriously because, most often, it is the chef’s work that gets the star, so if the chef goes, Michelin goes. Unlike the rest of the world, in India most chefs are employees, not necessarily partners. I have also worked as an employee for most of my life. So definitely, chefs will get their dues.

Michelin has to cover all of India because so many restaurants deserve a star.  They might start mostly in the big cities, because India is so vast. They may start with one or a few cities, then slowly cover the rest of the country. 

But with a country this large, they also have to be very careful about how they communicate. Michelin has so many categories, and sometimes a restaurant with a strong PR machine that gets a mention makes such a big fuss about it that it overshadows another restaurant that has received a star. The messaging has to be very clear, especially in the beginning, so that the audience doesn’t get confused.”

‘Covering more ground will make sense for a guide born from a tyre company to encourage’
Aditi Dugar, Co Founder, Masque, BaR Paradox and Twentyseven Bakehouse

“Indian cuisine has been ready for the global stage for years. It is layered, deeply documented, and shaped over generations, with incredible chefs and restaurants doing important work. Michelin coming to India would give the industry another global benchmark and place Indian restaurants in a different international conversation.

That conversation is already growing through Asia’s 50 Best, The World’s 50 Best, Tatler, The Best Chef  Awards and La Liste, which give restaurants a global platform. But Michelin carries particular weight. It is one of the world’s most recognised dining guides, with a rigorous and consistent approach to evaluating restaurants. Its stars are based on the quality of the cooking, using clearly defined criteria around ingredients, technique, flavour, the personality of the chef, value and consistency. A Michelin star signals that a restaurant has met those culinary standards, giving it a distinct position on the international dining stage.

Michelin has also evolved. It now recognises street hawkers and small restaurants, not just fine dining. In India, that could mean spotlighting experimentation, technique and forgotten food traditions rather than restricting the Guide to the metros. Restaurant awards have historically centred on cities with established hospitality ecosystems, larger dining audiences, talent and investment. Michelin can widen that lens, bringing smaller cities and lesser-known establishments into the conversation. 

As a diner, that has been my experience of the Guide: it goes deep and covers a lot of ground. That makes sense for a guide born from a tyre company and created to encourage people to travel. India’s food story extends far beyond Mumbai and Delhi.

Bengaluru, Goa and Kolkata have vibrant food cultures, while the Northeast, Ladakh, Uttarakhand and Kerala offer distinctive cuisines and ingredients that are often underrepresented. Kolkata’s food culture has a great mix of communities and influences that particularly resonate with me as a Marwari. Selfishly, I’d love to be the first three-Michelin-star restaurant in the country, but India also has so much else to offer.”

‘We can stay in India and tell our own culinary stories’
Hussain Shahzad, Executive Chef, Hunger Inc. Hospitality

“Michelin coming to India is a really exciting moment for Indian restaurants and chefs. I’ve grown up watching Michelin and have worked in Michelin-starred restaurants, so it has always been an aspirational benchmark for me. What feels particularly special now is that we can stay in India, cook the food we believe in, tell stories about our own cuisines and still aspire to that recognition here.

For the wider chef community, I think it creates a healthy sense of collaboration and gives us another benchmark to work towards. Over the last decade, Indian chefs have found a much stronger voice on the global stage, and Indian cuisine is increasingly being taken seriously as food that can compete anywhere in the world. Michelin coming to India can reinforce that progress and give the work being done by chefs here another layer of recognition.”

‘Michelin inspectors visit anonymously and restaurants can be inspected multiple times.’
Chef Himanshu Saini, Tresind Studio, Dubai

“The first impact of Michelin coming to India will be on gastronomic tourism. Michelin is one of the most prestigious and respected organisations, and once the guide comes, you will see travellers making a point of visiting these restaurants. We see this in Dubai, where people with even a few hours between flights make reservations, dine and head back to the airport.

Restaurants become busier, and the wider impact is felt on tourism and the economy. For the chef community, it is the highest recognition you can get. Every chef has the ambition to earn Michelin stars. Michelin is not simply about the food. It looks at the ingredient quality, the chef’s personality on the plate, how original the idea is, and, most importantly, consistency. It is about the entire experience and how memorable you can make a meal.

When Michelin came to Dubai, restaurants took what they do more seriously. There was competitiveness, but in a good way, and that elevated the dining scene. In India, I think the guide can do something similar. And there are so many myths around Michelin. You don’t need an expensive restaurant, white tablecloths or a particular kind of service. 

You can have a small restaurant, a bistro, a café or even street food. Michelin has the Bib Gourmand for places that offer exceptional food at a more accessible price point. The process takes time. It’s not simply one inspector walking into a restaurant once, having a meal and making a decision. Michelin inspectors visit anonymously and restaurants can be inspected multiple times. Consistency is really an important part of the process.”

What is The Michelin Guide?

The Michelin Guide began in France in 1900 as a free handbook for motorists, complete with maps, tyre-changing advice, and places to eat. Anonymous inspectors were introduced in 1933, while stars arrived in 1926. Even today, décor and service do not determine stars; inspectors judge the food against five universal criteria.

Do you think you understand what Da Vinci was trying with Mona Lisa? Whatever it is, the whole painting perhaps feels foreign, boring, somber and even a little intimidating. All things said, perhaps art doesn’t seem to be your cup of tea. There are people in Mumbai who are actively trying to change that, and trying to make art fun and accessible for those who haven’t got much exposure to it.

Abhishek Lamba interacting with participants playing ‘But I Don’t Understand Art’ at Artcade Night

“I always felt that art galleries were a very passive space,” says Abhishek Lamba. He is a game designer, one of the brains behind the Shasn and Shasn Azadi board games, who now brings his design expertise and ingenuity to the world of art with “Artcade Nights”. He creates original games tailored to every exhibit, that help the attendees understand the narrative and historical context behind the artwork. His process is a long one of examining all pieces and conversations with the curators and artists, and brainstorming how the theme or essence of the exhibit can be gamified.

Mumbai Sketch Club members sharing their work with each other

The results are always interesting. His most common game is But I Don’t Understand Art, in which everyone walks through the gallery and picks up the small printed copies of three artworks which they understood the least. A race ensues as the participants hunt down people who have understood the pieces that baffled them. In a flurry, meanings and themes of every piece are discussed, and the first person to collect the explanation for all three of their cards wins a book tied to the show.

Participants at Artcade Night working together to decipher the meanings of the artworks at an exhibition in the city

“The games turn a passive space into an active one, where you can build a community around art,” as Lamba puts it. Camaraderie aside, the games are a very effective way for people to learn and understand. “As a game designer,” Lamba states, “I believe that games are our most natural systems of learning. When you think about it, you would notice that the progeny of most species play games. Kittens and puppies play hide and seek. We grew up playing it too. Across species, why do we play the same kind of games? Games are our body’s natural way of learning.”

Mumbai Sketch Club members displaying new work after a productive meet-up

With a number of repeat attendees, it is safe to say the games have succeeded in bringing more people to the galleries. For some, they have even given birth to a new outlook. Viveka Sah considers herself among the latter. “Despite my educational background in art, I do feel like Artcade has helped me engage with art in ways I had never encountered before. It’s helped me approach art from a more personal and narrativised perspective that is really hard to encounter in any other capacity.”

Participants with the artworks they have made during Artcade Night

While Artcade Nights has made a convert out of many a person who thought art wasn’t for them, “I would say one of the first converts was actually me,” says Lamba. “I came into this world as an outsider. Now I am reading so much more about art history, reading so much more about all these artists.” 

To admire and understand is one thing, but what if you want to create something yourself? A small cartoon, a silly doodle, something you put on paper without fear of judgment. You can always take up sketching with the Mumbai Sketch Club.

 Aarohi Devasthale and Nikita Thakur

It was founded by two artists, Aarohi Devasthale and Nikita Thakur, in an attempt to soothe an increasing sense of isolation that they were feeling as creatives. Devasthale recounts, “Nikita and I wanted to create a third space where people can come with their art supplies on a weekend morning, meet strangers who are also into art and draw together. A social gathering where people don’t have to shell out money to attend.”

The result of their efforts is a thriving community of artists, including beginners and experienced artists alike. “We have met people who haven’t drawn in years and are restarting with us, or those who are professionals,” Devasthale is proud to admit, “I still remember one woman who told me she never used to sketch and draw, and actually discovered she was great at it by attending Sketch Club. She is now a regular and we love seeing her gorgeous paintings!”

Abhishek Lamba

People of different ages and professional backgrounds meet up at cafés in Andheri and Bandra on Saturday mornings, and let their creative juices flow. Across 17 meet-ups, they have managed to invite over 200 people. “The speed with which we have grown,” Thakur believes, 

“is a testament to the fact that people really need recurring low-pressure meet-ups in the city. We are so happy to see people become regulars, form friendships with each other, and share their love for art.”

Sayali Parkar, a member, shares, “I was stuck between wanting to create and being burnt out. I found myself procrastinating all the time. But joining the club changed things. It gave me purpose to wake up, get ready and get going to make art. I started treating it as a priority.”

Sayali Parkar

Thanks to people like Lamba, Devasthale, and Thakur, understanding and making art is becoming easier, and much more fun. There are no excuses anymore. All that is left is for us to thank Mona Lisa for piquing our interest and start drawing. 

How to join

Artcade Nights: Find tickets for upcoming events at Lamba’s page on Instagram @lambashake or his website lambashake.github.io

Bombay Sketch Club: Join upcoming meet-ups through Instagram at @mumbaisketchclub 

A grant for a documentary on Punjabi folk music in 2015-16 first got them journeying across Punjab’s Majha, Malwa, and Doaba regions looking for folk artistes. It was during these trips that they found the people who would become a part of Walia’s debut film. “It’s a people’s film,” he insists, “The landscape is explored through its people — their hopes, ambitions, histories, and struggles.”

At the heart of Birds in the Dark is a land-based struggle where overlapping identities of class, caste and gender are brought into sharp focus

At the heart of Birds in the Dark, which is also produced by Hansal Mehta and stars Mauli Singh, Sapna Das, Harwinder Aujla, Shahnawaz Bhat, and Navdeep Bajwa, is a land-based struggle where overlapping identities of class, caste, and gender are brought into sharp focus. The conflict’s epicentre, Walia tells us, was the Sangrur district in Punjab, in a village called Balad Kalan where they witnessed a protest against the illegal occupation of land, reserved for landless Dalit farm labourers. He explains that shamlat (village common land) which, as per the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act 1964, reserves 33 per cent for Dalit farmers, but through deceitful means like dummy bidding during auctions, or other ways of coercion, big landlords grab that land for themselves.

There were a few times, Walia recalls, when he found that some landless Dalit farm labourers were able to get hold of this land, but ultimately not able to sustain it as the ecosystem does not support them, and they found cultivating the crop through the year difficult. “There is also an important aspect that comes into play — the idea of collective farming, where Dalit families farm the land together and profits and margins can be equally distributed,” he says, “There is a sense of dignity which comes with it. That is a core element that the film wanted to explore.” Moreover, Walia noticed a sense of solidarity among the women in the agrarian movement. “The protest was largely steered by women,” an aspect that translates strongly in his film.

Shashank Walia

Walia — who has also written and shot the film — has a post-graduate degree in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, a place that “shaped” him and “taught him to see the world”, and is also a cinematography graduate from the Film and Television Institute of India. He is critical of the tendency, seen in a lot of cinematographers who transition to direction, to let the image take precedence over the imagery. Imagery is what goes beyond the visual language to appeal to the other senses. “It’s what you hear, what you feel, what you reflect on. It’s also what shapes your viewpoint, your vision. It is through Punjab and its people that I was really able to break through that aspect.”

The film is also shot in black-and-white, a decision Walia took during the writing of the film. He feels that the starkness of the image helps to bring audiences closer to the people and the space. At the same time, “when the colour goes away from that realism, it also moves into a certain kind of abstraction”. For the director who has shot documentaries, the monochromatic image also helps create a bridge between the modes of fiction and non-fiction.

“There is a documentary aspect to the film which integrates with fiction very gently. The film doesn’t commit to the idea of the real and yet creates a new real for the viewer to experience.” This in-betweenness, Walia says, is an important part of his practice. “Black-and-white helps in playing with that kind of liminality. The characters are not really polarised or working in binaries. It’s an intersectional film because it deals with notions of class, caste, gender, sexuality, patriarchy, and even those of the state and nation as connected aspects.”

‘Khadi is a sentiment’
Shruti Sancheti

Designer Shruti Sancheti has been working with only Indian weaves like khadi and other fabrics for two decades for her label Pinnacle and Across 29. “Khadi is not a fabric, it is a sentiment. If there was ever something that could be called our national fabric, for me, it would be khadi.”

Shruti Sancheti

Having grown up in Kolkata and studied History honours before studying fashion, Sancheti cherishes the significance of khadi even more deeply. This narrative very often makes people think khadi is boring or humble, but it is a versatile fabric and can be beautiful and luxurious too, she says. Khadi also appeals to the environmentally conscious buyer today. But designers need to give it a contemporary expression and work on textile innovations.

“I don’t think khadi itself needs to be made fashionable. What needs to change is the way we interpret it for today’s lifestyle, through silhouettes, colours, and value addition. The fabric is timeless, the expression around it needs to keep evolving.”

The bigger challenge is that the weavers she works with are often the last generation willing to take up weaving. “We need to educate the global audience about khadi beyond its historic relevance. It needs to be a collective effort between the government, designers, and weavers, to promote khadi, educate people, and make it accessible to a wider audience.” She sees khadi entering a new era though. “Khadi has never been more relevant. In a world facing climate change, sustainability is no longer a trend. It is a necessity.”

‘Craft doesn’t need sympathy. It needs relevance’
Amritha Ram

Amritha Ram, the creative director of KH House of Khaddar believes the next chapter of khadi is about reinvention without erasure. “You don’t have to remove its history to make it modern. You simply have to give it permission to have a future.” Khadi, she says, carries its history without being trapped by it, and can be used in a contemporary space.

Amritha Ram

“The real luxury of khadi is not perfection; it is individuality.” The challenge is keeping the craftsmanship economically relevant in a world that expects everything to be faster, cheaper, and uniform. “Handwoven cloth cannot compete with machines on speed, and I don’t think it should have to. As designers, our responsibility is to create enough value around the craft that the people who make it are valued too,” says Ram.

Sustainability cannot be only about the fabric. It must also be about the people who make, buy, and wear them, she adds. It is not enough to commission a handwoven fabric for one collection and then disappear.  “Weavers need consistent work, better visibility, and a market that understands why handmade cloth should command a different value,” says Ram.

House of Khaddar believes that the next chapter of khadi is about reinvention without erasure

The craft needs to be made aspirational for the next generation. If younger people see weaving as something that offers neither financial security nor growth, naturally they will look elsewhere, she rues. “Preserving a craft cannot mean asking another generation to preserve it at their own economic expense,” she says, “That has changed the way I look at my responsibility as a designer. I don’t want to use khadi simply because it gives a collection a beautiful story. I want design to create desire for the fabric, because desire creates demand, and demand creates continuity. Craft doesn’t need sympathy. It needs relevance, demand, and fair value. Khadi should be allowed to be desirable before it is dutiful,” she sums up.

‘The anonymity of the weaver is an ethical issue’
Shafaque Ali

Khadi has memory, says designer Shafaque Ali, founder of the label SHAFAQUE. “Most textiles are engineered for identical production runs. Khadi, after 10 years of use, looks more interesting than it did on the first day. The weave softens where it has been worn. The colour deepens where it has caught the light,” says Ali. 

“I grew up in Jharkhand, where handloom was not heritage — it was simply the way cloth was made. My mother’s generation bought khadi because it was available, not because it was symbolic. It wasn’t until much later, when I was studying in Florence and working in New York, that I understood what had been lost in my own distance from it.”

Actor and filmmaker Molshri wearing a khadi ensemble by SHAFAQUE at Cannes 2026

She says that there is something scientific about the way hand-spun cotton absorbs dye differently from mill-spun cotton — the irregularity creates depth that no synthetic process can replicate. Ali says that the nature of the fabric is not a problem to be solved; you work with it rather than around it. 

Khadi from different regions behaves differently; she uses the denser weave from Wardha for her structural pieces, and Bengal khadi which is softer for layering against the skin. At her showcase in Paris — part of The Couture Concord (which she hosted as a CCIFI France-India Young Talent during the India-France Year of Innovation), Ali stopped trying to match dye lots and started naming each piece individually.

Shafaque Ali

Khadi weavers still face a recognition crisis, she says (she raised this concern at the 16th Round Table Conference of the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva last year). “The anonymity of the weaver is an ethical and a commercial problem. And lowering prices is not the solution.”

Ali includes a narrative record with every garment, aligned with the EU Digital Product Passport framework, a necessity for her to scale into Europe. “Khadi has been confined, for too long, to a certain silhouette vocabulary — the conventional ethnic register. That is not khadi’s limitation. That is the design community’s limitation.” 

Natural phenomenon like El Niño also affect khadi production. The majority of India’s cotton for khadi spinning is almost entirely rain-fed. “El Niño is not an abstract environmental concern for khadi. It is a direct threat to the livelihoods of lakhs of artisans.”