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For the first time in my life, I haven’t been napping in the afternoons. I graduated college a month ago, and I’m now officially an office-going girl. The two couldn’t be more different. On one hand, I’m celebrating — no more 8 a.m. classes! On the other, I’m mourning the loss of a space where idealism was the default. In college, everyone’s trying to change the world. Now that I’m actually in the world, I’m overwhelmed by how much needs changing. I don’t know where to start, or if starting even matters. It’s easier to be a cynic, to reconcile with the fact that the world is damned and I can’t do a damn thing about it. But that’s a depressing worldview to live with.
Then I see the passion and courage with which the people I’m surrounded by — my family, my friends, and now, my colleagues — lead their lives, and I realise that the future is exciting. They don’t have it all figured out, but they show up. They act like the world is worth building. And I start to believe that maybe it is. Hope is not a happy accident. Hope is a right we must protect.
It’s this insistence — on showing up, creating, participating — that’s stayed with me this week. And I’ve been seeing it not just in the people around me, but in the artists and communities we’ve been writing about at Homegrown. Whether through music, film, fashion, or literature, they’re imagining the world they want. Here's what we have for you this week:
Avara Finds Her Soft Place in Her Newest Mixtappe
In conversation with Pari, Avara speaks about making music that feels like a safe space — especially for us who’ve grown up feeling like we need to harden ourselves to survive. She talks about navigating loss, her relationship with performance, and the politics of gentleness in an industry that often celebrates spectacle. It reminded me of the first time I heard music that let me cry without needing a reason. Music that just let me be. Avara’s work feels like that kind of offering.
Read here.
Documentary Ghost of the Mountain Hunts for the Snow Leopard
Abhishek Sachidanandan’s Ghost of the Mountain feels like a hallucination. Shot in Ladakh, the film is less concerned with plot and more with evoking a sense of place — and loss. It follows a protagonist revisiting a childhood home, and through silence, fog, and fragments of memory, we’re pulled into a deeply internal narrative. It lets your feelings accumulate. It’s cinema that trusts your emotional intelligence.
Read here.
Taarini Anand’s F/W Collection Reclaims Masculinity Through Fabric
Taarini Anand’s Fall/Winter menswear collection is structured but never rigid. The cuts are clean, the fabrics textured, and the colour palette playful. There’s an ease to the garments. They’re designed to make the wearer feel most like themselves. It plays with power and vulnerability in equal measure. Anand flips masculinity on its head from something to prove to something to reinterpret.
Read here.
Kritika Arya Reflects on Inherited Identity in Her Debut Book
Talking to Drishya about her book, Citizen by Descent, Kritika Arya unpacks what it means to inherit both identity and marginalisation. She discusses how citizenship is an emotional and political burden — something that can be questioned, revoked, or never fully granted. She reflects on how the very proof of your belonging can become a site of erasure.
Read here.
BDSM Brings Electro-Funk to antiSOCIAL, Mumbai
This isn’t your average club night. With strictly weaponised electronics, BDSM brings together the charge of electro, the groove of funk, and the grit of break dance. Reykjavik-born producer Volruptus will take the stage for his first-ever live set in India. He’s followed by SPACEJAMS before CHRMS closes the night.
Read here.
A Sunday of Vinyl and Stillness at Journal Café, Mumbai
Journal in Santacruz is hosting an afternoon of vinyl listening. The idea is to slow down: to sit, sip, and stay while warm crackles fill the room. It’s low-stakes but deeply intentional. In a city where so much culture is mediated through screens and speed, this return to the analogue is much needed.
Read here.
Surmeyi’s Jewellery Collaboration with Seema Anand and Shan Brady
This collection, titled Kama, weaves together story, skin, and sound. Through Seema Anand’s oral histories, Shan Brady’s tactile visuals, and Surmeyi’s design language, the collection is an intergenerational dialogue on pleasure and embodiment. It refuses the slickness of modern eroticism, feeling warm, lived-in, and rooted in the everyday textures of desire.
Read here.
Explore the Heritage Cafés That Brew Kolkata’s Soul
A homegrown guide to Kolkata’s heritage cafés, like Indian Coffee House and Paramount, offers more than just a culinary tour. These are spaces thick with memory: waiters who’ve worked there for decades, tables scarred by time, recipes that haven’t changed since the ‘60s. I’ve never visited the city, but Drishya’s descriptions made me feel like I knew these spaces.
Read here.
