Content with Content

Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage.” Today, his wooden stage is replaced by a screen, painted backdrops by filters, ropes and pulleys by invisible algorithms, and the pit is filled with spectators applauding choreographed roles built on borrowed capital and careful framing.

As I scroll, a notification of cultural appropriators consuming hip-hop’s resilience, rebellion, and artistry appears as a catalogue of “ghetto” aesthetics, swagger, sag, and rap. They admire the remnants of subjugation without acknowledging the pain that produced the sound.

A post from a self-declared “Public Image,” conducting street anthropology with Anna Wintour’s imagined gravitas, with borrowed accents revealing charlatanism. The pursuit of the front row, performed from the periphery of the room — a couture rendition of Mean Girls’ eternal decree: “You can’t sit with us.” Amateur arbiters of style, unversed in fashion’s intellectual and historical foundations, adopted the title of “seasoned journalists” while narrowing the discipline to mere surface aesthetics — bijouterie, couture, and maquillage.

A DM by her confidante navigating a desperate pursuit of visibility: couture shows on racecourses with fascinators tilted as low as the pseudo-dilettante, and celebrity cameos enlisted to inflate club launches, suggests intermittent philanthropy, calibrated for publicity rather than a sustained commitment to the craftsmanship of underprivileged handloom artisans. I have little appetite for the ephemeral; substance has always received my RSVP, not the invite-only soirée.

The contemporary soul has mastered a peculiar duality: ritualising the morning with whisked matcha, freshly ground beans or precision-brewed coffee pods, curated gastronomic indulgence, and pickleball, then transforming by afternoon into a spectator of distant catastrophes — a digital humanitarian armed with reposts, outrage, and algorithmically approved compassion. AI-generated declarations of “I stand with…” and “Free…” circulate as digital gestures of allegiance, yet remain detached from the emotional accountability, physical presence, and proximity required to bear witness to the agony they claim to address.

By evening, the hedonistic tableau unfolds: psychoactive curiosities, five-step skin routines, melatonin gummies, podcasts, mahjong, retail therapy, the occasional financial romance with a slot machine, a butler bell for champagne, and tiered stands of charcuterie, viennoiserie, pâtisserie, and boulangerie indulgences, paired with a heating pad, satin-striped monogrammed pyjamas, and the histrionics of surfing the crimson wave. Hormonal, but Maison Menstruelle.

A reel of HYROX simulations paired with animal flow, thermal rooms, nutraceutical powders, capsules, CGM sensor patches, smart rings, IV micronutrient therapy, and magnesium oils housed in pipette glass bottles; coconut water elevated with basil seeds and collagen peptides; organic Buddha bowls; cold-pressed immunity shots; and the pursuit of washboard abs — the disciplined ritual requires restoration, renewal, and recuperation. The macros are calculated, the muscles are sculpted, and the compression gear is strategically deployed. XS? More like excess “gainz.” The activewear says “everyday athleisure”; the ego says “limited edition.”

Pavlov had dogs salivating at a bell; social media influencers elevated the experiment with ring lights, curated highlight reels, notification bells, and algorithmic conditioning. The stimulus is a manufactured lifestyle; the response is envy and aspiration; and the reward is fleeting neurological applause disguised as a “like.”

Miscellaneous spam comprising questionable, dubious alloy replicas of Haute Joaillerie is presented as “accessible artistry,” and nepo prodigies are on retainer to assure us that this is what is “in” and how to enunciate it. One suspects the only thing being cut is the fine line between inspiration and intellectual theft.

My feed — inundated with vegetable-pigmented, homegrown brands and sustainability preached through candy-coloured picnic palettes — leaves even the most assured souls reconsidering their compass. Entire personalities stitched together from monograms, bedizened like the upholstery of a rococo circus tent, mistaking conspicuous consumption for cultural literacy.

Self-declared connoisseurs and debt-ridden industrialists residing in palatial mansions, whose only mastery lies in mistaking expense for expertise — unable to wield a brush with precision, yet somehow confident enough to let a syringe redesign their faces while gliding past in coupes and cabriolets, looking less like arbiters of taste and more like overinflated pufferfish.

A calendar quietly insists on queer theatre, reformer pilates, immersive art auctions, polo matches, organic farmers’ markets, supper clubs, book clubs, moonlit concerts at heritage monuments, and golf — all the while tablescaping for soirées in quirky penthouses and quaint bungalows.

Clipped miniature collectible dolls, in their Chanel-esque vintage two-piece, quilted handbag, pearl-monogrammed earrings, locket necklaces, and ballet flats, arrive as the ultimate plastic-fantastic: strawberry-blonde curls, alabaster skin, rosebud cheeks, feline eyes, sculpted cheekbones, lacquered pouts, rhinestone French tips, or magnetic cat-eye gel polish. They are both mirages and mannequins. Yet beneath the porcelain idealism lies the question: does this immaculate dollhouse aesthetic celebrate empowerment and diversity, or is it simply packaged into a perfectly proportioned product shaped by rampant consumerism?

A marketed silhouette has left many feeling like defective prototypes called Carbie dolls, with a highlight reel of a seventy-two-hour metamorphosis from fat to phat; the methodology remains deliberately opaque — a cocktail of pharmacological intervention, anatomical recalibration, cryolipolysis, and the increasingly sophisticated art of scalpel-free editing.

Meanwhile, Ayurvedic formulations remain preoccupied with skin lightening and anti-ageing, overlooking a deeper truth: Indian skin has always carried its own ancestral language of simplicity and minimalism — one written through hand-crushed pigments, botanical herbs, childhood rituals of exfoliation, and hair scented with bakhoor smoke from brass decanters. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” A classic line from Walt Disney’s Snow White — where fair was quietly mistaken for the only form of loveliness. Perhaps the real radiance was never about reversing time, but growing greys-fully.

What are we truly consuming, and what subtle energies are we exchanging in the process?
A group chat of a pole athlete, suspended like a coiled serpent in an inverted narrative: a canine evangelist wielding sectarian rhetoric that strips dignity from those outside her faith, while rooted in the geography of her birth yet carrying the legal emblem of a foreign state, invites a figure shaped by the confluence of cinematic pedigree and pharmaceutical lineage, speaking from the pedestal of a motherhood oracle: prescribing natural births to rural women while accessing reproductive technologies herself; directing others toward adoption and tradition, then wrapping empowerment in the ceremonial ribbons of dowry, a prosthetic belly, and Ivy League credibility associated with privilege and access; who endorses a ‘celebrity’ chiropractor whose practice promises alignment, yet whose public narrative appears to have developed a curvature of its own—short on spine, but accompanied by a wife who functions as a human brace, subjecting clients to antagonistic treatment well beyond the treatment table.

Like Peter Pan’s Neverland: the digital realm that never ages, refuses to grow up, escapes adult rules, and floats on pixie dust.

At times, I find it deeply perturbing when men send repeated unsolicited requests indiscriminately, given the discomfort and sense of insecurity such conduct can engender. It reflects a disregard for personal boundaries. The combination of performative progressiveness, digital posturing, and underlying regressive attitudes is one I find particularly distasteful. The profiles one chooses to follow and engage with cultivate an image with which one may not identify or aspire to be associated.

An algorithm can often appear to persistently surface a segment of the digital milieu that could be entirely misaligned with someone’s values. It has become increasingly apparent that these overlaps could be entirely incidental and not consonant with an individual’s sensibilities or upbringing. I have found it necessary to consciously distance myself. A tendency to arbitrarily add and subsequently remove individuals is both inconsistent and unusual; such erratic changes in association are not characteristic of a stable or rational approach. Moreover, there are certain individuals who, despite their commitments, seek personal coordinates, physical addresses, and photographs, displaying a peculiar inclination toward superficiality and poor judgment rather than an appreciation for depth and dignity.

A broadcast channel shares ministers and actors who mistake public roads for private red carpets — complete with sirens, escorts, convoys, motorcades, and an excess of fluorescent iconography — as if conspicuousness were a substitute for consequence, where garishness and gaudiness eclipse governance. Caught between real and reel, they seem to blur the lens of public life with a Tollywood mafia script — casting themselves as antagonists, orchestrating an entourage, masquerading vanity as a costume, and wielding intimidation as an instrument of power where accountability should prevail. My grandaunt, Jamuna Rao, belonged to both the stage and the state, yet never let either script her integrity.

Survival does not require constant documentation to validate one’s presence, nor does it need a certificate of approval from the vacuous chorus of presumptuous sleuths. Having fifty to a hundred souls who value your worth is a complete universe in itself. Yet, we reside in a generation that often equates significance with reaching a million — a culture shaped by reality shows that place primitive profanity and scripted conflict on a pedestal. Until that threshold is reached, the collective conscience often withholds acknowledgment and acceptance.

One must feel secure enough to recognise oneself as one in a million because of the aesthetic individualism one creates, even when faced with economic and social constraints. The “OG” lies in the willpower held within. There is a certain elegance in restraint; sometimes, less is not merely more — it is enough. This creates a profound dissonance between imagined abundance and lived limitation, intensifying the psychological strain of acquisitive yearning and allowing the weight of social expectation to spill into emotional turmoil and delinquent behaviour.

As an adolescent, I was not a voracious reader; in fact, I was rather frivolous. I earned my first mobile phone through a quiet agreement with my father: reading Jawaharlal Nehru’s Letters from a Father to His Daughter. He taught me that literature was not merely academic but a vessel of human experience, and that even in an age of relentless screens, one must also recognise that there are other ways to absorb knowledge.

Social media builds tiny dioramas of mythological displays, animated flipbooks of memory, and stapled-together zines of our unfolding selves — an endless collage of human oddities turned into museum pieces for the mundane.

A livestream of the unsolicited advisor — the paradoxical feminist selling silver linings before acknowledging the storm; dispensing gratitude pills where understanding, consistency, courage, patience, and compassion were prescribed — while escaping inherited constraints rooted in generational trauma, only to interrogate the architecture of the replacement: protection, progress, power, or purpose, or a gilded cage where one learns grace, dignity, and obedience. Her mother-in-law’s Vedic astrologer charts planetary alignments to forecast unions, forgetting that celestial patterns reveal cycles, not certainties; much like the impossibility of predicting the next cultural constellation, where language, identity, and expression shift before they can be mapped — Gen Z colloquialisms that undergo verbal fast fashion, appearing as disposable phrases that achieve peak relevance moments before becoming linguistic antiques, along with their aunty accent reel: a study in anthropology and autoethnography, where subjects and researchers share the same dialect, vocabulary, mannerisms, kitty-party ecosystem — and the same gratingly nasal vocal register. A tedious exercise in self-parody and a spectacular misuse of everyone’s time.

Genuine advocacy demands consistency across all forms of injustice — economic deprivation, coercive evictions, agrarian rights violations, gender-based sexual violence, and religious discrimination. It encompasses sit-ins, guerrilla theatre, candlelit vigils, megaphone rallies and the denial of basic human necessities as part of the struggle; it is like praising pest control for exterminating one species of pest while allowing the rest of the infestation to flourish.

Progress rises above divisions of age, class, caste, gender, profession, tribe, creed, community, race, religion, and nationality. In a world that can imprison, publicly humiliate, detain, and arrest those who assert their identity, the courage to simply try is itself a profound act of resilience.

We must remain vigilant against any drift toward Orwellian authoritarianism. In that pursuit, we must honour our bodies and minds, for resilience requires preservation as much as courage. We must not consume the very strength that enables us to continue. Self-destruction does not awaken justice in those unwilling to recognize it; true resistance demands both conviction and the wisdom to sustain oneself.

Every individual carries different responsibilities and priorities. Some stand at the forefront of causes, while others safeguard their families, communities, and creative legacies. It requires courage for artists and entrepreneurs to pursue their convictions when their work inspires and sustains the lives of many others. Reducing a person to their private choices, relationships, roles, or livelihood—without understanding the complexities behind them—is not justice but a failure of perspective. Inherited security requires no histrionics; acquired insecurity is sustained by them.

Tear gas shells, water cannons, inking, security cordons, anti-riot vehicles, pellet ammunition, and lathi wielding are deployed amid gridlock as instruments of force, not justice. The police exist to protect—not to hurl abuses, inflict bloodshed, or brutalize. Equally, dissent against a government must not be conflated with disloyalty to the nation; that distinction is the hallmark of a constitutional democracy.

Some pursue education beneath the dim glow of a roadside lamp or by candlelight, sustained by the lifelong sacrifices of their parents. They endure the constant spectre of failure and societal reproach, only to confront the harsh realities of unemployment, overqualification, emotional distress, and continued economic insecurity. We are a taxidermied generation — carefully positioned, eternally preserved, yet lifeless.

A hunger strike is often propelled by a hunger far deeper than the mere absence of sustenance—the hunger for justice, acknowledgement, dignity, and accountability.

Everything exists within a hierarchy. Yet beneath every uniform resides a human being—with conscience, empathy, and moral agency. Are they guided by conviction or constrained by circumstance? Do their children not also carry hopes and aspirations? Would they not feel the same anguish if their own children were subjected to the very injustices they enforce? How, then, do we reconcile conscience with command?

My parents, who studied, taught, and resided within the brick walls of the Jawaharlal Nehru University—with student wing posters held up by adhesive, riots of bougainvillea, and one of whom served as a warden, were immersed in a world of academia, debate, writing, and the era of street theatre associated with Safdar Hashmi and Ebrahim Alkazi, unfolding around dhabas at the foothills of the Aravalli Hills, over conversations steeped in kulhad chai and Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge. Their experiences embodied the Freedom Writers ethos and the aspirational spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.”

A paradox of progress: a country where ancient hierarchies coexist with medieval documentation and futuristic surveillance — where lineage is preserved through memory, identity remains ambiguous through paperwork, people remain elusive, yet every perspective carries a digital timestamp. No azaadi, only systemic barbadi.

Yet beneath these layers of inherited hierarchy exists an ironic equality: everyone possesses an opinion and multiple SIM cards, though not always the wisdom to wield them responsibly. Too often, opinions become mirrors of the self — crafted not for reflection but for validation; and when that reflection is questioned, the mirror ceases to invite introspection and turns outward, becoming an instrument to distort, shatter and tarnish the image of the other.