Health, reading and Mumbai: Explore these interesting activities this week

Leons Thomas Josephrsquos reel on Instagram about identifying Bombay Catholic aunties without knowing who they are had us in splits with the raw thick accent Joseph who is a lawyer and digital content creator repeats and enunciates the punctuation ldquomenrdquo in a thousand ways and in a shrill voice until you become adept at identifying one in the market next time His reel on Catholic moms just before Christmas is everybodyrsquos mom during Diwali or Eid but the accent and the vocabulary of the community makes it a rich experience to scroll down the account He gives you enough of a taste of the community to equip you to catch all the inside jokes and references the next time you are at the Bandra Gymkhanaleonsify InstagramRoadmap to being a womanDr Clarissa Pinkola Estes is best known for her seminal book Women who run with the wolves Myths and stories of the wild woman archetype but the cantadora Spanish for lsquoKeeper of storiesrsquo has so many more A Jungian psychoanalyst by training Estes believes in dispensing tales as medication measuring how much to tell of which story at what time to heal what ailment Audible is a veritable Aladdinrsquos cave of her books and the treasure within this treasure is that they are narrated by her in a low soothing tone using an artillery of the right words and with the intonation of a master storyteller She passes down stories from her SpanishMexican heritage about ageing as a woman being in touch with onersquos instinct and intuition as well as stories of the unmothered and abandoned child in Warming the Stone Child and other stories They helped conciliate this writer with house work during the pandemic The underlying theme is that we hold within us everything we need and dreams and stories are our intuition guiding us Every person in a dream or a story is a part of our personalityAvailable on AudibleReimagining Indian citiesA grid of his Instagram profileHave you envisioned how Mumbai would look in 2077 or after an apocalypse Saicharan Shetty a digital artist who is also part of Spinning Top Media a newage social media agency has a series called Cyberpunk 2077 on Instagram He posts reels of how Indian cities would look in a dystopian apocalyptic future and has reimagined Mumbai Bengaluru Varanasi Delhi and Kolkata Mumbai is marked by popular landmarks such as Wankhede Stadium local trains and autos Gateway of India and the BandraWorli Sea Link We find this reimagination eerie and terrifying but also mesmerising Shetty uses midjourney an AI programme used to make art and Photoshop Besides this series we also liked his rendition of Upsidedown Mumbai from the famous TV series Stranger Things and the dreamy illustrations of Marine Driveskycharan InstagramKnow your bodyldquoWill the real vulva please stand uprdquo Dr Tanaya Narendra asks right at the beginning of her just released book Dr Cuterus Everything Nobody Tells You About Your Body Penguin Random House Rs 299 The trained doctor embryologist scientist and sexual health educatorinfluencer says that women have been suffering from a massive identity crisis when it comes to their genitalsmdashldquomost of us almost all of us in fact have called the vulva the vagina our whole livesrdquo she writes She isnrsquot wrong Itrsquos why this book is that much more important Dr Cuterus is not about sex neither is it an instructional manual on pleasure With this book Narendra introduces ourselves to our own body the little parts that make us whole Not to mention the dos and donrsquots of sexual health hygiene ldquoDid you know that Lizol your pochawaala Lizol was marketed as Lisol to women to get rid of their lsquoodoursrsquordquo She explains why douchingmdashwashing the inside of the vaginamdashinvolves health risks and whatrsquos the easypeasy solution to keeping clean The penis and testicles are also very much part of her lessons With chapters dedicated to birth control and abortion this book is an empowering guide and essential reading for every woman exploring her bodyAvailable at all bookstoresA bonnet full of hairCurly hair needs a silkyfinished bonnet to keep the curls intact while sleeping and once this curly girl learnt this she began looking for one The market for curly hair products and accessories is still niche thus we went looking online We didnrsquot realise how this could go wrong The first one bought online for Rs 750 was too tight inducing a headache For the next one we sought recommendations Following those of a famous curly hair blogger we bought the one costing R850 This time it was too looseand slipped off our head within five minutes of lying downDisappointed we called off the search and forgot the pursuit until an Instagram advertisement popped up with one from Curl Cure It had an adjustable band and cost only Rs 549 We bought the maroon one purple is the other option available but didnrsquot raise our hopes It arrived a couple of days later and did not induce headaches We later learnt that Curl Care is run by a 21yearold Thane girl Simran Sainani who also has an offline salon and retail store all specialising in curly hair We booked a consult to learn how to style our curls and were content We also bought the shampoo conditioner and leavein cream of Sainanirsquos own formulation and will review it sooncurlcurecomCurated by Jane Borges Yusra Husain Nidhi Lodaya and Heena Khandelwal