PLATFORM (Magazine)

For more than a decade, Chef Manish Mehrotra’s name has been synonymous with modern Indian fine dining. He cooked the concept into existence. But at Nisaba, his newest restaurant in Delhi and his first independent endeavour, Manish seems less interested in the definition of modern Indian food than cooking his own expression of it. ‘I always wanted to do this kind of Indian food. Not too intimidating and not too regular. My kind of Indian food. Soulful.

Bringing dream pop, psych rock and synth textures among other influences, DEE EN are a Delhi-formed, Goa-based indie band who are known for their constantly evolving music sensibility. The band features Saurav Debnath on vocals and guitar, Aditya Kapoor on vocals, guitar and synths, Ashrey Goel on vocals, bass and keys and Yuvaan Makar on drums. Over six years, DEE EN have progressed from the dreamy atmospheres of their debut EPs to the sharper synth world of their most recent EP, Saturn Return.

Ravi Muppa's short film, Incognito, now available to watch on the Kashyap-curated YouTube channel offers a unique perspective on sex trafficking by narrating the story from the third person view of a lonely motel receptionist. The receptionist engages in selling hidden camera footage of unsuspecting guests to supplement his income. However, a shift in his conscience occurs when one of his customers becomes involved in sex trafficking.

The first time I encountered Tishani Doshi’s work was at the Hindu Lit For Life Festival in Chennai, my hometown, when I was around fifteen. I attended her session with my grandmother and was immediately charmed by the grace of her speech and her easy command of language. Afterwards, I stood in line to get Tishani’s autograph, desperate to hold on to a small piece of that encounter.

What better world to immerse yourself in than that of books, writers and libraries? From memoirs and novels that explore the experience of reading and writing to stories set in bookstores and accounts of a city's reading culture, these book-ish books are a celebration of literary life in all its glory. Explore our list of the best book-ish books to get lost in.

Since I was young, my relatives who live in the mountains, specifically in the Western Ghats that cradle Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu, made it abundantly clear to me that mountain life is fundamentally different from life on the mainland. In the mountains, there is no choice but to live in constant conversation with nature, to become friends with rivers, trees, flowers, and hills. It is a way of life that demands an immense capacity for empathy towards the landscape itself.

Megha Ramaswamy has built her career in fiction and hybrid cinema, so a straight documentary series wasn't the obvious next step. What pulled her in was the access: a chance to film in Northeast India among some of the country's least documented tribal communities, with complete creative freedom to shape what the series could look like. Voices of the Land covers six episodes across five communities.

Mumbai’s Fort has always kept its own time: Gothic spires and Deco facades standing shoulder to shoulder in the hum of a city that built its intellectual life here, and now, in a second-floor inside Kitab Mahal, it makes space for Mumbai’s newest art gallery, Gallery Maxima. Sunaina Rajan, its founder and curator, has spent a career learning galleries from the inside and arrives with a clear instinct: championing South Asian art and taking risks.

A lot is happening in India’s art spaces this month: from a six-room exhibition inside a Mumbai heritage home to textile sculptures born from collaborations with artisan weavers. Across cities, artists are working with everything from watercolour and weaving to sculpture and installations, creating shows that are as varied as the stories they tell. Here’s a look.

Rhimon Bose. Image 15, Waiting Room, 2024–2025, Photography, Archival Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Edition 1/5 + 1 Artist Proof, 24.8 x 32.6 inches, 63 x 83 cm. 'LATITUDE 28 presents Overland, There's Shorter Time to Dream, a group exhibition curated by Shristi Sainani.