opinion

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....

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....

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....

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....

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]?...

This article will be a work-in-progress node of my digital garden to hold my observations about social media in one place. If you know me, chances are you have heard me scream about quitting Twitter and joining Mastodon. I joined a little before the first wave of Twitter migration. While I had been wanting to get my friends to join Mastodon for a long time, I didn’t actually think they would....

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....