Millennial cousin reclaiming and returning to the art of cooking because she likes to, not because she is forced to.For generations, the kitchen was never just a room for women, it was a border they were not allowed to cross. It was passed down like an heirloom, not the gold but the silence, something inherited without ceremony yet attached to their identity. Girls were handed ladles without the choice of creativity but compliance. Cooking was never introduced to them as a li

Poster of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi from JioHotstarDecades have seen Hindi daily soaps presenting a blueprint which exemplify women as vessels of sacrifice. Indian television did not ask women to be complex but rather patient; to endure and to absorb. Across living rooms tuned into the wave of daily soaps that followed, the “ideal woman” was often written as someone who gave endlessly and questioned very little. Sacrifice was not just a trait, it was the personality of a

Nana ji (maternal grandfather) handling his wife's medicines, etc (since five decades) and taking care of her and home defying the societal norms.Men have been, since ages handed a script to follow; a script written in stone. A script that calls for strength without softness, confidence without confusion, anger without vulnerability. Somewhere along the way ‘man enough’ became a phrase men were expected to live up to, a phrase without definition. And perhaps, the revelation i

AI-Generated Instagram logo There was a time when posting felt like opening a window. The generation before us would click a picture of half-eaten cake, blurred sunsets, red-eyed hostel nights, and simply throw it into the blue ocean of Facebook or the early, filter-soaked lanes of Instagram. No lighting check. No grid planning. No existential crisis over captions. It was digital littering in the most beautiful way; messy, honest, alive. Posted. Done. Life, unedited. Now, we

Poster from IMDB There is something oddly comforting about the Hindi daily soap Anupama. It looks familiar, loud, exhausting and revolves around a woman who is expected to hold it all together just like home. But the question we do not ask enough is, “Does Anupama really have agency or is she just surviving better than before?” The initial episodes did portray her as a strong figure. When Anupama walked out on Vanraj Shah, it felt revolutionary. A woman choosing self-respect

I froze Image from ET Government There is a particular kind of silence that enters a person after fraud. Not the silence of peace, but the silence of disbelief. The kind where your mind keeps replaying the moment again and again, trying to locate the exact second where trust became foolishness. I did not scream. I did not cry instantly. I froze. One thing I know for sure is that my words would never commit a fraud like all the other spaces in the world right now. Words, at le

AI-Generated Image Somewhere in the recent years, I realised I am living inside a marketplace disguised as a world. Everywhere I turn, someone is selling a new way to be beautiful, to be productive, to be put-together, to be ‘aesthetic’. And I won’t lie; I too have fallen for it. I have bought things because they looked like the life I wanted, not the life I actually had. A ceramic mug seemed to promise calm mornings. A journal thick enough to hold a hundred versions of me, e

Poster of Aarambhi (JioHotstar) In the ever-familiar world of Indian television where women are often written to endure more than they escape Dr. Aarambhi has taken a turn that feels quietly, almost unexpectedly, liberating. The latest developments in the show don’t rely on shock value or over-the-top twists. Instead, they rest on something far more powerful: a woman choosing herself. For the longest time, Aarambhi’s journey was built on sacrifice. She was the one who adjuste

Patriot and Malayalam Cinema’s uneasy tryst with privacy Movie Poster IMDB Mahesh Narayanan’s cinema, Patriot, brought back an archaic form of communication; an almost obsolete form of communication as a quietly radical instinct in an era where every message is instant, visible and stored. Here morse code was not nostalgia, it was resistance. In a film that otherwise follows a familiar, almost predictable trajectory, this choice feels strangely disruptive. It doesn’t just sit

Poster from JioHotstar “Films entertain”, but some films leave behind a feeling, a character or sometimes a question that lingers long after the screen turns dark and Sarvam Maya is one such film. It disguises the emotional depth beneath the lightness of a supernatural rom-com. Directed by Akhil Sathyan, the film plays around with the idea of illusion, memory and companionship through the character of Delulu. She appears to be a supernatural element full of whimsy: a predam (