https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/ Recent content in Posts on madhushree's blog Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/mind-temporality/ Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/mind-temporality/ We studied the concepts of temporality and care in class this month. I was very opposed to engaging with temporality because I thought of it as theoretical wankery and irrelevant to our material struggles. However, engaging with the assigned texts and attending lectures and discussions made me do a complete 180 on these subjects. This piece grapples with some of these concepts in the context of living with chronic mental health conditions. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/being-sorted/ Sat, 17 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/being-sorted/ I have always been attracted to the wise, old mentor archetype in fiction. I have wanted to be that archetype ever since I can remember. As I grow older, I find myself getting a little wiser but it never feels enough. In fact I feel like a mess all the time. My mental health issues keep showing up when I least expect them to and I make the same mistakes over and over again. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/learning-to-learn/ Mon, 10 Mar 2025 05:55:34 +0530 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/learning-to-learn/ You’re in a rectangular room with a raised platform upfront. The door is to the left of the platform. There are those single chairs with flaps for writing dotted across the classroom. It is lit in bright white light—good for visibility but it feels like you are in a hospital. The class is almost full, some students pay attention, most are secretly scrolling Instagram under the tables. You decided to pay attention today so you sat on the first table. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/ones-house/ Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:55:34 +0530 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/ones-house/ a house never complete. the one that lives in it, perennially at work—building it, decorating it, on occasion, destroying it. another house, on the same plot. a house that once was, or rather, the houses that once were. un-empty, or rather, as full as houses that once were can be. another house, on the same plot, a house the one dreams of. bursting with ambition, or despair, mutating with every passing second. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/threesisters/ Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/threesisters/ edit: After further tests, it was determined that I had ligament injury, and not a fracture. K and I walked towards the gate of Trendset Mall. I checked my phone, and realising my mistake in booking an Uber, I informed him that the Uber auto had arrived at the other gate of the mall. I started walking towards it and K tried to accompany me, as good friends often do, even though he had to head towards the basement of the mall. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/doge/ Sun, 16 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/doge/ We rescued Shuri in 2019. An asocial pup, she came to us with a lot of anxiety. She refused to be picked up, hugged or cuddled with. She would often hide beneath the bed or dining table. At the time, I was also going through clinical depression. Because Shuri is a pug, she frequently falls ill as pugs tend to be susceptible to health problems due to the unethical nature of their breeding process. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/seeking-community/ Sun, 24 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/seeking-community/ I am lying in my bed, staring at the fan. I haven’t stepped out in days. The laundry bag is piling up, reminding me of the 99 ways in which I am failing to be an adult. The dishes need to be placed back into their respective slots. No one at home, except for me. I reach out to grab my phone and feel sick as soon as the display glows. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/the-bear/ Sun, 21 Jan 2024 13:02:00 +0530 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/the-bear/ Like a five-star meal, the ingredients of The Bear are picked, crafted and cooked with utmost care and artistry. Hey, yes, we are talking about The Bear. I started watching it with no expectations, primarily because of the hype. But I was not expecting to be this moved by the show. Mild spoilers ahead. Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen-White), is one of the top chefs in the US. He returns to his family restaurant, a small joint in a Chicago that is far from the fine dining luxury Carmen “Carmy” is used to working in. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/brasphemy/ Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/brasphemy/ After much excitement and anticipation, I got my first bra in the seventh standard. I had awaited this moment ever since the girls in my class first started wearing their bras. It was a big deal! Almost as big as getting your first period–a rite of passage into adulthood. In hindsight, the bra made me feel very desirable. I wanted to be seen as a woman. It is strange. Even as a child, bras were so sexualised and gender coded that it was only at a later stage (after a particularly painful exercising session) that I realised they were first and foremost meant to support breasts. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/readmarx/ Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/readmarx/ Karl Marx evokes strong reactions from both sides of the political spectrum. His work has inspired thousands of people to mobilise against class oppression, yet he remains taboo in several parts of the world. Economics is no exception. Interestingly, while economists often dismiss Marx’s work (Meadowcroft 2008), he is simultaneously used as a strawman by professors to ensure that his critique never receives sincere engagement.1 As evident from the dearth of heterodoxy in most economics departments globally — as of 2016, less than 120 economics departments were offering Postgraduate or Undergraduate programmes globally (Jakob Kapeller and Florian Springholz 2016), Marxist perspectives in economics remain at the fringe. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/eticket/ Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/eticket/ Names have been changed to protect the identities of the interviewees. Illustrations and photographs by Madhushree unless mentioned otherwise. “Because we cannot see how much we have earned on the ticket vending machine, we have no idea if [on a crowded bus] the passenger has paid their ticket fare or not.” On February 3, 2021, Ebix announced that EbixCash, its Indian subsidiary, had procured a 7-year contract with Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML) to replace the old e-Ticket vending machines. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/biketaxi/ Fri, 09 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/biketaxi/ All names have been changed to protect the identities of the interviewees. Illustrations and photos by Madhushree. I am not a fan of Bike Taxis I have ridden a bike taxi four times. I was short of money all four times, so an auto or a cab was out of the question, and I didn’t have easy access to the bus. In India, three leading aggregator platforms- Ola, Uber and Rapido provide bike taxi services. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/messenger/ Sat, 03 Dec 2022 22:23:34 +0530 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/messenger/ 2022 was full of surprises and revelations. However, the lesson I hold closest to my heart was unlearning my internalised misogyny. I realised I looked down upon women I perceived as pick-me girls or not like other girls. While many people who engage in this behaviour enable sexism, it is more helpful to view internalised misogyny as a response or a reaction to patriarchy. As several cultural critics have started pointing out, even the hurling of labels such as pick-me or trad-wife tends to blur the lines between calling out misogyny and reinforcing it. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/wakfor/ Fri, 25 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/wakfor/ When I watched Black Panther, I remember thinking, “This is not just any superhero film. It has heart.” Actually, here is my orginal review of the film, that I wrote when I was 17. I remember crying in the theatre, feeling hopeful and moved. As a visual communication design student, the visuals had blown me away. Despite being fully aware of what Marvel does, I went into Wakanda Forever with a sliver of hope, but I was thoroughly disappointed. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/kevin/ Mon, 21 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/kevin/ Does art not also contain the opposite of this ‘Dionysian’ losing of oneself? Does it not also contain the ‘Apollonian element of entertainment and satisfaction which consists precisely in the fact that the onlooker does not identify [themselves] with what is represented but gains distance from it, overcomes the direct power of reality through its deliberate representation, and finds, in art, that happy freedom of which the burdens of everyday life deprive [them]? https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/colophon/ Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/colophon/ TLDR: The base website is hand-written and uses Bootstrap. The blog is built with Hugo and uses the excellent PaperMod theme (with a single, minor addition). Hosting is via Cloudflare Pages. The website One of the primary design goals was that Madhu should be able to edit the blog and make textual edits to the website directly from GitHub. This ruled out fancy React-based SSGs such as Next or Gatsby. I eventually settled on Bootstrap and Hugo, picking Hugo over Jekyll simply because I liked how PaperMod looked. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/vaguely-specific/ Sat, 22 Oct 2022 23:18:11 +0530 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/vaguely-specific/ An ongoing collection of gnomic neologisms, lilting phrases and word combinations from my readings that, when spoken, just roll off the tongue and fall together — like elusive puzzle pieces, to illustrate complexities that I previously believed I had no language for. Use Control+F or Command+F to find a particular phrase or word. Words moribund: In a dying state; dying; at the point of death. 1 motley: Consisting of many different types, parts, or colors that do not seem to belong together. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/on-pune-buses-and-crowds/ Wed, 12 Oct 2022 08:55:34 +0530 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/on-pune-buses-and-crowds/ My morning classes begin at 8:30 AM. To reach on time by bus, where I actually have a chance to get a seat, I have to wake up at 6:00 AM because the frequency on my route is low and erratic—a bus every 30 minutes on a good day. However, I often miss the one scheduled to reach my stop at around 7:20 AM, leaving me no choice but to catch the overcrowded buses. https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/hello-world/ Tue, 11 Oct 2022 22:23:34 +0530 https://madhushreek.com/blog/posts/hello-world/ Welcome to my blog! I hope to talk about culture, poetry, art, cinema, social science, mental health, observations and transformative justice. This blog is a writing exercise for me to have a dialogue with myself, slowly.