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  • Dating Apps and India’s Divided Hearts

    On any given night in India’s metros, you’ll meet two kinds of people who use dating apps. There’s the first group — swiping late into the night, looking for something light and fleeting. These are the people for whom a date might mean drinks, a long walk, or just another chat on the app itself. Then there’s a second, very different group — families and individuals browsing Shaadi.com or Bharat Matrimony, sorting profiles by caste, profession, or income bracket. Both groups are active, both are growing. But between them is… almost nothing.

    This stark split explains why some of the world’s biggest dating apps — Hinge, Bumble, Grindr, Tinder, have recently scaled back or exited India altogether. Their promise of a single ‘catch-all’ platform for romance never fit comfortably with the social realities of Indian love and marriage.

    India’s digital dating scene is not small – the online dating app market was projected to reach USD 1.42 billion by 2030. But most of the engagement sits at two extremes. Apps like Tinder and Bumble thrive among users seeking casual connections. As one 27-year-old Mumbai user put it, “Everyone knows these apps are for hooking up first, and maybe something more if it works out.”

    On the other hand, matrimonial platforms like Shaadi.com, Bharat Matrimony, and Jeevansathi, segment users by caste, religion, profession, and even salary. Shaadi.com, for example, offers filters for ‘business families’, ‘defence officers’, or ‘income above ₹1 crore’. Some newer services go further, asking for offer letters or salary slips as proof of social standing. Here, the expectation is explicit: serious, marriage-oriented matchmaking shaped by long-standing social hierarchies.

    The result? If you want casual fun, you know which apps to open. If you want marriage, you know which portals to join. The middle ground — slow dating, open-ended relationships, or simply ‘seeing where it goes’ — is still culturally thin.

     

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    Dating apps like Hinge were built on the idea of self-directed romantic discovery: you browse profiles, chat, and meet without family oversight. In the U.S. or Europe, where dating outside family mediation has decades of precedent, this works. In India, where marriage remains closely tied to family, caste, and community networks, swiping can feel unserious if your goal is long-term partnership.

    That tension plays out in subtle ways. Even well-educated, urban Indians often feel pressure to justify relationships in traditional terms once they turn serious. Parents are still gatekeepers for many marriages. Without a cultural bridge from casual dating to family-approved commitment, global apps struggle to retain users beyond a certain age or stage of life.

     

     

    India’s marriage market is famously granular. There are apps and services for specific castes, for alumni of elite colleges, for high-income professionals, and for non-resident Indians seeking partners abroad. Each is a carefully carved niche that understands its users’ expectations.

    Global dating apps, by contrast, try to be universal. Their swipe-left, swipe-right interface flattens difference into personal choice, assuming that chemistry and conversation are enough. But in India, choice is only part of the equation. Family approval, social compatibility, and community expectations remain powerful forces, making a single “everything app” feel mismatched.

    This cultural reality has business consequences. User engagement on casual-dating apps can be intense — heavy swiping and short bursts of activity — but often lacks the long-term monetization that subscription-based matrimonial sites enjoy. Families often maintain paid profiles on Shaadi.com or Bharat Matrimony for months or even years, which gives those services a steady stream of subscription income. Dating apps run on a thinner margin. Most rely on advertising or small monthly fees from users who can swipe intensely for a few weeks and then disappear, leaving their revenue far less predictable.

     

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    Safety concerns add to the strain. Even with photo verification or ‘women-first’ messaging, many women say they face unwanted messages, or harassment. That discourages them from staying on the platform and limits growth.

    Some Indian startups are trying to bridge the gap. Apps like Aisle and TrulyMadly market themselves as spaces for ‘serious dating’, offering detailed profiles, curated communities, and a slower pace that suggests commitment without moving straight to arranged marriage. Others like HiHi use invitations and background checks to create curated networks. But these are still niche players, and none yet match the scale of either Tinder’s casual dominance or Shaadi.com’s matrimonial reach.

     

     

    This landscape suggests that success in India requires specificity — whether it’s a platform for tech people in Bengaluru, working professionals in Mumbai, or a particular linguistic or caste group. The lesson may be that in India, romance is too diverse, too structured, and too negotiated for a single global template.

    Dating apps aren’t slowing their flow in India because people aren’t dating. They faltered because Indian society already offers strong, culturally specific digital ecosystems for both ends of the romantic spectrum — casual flings and family-approved matches. Until an app can bridge that structural and cultural gap, the space between will remain stubbornly narrow.

  • A Level Playing Field

    Women’s sports have seen a surge in viewership over the past few years, reopening the conversation on gender equality in sports — namely, what real equality would look like. The upcoming Los Angeles Olympics (LA28) is a case in point: 26 mixed-gender events are on the medal roster, up from 20 at Paris 2024 and 18 at Tokyo 2020. For the first time, LA28 will feature mixed-gender competition in golf, gymnastics, and the 4x100m relay. 

    Mixed-gender team sports aren’t new. Tennis has had mixed doubles at the Grand Slam level since 1892 — India’s own Sania Mirza built much of her career around it, winning majors alongside partners like Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna. Badminton had introduced Olympic mixed doubles by 1996. Shooting, gymnastics, equestrian sports, and rally car racing have featured direct men vs women competitions almost since their inception.

    And so we ask — are the barriers to mixed-gender play in other sports systemic, physiological, or ideological? 

    Mixed gender sports or co-ed sports have long been a part of the school sports landscape. However, for sports like baseball, football, or even cricket, they tend to be curtailed around puberty, or before players can reach the under-16 or under-18 levels.

    Yet, an instructive 2018 review in Sport, Education and Society found that well-structured mixed environments can reduce gender stereotyping and build mutual respect. Other studies suggest girls in mixed settings take on leadership roles more readily and report greater confidence than peers in segregated ones. A mixed environment is instructive in other ways too, perhaps revealing that merit in sports is not gender-based.

     

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    Safety is the other major deterrent, especially in contact sports. Inequality doesn’t stay outside the game — the attitudes boys absorb growing up come with them onto the field. And, combat sports like wrestling or kabaddi, where winning involves physically overpowering an opponent, can easily be warped to reinforce harmful stereotypes about masculine dominance and control. 

     

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    Tennis has had mixed doubles at the Grand Slam level since 1892 — India's own Sania Mirza built much of her career around it, winning majors alongside partners like Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna.
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    In India, this strategy has been put to the test already. The Mixed Gender Football League (2023–24) in Chennai and Madhya Pradesh’s Samaveshi Cup, built leadership and strategy among young girls while boosting their confidence to push back against the idea that sports aren’t a ‘natural’ hobby for them. Traditional Indian mallakhamb and kho-kho exhibitions have also experimented with mixed teams at the grassroots.

    Ultimate frisbee has long operated as a mixed contact sport without major issues. The mixed 4x400m relay, introduced at the 2019 World Championships and later the Olympics, quickly became one of track and field’s most tactically interesting events, since teams must strategize the order of male and female runners — a wrinkle absent from traditional relays.

     

    India’s 4x400m mixed relay team won gold at the Jakarta Asian Games 2018 / in.pinterest.com

     

    Of course we know that mixed-gender sports will face resistance rooted in deep social conditioning. Selection resentment is one flashpoint — if an Indian cricket team’s 12 male roster spots dropped to 6 to make room for women, that could strain team cohesion. Fan acceptance may be slow too: hostility toward female fans and reporters is well documented, from F1 to the IPL. That hostility could hit sponsorships and ticket sales before mixed teams earn real buy-in.

    There is a case to be made for merit-based lineups in mixed-gender sports, provided that both men and women players of that sport start on a level playing field, with similar facilities and resources to bring them up to the point of competing side-by-side. Given the lopsided growth of women’s sports in certain areas, like cricket, basketball or even hockey (Hello Chak De! India), there might also be a need to establish mandates of the ratio of male-to-female players on the field, until true equality can be achieved on merit alone. 

     

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    In India, this strategy has been put to the test already. The Mixed Gender Football League (2023–24) in Chennai and Madhya Pradesh’s Samaveshi Cup, built leadership and strategy among young girls while boosting their confidence to push back against the idea that sports aren't a ‘natural’ hobby for them.
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    For much of the mainstream sporting world, such competitions remain an experiment. But their value does not lie in claiming a moral victory for gender equality. Instead, it lies in creating space for curiosity and asking a simple question: what happens when we play together rather than apart?

    No meaningful pursuit of gender equality can be achieved through symbolic gestures alone. Yet mixed-gender sport can serve as a promising starting point. By bringing men and women onto the same team, it challenges long-held assumptions about ability and performance. In doing so, it offers a powerful reminder that success in sport is shaped by skill, strategy, teamwork and intent far more than by gender. If perceptions are ever to shift, mixed-gender competition may be one of the most effective ways to demonstrate that ability cannot be reduced to a binary.

  • The Sound of Something New

    We’ve all felt it lately — whether you’re humming along to Karan Aujla in the car or stumbling upon a trending Tamil audio buried among a sea of recycled Instagram reels, something’s shifted. Amid the digital sameness, a not-so-quiet movement is taking hold. Indian languages — once dismissed as too local, too niche — are becoming mainstream. And not just in India.

    Across the world, creators are adding subtitles in Tamil or Malayalam even if they don’t speak the language. Punjabi songs are dominating Spotify, not just in Surrey or Southall, but in Stockholm and Sydney. These aren’t one-off anomalies — it’s part of a bigger shift in how culture works online. Karan Aujla’s album P-Pop Culture was amongst Canada’s highest-streamed artists of 2025, with Aujla rubbing shoulders with the likes of Justin Beiber and Tate McRae. Meanwhile, Diljit Dosanjh will be headlining London’s Wembley Stadium (and already performed at Coachella in 2023).

    You can hear it in the way a song lyric lands — even if you don’t speak the language, the emotion cuts through. There’s something raw and familiar in the rhythm, the sound, the feeling of these words. They stick with you — sometimes even before your brain knows what they mean. Indian languages are no longer background noise. They’re the headliners. 

    And it’s not just in music. You can see it in what people wear — Tamil script printed boldly across streetwear, for example. A Kannada meme page you followed for laughs now goes viral in Toronto. This isn’t just platitudinous aesthetics; hoodies striped with Devanagari script have reportedly sold out within hours, proof of a real appetite for something rooted in home rather than a copy of a foreign label. Tamil-specific labels built entirely around Tamil cultural identity — like urban streetwear brand Angi Clothing — now ship internationally, carried by a growing diaspora market. Angi’s motto? ‘Identity is Everything’. 

     

     

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    So why now?

    Because we’re in a moment where the global internet is craving specificity. The age of mass culture — where everything looked and sounded the same — is fraying. People want their content (and their identities) unfiltered, unpolished, and rooted in something real. And Indian languages —  rhythmic, emotionally charged — offer exactly that.  The resurgence of local culture has surprised those who expected globalization to sandpaper away local differences, leaving the world listening to, watching, and playing the same things.

    When a Tamil phrase shows up in a beauty influencer’s caption, or a Marathi gaana plays in the background of a cooking reel from NYC, it tells you something: our languages are shaping what culture looks and sounds like today. For Indian audiences, this moment feels quietly radical. Many of us were taught to soften our mother tongues, to code-switch, to avoid being ‘too vernacular.’ That milquetoast word ‘vernacular’ was once used slightingly by Anglophile circles – ‘vern’ was an insult.

    Naturally, algorithms are catching on (and even perhaps helping to shape this shift). Platforms are hyper-personalized now, allowing cultural nuance to reach new audiences without losing itself in translation. 

     

     

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    When a Tamil phrase shows up in a beauty influencer’s caption, or a Marathi gaana plays in the background of a cooking reel from NYC, it tells you something: our languages are shaping what culture looks and sounds like today.
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    And for readers halfway across the world, this story is about more than India. It reflects a wider shift happening everywhere: from Korean in K-pop to Swahili in Afrobeats, the cultural gatekeepers are changing. Between 2017 and 2022, Afrobeats streams on Spotify grew by roughly 550%, and the genre now has its own category on the Billboard Hot 100. Identity, media, and influence are evolving — and the future of ‘cool’ might just have Indian subtitles.

    This is a global rebalancing of who gets to be heard. And this time, the voices sound a little more like home.

  • Imaginary Homelands

    Walking around artist Sumakshi Singh’s life-size, embroidered fabric architecture is like being inside a surreal dream. It’s hard to take your eyes off the white, translucent spiral staircase, the intricate patterns on the walls, the double gate, the windows. I notice other viewers walking around, eyes wide with wonder, peering up and down to closely examine the panels, and resisting the urge to touch the fragile work.

    But once you walk out of the work, you see the bigger picture, the cohesive structure of a house. There is something haunting about this work, a replica of Singh’s grandparents’ Delhi home that was built soon after the India-Pakistan Partition. It’s where Singh held some of her most cherished memories, but it was taken down a couple of years ago.

    At the 2026 Venice Biennale, the India Pavilion’s theme – Geographies of Distance: Remembering Home – address the concept of a physical home and question what happens when that home no longer exists,  you’re far away from it, or even when that physical home is no longer your real emotional home, explains curator Amin Jaffer.

    Jaffer’s prompts for the Venice Biennale project were his lived experience as part of the South Asian diaspora, and a rapidly developing and changing India. He was born in Rwanda, Africa, and has lived in Britain, Canada, the USA, Portugal, Italy, the Bahamas and India. His work has taken him around the globe, from Japan, China and Russia to the Gulf, Africa and the Americas. “The preoccupation with home is a reflection of my own circumstances, as someone of Gujarati origin, born in a former Belgian colony, raised with multiple Indian and European languages and value systems,” he says.

    Geographies of Distance: Remembering Home is also a response to the demographic, economic and technological boom in India, and the increased movement of Indians. “We are more mobile than ever before, within the country and across the world,” says Jaffer. “This turned my thoughts to notions of home and especially a home that is far away, either ggeographically or because the physical space has changed,” he adds.

     

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    Is a Home a Physical Space?

    Established Indian artists Zarina Hashmi, Krishen Khanna and Satish Gujral have mourned the loss of their homes, family and friends during the 1947 Partition. The desire to return, to feel a sense of belonging in a place left behind, has long been evident in their art.

    But for a younger generation of artists who have lived and worked in different countries, the idea of home is not bound to a physical space, perhaps because that physical space is constantly changing. Indian cities are dotted with redevelopment projects. Old structures are rebuilt as sky-rises. Difficult-to-maintain, sprawling bungalows are being erased for a mall or even a parking lot while the family moves to an apartment. The physical space is lost but the emotional space stays. Carry that with you wherever you go, and that, perhaps, becomes your home.

     

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    But for a younger generation of artists who have lived and worked in different countries, the idea of home is not bound to a physical space, perhaps because that physical space is constantly changing too.
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    Singh, who has worked and lived in eleven countries, felt the most ‘belonged’ in her grandparents’ Delhi home. It’s where her family gathered, where festivals and important events were celebrated. But when that home was being demolished, she recreated it at the Biennale, with a delicate embroidered panel. The delicacy of the work gestures to the impermanence of a brick-and-mortar building. But the memory of it stays, and that, for Singh becomes her emotional home.

    Living across borders and straddling multiple cultures has inspired works of other international artists too. South Korea’s Do Ho Suh creates life-sized replicas of the homes he has lived in across Seoul, New York and London, with translucent fabrics, exploring how memory, personal identity and space intertwine to shape one’s residence. Nigerian artist Akunyili Crosby, based in the United States, creates paintings that feature interiors and domestic scenes of a transnational home and the complexities of inhabiting two different cultures simultaneously.

     

    The Climate Crisis 

    But even those who continue living in the same place they were born and raised in are questioning the idea of home. For Skarma Sonam Tashi, one of the five artists showing at the Indian Pavilion, home is closely related to his homeland Ladakh’s traditional architecture. His work, a block of traditional Ladakhi homes made with papier-mâché and clay from his homelands, becomes a commentary on how brick and mortar houses are replacing these structures. “It mourns the loss of traditional home-making skills and artistry to climate change,” says Tashi. The region, a traditionally dry one, has seen a recent swell of rainfall thanks to the climate crisis. The old houses were not built to protect from rain. That’s one of the reasons people are building brick-and-mortar buildings. “But those aren’t any good for our ecology either,” he laments.

     

    Sumakshi Singh’s ethereal art work | Credit – Riddhi Doshi

     

    A Home Lost to Violence

    Palestinian-UK artist Mona Hatoum creates household furniture using items such as electric wires and mesh steel, treating the house not as a safe space, but as a site of political confinement and displacement. 

    Ghana’s Ibrahim Mahama places objects from his nation’s colonial past, such as train seats, defunct aeroplanes, locomotive engines and hospital beds in global art institutions,​ such as Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, White Cube, London, and University of Michigan Museum of Art. By doing so, he prompts a discussion about how history has shaped what we call home. But it begs the question – can an exploitative past make a home?

     

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    The physical space is lost but the emotional space stays. You carry that with you wherever you go, and that, perhaps, becomes your home.
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    In India, for instance, the concept of furniture as permanent space holders such as the dining table or a bed was introduced by the British. Our traditional style of dwelling facilitated movement. A charpoi could be carried to a terrace on a pleasant day or to the aangan for guests. But these furniture pieces would become an integral part of our houses. Our houses’ geographies were dictated by these items, and we forgot how our old houses were always minimal. In that sense, what we have inherited is a borrowed idea of a home. So, does that make it ours?

  • Candy Crush

    Twenty years ago, chocolate was synonymous with Cadbury’s dairy milk bars. 

    Oh, how the times have changed! 

    Walk into a good bakery or a boutique grocer in any major Indian city today and there’s a new kind of chocolate on the shelf — slender bars wrapped in textured paper, stamped with words like ‘single origin’, ‘70% Kerala’, or ‘tree-to-bar’.   

    India is at an interesting inflection point right now. The country’s chocolate market is growing quickly (valued at US$ 2.9 billion in 2025) and is expanding every year. But as India grows more adventurous, the craft corner of that market is growing even faster. Auroville’s Mason & Co is often credited as an early catalyst, and brands like Naviluna in Mysuru, Pascati in Mumbai (one of the few certified organic brands in India), and Soklet in Coimbatore, Subko Cacao and many more have adopted the same philosophy.

    The rise of craft chocolate in India didn’t happen overnight. It began quietly with small producers who wanted to work with Indian cacao rather than imported beans. In states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, cacao has been grown for decades, mostly sold to large manufacturers. But in the last few years, independent makers have not only embraced a bean-to-bar approach, they’ve stepped it up to tree-to-bar. “We have complete control over the process, right from the harvest stage, which is why we call it tree-to-bar, not-bean-to-bar”, explains Akhil Grandhi of Bon Fiction chocolate.

     

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    I believe that moment of reckoning is here and we can no longer stereotype ourselves. We have the perfect storm of upwardly-mobile, aspirational, well-traveled consumers (at least in tier one urban Indian cities.
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    These chocolates are made in small batches. The process isn’t just technical; it’s personal. Makers are involved in growing, picking, roasting, tasting, and tweaking. It’s slower and far more expensive than mass market chocolate, which is why artisanal bars often cost more. But the promise is different: flavour with context. And the flavors are often Indian. Take for instance, Paul & Mike’s Pistachio and Idukki Cardamom chocolate, or their Thandai chocolate. Or take Soklet’s Desi Rabdi or Bhut Jolokia Chile bars. Or even take Bombay Sweet Shop’s kaju katli and dark chocolate ganache? All whimsical, singular confections that could only be created in India.

    A further sign of the times is that this tiny corner of the chocolate world has also absorbed larger wellness trends. And so you’ll find organic, vegan and sugar free concoctions on the shelf as well. “Post Covid, a tremendous shift started taking place,” says Krishna Prasad S, founder of Soothy’s Chocolate, “People started reading labels and becoming more aware of what they eat.” Soothy’s is about to launch a brand new sugar-free chocolate, sweetened with a protein element sourced from Africa. 

    “Everybody is now moving away from refined sugar,” echoes Rukshin Anklesaria at Ambriona. “Nowadays, my bestseller online is my 90% dark chocolate.” Certainly an unusual choice for a country with an insatiable sweet tooth.

     

     

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    What makes this movement culturally important is that it repositions chocolate from a foreign luxury to a distinctly local craft. For decades, India’s idea of premium chocolate came from Europe – Swiss or Belgian usually. To many consumers, ‘good chocolate’ meant foreign chocolate. Artisanal makers are inverting that. “This has been our focus, trying to build an association around Indian cacao, in the same way that we associate chocolate with Switzerland or Belgium,” says Chaitanya Muppala of Manam Chocolate, another pioneering craft chocolate house. “We also want to remind people that cacao doesn’t grow in Europe, it grows here, and we can make world class global standard specialty craft chocolate from India.” 

    Krishna Prasad S agrees. “The next big thing will come from here,” he says. Soothy’s itself is poised to launch in the USA next month, ready with its range of milk and dark chocolates.

    “We need to embrace our complexity and not reduce ourselves to the usual outside-in view of elephants and palaces,” says Muppala. “I believe that moment of reckoning is here and we can no longer stereotype ourselves. We have the perfect storm of upwardly-mobile, aspirational, well-traveled consumers (at least in tier one urban Indian cities).”

    Muppala would know. Manam has opened a slew of spaces across India, from The Chocolate Karkhana and Chocolate Beverage Bar in Hyderabad, to a Chocolate Experience space in New Delhi, a pop up at Mumbai’s Galeries Lafayette, and a beverage bar in New Delhi along the way. Similarly, Subko Cacao has opened The Cacao Mill in Mumbai, an experiential chocolate factory. The time for fine flavor cacao is clearly now.

     

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    To many consumers, ‘good chocolate’ meant foreign chocolate. Artisanal makers are inverting that.
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    And although all specialty chocolatiers are well-versed in the frou frou talk of ‘sustainable’ and ‘community centric’, not everyone walks the talk. “We were always very clear that we wanted to build something sustainable and meaningful,” says Muppala. “This is not about a photo op, going to a village and taking pictures. For it to be sustainable, everybody in the value chain has to make money. Global profit pooling in cacao is alarmingly skewed. About 80% goes to the manufacturer and retailer, about 8% to the trader and only about 6% to farmer.” 

    At the consumer level, the change is tied to something much broader: India’s growing curiosity about food. The same audience that embraced specialty coffee, sourdough, and regional cheeses is now paying attention to cacao, so much that India even held its own Cacao and Craft Chocolate Festival. No small feat for a country that once used the word ‘chocolate’ interchangeably with ‘Cadbury’. 

    Still, the movement has its challenges. India’s heat makes chocolate notoriously hard to produce, store, and ship. Small makers spend more on climate control, packaging, and quality checks than big brands ever need to. Pricing remains a barrier: an artisanal bar can cost five or six times more than a mass-market one. And the market, however swiftly it is growing, is still nascent. 

     

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    But despite these hurdles, the arc is clear. India is developing a chocolate culture of its own — one that values skill, local agriculture, and flavour that’s not afraid to be complex. The real story isn’t that India now makes good artisanal chocolate. It’s that consumers can finally taste the difference — and care enough to choose it. As food cultures mature, people start looking beyond sweetness and convenience. They look for origin, ethics, craft, connection. And that’s when an everyday product becomes something more than a treat. It becomes a reflection of how a country eats, pays attention, and grows.

  • Hitting the Sweet Spot

    Dummy

  • Moving Pictures

    If you live in India, you’ve definitely spent a moment (or many) stuck behind a truck on the highway and you’ve likely noticed its vividly-colored back — hand-painted with instructions like “Horn OK Please” or “Use Dipper at Night”, often framed by floral vines, rising suns, peacocks, tigers, gods, or movie stars. Some trucks are adorned with beaded tassels dangling from side mirrors, fringed mud flaps, reflective stickers, even hand-scrawled poetry. It’s loud, layered, and alive.

    This is truck art, one of India’s most under-celebrated forms of public folk expression. Truck art is not just paint on metal; it is identity, memory, pride, and protection — all in motion.

     

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    The tradition began to bloom in the mid-20th century. These trucks first drove onto Indian roads during World War II, pressed into service as military vehicles. Naturally, in the way of all military vehicles, they were drab camouflage-colored creations. But after the Second World War, these trucks were released to the public and refashioned for civilian purposes. Canny local artists immediately spotted an opportunity, transforming the trucks’ formidable look into the vibrant creations that we see today.

    Today, many drivers and owners spend months on the road, far from home. Adorning their vehicles became a way to carry a piece of that home with them — a protective charm, a source of joy, even a declaration of identity. A driver might honour a deity for safe passage, or paint his children’s names on the bumper. Political slogans, shayari, religious symbols — all share space. The truck becomes a canvas, a shrine, a mobile memory-keeper.

     

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    These artworks are typically crafted by self-taught artists working out of roadside studios near truck stands or dhabas. In places like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra, small communities of painters keep the tradition alive using enamel paints, stencils, and sheer muscle memory. The work is fast but detailed and often done overnight while the truck is parked, ready to hit the road again by morning.

    Across the country, the art shifts with region and road. In Punjab and Rajasthan, you’ll see camels and similar desert motifs. In Bengal, lotuses and expressive eyes. In the South, mythological figures share space with cinema stars. In Maharashtra, floral borders and geometric symmetry abound. And nearly everywhere, you’ll see the iconic warning: “Buri Nazar Wale Tera Muh Kala” (“May the evil-eyed one be shamed.”) 

    It isn’t just visual. These trucks are multisensory: the jingle of mirror tassels, the scent of agarbatti from a dashboard altar, the glow of string lights flickering during nighttime drives. 

     

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    In places like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra, small communities of painters keep the tradition alive using enamel paints, stencils, and sheer muscle memory. The work is fast but detailed and often done overnight while the truck is parked, ready to hit the road again by morning.
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    But this folk art is fading. As fleets become corporatized and brand-conscious, hand-painted trucks are giving way to mass-produced decals that are easy to stick on. Uniformity is prized. Artistry is optional. And the roadside painters, once vital artisans, now struggle to find work.

    Still, echoes remain. A lone peacock feather curling under a bumper. A faded ‘India is Great’ half-covered by a sponsor’s logo. These fragments remind us that art doesn’t need white walls or spotlights. Sometimes, it speeds past you on the highway — gritty, bright, and definitely alive.

    To preserve truck art is to honour the creativity of the everyday — art born not in galleries, but in grease-streaked garages and under open skies. Art that reflects how people live, move, and believe. 

  • Content Creators Are Taking Over The Internet

    “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

    “A content creator.”

    As early as 2019, a survey by LEGO found that 30% of children between the ages of 8 and 12 want to be content creators or YouTubers when they grow up. Despite the social media ban for children under 16, one in every three Australian children wants to be a social media influencer. In India, 83% of Gen Z (especially from Tier II and III cities) identify as content creators.

    Indian taxation systems now recognize social media influencers as a tax-paying professional category, and in March 2024, PM Modi distributed the first-ever National Creators Awards to Ranveer Allahbadia and Curly Tales founder Kamiya Jani. The awards were meant to honor creators aligned with the government’s narrative of nation-building. For a social media-savvy government, this makes inordinate sense; one study found that 37% of viewers trust influencers more than actual brands, making influencer endorsements particularly powerful. In April 2026, the Indian government outlined a plan for Content Creator Labs to be opened in schools and colleges across the country. This is all part of a push to position India as a global hub of content creation as part of the ‘Create in India, Create for the World’ initiative

     All this points to the idea that content creation is gaining acceptance as a ‘real job’ both in India and globally. The creator economy’s direct revenues are projected to reach $100–125 billion by the end of the decade, according to a report by India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. But how did we get here? And what does it take for a ‘passion’ (for the lack of a better word) to turn into a profession? 

     

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    Indian taxation systems now recognize social media influencers as a tax-paying professional category, and in April 2026, the Indian government outlined a plan for Content Creator Labs to be opened in schools and colleges across the country.
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    For one, the profession has a name: ‘content creation’. The creator economy focuses primarily on those who create for the internet, and mainly in video form; its foundations were unintentionally laid when YouTube entered the picture, and introduced the concept of monetizing content. 

    YouTube saw that users were using their free time to come up with creative sketches, review videos, or music covers. Within two years of its 2007 launch, YouTube decided to split ad revenue with creators, in the hopes that the monetary benefit would incentivize people to post more, and then inspire others to do the same. 

    It helped that YouTube’s creator base had many early adopters. Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox of Smosh first ‘broke the internet’ with their cover of the Pokemon theme. iJustine came in with tech reviews in an innovative format, and NigaHiga brought absurdist comedy and an Asian lens to American humor. 

    They took to YouTube because it gave them a video-first base to express themselves. Vimeo had come in before YouTube in 2004, but it was a model with limited reach, where you often had to pay to access content. YouTube capitalized on being a free-to-access resource, significantly lowering the barrier for entry. 

    YouTube was the earliest democratic platform for people who were aspiring entertainers. These creators likely couldn’t find a footing in the traditional media landscape of film and TV. When platforms started generating monthly earnings for creators, it brought a sense of near-instant financial gratification – up until now, the idea was that if you were an artist, you had to wait years to get your dues. Within traditional media, that is still true today. Once branded collaborations came in, they added financial viability for creators, and a new way of creating brand loyalty for companies. 

    It helps, then, that platforms choose to celebrate their creators, like YouTube did for almost a decade with YouTube Rewind. There’s never quite been anything like it. Until they were included (it began as US / UK-dominant), Indian creators took matters into their own hands and made a Desi Rewind in 2017. That move went a long way in showing young Indian audiences and their parents that content creation has real value as a paying profession, and is not just a tool for popularity. 

    Many forget that Justin Bieber was just a kid on the internet making covers before he created original music in 2009, and was discovered and turned into a global pop icon. Platforms like YouTube still serve as a showreel, in the hopes that creators will land a film or be considered for awards. For stand-up comedians, putting their bits and clips online allows them to draw more audiences in to watch live shows. Shows like Little Things by Dice Media or Kota Factory by TVF were acquired by Netflix India just after their first few seasons on the ‘Tube. 

     

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    American YouTubers like Mr Beast earn as much as USD 54 million a year from the platform, and he only started creating videos on YouTube in 2012. Compare this to Rhett and Link who run Good Mythical Morning: they started in 2006, and today, GMM earns 30 million USD a year through its channel network. Clearly there are enough pieces of the pie to go around. 

    It can still be hard to imagine that content creation is a legitimate, standalone career, rather than a stepping stone to something bigger. And that’s where other platforms like Instagram and TikTok take the reins of reinstating legitimacy. 

    Earnings on Instagram and TikTok are largely limited to gifts and to branded deals. Payouts based on views are still small, if not non-existent, meaning that the value creators can generate for themselves is tied to what they can create for others. On the other hand, if used properly, this can be extraordinarily lucrative; Instagram creators such as Anaheez Patel have fattened their business from ₹40,000 per month to ₹40 lakh in less than two years.  

    Others have leveraged their enormous followings to switch career gears. Preeti Sarkar, a YouTuber, has now launched a fashion brand called Preetizen. Underneat, a shapewear brand, was launched by Kusha Kapila. Kabita’s Kitchen, a popular Indian cooking channel, now has a range of masalas – Kabita’s Kitchen Masala Mix.

     

     

    At the end of the day, if the broadest definition of a career is simply the time you spend working, content creation has been one for over two decades — ever since the first person chose to post a video to the world instead of keeping it in a home archive. India is now racing to catch up to that reality on an institutional scale: tax categories, government awards, Creator Labs in schools, and a ministry-backed revenue projection all say the same thing — this is no longer a hobby waiting for legitimacy. This is a proper job.

     

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  • Indra Nooyi and the American Dream

    Priya Nair, Hindustan Unilever

    Vibha Padalkar, HDFC Life

    Vishakha Mulye, Aditya Birla Capital

    Prabha Narasimhan, Colgate-Palmolive (India)

    Jasleen Kohli, Digit Insurance

    Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Biocon Ltd

    Falguni Nayar, Nykaa

    These are just a few names of female corporate leaders that I fossicked up after watching Indra Nooyi’s eyebrow-raising conversation with former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at an interview conducted by Stanford’s Hoover Institute. 

    “I could never have become CEO in any other country in the world, including in India,” said Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, drawing a collective gasp across the Indian Internet. “It’s because the system [in the USA] is meritocratic. Mentors don’t care whether you’re male, female, ethnicity, gender, they don’t care, they just want the best brains to rise to the top.”

     

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    The chat and the kerfuffle it brought in its wake, plunged me down a rabbithole of remarks on gender disparity by Nooyi. 

    In a Freakonomics podcast with Stephen Dubner in 2018: “I’d say that when you become a CEO and you’re a woman you are looked at differently. Whatever you say people do — they say things like, ‘Well a guy CEO wouldn’t have said that. Or a guy would have said it differently.’ You are held to a different standard, there’s no question about it.” 

    In an interview with the New York Times in 2019: “The pipeline is leaking at the early stages. Because we get enough women coming into the work force in various stages. But by the time they get to Level 2 and Level 3, they just drop out of the work force for several reasons…We can ill afford to be a country where women drop out of the work force.” 

    She isn’t wrong. Women lead 55 of America’s 500 largest companies, according to the 2025 Fortune 500. This is a number that is higher than ever before, yet a mere 11% of the total (compared to 5% in India). So perhaps we must ask why progress still drags, even in ‘meritocratic’ mature economies such as that of North America?

     

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    But to diminish a country as baldly as she did, one that provided the bedrock of the very education that catapulted her to Yale, one that afforded her the privilege of progressive parents, is to come across as tone deaf.
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    It is equally sobering to hear the words ‘USA is the greatest country in the world’ used at a time when the news cycle is riddled with polarization. Certainly, the USA opened its arms to her in 1978. Certainly, she got to test her mettle against a legion of privileged Americans (and triumphed). Certainly, the country built her into the titan that she is today. And yet we must ask — does the Great American Dream gild every immigrant in the same way? To many others, the Dream, perhaps, is not one door but many — some wide open, some revolving, some bolted tightly shut. 

    Onwards to her other jarring statement. “India is a chaotic country. The beauty of India lies in its chaos. Absolute chaos. And if you are familiar with India, and you’ve travelled in India before and you like that chaos all around you, you go back. It’s like a drug. You get addicted to it,” she said.

    This she pitted against an orderly ‘homogenous’ China. Although her words were meant to be complimentary, to pick the one stereotype used to tar India for decades is…certainly a choice. India is by no means a perfect country. It is fraught with inequality — caste, class, gender and religious schisms yawn as deep as chasms. But to diminish a country as baldly as she did, one that provided the bedrock of the very education that catapulted her to Yale, one that afforded her the privilege of progressive parents, is to come across as tone deaf.

    For many Indians and Indian Americans, Nooyi is a beacon, bolstering their idea of the Great American Dream, and equally an exemplar of the model minority. In some ways, she is perfectly positioned, a first-generation immigrant ricocheting between two democratic colossi. For someone in her position, a little nuance, a little sensitivity might have come in handy. For Nooyi, all roads lead to New York. But there are different New Yorks now, and the old ones have lost some of their lustre.

  • India’s Silver Economy is a Gold Mine

    What do you think about, when you think about seniors? Fingers gnarled with arthritis, creaky knees, rheumy-eyed, bent over in half, marooned in bed with a ceaseless hack of a cough, enslaved by the slow creep of age — if this is the picture your mind draws immediately, you are probably in the majority. But you’d likely be wrong.

    The entire landscape of senior living is undergoing a tectonic shift. 

    Ageing no longer marks the end of living. Most retired people are financially independent, computer savvy, and physically fit. Older adults, unencumbered by family responsibilities and the drudge of office jobs, are no longer leading anodyne existences. Instead, they are discovering new passions such as music, sport, travel, photography. They are skewering stereotypes by picking up barbells and whipping battle ropes at the gym. They’re changing the face of technology. No wonder then that many are making the choice to live on their own, or in assisted living facilities, away from cosseting family members. “I don’t want to be a burden to my child,” says Leena Vora, whose son lives in Singapore. “Besides, I have a very full life in Mumbai. I play mahjong at the club, meet my friends every day, I am perfectly content where I am.”

     

    The Diaspora Dilemma

    Much of this shift is being driven by changing family structures. Today’s families are more geographically dispersed than ever before. Children scatter across cities and countries for education and careers, families are choosing nuclear homes rather than traditional joint family structures, birth rates are tumbling as education levels rise, and growing prosperity means that people are living longer lives. (India’s lifespan has bulged from 41 years in 1950 to a staggering 72 years in 2023.) 

     

     

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    It follows therefore that the elderly population is on the rise, bringing India’s caregiving crisis into sharp focus. 

    “I grew up very close to my grandparents, so I’ve witnessed the ageing journey firsthand — not just the practical challenges, but the emotional ones as well,” says Deveshi Trehan, Co-Founder of Suvarna Living, an independent senior living advisory. “When I moved abroad to study, it was the first time I’d spent months away from them. Like many NRIs, I experienced the guilt of loving your family from a distance. But at the same time, living overseas also changed my perception of senior living. I saw thriving communities where older adults lived independently, built meaningful friendships, and embraced retirement as a new chapter.”

     

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    Children scatter across cities and countries for education and careers, families are choosing nuclear homes rather than traditional joint family structures, birth rates are tumbling as education levels rise, and growing prosperity means that people are living longer lives.
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    For a rapidly graying population, the need of the hour is for a centrally-positioned government policy with arms extending both to institutional medical care as well as informal home-centric solutions. After all, ageing is no longer just a healthcare issue; it bleeds inexorably into housing, transport, local governance, technology, employment, safety, financial services as well as social life. At the moment, the National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly (NPHCE) spotlights only hospital-based care. The Elderline, a phone helpline fashioned by the Department of Social Justice & Empowerment offers emotional support as well as field interventions, but only from 8am to 8pm.

    And so state governments are stepping in. Kerala, for example, is India’s fastest-silvering state, and migration has left growing numbers of elderly people living alone there. Its government is trying to narrow the care gap, by ushering in a dedicated department for senior welfare to address the challenges of an ageing population.

    The new department’s strategy is centered on ‘ageing in place’ — helping older people remain in their homes and communities rather than shuffling them into institutions. The plans include expanding community and home-based care, and connecting older people with meaningful social activities. The state also plans to launch a certified caregiver training program, build a professional care workforce, and create elderly parks, day-care centers and fitness facilities. 

    Elsewhere, municipalities are designing their own measures for support — for instance, the Mumbai Police’s initiative on senior citizen safety involves paying courtesy visits to elders, especially those living on their own. 

     

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    Private Enterprise: Senior Living Comes of Age

    Where government action lags, private companies and concerned individuals swoop in. 

    Seniors savvy with their smartphones now have the option of installing apps such as Khyaal, that offer everything from investment solutions to access to fitness classes and karaoke sessions. Seventeen-year-old Hemesh Chadalavada built a gadget, the Alpha Monitor, that detects when people with Alzheimer’s fall or stray (up to 5 kms) and immediately alerts the carers. Technology is immensely helpful, especially for seniors navigating their retirement years at home on their own.

    For those who prefer community living, there are now choices a-plenty. Such centers are pooled in big cities like Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, Kerala, and Delhi NCR although communities are emerging even in locations such as Dehradun and Goa. 

    “The first organized senior living communities in India were launched around 2004, making it a relatively young sector compared to more mature markets,” explains Trehan, “Adoption was slow, and we still continue to spread awareness, largely because many families associate senior living with old age homes. That perception is still changing as people experience these communities firsthand and realize they combine independent living with hospitality, wellness, and access to healthcare. Today, the sector is growing rapidly, but it remains significantly underserved. Our market penetration sits at only 1.3% – suggesting significant room for growth.” (The senior living sector in the country has attracted around Rs 3,500 crore in investments in the last couple of years.)

    As Trehan says, many of these new communities are no longer centered solely around healthcare. They combine hospitality, wellness, social engagement, and technology with senior-friendly design. For instance, Antara’s senior living residences offer emergency health responders and senior-specific interior design together with veterinary services (for residents with pets), fitness centers and even a small private movie theater. 

    Some elders may even choose community-specific options. For instance, in Mumbai, the Shapoorji Pallonji Home for Senior Citizens houses Parsi senior citizens from the ages of 60-75 — “Not only was this the most affordable option, I also chose it for the homely Parsi cooking they serve to residents,” says a greedy resident, Ruby S.

     

    “
    Many of these communities are no longer centered solely around healthcare. New-age developments combine hospitality, wellness, social engagement, and technology with senior-friendly design.
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    Another recent indicator of growth? The buzz in investment circles is all about Gurugram-based Age Care Labs, which has raised USD $9 million to help strengthen its elder care platform through senior care services, technology, and healthcare assistance. On the horizon is Shremoha, a premium senior independent living platform combining professionally-managed residences with hospitality, preventive healthcare, wellness programs, emergency response, and coordinated care. 

    This changing panorama is laudable. “To me though, the most important shift is that the conversation is moving beyond simply caring for seniors to empowering them to remain independent for as long as possible,” says Trehan. “That’s what makes this sector so meaningful – it transforms ageing from something to fear into something to embrace.”