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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…

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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…

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The Gentle Goodbye: Embracing Clean Endings In Life

2024 was the year I embraced the art of the clean goodbye —free of regret, pain, and drama. Why do we make goodbyes so complicated?

Read the blogpost version of the episode ‘The Gentle Goodbye: Embracing Clean Endings In Life’ here.

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The Gentle Goodbye: Embracing Clean Endings In Life

2024 taught me the art of the clean goodbye. From objects to relationships to even death, goodbyes aren’t about coldness but about clarity and respect for the journey. Why do we hold on so tightly to things that have reached their natural end?

2024 was the year I discovered the gentle goodbye. Goodbyes without regret. Goodbyes without pain. Clean goodbyes. Why was it so hard? The emotional weight of symbols in goodbye I think it started when I let go of the uncomfortable bed I’d been using for ten years. After years of discomfort, it went in a flash. I realised in the minutes that it was being carried out of my house that I was…

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How Female Erasure (Mis)Shapes Our History

Female erasure in history means women like my aunt, my great-grandmother—and maybe me—are left unrecorded, our stories quietly slipping out of memory.

Read the text of the episode ‘How Female Erasure (Mis)Shapes Our History’ here.

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It’s A Wonderful George Bailey Goodbye To 2024

2024 brought grim lessons in resilience. My Christmas miracle was an invitation to a play - Akvarious Productions ‘It’s a wonderful life’. The story brought me warmth and gave me pause for the miracles that abound in my life.

What has 2024 been like? It feels wrong to say ‘difficult’ in a world that has experienced 2020 and 2021. Two years should be long enough to get over death, anxiety, stir craziness, isolation, terror. Shouldn’t it? It doesn’t feel even a bit like enough. Survival is not joyful. Resilience feels grim and scarred. Nothing inspires awe, nothing is wonderful. Life lessons from a difficult year I am…

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Review: The Island Of Missing Trees & Other Elif Shafak Books - Brown Girls Who Speak English

Review of three Elif Shafak books: If you know trees, you know there are worlds running along faster than a pair of eyes can keep up, even in the placid green.

What a gentle, loving book this was! It felt like the peaceful calm after the tumult of more frenzied books. Not that it lacks for drama. If you know trees, you know there are worlds running along faster than a pair of eyes can keep up. There is tragedy, romance, adolescent angst, friendship, grief, affection, family, ambition and passion. It is set in the aftermath of (and some during) a…

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The Safest City: Mumbai 26/11 Terror Attacks

In 2008, the city that raised me became a battlefield. This is my story of Mumbai during the 26/11 terror attacks. Through the eyes of one of its citizens.

I’d been performing stories about Mumbai on stage for a few years when Radiocity invited me to shoot with them. It was for an episode marking 10 years since the terror attacks on 26 November 2008. A story? Of course, I had a story. Like every other dramatic (and otherwise) experience I’ve had in this city, it taught me something about myself and gave me wounds that made me love the city harder.…

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How We Talk About Violence: The Bengaluru PG Murder

A Bengaluru murder reveals deeper issues of gender violence, victim-blaming & cultural conflicts. We need to reconsider how we think about violence.

‘Woman from Bihar brutally murdered in Bengaluru PG’ screams the article headline while TV news anchor hosts experts who opinie on the finance minister’s statement about more women in the workforce, question the safety of PGs, articulate the lack of empathy shown by the victim’s roommates as they watch Kriti Kumari die. Look for the latest news on violence against a woman and you might miss it…

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Review: ROLE-PLAYING - Cathy Yardley: Feminism Via ChickLit

Explore the feminist evolution of ChickLit with Cathy Yardley's 'Role-Playing'. Delve into diverse characters, complex conflicts & a fresh take on romance.

ChickLit was always a more feminist genre since it centred the stories of women. True, it began as stories about young, white women with homes, families and jobs but it was still a step forward in recognising the anguish of breaking glass ceilings, internalised misogyny and highlighting female friendships. Even if it had to be marketed with the disrespectful term of ‘Chick Lit’. So many women…

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Language No Bar, Rashtriya Bhasha Har Baar

A woman & I separated by glass makes me think about the dance of language & identity. I trace colonialism & nationalism with my tongue. How shall I reach her?

There is a woman on the road. A few feet between us. A glass wall. And much else. I know something about her that she doesn’t. How shall I tell her? She doesn’t look into this airconditioned coffeeshop & I know she doesn’t speak English. Being a people tourist, window-shopping human beings Is only for those with English in their throats. I’m in a city that speaks the language of money. And in the…

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Decolonizing <i>Ted Lasso</i>: Race & Gender On A Football Field

Ted Lasso - A critical analysis of the show's portrayal of race and gender dynamics. Unpacks themes of predation, tokenism, and white supremacy.

This story starts with Ted Lasso. A dear friend loved the show and I wanted to share that experience with him. It was a stretch because being Indian, nothing about British complacency is going to feel enjoyable to me. Britain is the culture at whose hands mine suffered racism, economic exploitation, multiple genocides and colonisation for over three centuries. If you’re not from the subcontinent,…

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A Non-Medical View Of The Heart: Angiography & Angioplasty

A family member had an emergency heart procedure. I had to place overnight trust in strangers, make blind assumptions, examined conflicting information & many emotions. We were lucky. Yet, it was life-changing. This is that story of heart health care.

2023 closed with a family member needing an unexpected heart procedure. My family & I found ourselves in the chaotic world of emergency healthcare. In a short span, we had to make sense of information from unknown sources as we grappled with difficult decisions. I’m only starting to make sense of it – overnight trust in strangers, blind assumptions, conflicting information and many, many…

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REVIEW:<i>Honour</i>- Elif Shafak: Trauma Love Of Brown Women

'Honour' by Elif Shafak examines Turkish patriarchy mingling with Western traditions & values. It addresses gendered violence, racism & economic exploitation.

HONOUR replaces The Bastard of Istanbul as my favourite book by Elif Shafak. Once again, this story is about Turkish women navigating the changing faces of patriarchy between Western notions and their traditional values. But this time, we also see the journeys of the men through these same paths. The Turkish characters originate from poor remote villages rather than the bustling city of…

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Hello, AI World: Jetpack AI, ChatGPT For A Blogger

Is Artificial Intelligence really going to replace me? A blogger explores ChatGPT, Jetpack AI and a few other AI content tools.

I wrote this post last year. Unfortunately, a series of things in my personal and medical life made it difficult for me to publish. This post has sat in my Drafts for months, complete (as far as a WIP prediction of a new kind of technology can be). But I started my journey as a blogger, as IdeaSmith as a work in progress, allowing myself all the freedom of delays, errors and vulnerability. So…

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Notes From The Newly Diagnosed - Depressed & Anxious

I was diagnosed. I'm still the same person. Or am I? I have new words. And as I lose the ones that were longtime mine, I grasp them to cope.

I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. The simplest way to say it is the only way. Like ripping off a bandage. That is how I have powered through life, head-on, shedding dead weight. Powerful. Fearless. Strong. And I feel like none of those things anymore. It might have been caused by the double dose of COVID I had in a short span of time Or the coronavirus may just have been the last…