Even as a child you are treated as an adult. You speak in sentences borrowed from Tagore and are encouraged to take part in a multitude of activities. You learn about politics, history, and ideas that, in the rest of India, are often considered too complex for children
Gentrification doesn’t always come with cranes and concrete. In my case, it arrived with subsidised rent, a slightly too-generous cook salary, and a balcony I still haven’t properly used
Another product, another promise, another glimpse into a life just slightly out of reach. And we, the consumers, remain caught between aspiration and reality — buying things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t even like.
The problem with the soft apocalypse is that it is still an apocalypse. It still ends in collapse. We tell ourselves we have time, that the worst is always just ahead, that we will act when we must
This is not just an addiction; it is an economy. We engage because engagement is the expectation. The exhaustion is quiet but constant, a hum beneath the surface of daily life
