Riddhi Dastidar
@gaachburi
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writer. dyke, socialist. ex @khabarlahariya 🏆TFA @laadli_PF . fiction fellow @asiaspeaks @himalayanWrite . OCD. they. bread &🌹 @mutualaidindia .
Delhi
Joined June 2016
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Pinned Tweet
While we stew in exit poll anxiety, here's a blow-by-blow account of the Modi-led govt's much touted Garima Greh housing scheme for transgender Indians, over the past few yrs for As Equals
@CNN
. Election manifesto by
@BJP4India
promises to expand these.
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The Health Minister of India is responding to the current crisis by rebutting a Lancet editorial with... a blogpost whose thumbnail is a cat pic. I've read the blog. The most compelling argument in it is the cat photo.
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30+, unmarried, not in a serious relationship south asian girlies pls make yourselves known. this is not for a story; i just want to know that there are more of us
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they really do be trying to live inside kabhi khushi kabhi gham
She is amazingly graceful and this looks more fabulous than India’s Kennedy Centre
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Hello, here is the live google doc of all the fundraising campaigns doing essential work to meet this present
#covidemergency
crisis in India. Please share widely, we will keep updating. Our goal is to have as many fundraisers meet their goal as possible.
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So... anyone else having intense flashbacks to watching the delhi police beat the shit out of protesters and chill w ABVP/Bajrang Dal or nah?
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utho anarkali, the
@nytimes
is calling HKV soho-esque, and lado sarai the east village of delhi
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Hi, I'm getting a lot of questions around whom can we support financially. Want to collate
Can you pls comment on this thread if you know of a good organisation doing verified relief work/ supporting vulnerable communities / figuring food and essentials for migrant workers etc?
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Folks waking up on the other side of the world, this is what
#CovidMutualAidIndia
needs from you today. Our live doc is at . Art by 🌠
@sonakshaiyengar
, alt text & help by
@thecatlyf
& our small but 😭🥰team of volunteers
Live doc:
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sorry guys i'm calling it, this misinformation will work and they're going to come back swinging in 2024 on the basis of saving the nation when the states fucked up etc.
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calls for death penalty are tired & pointless. The death penalty achieves nothing as has been established by years of research. Exceptionalising rapists as monsters keeps the system intact. The man who raped me was strident about wanting to castrate rapists. Address rape culture
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not posting receipts because I don't want to be blacklisted, but as someone who's freelanced since 2021, rarely pitches & mostly does big assignments commissioned by editors-- don't fucking freelance unless u have generational wealth. even if ur sought after, institutions will-
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Unbelievable.
The
#DelhiPolice
who watched ABVP goons threaten and beat up protesters outside the main gate at JNU that Sunday night, and then told US to move away-- have used similar logic to declare injured students are themselves the assaulters.
On January 5, several people including JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh attacked students at Periyar hostel: Delhi Police on
#JNUViolence
.
More on
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i don't think our hearts are meant to ache this much, we're not meant to hold each other up This much. from crowdfunding for queer and trans folks to rushing to aid after the delhi pogrom to helplessly crying w a stranger on the phone as his mother was on her last breath--
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who else up at 5am feeling nauseous about the future of democracy 🌝🌝🌝
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what is journalism if not cringing at your own voice in interview recordings persevering?
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possibly unpopular opinion: coffee-shops shouldn't play loud music. it's like please sir, this is my library.
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Delhi Twitter-- if you or your cool friend wants to live with me, my editor flatmate, and our cats and dog in a beautiful CR Park 3 bhk, Jan '23 onwards please hmu. Our beloved third flatmate is leaving the city to do cooler things in life and we need someone to take the spot.
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Buzzfeed's brand of millenial culture: being apolitical af inside a bubble, hailing Priyanka Chopra and Kangana Ranaut as feminist icons, then being surprised that a right wing wave of hatred is winning
millenial culture is making jokes and memes to get over our collective despair
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To paraphrase Alan Ginsberg: I saw the best minds of my generation coming out as rahul gandhi dilf fancam enjoyers
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I spoke to the extraordinary Harinder Bindu of
@Bkuektaugrahan
on her 30 years of activism leading up to the
#FarmersProtest
, and what it takes to mobilise women & build solidarities. Read the interview
@Article14live
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genuinely horrible to see friends and lit acquaintances in the US being deliriously giddy at the opening up of life after vaccines and bars and cafes and seeing friends -- and being stuck here instead, in this endless nightmarish recursive loop from march last year. fuck.
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whom do i know in delhi that is a creative professional/writer/person who is a huge nerd abt lit/film/theory/walks & cities/horror & has the energy to make one (1) new friend. asking for a friend. it's me.
my besties got👰♀️, moved to hills, amreeka etc & all i seem to do is work
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whatever happens now, this is a sign for us to keep fighting, keep resisting, keep remaking the country in the image of the sovereign socialist secular democratic republic it CAN be. hope is cultivated by action 🫀🌹
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Normalise communal living not bound by blood or marital family ties well into old age
Normalise state supported healthcare for the elderly and disabled (not the rubbish that passes for certification-based disability pension)
And you will normalise not getting married
Normalise not getting married
Normalise not getting married
Normalise not getting married
Normalise not getting married
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Re: the
#TarunTejpal
case, the gall of patriarchy to keep boring us with the same bakwaas. aren't you bored? I'm so fucking BORED, we've been repeating the same thing for decades. there is NO 'normative behaviour' for victims. we have so much more to DO than be perpetually raging
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@Scaachi
@theaerogram
thanks for sharing our doc! among many, would recommend donating to the trans community shelter in West Bengal, and Gond (Adivasi) community fundraiser in particular at the moment, since the need is particularly urgent there :)
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still not over getting ghosted (for the first time ever) by this girl after one date which ended with 'see you soon' and a specific plan. i was fully 🤡in disbelief, thinking of logical explanations like, 'maybe her whatsapp is broken'. let no one tell you dating women is easier
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For
@AtmosMag
I went long on
#Auroville
, an experimental utopian township in India founded 50 yrs ago on a dream by Mirra Alfassa aka The Mother. The last few years have been a tumultuous battle between competing ideas of 'the city the earth needs'. Read:
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Can people STOP conflating international students with the diaspora who are more American than South Asian, FFS?! A lot of international students have been extremely active in organising against the CAA, occupation of Kashmir etcm Just say you want to scold to look woke and go.
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idk how your high school romances turned out but tonight my partner is locked in his home-studio turning a lovesong he wrote for his old school-girlfriend into an ad-jingle for eco-friendly diapers.
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-the next time i've had a long hard day of work, and i am walking slowly home, very tired and dispirited, with my neighbourhood and all the beloved places that were not JUST mine all these years, i'm going to take a breath instead of crying & think of your names like a rosary🌹🖤
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if you're still platforming NRC supporters or support the NRC yourself, you're not progressive or nuanced, you are trash. now that N & D are out, hope pinjra tod revisits its politics on this & clarifies/apologizes. there is 0 justification for putting people in detention centers
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PSA to the govt, media to STOP calling people 'Covid warriors'. They didn't ask for this. NOBODY asked for this. Except people holding rallies in my home state with abandon and rejoicing in glee as we run out of oxygen and start asking each other 'no leads for ICU beds no?'
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afraid to believe this is real. if yes, it's the best news we've had in this sad country for a long, long time. Thinking of everyone who lost their lives and everyone who stood resolute
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yaar pls don't valourise mamata. TMC's gundagardi, broken promises & attempt to make WB a one-party state is a big reason for people turning to saffron in the first place, but yes v relieved we aren't seeing a BJP run west bengal. just wish we had better options to choose from.
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someday someone will write a piece including how many well known indie musicians pay their own rent, or just coincidentally come from pretty well off families... like these are relevant factors in who makes it and what is a 'blessing', and i will finally stop screaming internally
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-crush yr self esteem by making you beg for payment, extend v long payment timelines at whim despite the actual 'URGENT' work having been completed ages ago. it's HUMILIATING. You're constantly the broke friend & paying back loans. add ADHD & complicated invoicing to the mix = 💀
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ok this is going to corners of the internet who don't know me so context: till recently i was in a happy 5+ yr relationship (nonmonog) w a man. i'm queer. i've been ambivalent at best abt marriage & how it atomises people into isolated units. my dream = building full of friends-
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i love you nehru memorial library <3 i love your drab green curtains that keep out the sun, and wooden study carrells with charging points fitted in. i love that you have clean washrooms and drinking water to fill my bottle. i love the peacocks, large and magnificent on your lawn
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unpop opinion(?) but more than indie reporters need advice on how to write, they need living wages. if yr being paid 4-8k per piece, you're either doing this as a hobby and/or v young & being bankrolled by someone else or you're churning out insipid copy on the way to burnout.
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out today: an entire piece of my heart. much of 2022 was spent on this story & today I'm so v nervous to finally share it with the world. this piece is about lesbian erasure, friendship & how to live outside India's big cities when there is no word in your mother tongue for you.
In 2014, Komal Dubey found herself stuck in a bleak stretch of depression. No one took her relationship or grief seriously.
@gaachburi
spoke to her and writes about how the average queer woman in India struggles to find mental healthcare.
🧵 1/n
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Idk who needs to hear this but calling for police abolition does not mean shut suddenly down all police outfits one day. Abolition involves building alternatives and funding being redirected to housing, education, healthcare ++ in communities themselves. It really is that deep.
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- i love my friends/chosen fam (lucky to have a stellar one) but over the years folks tend to move cities, continents etc in ways that are tied to marriage primarily. it sucks. so this tweet is about me feeling lonely & sad when i walk home & feel like my life lacks a framework-
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Not kidding I got assaulted at a club last month and when we argued and yelled at the assaulter and his friends, one of the friends (a girl) said if you don't like it leave the country 👁️👄👁️
Everything leads to a rape threat now. You can say that you want a pothole fixed and someone will tell you that only whores and bitches want roads. Also BJP made it cool to be a loser who has the same ideas about women as a Neanderthal because dharma. BJP is a festering wound.
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April 2021--indelible for ordinary Indians forced to suddenly become ill-equipped first responders for strangers. We've had piercing reporting about what went wrong, but what's been missing is how it felt for volunteers. I wrote about it for
@thebafflermag
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Constantly terrified, sad, furious, grieving, can't sleep, struggling with survivor's guilt... what has this govt done to us? The onslaught that doesn't end
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We've all heard of 'Instagram Face'. But how is choice feminism + instagram face + the rise dermats as medical influencers & lax regulations changing the faces and 'normal' of India's young women? I spent months finding out for
@DecodeInternet
. Read:
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u ever feel like what's the point of journalism? reporters, activists & communities put everything at stake getting things out. & then nothing happens. people rot in jail. fabricated charges, forged documents, inert implementation prevails. the fkn vhp takes out a protest march
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Still pinching myself to be honest. What a gift to be mentored by Deepa & be in the company of so much talent 💗🌹
CLASS OF 2022: RIDDHI DASTIDAR
@gaachburi
is a writer & reporter in Delhi. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize & Wasafiri New Writing Prize & won the 2020 TFA Award for Creative Writing. Riddhi is working with mentor Deepa Anappara on their novel.
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Still don't understand how ya'll can stan a man who is pro detention centers but okay.
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Delhi: looking for a flatmate: 3bhk in CR Park, right by market 1, walking distance from metro. Master bedroom for rent, w attached bathroom & balcony. 15k rent. House comes w 3 cats (cuddly), an old dog (quiet & mostly sleeping). Flatmates are me & Neelakantan, an editor.
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this is a PSA to DO BETTER. K
#ngna
likely does have mental health issues but the vast majority of people living w mental illness are not foolish/evil like her & her sanghi friends. and your casual ableism conflating being 'insane' w dangerous is harmful & adds existing stigma to-
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I made an invite for my 31st birthday and I'm very proud.
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- i don't think i'm doing anything 'radical' w this tweet here; obv i know life has been made institutionally harder for single people/folks who fall outside the conjugal fam unit. i hate it. BUT as a chronically ill writer, life is fkn hard & it's easier w a good partner-
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-because of a complete failure of government and leadership. and everything in between --i don't have the words for how horrible today has been. feel like so many of us are just going to have PTSD from the last few years where we've been reeling from one crisis to the next.
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Wrote about
#restorativejustice
and the need to address
#rapeculture
behaviours in case of
#sexualviolence
by offenders known to us for
@thewire_in
.
Thanks to
@rkarnad
for the editorial eye and a host of incredible people who spoke with me. (1/n)
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one of my greatest joys is showing my queer 18 y.o cousin sister (who isn't allowed to visit me in delhi for fear I'll get the cray socialist tattooed gay on her) glimpses of the kind of life that's possible once ur living on ur own, the kind of freedom & joy & quiet & weirdness
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after years of exaggerating my age to 30, i'm actually turning thirty tomorrow. & having a costume party with friends from the internet turned irl close friends, after several weeks of vacay and a dream tattoo designed by
@twentytwoby7
. i think i'm going to like this decade.
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summerhouse w my girlfriend last night was like being queer on Tinder IRL. got relentlessly hit on even after clarifying we were together by a dude who then said '3way?🤪' & a cryptobro among others. highlight: guy in fedora asks if we're dating, then POINTS & shouts LESBIAAANS!
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kissed a pretty girl at the club yesterday and went dancing after one million years, so i guess i'm doing okay.
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introverted journos. how do you talk endlessly to people, yaar. are you out there?
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turns out I've been having a nervous breakdown incredibly slowly & what helped was Z coming by for a sleepover & faffing & letting me cry & telling me I'm doing good. mainly being single is hard bc there's no default physical intimacy, in the sense that there's no one to casually
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Have i totally lost the plot or is the most bougie co-option of
#womensday
yet some Women on top award function where delhi influencers are 💃💃 and proud
#MeToo
winner Suhel Seth is giving komal pandey some award???? What is even happening??? Someone tell me that's a lookalike
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When the majority of Indians, esplly those in rural areas that we at
@KhabarLahariya
report from, do not have access to the internet -- and this inequity is further exacerbated by gender -- why is our mode of vaccine delivery Cowin?
#IndiaNeedsVaccines
#VaccinateIndia
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Hi, I am working on a story about
#mentalhealth
&
#queer
women in small towns in India. I'm looking to speak to
#lesbian
/queer women & queer organisations & networks in UP, Bihar & MP. Please DM if you are one or know someone who I should speak with. Thank you!
(Pls RT for reach)
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"Some news!" as they say. Reading thru the list of writers & their excerpts, I feel honoured & stunned to be among them. Mostly I can't wait to read the stories as they are published. Thank you to Commonwealth Writers & the judges who read >6000 submissions (!) Feeling v lucky
The 2021
#CWprize
shortlist is finally here. Congratulations to the 25 writers selected from a record 6423 submissions!
Many thanks to the judges and readers who made this happen, and to everyone who entered.
Meet the writers here:
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Heart was heavy all day yesterday from this horrific news. What words are there to say even to the trans community that has to show up again and again in mourning and grief and rage? Rest in power, Sangeetha.
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relatedly, PLEASE unless its organizing related, do not ask me to write/work for free. i cannot afford it. let's circle back in ten years and see if my circumstances have changed 🙏
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Some news and a thread. First, I'm honoured (and honestly still shocked) to share that I've won the TOTO Award 2020 for Creative Writing for a collection of poetry. I have so much gratitude towards the Vellanis for creating this community and opportunity for emerging artists. 1/n
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interviewed Ncuti Gatwa for
@VOGUEIndia
as he takes over the mantle of the
#fifteenthdoctor
and brings a sexier Doctor Who to a new generation
@DisneyPlus
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hello it is i, the fewl who once again has 30 pages of interviews for a 3k word piece.
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A bunch of folks from the US are following me now, so want to flag that Hinduphobia--not a real thing. Casteism is tho, & you should focus on that. We're seeing the effects of pretending "Hinduphobia" is real play out right now. Pls continue reporting.
*Racism def still real
Media houses around the world are willing to disrespect the funerals of Hindus by airing aerial shots of cremation grounds and maintain the required, respectful distance with other religions.
Tell me this is not Hinduphobia. Period.
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god bless the person who made meftalspas truly i wish them nothing but the best
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We have a website! TELL A NEMESIS TODAY!!!!
(If you've been a frequent visitor to our doc, you might have to clear your cache when typing without the https, to get to the site.)
Tired of that crashing google doc? So were we. So we made a website.
Donate! Tell your friends. Tell a nemesis. Spread the word! RT. Support
#mutualaid
in India right now.
#COVIDEmergencyIndia
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deliriously happy eating a 4-person cake by myself
Quote Tweet with a photo of you that somebody else has taken. Selfies are not allowed. It can be old or new but ideally one that really captures you. :-)
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For everyone out on the streets risking detention and violence, gathering in local spaces and holding each other up. For the 25 people murdered during CAA protests.
collab: Artwork by
@c_nayanika
, concept mine.
#NoNetBandi
#CAA_NRC_Protests
#YogiMassacre
#YogiMustResign
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Two days before the Prime Minister's announcement imposing the sudden nationwide Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, Bilal Chero* stepped out of prison for the first time in eleven years. He had been arrested in 2009 on what is commonly called in Jharkhand as 'Maobadi charges'.
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delhi today demands that you wear something nice and go lie on the grass somewhere.
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I traced the journeys of 5 women living with
#schizophrenia
& psychosis, & their attempts to work and carve out autonomy for
@IndiaSpend
&
@healthcollectif
.
💫 illustrations by
@lalposter
&
@LesleyEsteves
edited into shape.
#MentalHealthAwarenessMonth
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At
#JNU
main gate. No streetlights all the way till here. Huge crowd of ABVP goons, men in masks and
#DelhiPolice
alongside. They're screaming Bharat mata ki jai.
#SOSJNU
#EmergencyinJNU
. Saw i was taking a video and started threatening
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if you're an Indian-origin person in America who benefits & accrues capital from Indian aesthetics or writes about about anti-brown racism, then YOU should be in solidarity with us & do more activism than a paltry share.
👉 or anywhere non-RSS.
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absolutely LOATHE that in order to write well you have to read so much better than that. My reading list rn is Jose Saramago's Blindness, Basma Abdel Aziz's Queue, Alejo Carpentier-Nanni Balestrini-Virginia Woolf and I want to cry like pls ma'am I was a science student I am fewl
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the annoying thing about an amicable queer break up is that my ex girlfriend is rad?? hot and smart and weird and soon to be one million miles away because ofc geography and academia. how to stop pining when you can't do the whole generic men r trash thing which tbh is v helpful!
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There you go. After the King's Speech yesterday, turns out it was the pharma companies all along
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on one hand i'm relieved my heart still works enough to harbour a crush. on the other hand i would prefer not to be living the guru dutt jaane woh kaise log the jinke pyaar ko pyaar mila life.
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a system that acquits tarun tejpal on one hand, and does this to people on the other -- an indefensible system, rotten to its core. can't read anything abt Stan Swamy without crying, ever.
I could walk by myself, I could take bath by myself, I could also write. But these functions are slowly disappearing.
#BombayHC
#StanSwamy
#InterimBail
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I got some Veryyyyyyyy good news yesterday that i can't say in public yet but I've seen people post this kind of stuff before and wondered, then why are you saying anything binch? And now i know the reason is maniacal glee.
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The most tender thing: the woman from the house next door is talking on the phone in bangla, & her voice drifts out to my window. Reminds me of being a child & hearing my mashis, didibhai & ma chat while chopping vegetables or drinking cha.
Feeling small & weepy.
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ETA: sorry if this seems like gatekeeping. we've seen ppl lose money to oxygen suppliers who disappeared, & encountered a literal scam hospital this wk where we lost a patient so. want to be a little cautious. doesn't matter if big/small effort, don't need a certificate.
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Out today: 1st in
@IndiaSpend
series
#AfterStan
, on an alleged encounter in Latehar that illuminates high nos of Adivasis & Moolvasis charged as Naxalites in Jharkhand -- an issue Father
#StanSwamy
worked on before his own death as an undertrial prisoner
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It's a weird feeling knowing that most of the American writers so many of us in India read and admire dgaf that our entire country is in the seventh circle of hell.
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when u have a heartbreak so devastating u decide to go to grad school (again)
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@ShashiTharoor
@Tejasvi_Surya
He is not talented. He's a typical Model UN boy who makes out with the mic without saying anything sensible , only has a special knack for Islamophobia. And instead of the MUN he's an MP. Shame on you for legitimising him.
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i still don't understand who is voting for hema malini and why.
Hema Malini won by a bigger margin in Mathura than Modi in Varanasi. I think the BJP voter has decided that if it must be an actor, they’ll go for the pro.
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honestly think it's so rude how i am past thirty and never ill-advisedly married. like yes radical politics, queerness, chosen family, artist life bla blah blah but when will my ex wife era arrive????? i was born to be an ex wife cmon
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Guys he's talking about US 💅🏼
Shoutout to every single independent journalist in our country. Thank you for staying your course.
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