ideasmithy

[ideasmithy]

I went on a gallery hop. The experience wasn’t as passive as I imagined it would be. It brought me insights about the city, about people and most of all, myself.

[ideasmithy]

This happened to me. After being an enthusiastic reader my whole life, I stopped being able to read. The book became an alien in my brain.

[ideasmithy]

Bad parenting is blamed on mothers while fathers get a free pass for minimal effort. Fatherhood shapes masculinity and influences society. It’s time to hold dads to a higher standard. Includes illustrative examples from stories in popular culture.

[ideasmithy]

Cropping the City: Lessons from Sassoon Docks

One of Gopal’s most thought-provoking pieces of feedback to me at last Sunday’s photo-walk at Sassoon Docks was to crop. I had been experiencing that thing that is not quite FOMO. It’s having learnt that I can’t rely on my body or mind so rushing to cram as much as I can into one breath, one moment, one click. Yet, that just means losing everything. I wanted to try his advice on a pic to see if I…

[ideasmithy]

The Feels This Week: Going Fishing

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Food & Gender Politics in Asia: BUTTER - Asako Yuzuki, CHHAUNK - Abhijit Banerjee, PERFECT MATCH (Netflix)

[ideasmithy]

Dil Chahta Hain - Showcasing Vile Desi Masculinity

I saw Dil Chahta Hain for the first time in Gaiety-Galaxy. I was in a new college, not my first choice but filled with simultaneous reckless hope and paralyzing fear. I was the same age as the boys are in the movie. I went to watch the film because it was a thing that people did. I was very used to my peers not sharing my tastes (books!) or ideas about gender. So I tagged along in one of the many…

[ideasmithy]

Feminist Thrills In Reading Crime Fiction - Unmana, Meeti Shroff, Kalpana Swaminathan

I had a personal revelation on reading & writing this month at the Kala Ghoda Art Festival 2025. The ‘Murder, She Wrote’ panel was hosted by Jane Borges and featured female crime fiction writers Kalpana Swaminathan, Unmana and Meeti Shroff. The spaces of publishing and crime fiction (just like graphic novels and academia) tend to be such brodoms, that I just had to attend. My revelation started…

[ideasmithy]

How We Treat People Is How We’re Feeling Inside

We need a way to ask the people in our lives, “Why are you so cruel in your thoughts of me?” Doesn’t this idea inform all human judgement and underline every relationship of our lives? We wonder why people treat us poorly. How we behave is determined by the emotional landscapes we inhabit. Let’s think about what we want instead, the opposite of cruelty in thoughts about us. That is kindness,…

[ideasmithy]

Fishing For Identity In A Moving Marol Village

The quest for identity comes from tangles in your beginnings. I suppose I’ll keep going back to Marol on this journey. I’m the first native Mumbaiker in my family. And this is a city of immigrants. How do I find belonging in place that like its seashores, is washed away and transformed with every wave? Who am I when where I grew up didn’t give me belonging? What is my relationship to my domicile…

[ideasmithy]

The Feels This Week: Culture Milestones For Mental Health

It’s exactly a month since I hit publish on the last ‘The Feels This Week’ post so I wonder if I should call this The Feels This Month. But oh, what an unhopeful name to assume that I’ll only have a handful of these sought out feels in a month. Like the last post, this one is also a rare moment of spontaeneity I allow myself. No editing, no re-reading, no polishing, SEO etc. Here goes what’s been…

[ideasmithy]

Who You Are By Where You Are: Mumbai ’s Location Politics

My Mumbai explorations have been mostly alone. I didn’t know anybody else who was as intrigued by Mumbai’s neighborhoods, subcultures, architecture or streets.  Listen to my reading of this post here. Neither of my parents is from here, and I grew up surrounded by those more focused on gender roles than city explorations. Womanhood was presented as delicate fussiness about sweat, dust and…

[ideasmithy]

Who You Are By Where You Are: Mumbai’s Location Politics

Read the post ‘Who You Are By Where You Are: Mumbai’s Location Politics’ here.

[ideasmithy]

Navigating A Flawed Mental Health Dialogue in India

Religion, Politics & Mental Health Mental health challenges are not new to humanity, even if the nature and triggers for those challenges have changed. Civilisations had different ways to cope with these cracks in our pysche. Religion was one of the primary spaces, being that it is the most common source of reassurance, hope & belonging. Unfortunately (and perhaps for the same reason), religion…

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The Indian Mental Health Circus: Is Therapy For India?

What Indian Mental Health Is Missing I recently listened to therapist Vienna Pharaon on The Grey Area with Sean Illing podcast, in an episode titled ‘Breaking Our Family Patterns’. What strikes me is that a good therapist has to firstly be humble and open to the way human nature is full of surprises. I don’t see that in the mental health rhetoric in India. This spans therapists, medical…

[ideasmithy]

Mad Men: How Midge in ‘SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES’ Shaped Don’s Love Life

Don Draper’s story is told more through his lovers than his campaigns. Midge Daniels, his first partner in Mad Men, stood apart. Was she his first real relationship? Did her independence and departure set the tone for his destructive path?

Was Midge the first Don mistress? byu/ideasmithy inmadmen The Don journey begins with Midge Mad Men’s Don Draper is best defined by his messy love life, affairs, wives and all. For a show purportedly about advertising, Don’s story is told more through his bedrooms than his campaigns. The fandoms continue to debate the best, worst, most significant and so on of the Draper partners. The pilot…

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The Feels This Week: Curating Comfort & Moving Moments

Curating moments of inspiration, music, and reflections that spark joy, soothe pain, and celebrate the beauty of simply being moved. The feels this week!

The title is from a show I remember watching as a little kid called ‘The World This Week’. No, this post has nothing to do with that show. But I have been seeking things that make me feel things that I like. Inspiration, amusement, revelation, affection, joy, happy nostalgia. Living is hard. But I can curate these feelings from the glut of media available to me. So here goes my list of things…