cms.the-moment.io

Blog

  • India’s Iconic Museums

    India’s museums hold no shortage of curiosities — from a bomb placed inside a book, planted in an attempt to assassinate a British official, to a mechanical toy that strikes the gong inside a clock. These are more than just interesting objects; they are enduring testaments to the brilliant minds of artists, sculptors, architects, and, of course, curators. These institutions, after all, are both repositories of history as well as spaces for communities to gather and engage with their own, often complicated histories. Plans are afoot for a swathe of new museums at the ancient archaeological sites of Lothal, Chittorgarh, Udaigiri, Adhichinallur, Jhansi, and Dholavira, to showcase (amongst other things) the country’s Buddhist heritage.

    Many believe that the idea of a museum is inherently a colonial construct; the concept of the museum was brought to India by British authorities, who set up the country’s first museum in Calcutta in 1814. Today, many of these institutions have sought to reverse the impact of colonialism by telling the stories of post-independence India, although some of their origin stories lie in the making of colonial narratives.

    India, of course, has a plethora of museums. Figuring out which ones you absolutely shouldn’t miss, however, is no easy task. Here’s a list of five iconic museums in India that you should consider visiting if you find yourself in any of these cities.

     

    1. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai

    The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai stands as one of the country’s most distinguished centers for art and history. The museum was established in the early 20th century to commemorate a royal visit from England and was originally named the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India. It was later renamed to honor the 17th-century Maratha monarch, Shivaji Maharaj. Designed by Scottish architect George Wittet and completed in 1915, the building is a prime example of Indo-Saracenic architecture, seamlessly combining traditional Indian elements like Mughal arches, Maratha jharokhas, and a central dome inspired by Bijapur’s Gol Gumbaz with Western structural proportions. There are arms and armor from the Mughal era, miniature paintings, a collection of pottery from East Asia, and even a section dedicated to Natural History, making its collection quite expansive. Located in South Mumbai’s vibrant Fort district, CSMVS sits in close proximity to major art landmarks such as the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) and the Jehangir Art Gallery. After you are done, feel free to head to Colaba Causeway to buy some trinkets!

     

    2. Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru

    The Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru represents a distinctly contemporary approach to museum design in India. It breaks from the conventional model of physical expansion, as MAP launched as a digital platform before opening its physical facility, building an engaged audience through virtual exhibitions, online archives, and educational programs prior to the building’s completion. This strategy shares similarities with institutions like the Delhi Art Gallery (DAG), which broadened access to Indian art through meticulous archiving and public engagement. Located in India’s technology capital, MAP combines fine art, photography, textiles, and design under one roof, using its modern space to make art a regular part of civic life. The institution has acquired more than 20,000 artworks. If you happen to fly out of Bengaluru’s Terminal 2 airport and have some time on your hands before boarding your flight, you could also spend some time at the digital museum, which offers visitors the chance to view a wide selection of artworks and photographs on a giant screen. It also comes with the option of emailing those works to your inbox, along with details such as the name of the artist and the year the work was completed.

     

    3. Alipore Jail Museum, Kolkata

    Kolkata is home to the oldest museum in the country, the Indian Museum, established in 1814. However, newer spaces have also emerged, offering a plethora of interesting objects and materials. Originally operating as the Alipore Central Jail, this preserved red-brick site played a prominent role in India’s struggle for independence, having held key freedom fighters including Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Sri Aurobindo. The complex maintains an atmosphere of historical reflection, preserving significant areas such as execution yards, gallows, and individual cells. The museum differs from other museum spaces in Kolkata because much of it extends beyond the confines of four walls. Loudspeakers blasted patriotic songs that made one feel like they were living in a time when the masses were being roused to adopt a sympathetic attitude toward the struggle for independence from colonial rule. The audio guides also enhance the visitor experience. Today, the space has been reimagined as a public cultural venue that regularly hosts literary festivals, talks, and gatherings, bringing scholars and visitors together in a location formerly defined by colonial control.

     

     

    4. Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad

    Located on the banks of the Musi River in Dar ul-Shifa, Hyderabad, the Salar Jung Museum houses one of the world’s largest individual art collections, assembled largely by Nawab Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, also known as Salar Jung III. Among its expansive range of artifacts, two specific exhibits are renowned for drawing crowds. The first is a 19th-century British musical clock featuring a mechanical automaton figure that emerges from a small door to strike a gong every hour on the hour. It’s quite the spectacle, with visitors huddling around to watch. The second is The Veiled Rebecca, an 1863 marble masterpiece carved by Italian sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni from a single block of stone, creating the illusion of a translucent fabric veil draped over the figure’s face and form. There is, of course, more to be seen, including photographs of the royal family, exquisite pieces of furniture, and the recreated Nizam’s Darbar Hall, whose ceiling is hung with beautiful crystal chandeliers. This serves as a reminder of the cultural contributions made to Indian art and culture by royal families, although, as institutions, their relevance has dwindled over time.

     

     

    5. National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi

    When in the national capital, there are a plethora of museums to choose from, but we highly recommend paying a visit to the National Gallery of Modern Art. Sawlaram Haldankar, Nandalal Bose, M.F. Husain, Abanindranath Tagore, and Amrita Sher-Gil are just a handful of the legendary artists whose works you can encounter here. Together, they reveal the fascinating shifts in Indian artistic thought across time. Currently, its main building, Jaipur House, is undergoing renovation, and most of the artworks of interest have been transferred to the New Wing. A visit here offers a fascinating glimpse into the different eras of Indian art, as well as the changing ideas and influences that shaped its artists. Some works date to the colonial period, where the influence of European academic traditions and styles of painting is clearly visible. Alongside these, however, are works that challenged the artistic status quo, looking beyond colonial conventions and drawing inspiration from distinctly Indian traditions, ideas, and forms. Others looked eastward, most notably toward Japan. Abanindranath Tagore was famously inspired by the works of Yokoyama Taikan and Okakuro Kazuko. The gallery is also set within a beautiful garden, making it a particularly pleasant place to spend an afternoon. The campus itself is striking, with its buildings constructed in the warm red and yellow sandstone so characteristic of New Delhi’s historic architecture.

  • India’s New Podcast Playbook

    Ask most Indians when podcasts ‘arrived’ here, and you’ll get shrugs rather than a date. There was no single Serial moment, no viral true-crime season that pulled a whole country into earbuds overnight — the medium crept in sideways, through WhatsApp forwards and YouTube autoplays, in a dozen languages, for years. That quietness is exactly what confused the industry watchers who, back in 2019, were predicting India’s podcast breakout on the strength of rising smartphone usage, affordable data, and a growing appetite for niche content.

    Several years later, the boom they expected did show up, just not in the form they expected. Unlike the US or UK, where podcasts are a culture-shaping industry with breakout stars, bestseller lists, and lucrative ad deals, India’s podcast space works differently, shaped by language, intimacy, and a different kind of podcaster.

     

     

    The US might have true crime junkies and wellness obsessives. India, on the other hand, is known for its motivational talks, gastronomic explainers, cricket commentary, and financial advice.

    Take The Musafir Stories, a travel podcast hosted by Saif Omar and Faiza Khan, that highlights underrated travel destinations. Or The Real Food Podcast, hosted by Vikram Doctor, that travels across the gamut of Indian food. These shows do not have glossy production values with enormous studio budgets. But to the listener, they feel personal and intimate.

    Part of the issue is infrastructure. In the U.S., a podcaster might monetize through ads, subscriptions, merchandise, and live shows. In India, many podcasts are labours of love. Ad rates are low, brand partnerships are limited, and platforms prioritize big names. English-language podcasts dominate the homepage, often skewing male, urban, and elite.

    But that’s changing. Platforms like Spotify and HT Smartcast are investing in original Indian programming. Audiobooks and fiction serials are gaining traction. And homegrown networks like Suno India and Maed in India are building space for queer voices, rural stories, and investigative reporting. It’s worth remembering that our podcast history reaches back to at least 2015 when Audiomatic, launched by Tariq Ansari and Rajesh Tahil, India’s first podcast network, was launched.

     

    “
    Platforms like Spotify and HT Smartcast are beginning to invest in original Indian programming. Audiobooks and fiction serials are gaining traction.
    ”

     

    There’s also a reshaping of the format itself. In India, a successful podcast isn’t always audio-only. Many popular shows are visual-first — published on YouTube with video, clips, and subtitles. Think The Ranveer Show, enormously popular, marrying interviews with TED Talk energy. Or Table 1, where host Vir Sanghvi discusses the country’s restaurant-scape with chefs and restaurateurs. This video-podcast hybrid reflects how Indian audiences move across platforms. It also speaks to the fact that the most successful podcasts are personality-driven.

    Over 75% of new internet users now prefer their ‘radio’ in regional languages, fuelling a surge in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Marathi audiobooks alongside a new genre of television-quality ‘Audio Cinema’ micro-dramas, with the market itself projected to reach $1.1 billion by late 2026. Kuku FM, India’s leading vernacular audio platform for audiobooks, personal finance, and self-help since 2018, embodies that shift — it secured $85 million in Series C funding led by Granite Asia in late 2025/early 2026.

     

    Entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath, host of the podcast WTF Is...

     

    Today’s most popular shows — Figuring Out with Raj Shamani, The Ranveer Show, WTF is with Nikhil Kamath, Finshots Daily, The Seen and the Unseen, and The Desi Crime Podcast — skew heavily toward business and self-improvement advice rather than the true-crime and prestige-narrative genres that dominate in the US, confirming that India’s audio boom is building its own template rather than importing one.

    So what makes a podcast work in India? It’s rarely just audio quality or celebrity guests. It’s voice. It’s relatability. It’s rhythm, tone, and a certain unpolished intimacy. A host who sounds like someone you know. A story that reminds you of something your cousin once said. In a culture built on oral history, podcasts that work here often feel like a phone call, not a broadcast.

    Will India ever have its own Serial moment? Why does it even need to? The podcast future here is intimate, multilingual, video-first, hybridized, hyperlocal. And that’s not a shortcoming. That’s the sound of a new audio language.

  • The Return Of The Remake Of The Adaptation

    It’s happening again. 213 years after the book was written, Netflix has decided that what the world needs in 2026 is yet another Pride and Prejudice remake, this time with the peerless casting of Rufus Sewell as Mr Bennet and Olivia Colman as Mrs Bennet.

    Pride and Prejudice was inked by the acerbic pen of Jane Austen more than two centuries ago, and it feels as though there have been as many adaptations of the book ever since, including Bridget Jones’s Diary, Gurinder Chadha’s sparkling Bride and Prejudice with Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson, as well as the bizarre Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an action-horror mashup released in 2016 in which the stars of the book spend their time scything the prowling undead.

    That Austen’s wit and wisdom transcend ages, genres, and geographies is undeniable; Google says there have been at least 17 versions of just this book, some of which are film or telly adaptations of book adaptations of the original (although why does anyone bother when everyone knows the 1995 BBC adaptation of the book is the definitive one). Again, this year, Focus Features is releasing a brand-new Sense and Sensibility. In short, Austen is irresistible.

     

    in.pinterest.com

     

    But this isn’t simply a tirade about Austen remakes. Agatha Christie remakes litter the cinematic landscape, with Kenneth Branagh making three Poirot films in less than ten years. Indubitably, more Christie remakes are on the horizon. There are so many of Murder on the Orient Express that there are even articles ranking the top 5 adaptations of the film. Christie died in 1976; her detectives have never worked harder.

    From the point of view of the filmmaker, remakes make eminent sense. Superman, for instance, is a known IP with built-in audience recognition and easy (and cheaper) to market to people who have grown up loving the source material anyway. After all, everyone knows the superhero with the giant S on his chest. The audience comes pre-sold.

    But what about from the audience’s point of view? Why do we keep submitting to the same stories, told over and over again? There are think pieces flooding the media space, claiming that nostalgia is in, but nostalgia has always been in.

    While nostalgia is a great marketing tool, perhaps it is also the result of the silent mandate of the discerning viewer, choosing to rewatch a cult favorite over betting on a fresh release. To return to something familiar is also a way to emotionally regulate and lower anxiety, especially during times of uncertainty, i.e., not just economic or emotional uncertainty but during traumatic times such as the pandemic.

     

    “
    Pride and Prejudice was inked by the acerbic pen of Jane Austen more than two centuries ago, and it feels as though there have been as many adaptations of the book ever since, including Bridget Jones’s Diary, Gurinder Chadha’s sparkling Bride and Prejudice with Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson, as well as the bizarre Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
    ”

     

    A study found that people under high stress tend to revisit familiar media to create a sense of control. Processing unfamiliar narrative arcs and following new characters requires a higher cognitive load. The same way a song on repeat can calm you down, so can a remake of Emma. Across continents, people are choosing comfort over novelty.

    Decision fatigue plays a big part. In a world with 500+ new scripted shows released every year, the simple act of choosing what to watch can feel overwhelming. Psychologists call this ‘choice paralysis’. Faced with too many options, many of us revert to what’s safe and easy. Remakes demand very little from our over-stimulated brains.

    Maybe rewatch statistics aren’t just media metrics. Maybe they’re a cultural temperature check — revealing when and how we turn to old favorites to manage new realities. People fall back on familiarity when they want to feel okay. That need — to feel safe, steady, soothed — cuts across countries, platforms, and personalities.

     

    in.pinterest.com

     

    But what do we lose out on when filmmakers keep choosing familiarity? Creativity for one, as studios turn to risk-averse choices, while artistic originality falls by the wayside.

    The relentless cycle of reboots and remakes may be keeping studios profitable, but it is also making mainstream cinema increasingly predictable. How long can such a model remain lucrative for? As audiences become familiar with the same stories, formulas and franchises being recycled, their appetite for repetition may eventually wane, forcing the industry to look beyond nostalgia and invest once again in original ideas.

    All this is to say, that there’s nothing inherently good or bad about a remake. Sometimes, a familiar story can offer exactly what we need; sometimes, it can remind us why the original was so beloved. The real question is whether we are returning to these stories because they still have something new to say, or because we have simply stopped looking for stories we haven’t heard before.

  • India’s Ozempic Diet

    Everybody knows somebody who has taken Ozempic or Mounjaro. Across Indian cities, GLP-1s have become predictable dinner table conversation. Has Karan Johar taken Ozempic? Has Serena Williams? The former has steadfastly refused to attribute his eye-goggling weight loss to anything but diet and poor health, while the latter has publicly credited Zepbound for her weight loss.

    Neither is lying. But they do point to different facets of the GLP-1 discourse: the Western world appears almost to have embraced it as a part of cultural conversation; while in India, there is still a shadow of stigma.

    The level of adoption varies sharply. In the US, for example, GLP-1 use sits at 11%, up from just 3% two years ago, and estimates reveal that roughly one in five American households now includes a GLP-1 user. What’s driving this steep growth? Falling prices and simultaneously, a revision of medical insurance. Meanwhile, newly approved oral versions are drawing in customers wary of taking injections.

    In India, the market depends more on generics rather than insurance-subsidized originals, and doctors have reported a surge in off label GLP-1 agonists, with unauthorized pharmacies supplying them to customers. (Only endocrinologists, internal medicine specialists, and cardiologists can legally prescribe them in the country). And even while Mounjaro has surged to become the highest-selling GLP-1 drug in the country, the government is encouraging local pharma companies to replicate their own homegrown options, as US patents have recently expired.

    And while the world looks upon them as some sort of miracle drug, there are far-reaching consequences that range beyond Ozempic face and Ozempic butt. The drugs not only drop appetite, they may also change the taste of food itself; multiple users have reported gravitating to softer textures and foods that were easier to digest. For a country in which the culture is built around commensality and communal meals, this is a social minefield.

    That tension between changing appetites and changing food habits looks very different in India than it does in the US, where the food industry is already adapting to the rise of GLP-1 users.

    In the US, companies such as Nestle have found yet another marketing gimmick, creating protein-heavy frozen foods such as pizza and pasta to support GLP-1 users. Similarly, Conagra has stamped their foods with a GLP-1 Friendly badge. “Whether you’re using GLP-1 medications, transitioning off them, working toward natural weight management, or simply focused on maintaining a healthy lifestyle, these products are tailored to meet a variety of needs,” states the press release.

    No such support exists in India, a country famously prone to carb-heavy diets that have a close correspondence with medical issues such as diabetes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, adoption has remained tepid, even for a country with high obesity and diabetic rates.

    There’s also the risk that in India, the conversation around these chemicals has been disproportionately driven by celebrities and public figures, rather than by health systems. Comedian Aishwarya Mohanraj’s transformation through Mounjaro, Tanmay Bhat’s (also a comedian) being open about his interest in GLP-1 use (while clarifying that much of his dramatic weight loss came the traditional way, via diet and exercise), and creator Shoumik Shetty’s description of the drug quieting “food noise” have done as much to popularize GLP-1s in India as any clinical campaign.

    This, in contrast to the U.S., where adoption has been driven more by insurance coverage and primary-care prescribing than by influencer testimony.

    Put together, the Indian GLP-1 story so far is one of individual transformation outpacing collective infrastructure: bodies changing quickly, kitchens changing slowly, and a market — from supplements to restaurant menus — scrambling to keep up with a hormone most people had never heard of two years ago.

  • India’s Northeast, Reframed

    Whenever India’s NorthEast is mentioned in conversation, shallow associations of political turmoil, untrammelled nature, and tribal communities often spring to mind. But in the past decade, a generation of filmmakers from the region has begun changing that image, earning international acclaim while expanding India’s conception of itself.

    Few have been more visible internationally than Rima Das. A self-taught filmmaker from Assam, she worked with a small crew and non-professional actors, writing, directing, editing and producing Village Rockstars (2017). Reminiscent of Sean Baker’s award-winning The Florida Project, the film shows joy, simplicity and humor through the lens of children in village life.

    Das had three consecutive films – Village Rockstars (2017), Bulbul Can Sing (2018) and Tora’s Husband (2022) – showing as world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), accumulating over 150 festival selections and 70 awards in nearly 40 countries. Perhaps it’s the romanticism of the natural world against the concrete jungles many of us inhabit, but Das consistently painted a world where tradition and modernity could co-exist – electric guitars, teenage love along with local languages and customs – creating a unique form of identity.

     

    in.pinterest.com

     

    Goan-American writer Vivek Menezes saw this firsthand when visiting Manipur in 2019, noting that the Manipuri people used creativity and cosmopolitanism through fashion, music, food and entrepreneurship to express their cultural roots. Be it meeting a Bob Dylan-influenced band leader who combines Manipuri and American folk music, or a tea entrepreneur who was once an investment banker in London and Singapore.

    A year later, Menezes visited Nagaland, and saw a similar story – “The fact is that much of what you’ll see in Nagaland resists tired clichés around India’s Northeast,” he writes. “Instead, you’ll find wildly stylish urbanites flaunting effortless street chic to rival Milan or Paris — the difference is that these global souls have powerful roots in their clan, tribe and hilltop villages.”

    These observations show that modernization doesn’t equal discarding traditions in the name of anachronism and mimicking Westernization, but using Western tools of storytelling, branding, and differentiation to allow for rediscovery, and even reinvention.

    That growing cultural confidence goes beyond film. The region’s tourism has doubled (7.9 million to 15 million) from 2015 to 2020, amplified by Nagaland’s Hornbill Festival and Arunachal Pradesh’s Ziro Festival of Music, which have used a mix of indie music, unique architecture, camping, local culture and environmentalism to appeal to urban Indians.

    Arunachal Pradesh’s tourism ambassador, the Bollywood star John Abraham, has long been drawn to the region, and created NorthEast United to represent all eight states in the football league, the Indian Super League. He called the growth of the sport there “cultural and organic,” acknowledging that it has been overlooked.

     

    “
    In the Sikkim-situated Shape of Momo (2025), the star leaves her job in Delhi to spend time in her ancestral village, only to discover that the community that offers belonging also carries expectations about marriage and gender norms.
    ”

     

    “Every time I meet someone new, I’ve had to explain where I come from, because internationally – and even nationally –
    Nagaland is so underrepresented,” said filmmaker Theja Rio. “There are always raised eyebrows when I tell people that I come from India.”

    Kohima-born, educated in the UK, and influenced by Hollywood and kung fu films, thirty-year-old Rio saw that “our daily lives, our perspectives – those were not meant for cinema.” He adds that “Nagaland now is drastically different from the world I grew up in, and I’m only thirty… a new generation is now attempting a cultural U-turn.”

    Rio’s film, Angh, will be premiering at TIFF, and features “a chief must choose between his family and a transforming world embodied by an incoming American missionary.” Rio follows a limited – but increasingly growing – trend of films from the NorthEast at major film festivals. Manipuri and Assamese cinema was occasionally featured in the 1980s and 1990s, but TIFF has provided a major platform beginning in 1983 with Aribam Syam Sharma’s Imagi Ningthem and in 1991 with Ishanou.

     

    in.pinterest.com

     

    Similarly, Lakshmipriya Devi, a veteran of Bollywood’s Excel Entertainment but a first-time director, created Boong. Her 2024 ‘labour of love,’ premiered at TIFF, and offers a child’s perspective to show India–Myanmar border tension around ethnicity, migration and belonging. She travelled across Manipur for the film in an attempt to strike a balance between budget and scenery.

    The sense of being an ‘outsider’ has become one of NorthEast cinema’s recurring subjects. In Crossing Bridges (2013), an Arunachali man who has spent years working away from his village, returns home after losing his job and rediscovers the culture he had left behind. Boong reverses that perspective: a Manipuri child goes searching for a father who has left to work at the Myanmar border. In the Sikkim-situated Shape of Momo (2025), the star leaves her job in Delhi to spend time in her ancestral village, only to discover that the community that offers belonging also carries expectations about marriage and gender norms.

    Rapture (2023), about a remote Meghalaya village consumed by fear of outsiders, uses belief systems to explore who belongs and how communities react when they feel threatened. Initially unable to get distribution, the production team rented an 800-person venue and filled it for weeks, leading to far larger releases in dozens of cinemas in France! Similarly, Axone and Aamis, had houseful screenings at 2019 MAMI Film Festival in Mumbai, with the former even reaching #1 on Netflix in India. The success of these films shows how talking about migration and identity aren’t just meant for sociological studies, but can have deep resonance in cinematic storytelling.

    Many of these grassroots filmmakers are committed to a syncretic mix of tradition and modernity, offering a more nuanced and contemporary view of the region. While festival prizes and sold-out screenings strengthen credibility, the NorthEast looks cool not because it is setting new trends, but also because it is allowing others to rediscover it.

  • Adulting, Optional: India’s Toy Aisle Takeover

    Walk into any mall in India, and chances are, you’ll be greeted by a somewhat odd sight. Toy stores are choc-a-bloc with adults (and not necessarily accompanied by any children either). Look even closer. You’ll spot a dangling charm clipped on to even the most fashionable handbag. Across the aisle, the fancy cafe has a shelf heaving with Ludo, chess and Snakes and Ladders.

    This, the reversion of adult pastimes into child-like games, is ‘kidulting’ and in India, it is having a genuine cultural moment.

    If any one object symbolizes this shift, it’s the Labubu. The odd-looking doll-like figure created by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung and sold through Chinese toy giant Pop Mart has become a global obsession. Bollywood actress Urvashi Rautela boasts the dubious achievement of being the first actress in the world to clip four Labubu dolls onto her bag. Even Amitabh Bachchan hopped onto the zeitgeist by posting a photograph of one hanging in his car.

    in.pinterest.com

    It’s gone beyond the Labubu too. Bag charms are now a dime-a-dozen, a micro-trend attributed to Gen Z (but spotted slung across the bags of millennials and Gen X as well. Widen the wave a little, and you’ll see adults drawn to plush toys — ‘stuffies’ — as objects of comfort rather than nostalgia alone.

    These toys and figurines have become more than cute add-ons: they’re conversation starters, comfort objects, identity tags. In a world still spinning from a pandemic, economic anxiety, and endless war headlines, kidulting is becoming more about how we’re coping with burnout. This isn’t new. Every time the world has faced upheaval, our lifestyles have shifted too, quietly absorbing the mood of the moment.

    A quieter strand of the kidulting movement is the boom in miniatures — dollhouses, book nooks, and dioramas aimed at adults. Take a gander at Etsy India, and you’ll find hundreds of wizarding toys and dioramas targeted squarely at Potterheads who are willing to spend up to ₹ 23,000 for a hand-made Harry Potter diorama of Gryffindor’s common room.

    And board games, once relegated to childhood shenanigans, have become so embedded in India’s culture-scape that someone has even built a website that gathers together every board game cafe, board game communities and publishers, and stores, in cities ranging from Chennai and Mysuru to Pune and Mumbai.

    Globally, dollhousing has grown into quite an industry. The UK’s Kensington Dollhouse Company builds exquisite dollhouses on private commission for adult collectors, with open-handed buyers willing to pay anything from up to £100,000 for one. The global dollhouse market, estimated near $1.2 billion, is projected to roughly double within a decade thanks to new generations of adult collectors.

    Then there’s LEGO, which has spent decades building one of toydom’s most devoted adult fanbases — so devoted that hobbyists have their own acronym, AFOL: Adult Fan of LEGO. In India, LEGO Collector’s Week 2026 celebrated the country’s growing community of adult collectors. Bengaluru’s John Seemon, for instance, owns more than 400,000 pieces.

    While the bag charms might appeal to a more fashion-forward section of consumers, LEGO appeals to a different instinct: a slow, structured, screen-free task with a clear end — rare in a phone-dominated routine.

    in.pinterest.com

     

    Most explainers on kidulting lapse into nostalgia and suggest that adults are seeking a wisp of their pre-lapsarian history, trying to recreate the simple joys of childhood play. Psychologists believe that it can genuinely lower anxiety. That framing lands hard in India, where conversations about burnout and mental health have opened up considerably in just a few years. A Labubu on a bag or a half-built dollhouse isn’t just a purchase; it’s a small, low-cost act of self-care that needs no explaining to anyone.

    So if you’re wondering why even the busiest professionals are buying dollhouses or clipping toys to their luxury bags, maybe it’s not about taste at all. Maybe it’s just one more way we’re all trying to make sense of a world that keeps shifting under our feet — one toy at a time.

  • Looking Through The Lens

    The history of the spectacle dates back to the 13th century, and back then nobody could have imagined that within the frames of these trusty spectacles, one could make space for a camera and a microphone. The legend of the Peeping Tom who spied on Lady Godiva seems to have found a technological afterlife in this era, except he wouldn’t have to be looking from a distance. With the invention of smartglasses, people realized that they can also be empowered to capture, process and preserve everyone and everything that enters the wearer’s field of vision.

    In 1980, Steve Mann, a researcher from Toronto, Canada, created what Guinness World Records recognises as the first wearable eyeglass camera. Mann’s original apparatus combined a camera with an optical display capable of placing computer-generated graphics before his eyes. The prototype of the processing equipment depended on a computer carried in a backpack. Over the years, Mann refined this ‘digital eye glass’ into increasingly sophisticated versions. The device could record the wearer’s perspective, process the resulting images and return visual information via a miniature screen placed before the eyes.

    The transition from being a conspicuous machine to an accessory that looks seemingly harmless, with no extra parts attached, is precisely what makes contemporary smart glasses so interesting, technologically and socially. If a person holds up a phone to take a photograph, he is performing a recognizable gesture — one that announces itself. Smart glasses, by contrast, fold that gesture into the ordinary act of looking.

    in.pinterest.com

    Photography once raised similar questions, before it settled into an acceptable way of ‘recycling reality’ and was regarded as a branch of high art. It was not perceived as a necessity in the way it is today. Today, it might count as one because we need cameras to verify that we are real human beings behind the screen. We need to show our faces for a seamless check-in experience at Indian airports (read: DigiYatra), or to secure verified accounts on dating apps. At times when our phone cameras are not scanning our irises, we might need them to scan important documents. Access to a camera is now commonplace, but the next step in technological evolution might be hinting towards the way we look — and, increasingly, towards the way looking itself gets folded into memory, verification and everyday transaction.

    Smartglasses, with their power of recording, can blur the distinction between the act of looking and that of recording. What we see can now become data, an image or a piece of information without requiring us to reach for another device. This introduces a new relationship between the wearer, the environment and the people around them — a relationship shaped less by any single bad actor than by the fact that intention, in this new arrangement, is no longer legible from the outside. A glance and a recording now look identical.

    “
    Photography once raised similar questions, before it settled into an acceptable way of 'recycling reality' and was regarded as a branch of high art. It was not perceived as a necessity in the way it is today.
    ”

    This question of visibility and consent recently played out in Delhi, where Shubnam, a transfeminine graphic artist attending a trans rights protest, was covertly filmed using Meta AI Ray-Ban smartglasses by a content creator. Within hours, the footage was turned into fodder for the social media algorithms, as it was turned into transphobic memes that went viral across social platforms. Shubnam later described Meta’s wearable tech as ‘pervert glasses,’ pointing out that the device raises questions not only about individual privacy but about the social ethos of shared public spaces.

    When Indian influencers like Rida Tharana promoted these glasses online, they faced community backlash for endorsing a technology that some felt raised concerns around public safety. Even defenses citing Meta’s built-in blinking LED recording light prompted debate; a tiny indicator light may not always provide meaningful awareness to an unsuspecting bystander, especially when it can be easily overlooked.

    It is said that a small recording light comes on once the glasses are being used to record what one’s eyes see, but that signal doesn’t always register with bystanders who aren’t looking for it. What this really points to is a more basic shift: smart glasses are capable of converting ordinary spaces into sites where the line between watching and recording is no longer visible to the people sharing that space. A conversation at a café, a business appointment, a date or even someone’s journey on public transport can be documented without an obvious camera ever appearing. This becomes more pointed in places where people reasonably expect discretion: hospitals, schools, courtrooms, changing rooms, workplaces and private homes. Even when recording is technically lawful, it is worth asking whether it fits the norms of the space it happens in. In the United Kingdom, smartglasses are forbidden in the courts of law. Cinemas in India such as PVR have also put them on their list of prohibited items lest they be used for the purpose of recording the films.

    in.pinterest.com

    At the same time, the ability to continuously document the world around us is precisely what makes smart glasses such an important technological development. Unlike the smartphone, which requires us to stop, hold and point, smartglasses can operate as an ambient layer of technology. The camera follows the wearer’s natural line of sight, while microphones, processors and increasingly sophisticated AI systems can interpret what is happening around them. The technology is moving photography and computing from something we deliberately operate towards something that can accompany us as we move through the world — less an instrument we pick up than a layer we wear, so that seeing and recording start to happen in the same motion.

    A wholesale rejection of the technology, however, would miss what this same shift makes possible. The same camera that can intrude can also function as an assistive eye. As a collection of letters published by The Guardian emphasized, the controversy surrounding smart glasses risks overshadowing the potentially life-changing value the technology can hold for disabled people. Many have described how it can help users read signs, communicate, navigate their surroundings and perform everyday tasks with greater independence. One wearer with muscular dystrophy highlighted the importance of hands-free access, while visually impaired users pointed to an inconsistency in condemning wearable cameras while treating smartphones and CCTV as routine.

    For a blind or low-vision person, smart glasses can provide descriptions of a room, read printed texts in front of them, identify objects, recognise currency or help locate an item that has been misplaced. They can also connect the wearer to a sighted volunteer who receives a live camera feed and offers spoken assistance. Because the camera follows the user’s natural line of sight, the experience can be more immediate and less cumbersome than repeatedly positioning a phone. Here, the same ambient quality that raises questions elsewhere becomes the whole point: the technology lets someone move through the world with less friction, not more scrutiny.

    “
    The same camera that can intrude can also function as an assistive eye. As a collection of letters published by The Guardian emphasized, the controversy surrounding smart glasses risks overshadowing the potentially life-changing value the technology can hold for disabled people.
    ”

    Another question worth sitting with, though, concerns the sale of this product in India and the support available to customers after purchase. In markets like ours, where Meta and Ray-Ban aggressively encourage the sale of wearable technology, official policies state that there are no dedicated local service centers to repair damaged glasses, leaving users with tech that is effectively disposable once it breaks.

    The camera is no longer necessarily something we hold in our hands. It can become part of the way we move, see, communicate and interact with the world.

    The answer, then, is neither a celebration of the technology nor a call to set it aside. What smart glasses need is a framework that keeps pace with what they’ve changed: thoughtful limits in sensitive locations, clear boundaries around biometric identification, workable remedies when footage is published without consent, and real consequences where recording tips into abuse. Accessibility exemptions must also be designed with disabled users at the table, or rather designed with them, not just for them.

    The larger technological shift, however, is already underway. From Steve Mann’s backpack-sized apparatus to a pair of glasses that can record, process and interpret the world around us, wearable technology is steadily making computing less visible and more integrated into everyday life. The smartphone changed the way we photograph the world. Smart glasses may change the way we see it.

  • Indian Food, Reimagined In New York

  • Palaces For Rent

    For nearly a quarter century after India won independence, the country’s deposed royalty lived in a kind of suspended grandeur. Independence stripped them not only of their titles (nominal though that was), it stripped them of their sovereignty too. As a sort of compensation for joining the newly independent Indian republic, these former rulers of princely states received an annual tax-free government stipend known as the privy purse. It held the erstwhile royalty a sliver away from outright poverty, affording them some semblance of their earlier pomp.

    But that too came to an abrupt end in 1971, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government abolished the privy purse through a constitutional amendment. As the historian Dr. Rakesh Ankit’s research shows, the decision could hardly have come as a surprise; the battle to wrest the privy purse away was actually the culmination of a protracted, bitter four-year political and bureaucratic battle.

     

    The Rajput Room at the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur | in.pinterest.com

     

    Families adapted to democracy the best way they could: selling heirlooms, selling their properties. And several did the unthinkable; they opened their doors to the Indian hospitality industry.

    In fact, the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, once a royal guesthouse for Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II, had already begun operating as a hotel in 1957, and the Lake Palace in Udaipur followed suit in 1963. But 1971 proved to be the turning point for India’s hospitality industry. That was the year in which Maharana Bhagwat Singh of Udaipur signed an agreement handing over management of his Lake Palace to Taj Hotels — a deal that presaged a broader shift in how India’s royal architecture would be monetized.

    The Taj group of hotels was quick to recognize that while they could easily build sky-soaring towers of luxury, centuries-old history could not be replicated. They, along with other hotel groups such as the Oberoi, would go on to acquire many such royal residences.

     

     

    Equally pivotal for the industry was the work of Aman Nath and Francis Wacziarg of Neemrana hotels; they bought and restored the ancient, crumbling 15th C Neemrana Fort which had once belonged to descendants of the Rajput king Prithviraj Chauhan III. Nath and Wacziarg spent five years restoring it before opening a 12-room hotel in 1991 (it has since swelled to nearly five times its original size). The Neemrana group would go on to gain a name for revitalizing ruined architectural marvels across the country.

    And while Rajasthan has the earliest and highest number of palace and fort hotels, the model has evolved to include multiple others. In Maharashtra for example, a palace built between 1755 and 1803 by Khem Sawant III of Sawantwadi sat partly dormant for nearly 30 years before Yuvraj Lakham Sawant Bhonsle and Yuvrani Shraddha Sawant Bhonsle, both trained at the Culinary Institute of America, converted its Taisaheb Wada wing — originally built for the kingdom’s five queens — into a six-suite hotel in 2023. The property, built around the region’s Ganjifa card art and Malvani cuisine, is often described as India’s first chef-owned palace hotel.

    India’s heritage hotel market is now estimated at roughly $487 million, and is projected to surpass $1 billion by 2034, according to industry forecasts.

     

    The grand courtyard of the Rambagh Palace | in.pinterest.com

     

    Depending on who you ask, this shift is a democratizing force, knuckling power and privilege away from royalty; appropriate in a democratic India. Others say that while India’s feudal hierarchy was erased on paper, it didn’t necessarily erase the habits of deference that sustained it. Palaces began selling a controlled, temporary version of that same experience back to the public — a few nights of being treated like royalty, for a price.

    Today, the palace hotel is no longer simply a relic of India’s royal past repurposed for the present. It has become part of the country’s luxury identity, allowing travellers to inhabit, however briefly, the architecture and rituals of a world that officially disappeared more than half a century ago. The irony is hard to miss. The republic that once sought to dismantle the privileges of India’s princes has, in a different form, helped turn their former residences into some of the country’s most coveted destinations.

  • Mamdani And The Many Languages Of Belonging

    When a decade-old video of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani resurfaced recently, the internet had a field day. The clip, from a 2016 South African radio interview promoting his filmmaker mother Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe, showed Mamdani speaking about his childhood in Uganda in a noticeably different accent from the one New Yorkers know today.

    People on both sides of the political spectrum had plenty to say. Some lobbed accusations of a fake accent at him and accused him of appropriating an African identity. Others pointed out a far more rational possibility: Mamdani was speaking about Uganda, on a South African radio station, about a Ugandan film — which makes complete sense as someone who was born in Uganda, and whose father is a prominent Ugandan academic.

     

     

    in.pinterest.com

     

    The debate says less about Mamdani’s voice than it does about our discomfort with people who refuse to have just the one.

    When people in the West talk about code-switching, they usually think of it as a linguistic practice i.e., shifting from one language or dialect to another, depending on where in the world you are and who you are talking to. But for those in the diaspora, the term has come to encompass something broader — the language, yes, but also the mannerisms, vocabulary, volume, rhythm, and the version of yourself you allow into a particular room.

    We all do it to some degree. You learn which version of your name is easiest for someone else to pronounce. You may soften your Malayali accent on the telephone. The person speaking English at work may be the same person who speaks Gujarati to their parents, and a Parsi dialect of the language with their cousins. Sometimes the switch is consciously chosen, sometimes it’s automatic.

    That’s what makes the Mamdani clip so revelatory. Those lambasting him for appropriating a Ugandan accent are missing the point. Mamdani is a child of various cultures and nationalities, all of which he embraces wholeheartedly. Born in Uganda, of Indian origin, and living in New York from the age of seven, Mamdani’s life has been shaped by various languages and cultures. During his mayoral campaign, he used Arabic, Bangla, Hindi-Urdu, Luganda, Spanish, and English to speak directly to New York’s immigrant communities.

    People of color have long been familiar with this double (or triple) identity, often being forced to see themselves simultaneously through one’s own eyes and through the eyes of a society intent on pigeonholing them in some way. But equally, class is another powerful reason people code-switch. A working-class person meeting their partner’s wealthy family may hear themselves speaking differently — more careful with diction, newly conscious of how they hold themselves.

     

    “
    When people in the West talk about code-switching, they usually think of it as a linguistic practice i.e., shifting from one language or dialect to another, depending on where in the world you are and who you are talking to.
    ”

     

    The shift can feel performative; equally, it can feel like making a choice between various identities. Somewhere along the way, diaspora communities may begin to wonder whether such code-switching has cost something, a negation of one part of themselves whilst privileging another. Some may see it as evidence of inauthenticity — as though a single, original self sits buried beneath all those adaptations.

    But cultural identity is never fixed. It changes through migration, marriage, work, class, and time. Research into code-switching increasingly recognizes this complexity.

    And this is the way we must understand Mamdani’s many voices. He isn’t moving between a ‘real’ Ugandan self and a ‘real’ New York self — rather, he’s moving through the various worlds that made him. Code-switching is often framed as something people are forced to do, a survival mechanism born from the pressure to assimilate. Sometimes it is. But it can also become a skill, and eventually a choice. The ability to read a room in seconds, to hold various identities without needing to resolve them, is its own form of intelligence. One that communities of color have long ago achieved.