Life & Style

Sunil Kumar KR, the librarian of the Choornikara Panchayat Library, calls 50 women, all members of 250 plus Kudumbashree units of the Panchayat, which has 21 wards, the force behind the success of its Aksharadeepam project. As part of the project, inaugurated in 2023, books from the library are doorstep-delivered to homes in the Panchayat to promote reading among women and children. The books were purchased by ₹1.5 lakh sanctioned by the panchayat for the project. Later on, as word spread, books have also come in via donations. 

The project, which has been part of research projects globally, has garnered attention, is powered by these women whose ages range from 23 to 68. “They are my warriors!” says Sunil, “I just need to ask them to do something and it will be done.” Five of the women volunteers — Athikka Beevi KK, Sherbila MS, Sreeja Mani, Sheela Suresh, and Jalaja Sugunan — smile proudly as they nod enthusiastically in agreement. 

“Sunil sir needs our support to sustain this project and we are determined to ensure its longevity,” they chorus. This is voluntary work, they gain nothing from it except “the joy and satisfaction of getting these books to people who want to read but cannot,” says Jalaja Suseelan, one of the older volunteers. “Often there is so much else also happening in our lives, but we ensure that we make time for this work. We have to,” she adds. 

Although it is an ‘urban’ area, it looks more like a village aspiring to be a small town. The library is located in the same building as the anganwadi, the reading room is on the ground floor while the library is on the first floor. Outside the hall adjacent to the library, on a wall with Aksharadeepam written on it are hung maroon cloth bags. They are numbered, there are around 40 of these. “These were the first bags, which could fit 10 books, the number that we distributed initially. We have now resorted to larger bags for our quota of 17 books,” says Sheela Suresh. A dedicated WhatsApp group keeps the Aksharadeepam team in the loop about activities. Besides this, the Library organises enrichment activities for these volunteers as encouragement apart from commemorative mementos. 

The volunteers with Sunil Kumar KR, the librarian
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Armed with their white bags, which is then packed in a smart jute tote, filled with books which include fiction and non-fiction, for women and children, and the odd-book that would help Public Service Commission (PSC) examination aspirants these volunteers go about distributing these to 1000 homes in the panchayat.  

“This is our Sunday activity, come rain or shine we are here to return and collect fresh books to distribute,” says Athikka Beevi, one of the volunteers gathered there. On the first Sunday of the month the bags are exchanged, as each bag has a different combination of books, all Malayalam for now. 

There are 55 sets of books or ‘kits’ as they are colloquially referred to. The choice of books is driven by practical considerations, the main one being that they cannot be thick, “this can be intimidating for those who have to “make” time to read. There is no point lending inaccessible books when the whole point is to get people to read,” says Sunil. 

Sreeja adds, “The books would just sit in the homes, possibly extending the date of return. Fat books will not be read, slim ones have a better chance of being read.” Mostly fiction, the works of Malayalam authors such as Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, OV Vijayan, Anand, Benyamin, KR Meera, Santosh Echikanam and others make up the ‘kits’. “There have been enquiries from our younger readers for English books. We plan to include those in the near future, we want people to read and if books in English will keep it going, so be it,” adds Sunil. This library model has been part of international journals and publications such as the        

What started out as a project for 100-odd houses has now grown to 1000 houses: 4000-odd people. Starting out, Sunil says, his expectations were modest, if it worked, well and good. He credits the volunteers, themselves avid readers, for the success of the project and for how far the Aksharadeepam project has come. The plan, initially, targeted Kudumbashree members, however as word spread interest grew. Others who were not part of Kudumbashree evinced an interest leading it to spread among locals.

“We also like reading, so we understand the value of books and having them brought to us. Reading is not simple for women — we have house work, take care of the home and children, which barely leaves us with any time to read, let alone go to a library,” says Sreeja. 

The volunteers were chosen after four levels of screening, from the unit level of Kudumbashree to panchayat officials. They were also chosen for their interest in reading, “this is a voluntary activity, it cannot be sustained if someone were to do it for the money. The volunteers have to be self-motivated also for this to work,” Sunil says. 

“We understand the value of this activity. We have, each of us, wanted to read but did not have access to them or a library. We did not have a facility such as this, going to a library was out of the question,” adds Jalaja. For this reason, they say, they are committed to the project to see it through. 

For the volunteers this work is validation. The library recently organised an event to celebrate reaching books to the 700 houses. “The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, AN Shamseer sir, was the chief guest. We were given mementos by him for this work…It felt so good to be acknowledged, to have one’s work appreciated. This would not have happened if we did not do this work,” say Sreeja and Sherbila. 

Published – January 30, 2026 03:39 pm IST

My colleague was just trying to buy keerai — Tamil for spinach — when Instamart suggested a men’s stroker instead. It appeared between milk and eggs, with the assurance of something that had always belonged there. She was not offended, just mildly impressed by the confidence. “I was genuinely looking for greens,” she said later. “But apparently, the algorithm thought I needed emotional nourishment of another kind.”

When I mentioned this to a friend over drinks, she nodded, unsurprised. “That tracks,” she said. “Sex stuff has become very practical.” It was not framed as a confession or a breakthrough, just useful information, shared the way people now talk about finding a better mattress or switching to oat milk.

Sexual wellness, at least in urban India, has quietly exited the realm of taboo and entered the world of logistics. It is no longer about rebellion or secrecy; it is about optimisation. Something you discuss calmly, test thoughtfully, and occasionally reorder. An errand, really. One that can sit comfortably alongside spinach.

A few days later, another friend sent me a reel she would never post herself — a sexual-wellness educator unveiling a multicoloured dildo with the solemnity of a tech launch. It bent, flexed, suctioned itself onto surfaces, and appeared to promise stamina, adaptability, and zero emotional baggage.

“I’m ready to invest,” my friend captioned it. “I’m tired of explaining.”

Since launching her sexual wellness brand Leezu’s in 2023, educator Leeza Mangaldas tells me they have sold over 250,000 units across categories. “The numbers are revealing. About 60% of Leezu’s customers are men and 40% are women. While many buy toys for themselves, women’s toys are often picked up by men, frequently as gifts for wives and girlfriends,” she says.

And despite the long-held belief that these toys are a singles-only affair, a large chunk of Leezu’s customers are actually couples, using toys not as a substitute, but as an upgrade.

A married friend had a gentler take. “Toys saved us,” she told me one afternoon, stirring her coffee like it might offer clarity. “Talking about sex nearly broke us.” For her, the object was not a replacement but a bridge — a way to experience pleasure without excavating years of silence all at once.

These conversations are no longer fringe. People trade product links, forward reels, and discuss lubricants with the discernment once reserved for restaurant recommendations. The market numbers reflect this cultural easing, but the more interesting shift is subtler: sex has become discussable, while intimacy still requires actual effort.

A sexuality coach once put it bluntly. “People come in with devices,” she said, “but no language.” Many know exactly what they have bought, but not how to ask for what they want without feeling exposed. Pleasure, it turns out, is easier to purchase than to articulate.

Which brings the question back to the bedroom. With all this access and openness, are we becoming better lovers or just better equipped, carrying the same old awkwardness, ego, and emotional buffering into bed?

Not all the answers come from women. A male friend, in a long-term relationship, told me he has had to actively retrain himself. “I’ve conditioned myself,” he said carefully. “My girlfriend helped.”

Still, not everyone has arrived here. “I don’t always want to manage someone else’s feelings,” one friend said. Another described foreplay that feels like a performance she’s expected to applaud, regardless of whether it’s working for her. These aren’t failures of technique so much as failures of attention.

Underneath it all

The politics of the bedroom rarely lie in positions. They surface in who initiates and who listens, who assumes and who checks, who believes effort alone should be rewarded. Even as sexual wellness becomes more normalised, many of us are still negotiating inherited silence, performance anxiety, and the great Indian discomfort with direct conversations about anything that matters. We read about tantra but dodge emotional truth. We book workshops on intimacy without quite practising it.

And yet, something is shifting. I hear about couples laughing mid-experiment instead of spiralling into insecurity. About men treating vibrators as collaborators rather than competition. About women saying, “That’s not doing anything for me,” without apologising. A queer friend once summed it up neatly: “Straight people treat sex like a presentation. We treat it like a discussion. Assumptions don’t survive when nothing is default.”

There is a softer energy entering the bedroom — a willingness to learn instead of perform, to ask instead of assume. The old ghosts have not vanished entirely. The fear of judgment lingers, as does the belief that pleasure is indulgent rather than necessary. But those ideas feel less immovable than they once did.

So are we becoming better lovers? Possibly — unevenly, and at different speeds. The toys, the workshops, the guides are not solutions. They are permission slips. Signals that pleasure is not shameful, that intimacy can be learned, and that communication is not unsexy.

My colleague did eventually get her spinach. She did not comment further on the stroker. The algorithm had already said enough.

Published – January 30, 2026 03:00 pm IST

Dumiduni Illangasinghe has always been “very serious about mushrooms” — just not in the way you’d imagine a 29-year-old to be. From the rain-washed fields of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka where she grew up, to the forests of the Banaras Hindu University where she is currently studying, the artist has made the fungi her primary subject of observation. In the fragility and endurance of mycelial networks, she reads metaphysical lessons: specifically the Buddhist concept of “anitya” or impermanence.

At the India Art Fair 2026, where Illangasinghe is the first international artist in residence, she will present an installation titled Soft Armours, where she will turn broken glass bangles, traditionally considered harbingers of misfortune in South Asian societies, into delicate sculptures entwined with mycelial forms. “I want the viewer to see that broken bangles can also generate beauty, they can take on a new form and we can make new life with them,” she explains.

Dumiduni Illangasinghe

Soft Armours, where broken glass bangles transform into delicate sculptures entwined with mycelial forms

This philosophical engagement with ecological systems reflects a broader shift among emerging artists at the fair’s 17th edition (which, with 133 exhibitors from around the world, a star-studded speaker series, deeper engagement with design, and ever stronger IAF Parallel programmes, only gets larger in scope and strength each year).

According to director Jaya Asokan, this might be a sign of a generational reckoning. “What distinguishes these practices is their refusal of a romanticised return to ‘nature’,” she observes. “Instead, artists are engaging critically with stressed systems, agriculture, fungal networks, urban growth and extractive economies, through material experimentation and research-based approaches.” All reflective of the times and its very many conflicts.

Jaya Asokan, director, India Art Fair

Armed with pesticides and questions

In Patiala-based artist Kulpreet Singh’s practice, the land itself becomes the medium. Singh’s outdoor art project, titled Extinction Archival, comprises approximately 1,200 drawings of endangered and extinct species. While the list of subjects has only been growing since 2022 (when he began by Googling the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species), the works themselves reflect the slow process of the farmer: stubble ash sandwiched with rice paper, which is then painted over, dipped in pesticide, and punctured with laser-cut dots. “It’s a commentary on all that is lost, all that is being polluted, and all that is stuck in between,” says Singh, 40.

Kulpreet Singh

Extinction Archival, with approximately 1,200 drawings of endangered and extinct species

At 25, multidisciplinary artist Sidhant Kumar’s work deliberately questions pastoral idealisations. “I’ve always wanted to challenge that idyllic definition of ‘landscape’ — the picture of greenery, clear water, bright sunlight, birds flying.” As a recipient of the Prameya Art Foundation’s DISCOVER 09 Award, Kumar will present his exhibit Studies from a Quiet Harvest — including a film, a statistical installation and photographs of him in performance in a cactus headgear — which emerged from long-term research at Ranhaula in Delhi, where migrant workers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand cultivate vegetables on a share-cropping basis.

Sidhant Kumar

Studies from a Quiet Harvest (2025)

“It’s not like they can’t tell right from wrong,” Kumar observes, noting that the farmers end up using contaminated water from the nearby Najafgarh drain. “There is a lack of resources. This show is also about how capitalistic forces compel us to do those things that we must to only survive.”

In Mumbai, multidisciplinary artist Shreni moved on from architecture when she tired of pixel-perfect precision. Art offered a new language using familiar tools — and also of looking at all that grows in the cracks of mankind’s built habitats. At IAF, she will present Stand Here Forget, a large-scale generative AV installation that layers found sounds from across the city with code and algorithm. Inspired by her time in a forest near Bengaluru with scientists, here she uses ecology as an inspiration for the “system I’m developing” and highlight “the invisible structures that support us”. “I’m trying to recreate the feeling of just being within the city. I’m not proposing an answer, but want people to sit within a feeling, a contradiction,” she says. “My practice is always at the brink of something that is alien, yet familiar.”

Shreni 

A work by Shreni 

Stressing climate optimism

Elsewhere, artists forego critique for a more solutions-based approach. Colombo-based artist and permaculture enthusiast Raki Nikahetiya, 42, goes beyond observation. His Forest II, an installation supported by Max Estates, will be a Miyawaki-method pocket forest containing 200 native Delhi and Aravalli species, enclosed in structures built from construction waste metal — a literal refuge fashioned from the detritus of development. “I wanted to create a space where people can go, sit down and listen to these potential future sounds [of birds and bees and leaves rustling with the breeze] of this place,” he says.

Raki Nikahetiya
| Photo Credit:
Laurent Ziegle

The installation will eventually be replanted at a permanent Delhi location, sequestering carbon for decades while providing a habitat for birds, pollinators and soil fungi. Nikahetiya, who has been cultivating a permaculture forest in Sri Lanka, frames the work through what he calls “climate optimism”. “There’s a lot of anxiety with climate change, which is absolutely accurate, but there are potential ways of overcoming that.”

Forest II, a Miyawaki-method pocket forest 

This impulse towards making something regenerative from what remains animates Tara Lal’s Aranyani Pavilion at Sunder Nursery as well (an IAF Parallel event). It is inspired by the sacred groves she has witnessed around India and the world. Merging ecology with public art through a bamboo structure clad with the invasive lantana camara wood, the pavilion illustrates the architectural possibilities of ecological liabilities. Atop the structure grow native and naturalised plants, including elaichi, jasmine and Ashoka trees. Within it, conversation around ecology and culture will flow for about 10 days, including a talk by environmental activist Vandana Shiva, before the entire pavilion moves to the Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School outside Jaisalmer. “Instead of [the climate crisis] being something that pulls us down, we want to remind people of the emotional connection to our land,” Lal, 47, explains.

Tara Lal

Aranyani Pavilion at Sunder Nursery

Asokan notes that in these works, “ecology is framed as a physical network, one shaped by care, consideration, memory and resilience. Rather than simply pointing to collapse, these artists foreground adaptation, coexistence and alternative ecological futures, speaking from within complexity rather than distance”.

With natural life at its centre

As part of the IAF Young Collectors’ Programme (YCP) exhibit Omens Organisms Objects Order, Delhi-based artist Deepak Kumar’s, 32, contribution takes an anti-institutional approach, building what exhibit curator and YCP director Wribhu Borphukon describes as “a micro museum” of natural history modelled on roadside stalls, housing sculptures and drawings of flora and fauna that address how urbanisation pushes away natural life. Palghar-origin artist Gaurav Tumbada, meanwhile, will don a tiger head or “Waghoba” mask (the Adivasi community’s guardian) and present a contemporary interpretation of traditional dances from his region to address issues such as land acquisition, industrialisation and the vanishing of Warli art.

Deepak Kumar working on his piece Lost Native

YCP director Wribhu Borphukon

Borphukon identifies one key aspect that distinguishes younger artists’ ecological practices from earlier generations. “The lived experience is informing the contexts that they’re talking about,” he notes. “Having artistic responses to our preoccupations on multiple registers is important — you go from critique to soft activism to alternatives. Doing this across the spectrum is important.”

Art of resistance

Even though the primary purpose of IAF is to present a marketplace and a meeting point, Asokan has seen how larger shifts in the world have impacted artistic produce in the last decade. “There has been a marked shift towards materiality and questions of identity, belonging and labour, often articulated through mixed-media and interdisciplinary practices,” she says.

In response to AI and machine-led production, she’s seen “artists and curators returning to hand-made processes, foregrounding craft, familiarity and intention”. Galleries too are “taking greater curatorial risks, presenting research-driven and experimental practices rather than purely market-led selections”.

This observation resonates when you listen to Singh talk about the same “seva bhaav” he brings to his practice. Or when you listen to Kumar talk about understanding his purpose as an artist, while still studying in Vadodara. “My job as an artist is about community building, and it rests in resistance,” he reflects. “All I can try to do is arrest its speed [the end of nature as we know it] a little by spreading awareness.”

India Art Fair will take place from February 5-8 at NSIC Exhibition Grounds, New Delhi.

The Mumbai-based independent journalist writes on culture, lifestyle and technology.

At 37, Divya Surepalli stepped into a category that barely exists on the civilian sporting map of India. In 2024, she became the first licensed civilian woman skydiver from Andhra Pradesh, joining fewer than 20 women nationwide who have pursued the sport beyond a one-time tandem jump. Some in this small cohort are licensed; others are still working toward it. The number alone explains how narrow the route remains.

Divya, who has her roots in Visakhapatnam, holds a postgraduate degree in Environmental Engineering from Germany. Skydiving had stayed with her as an idea for years, long before it became a plan. During a visit to the United States, she came close to making her first jump. “At that point, I only wanted to experience a tandem jump,” she says. Weather conditions ruled it out, but the disappointment carried an unexpected consequence. The thought of doing it with training and certification, began to take shape.

The turning point arrived when she travelled with Shweta Parmar, among the earliest civilian women skydivers in India, to Moscow for an Accelerated Freefall (AFF) course. The destination was Drop Zone Krutitcy, located outside the city. Divya intended to complete the entire sequence there. Instead, worsening weather after the initial stages interrupted the plan. “I finished my AFF there, but the conditions deteriorated soon after,” she says. “To complete the remaining jumps required for my licence, I had to relocate.” Thailand became the second classroom.

Divya Surepalli from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh’s first licensed civilian woman skydiver.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

To earn an A licence, the first level of certification for solo skydivers, a jumper must complete a minimum of 25 jumps, clear written or oral assessments, demonstrate specific freefall and canopy control skills, perform group jumps and pack their own parachute. With 29 jumps logged, Divya met the criteria. The licence allows a skydiver to jump at affiliated drop zones across the world without direct supervision.

The challenges

Progress, however, did not follow a straight line. Midway through her AFF course, a severe spin during freefall unsettled her. “That incident shook my confidence more than I expected,” she says. Doubts crept in, not as fear of the sky but as a question about her own judgement. The intervention came from her instructor and mentor Alex Troshyn. “I had withdrawn and was staying in my hostel,” she recalls. “He came to speak with me and reminded me that setbacks are part of training, not signs of failure. That conversation helped me return to the process.”

Divya Surepalli from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh’s first licensed civilian woman skydiver.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Thailand presented its own lessons. During one jump, shifting winds altered her landing trajectory at around 1,000 feet above ground level. The options narrowed quickly. “It came down to landing on an asbestos roof or entering a swamp,” she recalls. Training had been unambiguous about avoiding water. The roof carried a near certainty of broken bones. A cluster of trees offered a third possibility. She aimed for it, accepting impact over injury. The landing, unexpectedly, was controlled. The moments preceding it were anything but calm.

Divya Surepalli from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh’s first licensed civilian woman skydiver.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Another jump demanded a late correction to avoid electric poles near the landing zone. Crosswinds, she explains, are common in Thailand, where drop zones are often lower. “At 12,000 feet, you have less freefall time than you would at 14,000 feet, as in Moscow,” she says. “That reduces the margin available for adjustments.” Each situation reinforced the discipline required to think clearly under pressure.

Divya Surepalli from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh’s first licensed civilian sky diver.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Beyond the technical demands, Divya emphasises the importance of mentorship and support systems. Family acceptance was neither instant nor easy. Convincing her mother took time. Agreement came with a condition. “She asked me to video call her before and after every jump,” Divya says. “She wanted to see that I was safe. That reassurance mattered to both of us.”

Cost and access

Access remains one of the sport’s largest barriers in India. Only one drop zone currently offers tandem jumps, and none issue civilian licences. Aspiring skydivers must travel abroad for certification, which drives costs sharply upward. She estimates that obtaining her first licence cost around ₹5 lakh. Subsequent levels are less expensive, but the initial investment alone places the sport beyond reach for many.

Divya Surepalli from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh’s first licensed civilian sky diver.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Gender adds another layer. “It is a male dominated space and stereotypes are very real,” she says. “There were moments when I felt dismissed. At the same time, I also encountered men who were supportive and professional. Both experiences exist.” During periods of self doubt, those allies made a tangible difference.

Divya describes herself as shy, quiet and ambiverted, traits that seem at odds with the image commonly associated with skydivers. The sport altered that perception, including her own. “It changed how I respond to situations,” she says. “There is a heightened awareness that carries into everyday life. It has helped me become clear about what deserves attention and what does not.”

She is now part of an informal network of civilian women skydivers in India who share advice, training experiences and encouragement. Fitness remains central to her routine, with daily runs forming a steady counterbalance to the intensity of jumping.

For Divya, the achievement is not framed as conquest or thrill seeking. It is defined instead by persistence, training and the quiet resolve to finish what was once postponed by weather.

Published – January 30, 2026 10:25 am IST

At a time when the future increasingly feels like a repetition of the past, the idea of “game changing” demands scrutiny. On social media, comparisons between 2026 and 2016 circulate with uneasy familiarity: from resurgent authoritarianism to culture wars, and identity politics over visibility and speech. It is precisely this anxiety that gives the Asia Society Arts Game Changer Awards their urgency.

Instituted by Asia Society India, the awards were conceived to recognise practices that have shifted how art is made, circulated, and understood across South Asia. The award’s emphasis is deliberate: individual excellence, once the primary currency of cultural recognition, has revealed its limits in an increasingly unequal world shaped by infrastructure, technology, and access, necessitating collaboration across disciplines.

This year’s awardees underline that shift. The 2026 cohort includes Sri Lankan artist Hema Shironi, whose textile-based practice stitches together post-war memory, Tamil identity, and anti-colonial resistance; Kulpreet Singh, a Punjab-based farmer-artist whose soot drawings emerge directly from agrarian crisis and climate catastrophe; Raghu Rai, whose six-decade photographic archive has shaped how India remembers itself; and CAMP (Critical Art and Media Practices), whose work spans film, surveillance, and open digital archives.

Hema Shironi

One Loan is Taken to Settle Another IV (2023; hand mebroidery on printed fabric and cotton fabric)

Kulpreet Singh

Indelible Black Marks (2022-24; cotton cloth, thread, stubble ash, and ash from wooden stoves at sites of farmerp rotests)
| Photo Credit:
Ashish Kumar

Raghu Rai

‘Art as something to inhabit’

Among them, what makes CAMP’s practice particularly fascinating is its irreverence for prescribed definitions of form, format, media, and art itself. Founded in Mumbai in 2007 by Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran, the collaborative studio has spent nearly two decades working across moving-image practice, technological systems, pedagogy, and long-term public infrastructure. Their projects include Pad.ma, an open-access online archive of documentary footage, and Indiancine.ma, a collaboratively built database of Indian cinema that functions as both archive and research commons.

Clockwise from top left: Zinnia Ambapardiwala, Shaina Anand, Ashok Sukumaran, and Rohan Chavan

Neither platform operates as a neutral repository. As Anand puts it, “We said ‘infrastructure’ long before it became a word in art or anthropology. Within three months of starting CAMP, Pad.ma was launched, and it already brought together and belonged to a larger community than us.”

What distinguishes CAMP’s practice is not scale or novelty, but method. From the outset, they were responding to a specific set of conditions. In the mid-2000s, India’s contemporary art market was expanding rapidly, absorbing visibility and capital, while documentary filmmakers faced shrinking exhibition spaces, limited distribution, and increasing censorship. “We came from a time when the Internet felt like a forest. A place to hide, organise, to build autonomously. We also assumed airwaves, electricity as free media, as commons,” she explains.

CAMP’s A Photogenetic Line installation is a 100-foot-long branching sequence of cutouts, with original captions, from the photo archives of The Hindu.

CAMP emerged at this intersection with a clear proposition: if existing structures could not hold certain kinds of work, those structures had to be rethought or built anew. “Art wasn’t something to hang on a wall. It was something you could inhabit. Something that could exist inside systems — archives, cities, surveillance — rather than just represent them,” says Sukumaran.

Khirkeeyaan is a video installation where the neighbourhood TV was repurposed as conversation systems in a mashup of cable TV and early CCTV systems.

Shaping how images circulate

Central to CAMP’s thinking is a refusal to separate art from its conditions. Filmmaking, building archives, or intervening in surveillance systems are treated as artistic acts because they shape how images circulate and who gets to see them. “The work might take the form of filmmaking, or building an archive — but the method, the commitment, is art,” says Anand. This position also explains CAMP’s resistance to being framed as an “artist collective”. The term, they argue, often replicates the logic of individual authorship under a shared name. Instead, they treat collaboration as an active process that is negotiated, strategic, and often risky.

Country of the Sea is a cyanotype map based on CAMP’s five-year project with Gujarati sailors in the Western Indian Ocean, from Kuwait to Mombasa.

Working with CCTV operators in the U.K., Palestinian families filming their own neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem (Al Jaar Qabla al Daar), sailors documenting life across the Indian Ocean (From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf), or residents reading Mumbai’s skyline through poetry (Bombay Tilts Down), CAMP repeatedly asks: who controls the image, who benefits from access? “There are already millions of cameras in our cities. The artistic question isn’t whether to bring another one, but to use what’s already there to show something else,” says Sukumaran. By repurposing surveillance technologies, allowing cameras to observe neighbourhood life rather than guard private property, they interrupt the logic of the panopticon.

Bombay Tilts Down was filmed from a single-point location by a CCTV camera atop a 35-floor building.

A shared commitment

Their approach extends cautiously to newer technologies. Rather than embracing claims of inevitability around artificial intelligence, CAMP treats machine tools as situational: useful for translation, research, or archival labour when aligned with ethical intent, and resisted when they obscure accountability. “We don’t accept the current use of any technology as its final destiny,” notes Sukumaran.

In this light, the Asia Society awards function less as endorsement than as recognition of sustained risk. Placed alongside Shironi, Singh, and Rai, CAMP’s practice reveals a shared commitment: art that stays close to lived conditions rather than abstract trends. To “game change” art, then, is not to predict the future, but to refuse its repetition. In a moment when the past threatens to return intact, CAMP’s work insists on rebuilding the rules themselves.

Asia Society Arts Game Changer Awards will be presented on February 6 in New Delhi.

The essayist-educator writes on culture, and is founding editor of Proseterity — a literary arts magazine.

Published – January 30, 2026 11:49 am IST

Did you ever hear the story of the axe that told the trees he is their friend because he too is made of wood? Every time I hear the ether rife with news of soon-to-be-reduced tariffs, and no matter how meaty they sound, I am reminded of this phrase.

They say one lifetime isn’t enough for India, but I feel I’ve lived here long enough to look optimism straight between the brows and constantly doubt it. That said, the notion that the winds from the West carry news of change — and a change for the positive, as one is given to surmise — gives one little reason to be completely crestfallen.

But, don’t break out the vintage bubbly just yet. Before you can sit in a somewhat-modestly-priced European luxury sedan, sipping something precious from a village that Romans ruled 2,000 years ago, all while you casually flick your fancy timepiece, which now only costs as much as a 2BHK with an open parking slot (down from a 4BHK with a covered parking), a lot has to fall in place.

Since food and drink is what I mostly understand, those are what I am sharing my takeaways from. Well, it’s mostly drink. Okay, it’s alcohol. Now, allow me to burst the bubble systematically.

1. Negotiations have ended, the treaty is yet to be signed. Even a divorce has a six-month cool-down before it is finalised. This marriage has 27 members on one side and specific requirements from each state are yet to be filled in. This could easily take a year to be signed before implementation and roll-out can be discussed.

2.Backstocks: Importers in India are holding enough stocks to last them for a while. Even if they sell it all off before the treaty comes into play, it will then be hotels, restaurants and retail shop owners sitting with that stock. Considering how hotels and restaurants aren’t exactly the beacon of benevolence — they are for-profit business entities — don’t expect them to (a) sell the expensive stock at lower rates at a loss, nor (b) receive the benefits from new reduced rates and simply “pass it all forward”.

3. India still has regulatory bans on certain foods such as non-pasteurised milk cheeses and foie gras, among a few others. So, even a lowering of duties won’t facilitate their entry into India.

Foie grass-tuffed galawat at Indian Accent

4.Duties vs. taxes: Many fail to realise that alcohol is a state subject, which means even with reduced custom duties, state taxes can still cripple the market. Add to this the requirements of FSSAI compliance, lab tests, specially-printed back labels, packaging compliances, and high VAT (25% on alcohol in the capital) and you will still feel heady sans booze when the bill comes.

5. Duties vs. cess: As has happened before, when a customs duty falls, a new cess is brought on and appended to the bill of fare. What this means is that the duty drop is purely ornamental with no real benefit as the dues owed to the administration remain largely unchanged. For those interested, there is a 10% social welfare surcharge on the import of caviar, on top of the existing custom levies, because nothing says social welfare like caviar. Chocolates already have a 10% surcharge besides the 18% GST, so even after a fall in prices, they may still cost around 50% more than in Europe.

Beluga caviar at the Caviar de Neuvic boutique in Paris
| Photo Credit:
AFP

6. With cars, it is mostly the CBU (completely built unit) models that will benefit from the tax reduction. For the ignorant many, CBU sedans and SUVs are rarely in the common man’s budget, just like a steep price drop on the Burj Khalifa penthouse won’t suddenly make the average Indian migrate from his suburban flat. If anything, you will feel poorer for still being unable to afford a car in spite of the ₹1.5 cr price reduction.

Porsche Cayman

7. The 10-year cycle: Like with Australia, the tariff reduction for most products will be staggered, mostly over a decade. Which means, those unbelievably rock-bottom prices that are being touted as the final denomination won’t arrive till you have exhausted every drop in your cabinet, turned over a new leaf, and earned your five-year sobriety coin.

8. Falling tariffs will not raise your purchasing parity. It is largely making things affordable that were already affordable and often a smartly positioned tax write-off for the famously rich and fabulous. Most of this will benefit the “Already-Haves”, not the “Have-Nots”. Simply put, when gold is surging to ₹17,000 for a gram and the dollar-rupee relationship is doing a reverse free fall, broke will continue to remain broke.

9. But, not all is kosher in paradise because private jets won’t get any cheaper. So, there is that for us commoners to rejoice about, sticking it back to the Scrooges!

Overall, if this hasn’t dampened your spirits, then you were definitely already soaked in something special when you started reading this piece. To sum up: is a reduction in tariffs good? Yes. Will we reap the benefits of it soon? Not really. But, hopefully, soon enough. Will everyone stand to gain? Well, depends on what your monthly Champagne, Claret and caviar budget was earlier. That said, pet foods, cars and perhaps watches will reflect the change sooner than comestibles. So, maybe shift your priorities: drink slow, drive sexy, and maybe get a dog.

As for the powers that be, learn from the online platforms and luxury boutiques that go on sale for absolutely no reason every month, but are crafty enough to put a small asterisk against the heading and follow it up with a small print buried at the bottom somewhere which un-poetically reads, “Conditions will apply.”

The writer is a sommelier, and a lifestyle and luxury columnist.

Published – January 29, 2026 04:58 pm IST

Lenaa calls Jeethu Joseph’s Valathu Vashathe Kallan her ‘comeback’ film. The actor was on the ‘second longest’ break (one-and-a-half years) of her career after her marriage to Group Captain Prashant Nair in January 2024. The couple travelled to the US where Nair was training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He was the backup astronaut for Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla as part of the Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Center in 2025. 

“Now I am back and looking forward to getting busy with work,” says the actor over phone from Bengaluru.   

An interesting comeback

She says of her role in the film, “I have a nice and interesting part to play in the crime drama, I am really enjoying the genre the film falls under. They have hit a sweet spot between crime thrillers and the emotional aspect; usually crime thrillers don’t delve into the emotions of people in that environment. This is quite a fresh take on that and it is always fun to work with Jeethu Joseph sir.” She essays the role of Theresa Samuel, Joju George’s character Samuel Joseph’s wife.       

Lenaa confesses she missed work, being on the set, acting… “it has been my whole life; so I have missed being at work.” Not for her the FOMO that one associates with the film industry and the compulsion to be constantly seen or heard. “I have done this three-four times before, it has become a cyclical thing now. The longest was when I took two years away to complete my Master’s.” Lenaa is a post graduate in Clinical Psychology.  

She sounds very calm, the kind that comes with finding one’s space. She agrees, “There has been a settling that has happened to me. I guess it has to do with the female transition that is happening to me which I write about in my book, Womenopause. I think it is a level of maturity that has come in.” 

Malayalam actor Lenaa 
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Rather than the years, the actor, who turns 45 in March, says, “the ‘shift’ has to do with perimenopause, where everything changes: the way of looking at life, your health, yourself, and the world. It happens because of the shift in hormone levels. And if you don’t understand what is happening to you, it could spiral into a very negative state of mind.” 

Priority shift

Understanding the process would help negotiate the changes better and become the best version of oneself. Women who have to multitask — looking after families, working and take on many roles — will now have to make their health top priority. “That happened to me, it coincided with my marriage, so yes, it has been a huge personality shift for me. So these are the things I am writing about in my second book.” 

Her first book, The Autobiography of God, about her life in which she also wrote about mental health, was published by Penguin in 2023; Penguin is also the publisher of Womenopause. Pre-orders for the book are scheduled to open on March 8, 2026.

Circling back to Valathu Vashathe Kallan, her third film with Jeethu after Aadhi and Nunakuzhi, she says, “It is wonderful working with Jeethu Joseph because, as a director, he is similar to the kind of actor I am. I am the same actor approaching different scripts so it [the script] shapes the kind of actor I am going to be, and so does the director.  Similarly Jeethu changes each time with a script, each one brings out a different directorial style, a way of approaching things and that’s why, I think, he sticks to the same main technicians.

“That is the only common factor because he is going to completely change his approach to how he deals with it. His style of directing me in Aadhi was very different from Nunakuzhi, which was completely light hearted. He gave me total freedom in it. In Valathu Vashathey Kallan, it was very specific to the script, the mood and the way he wanted emotions to come out. Once we got to filming, all power was given to us actors. Like ‘let’s see what you are going to come up with?’” She acknowledges the space Jeethu has given his actors — Biju Menon, Joju George, and of course, herself, to perform. 

Lenaa is excited and looking forward to the release. “I am as excited as I would be for my first release. Such breaks are good for me because I change as a person when I take breaks from films. I am transforming as an individual, my life situations are changing, my environment as well. So, when a complete makeover of personality happens, there is freshness when I act.”

The film is playing in theatres

Published – January 30, 2026 11:18 am IST

Aishwarya Sridhar first laid eyes on Rana, the young leopard who would become the central character of her recently-released award-winning documentary, Leopard Dynasty: The Rise of Rana, through a Facebook post. A friend of hers, she says, began tagging her on pictures of Rana, taken at the Jhalana Leopard Reserve in Jaipur and “something about him caught my attention.”

This virtual encounter provided to be serendipitous: she had finished a documentary on Asiatic lions and had already done one on tigers, so “in my mind, I wanted to do a trilogy on India’s big cats, and my next natural selection of a subject was the leopard,” says Aishwarya, the first Indian woman to win the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, who had been narrowing on locations to shoot leopards at around this time.

Since these pictures of Rana piqued her interest, she decided to spend her Christmas break there in 2022, visiting this small park, India’s first leopard reserve, with her family. “I saw Rana on my first safari in Jhalana,” she says, recalling being struck by the animal’s boldness and nonchalance in that hour or so she spent with him. ‘Something clicked, and I knew I had found my next protagonist. So, I applied for permissions and began filming,” says the Mumbai-based wildlife photographer, conservationist and filmmaker, the co-founder & CEO of Bambee Studios, a production company in India that focuses on natural history and environmental documentaries.

Aishwarya Sridhar
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

She began filming in February 2023, spending over a year in the rock-strewn, semi-arid forests of Rajasthan, patiently tracking this young leopard as he grew stronger and began challenging his father for territory. “It is a constant journey of sitting in the forest, waiting patiently day after day to get those moments that really tie a story together,” says Aishwarya, recalling a couple of her favourite moments of the shoot, especially one involving an encounter between Rana and a nilgai. “It is very difficult to find a leopard that would prey on a species like the nilgai, because the latter is literally three times its size,” she says. When Rana went in for a pregnant female, she was sure that it wouldn’t be a successful hunt. “I thought he would get kicked and come back injured, but, though he struggled for 30 minutes, he did not let go and eventually ended up killing the nilgai,” she says.

By the end of her filming, Aishwarya had nearly 50 terabytes (TB) of footage, which would be whittled down to this 52-minute film. “We started the edit in June 2024, and had a whole 6-7 month very tough editing schedule. Then, we went into post-production — the music came in, the SFX, the foley, the narration, and I simultaneously wrote the story,” says the 29-year-old, who fell in love with the natural world as a child, which she attributes to growing up in Panvel, Navi Mumbai, “a green paradise…I had a lot of wildlife around my own backyard and would end up chasing everything that crept, crawled and flew,” she laughs.

A very “outdoor kid”, she would often accompany her father, a member of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), on trips, falling deeper and deeper in love with wildlife. Soon, she began wanting to document all that she saw on camera, “so my father gifted me a small point-and-shoot, and that is how the journey with photography began. I was an amateur photographer who was very interested in natural history, and that grew with every passing day,” says Aishwarya, who began making wildlife films a couple of years after graduating with a degree in mass media. Some of the films made by the young National Geographic Explorer include Panje-The Last Wetland, Pride of India, and The Queen of Taru, and she has also just completed a film on illegal wildlife trade. “I am deeply passionate about telling stories that leave a lasting impact on society.”

Rana drinking water from a man-made waterhole at Jhalana forest.
| Photo Credit:
Terra Mater Studios GmbH

Leopard Dynasty: The Rise of Rana, co-produced by Terra Mater Studios, Bambee Studios and Ouragan films production, with the participation of ARTE GEIE, has a Bollywood-inspired vibe: think star-crossed love, item numbers, fight sequences and dramatic music. “I have grown up watching Bollywood, and it is a style of cinema I really enjoy,” says Aishwarya. “You don’t see too many big cat stories from India with an Indian gaze; you normally see it through the Western gaze. I wanted to stay true to my roots, but also blend the authenticity of the wild in the film.”

While she agrees that anthropomorphising wild animals is a double-edged sword, she also believes that if entertainment can drive conservation, it is worth taking that route. In a world of shortened attention spans and too much competing content, making a story entertaining is the only way a lay audience will get hooked to a wildlife story, she believes. “Of course, you have to stay true to wild instincts and behaviour, but I personally feel that when you make characters out of animals, people across age groups end up relating to a story,” she says. “I want to make people connect to and fall in love with wildlife.”

Leopard Dynasty: The Rise of Rana is screening on Animal Planet and discovery+

Published – January 29, 2026 06:19 pm IST

Team Naar at Rashtrapati Bhavan
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Fashion designer Valentino Garavani once said, “I only know how to make a dress, decorate a house, and entertain.” And boy, did he do it to perfection. Of course, if anyone said this today, they would be endlessly trolled. But that was a different time. And it seems like the inevitable tsunami of age is wiping the slate of history clean of its most spectacular players of that generation: Valentino, Giorgio Armani, (French designer) Jacqueline de Ribes, and many more.

Once, there was a ‘pace’ for perfection: less was made, more was considered, and everything endured. Valentino was one of its last bastions, a designer from a legacy of refined elegance. The idea of beauty and elegance did not change in this gilded world; hemlines could go anywhere, but the codes represented remained intact. They understood the symbolism and luxury of it all. No logos needed, thank you! That was vulgar, tasteless and nouveau. After all, as Minal Modi (wife of former IPL chairman Lalit Modi) once said, “My hand, and not the logo, will tell me if a bag is luxury when I slip it in. It knows what makes the cut.”

Valentino in his office in Rome in 2000
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

It is in this world that Valentino lived and flourished. Schooled in Paris, the Italian became one of its pillars. He started his brand with businessman Giancarlo Giammetti, who became his partner in every way, and they nourished it long past the end of their personal relationship. That, I found amazing. It spoke of the finest value system: honour, regard, and respect.

Valentino with Giancarlo Giammetti in New York in 1967
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

Giancarlo Giammetti and Valentino at Christie’s New York 40 years later, in 2007
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

Impeccable, but classical

I was staying at a friend’s penthouse in Manhattan this past summer, directly opposite Giammetti’s, and we went across to take a look at it. It could have been done by Valentino; their taste had become one. (In his five homes, you would see Chinese antiques on leopard print carpets, walls done in horn, and he had more than 130 extravagant dinner sets.) It was exquisite, Italian and modern. Valentino loved beauty.

Valentino stands by a desk in his atelier in Rome
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

That is what he stood for. Much as we look at Italy and think of Rococo and Baroque, great Italian style has been modern, synthesising many worlds with functionality.

Valentino’s sketches
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

I came into the design world by the late ’90s. I grew up in an India that was socialist and did not take the traditional route in, rather sliding sideways, with a father (an Admiral) who was perplexed as to why I wanted to be a tailor. By the time I was conscious of Valentino’s work and attended a few couture shows with (British magazine editor) Isabella Blow, I found it impeccable — the use of his ‘Valentino red’, for instance, was a strong, sexy, modern signature — but too classical.

45th anniversary of Valentino in Rome, surrounded by gowns in Valentino red
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

Valentino at his last fashion show, during Paris Fashion Week, in 2008
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

However, when he decided to retire and hand the mantle over to his former accessory designers Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri (who later went on to be the creative director at Dior), I found a new magic. Actually, that is when I became a fan of the brand. What Piccioli and Chiuri produced in the last 15 years, together and individually, was spectacular. It honoured all the house codes, but it made them modern. And Valentino was always at the shows, giving them his blessing. He understood the times.

Valentino with supermodels Naomi Campbell and Elle Macpherson in 1995
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

Italian actor ra de Furstenberg with couturier Valentino
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

Julia Robertsin a by Valentino gown, after winning the Oscar for best actress in a leading role for Erin Brockovich
| Photo Credit:
AP

Sarah Jessica Parker and Valentino at the 2012 New York City Ballet Fall
| Photo Credit:
REUTERS

With unexpected lightness

When his mentor passed away last week, my friend Piccioli posted a small ode on Instagram. It says so much in just a few words: “Around me there will be immaculate order, yet I will know that behind such precision lived an unexpected lightness. An almost innocent brilliance, as though every idea were always the first, as though wonder had never faded. That is what made everything possible, and magical. For you, beauty was never a luxury nor an ornament: it was a form of defence, a place of safety, the only one possible. A protection, a shield against the world.

Valentino Garavani in 1998
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

“You were my mentor without ever needing a lectern; you had no need of one. You taught me that fashion is joy, though a profoundly serious kind of joy. You created an eternity, a place made of dream and beauty. There, death does not exist, because it is unnecessary. It is a place that will remain, for me, for everyone, forever.” Valentino also taught him how to make the “most beautiful bows in the world”, Piccioli added.

What more can I add? May we all be so lucky to be inspired to live lives that can have the same qualitative commitment. Even in this, Valentino, the ‘Last Emperor’, left us with an enduring legacy of a life worth emulating. And I am always grateful for that.

Valentino Garavani passed away on January 19 at his home in Rome at the age of 93.

The writer is an Indian couturier renowned for his embroideries, drapes, and corsets.

Published – January 29, 2026 05:43 pm IST