ideasmithy

[ideasmithy]

A stranger gave me 'The Collected Regrets of Clover' in a rare act of generosity. The book gently looks at the messiness & mundaneity of grief. I didn’t ask if I could inscribe in the book. So instead I made notes in the margins of my mind.

[ideasmithy]

Madwomen on my mind—this month’s reading takes me through cults, kitchens, crimes, and cosmic quests. From feminist fables to literary ragefests, I wander through stories that ask: what if the women weren’t mad, just misunderstood? 6 books that made me ponder this.

[ideasmithy]

How do you reconcile the love of some books with the thought that their authors hate people like you? Gabrielle Zevin makes me ponder this.

[ideasmithy]

April reading was two stories of South India. ‘The Covenant of Water’ by Abraham Verghese and ‘The Painter of Signs’ by RK Narayan. Reading them in tandem made me ponder how South India treats gender & faith.

[ideasmithy]

Hysterectomy, a polite word for removing what makes you visible. Take the uterus, take the person. No longer bleeding, birthing or human. Medicine just make it official.

[ideasmithy]

Mumbai’s bridges, birds, and bygone doors— seeking meaning in plants, photographs, and god in everyday moments. #RovingI

[ideasmithy]

Books are the new abs, apparently. Everyone wants to look like a reader. From dating apps to literary events, I’m drowning in ROI bros and virtue-signalling bibliophobes. So I turned to a fictional grump and his bookstore for sanity.

[ideasmithy]

Books, like people, appear when you need them most. I’ve found a book shop, a community, a friend and a special book on my way to myself.

[ideasmithy]

An old-school post from a 2000s photoblog. My evening through Andheri in photographs. Feel free to skip to the pics if you like.

[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…