iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I hate this thought but WhatsApp groups are probably the only third spaces most urban Indians have. It kind off explains the misbehaviour around refusing to stick to themes, relentless forward sharing and pointless good morning messages.

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I’ve woken up today with a sore throat. This is not respiratory. It’s acid reflux. A nice Saturday evening ruined as Sunday is spent recovering. Do people really like spending so much to poison themselves?

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We went to the only place they listen we say “No chilli. No jalapeño. No masala.” Indian restaurant teams do not respect people’s food sensitivities. The pizza was fine but the two pastas were more heavy cream than any other ingredient (incl pasta).

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Dinner with family at a pizzeria last night. I went because it was a chance for a nice evening with them and it has been years since mum was able to eat pizza (one of her medications was causing severe food revulsion).

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The sad thing is that same boy turned out to be gay, teaches Sunday school now, keeps his love life to his foreign trips and when in India, spews vitriol on women in general. This is what millennial India’s having it all looks like.

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Fun fact, I did not in fact, get to attend this. I was out of town that first school week for the funeral of a grandparent. I came back to school a week late and a boy yelled across the classroom “You missed SEXY education!!” Reader, co-ed schools are not much better.

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Dr Hannah M. Rowland @hannahmrowland.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

My Mumbai school had a gender segregated sex ed session in 10th standard (14-16 yo). Girls were told about periods though most had already been menstruating for some time. Bio diagram style. Catholic school so I imagine boys were told lust & masturbation were sins. This was the 90s.

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Reposted by IdeaSmith

Hope your day was better than Darwin’s, on this day 165 years ago

I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody &everything.

Charles Darwin
Letter to Charles Lyell
1st October 1861

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I’m very weirded out by mascara like here paint the hair around your eyes so it makes them look like spiders.

IdeaSmith @ideasmithy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I never had any training in art, any more than I’ve had in writing. I developed a confidence in words by writing and having people tell me I could write. But drawing was always my first love and people have frequently told me what I ‘should’ do. I took I’m just going to draw now.

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IdeaSmith @ideasmithy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#Inktober 2026 Day 2: RELIC Will Insta take this story down because visible female <part of body>? This is a sketch based on an ancient sculpture of a dancing girl, from the Indus Valley civilisation. Pic attached for reference.

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IdeaSmith @ideasmithy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Face is burning again. This time I know to use coconut oil instead of some beauty product. Last time this happened, someone accused me of being problematic because I said I didn’t care if it made me smell like a Madrasi. I’m Tamilian, sir. Also, this may be an allergic reaction.

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IdeaSmith @ideasmithy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

#Inktober 2026 of the day: APPLE Literally drawing this seated at a doctor’s clinic and hating having to be alive:

Pencil sketch of an apple atop 3 bananas and a custard apple and a stethoscope next to it.

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IdeaSmith @ideasmithy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It isn't just that I have no patience for people's mistakes. It is that I have no hope that they'll ever feel remorse or want to do better. This includes those who use mental illness, being on the spectrum, addiction and trauma to justify misbehaviour.

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IdeaSmith @ideasmithy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Watching a show I loved in the mid 2010s and realised I was a different person then. I still hoped & believed in people. What changed? It wasn't the abuse & cheating (that happened years earlier) but I still picked up and went on. Can depression really change the brain so much?

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IdeaSmith @ideasmithy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I feel like friendship is assumed to be a mutual truama-dumping. Wasn't a friend also supposed to be your moral compass, to hold you accountable to being your best self and to tell you things that no one else would care to? Nobody seems to want that.

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I’m reading an epistolary novel set in 1991 which talks about how much war there has been in that century. 25 years into this one and the US, Russia and Israel are quite hellbent on beating that statistic.

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“Inquiring minds want to know.” is such a loving statement of curiosity.

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This whole page dedicated to consuming a slice of toast with home made orange marmalade. The book is ‘I Never Knew It Was You’ by Kalpana Swaminathan. Marmalade has no meaning at this point in the mystery. So I think the author just wanted to share a pleasurable meal with us. #Books

I'm aware that your white Hollywood masters have told you that it's uncool to care about vegetables and pulses, while your political overlords demonise meat and eggs. You're screwed, my Indian metrozens. If you live to 50, it's going to be a very unpleasant life.

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Salty MacTavish @saltymactavish.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The cafe/coffeeshop culture in Indian cities is garbage. Maida, fat, sugar and spice overpower any actual food value in what you consume. These ingredients are supposed to flavour, not constitute your entire meal. You're torturing as well as starving your body with these.

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Reposted by IdeaSmith

Hey, don’t let em fool you: rats live in the posh parts of town too

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A world without beauty and joy would be one that begins maths education with numbers. Because you know, all music and art is mathematics. We respond to both from the time we are born, so it seems ugly to hand young minds a key to this wonderful world in the form of *ugh* multiplication tables.

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Just white America centering itself as the whole world and across time things.

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This exact behaviour in a lot of Indians who don’t identify with the current government but won’t stir out their privilege bubble to learn anything beyond buzzwords like ‘problematic’. This is the reason ‘woke’ is not a compliment in India - most who know the term are privileged & entitled.

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Julie S. Lalonde @julieslalonde.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Starting to see a real LLM-crutch effect on young millennials and Gen-Zers. No thought goes into constructing a question, it’s only a screaming demand. The ease with which they continue the entitlement: “This is boring, I don’t like this. I don’t know what I want. Cater to me.”

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Reposted by IdeaSmith

The literacy crisis is not just referring to people's ability to literally read and write. It's also people's inability to read for context. I've been a public educator for over 20 years and I have never, ever seen it this bad.

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This thread and replies feel validating. Don’t spread the misery. Tend to your wounds. Screaming about them isn’t going to heal you and is only going to annoy everyone else.

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Sunday lunch. Is moong daal, chapati, green chilli, pomegranate and a bowl of curd with green peppercorns and black salt. Yum.

I'll start respecting therapy fanatics in India, the day they acknowledge the crucial, learned survival skill of drawing boundaries without being crucified alive for it. With all the intersections and deteriorating privilege layers for gender, age, skin colour and class.

Poor time management is an unwillingness to self-regulate. Broken commitments are lack of self-regulation. Unwillingness to communicate these are bad self-regulation. Lashing out or blaming others for these is just being an asshole. Self-regulation is an adult’s responsibility.

Oh noes why you call me out like this.

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I also think it’s ageist, racist and a disservice to call Kalpana Swaminathan, ‘The Indian Agatha Christie’. Christie had interesting plots but never this wickedly funny narrative voice. #Books

IdeaSmith @ideasmithy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Such a good author, Kalpana Swaminathan. I watched her on a panel last year and she is Lalli brought to life. Matter-of-fact and mysterious but only because the world is too slow to keep up. Actually not a surprise that algorithm bookfluencers don’t talk about her. #Books

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The Indian style of communication where all verbalisation is passive-aggressive class assertion and validation.

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In the past year, I've gone through something life-threatening and rebuilt my health. Every morsel of food was a challenge, every breath has been a suicide note. Should I be frittering this away on those who only care about my productivity so they can extract the last rupee?

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Social media addiction isn't new. It just built on something corporations have perfected over decades with HR as their whitewashing campaign. It's so hard to break free of the gaslighting that you're not good enough.

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We're craving the approval and validation of those who designate us as mere 'resources' to be used and discarded or replaced as they like.

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IdeaSmith @ideasmithy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Nobody tells you how efficiency tied to a need for validation is the time bomb that employers incept into you.

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Eating bread makes me tired. No, really. This gut/brain axis is a real thing. And my system isn’t made for baked yeasty maida. No matter how many fancy cafe labels and hefty price tags are slapped on it.