Shreya Das

LiveFree

#environmentalist

[Ramesh Srivats @rameshsrivats]

I'm getting very worried that I may die on 31 Dec 2046 and miss out on all the fun.

[Shreya Das @drshreed]

@sardesairajdeep Cmon! We are resetting - resetting temples and mosques - priorities you see!

[Shreya Das @drshreed]

@Rainmaker1973 Stunning!

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate or even simulate, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational, and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. #MagnificaHumanitas

[Shreya Das @drshreed]

@babumoshoy ফাটাফাটি

[Historywali @historywali]

My Dida was from Banaras, and waxed eloquent about Ramnagar ke Baingan till her last days. Her Laung Lata would melt in your mouth, crisp, flaky, glossy with syrup. My favourite Lassi shop in the country is Raja Ram Lassi Wala in Thateri Galli, lekin Banaras is not just my Dida’s - Banaras is also the 'ras' which Ustaad Bismillah Khan's shehnai took from this city and released into the world. He lived in Dal Mandi. In his last years, every night, his dinner was the mutton istew from Taj Hotel. I know this not because I read it. I know this because I went there, and I shot this story.
I shoot food-shows.

I have been to Lucknow many times - I've eaten the delightful sublime Makhhan Malai but also the delightful sublime Galawati Kabab, the Khasta and the Chaat but also the silken Nihari and warm Sheermal.
Also a most delicious cup of chai with Samosa, the chutney with the samosa was so tasty I still remember it, a simple chutney. 
I've never eaten anything in UP that has not been delicious. I have said this often. The land is blessed.

Moradabadi Dal and Moradabadi Biryani both make it to my to-eat list, why should they not? They are both delicious.
Kanpur Dehat is where I have eaten the best Bater. And I have also eaten - with equal gusto - Thaggu ke Laddu and Badnam Kulfi in Kanpur.
In Firozabad I have bought red glass bangles and eaten Naan Ghosht.
Kakori ki Train Robbery aur Kabab - dono lists se gayab hain.
If you go to Rampur, eat the Taar Ghosht, also eat the Adrak ka halwa.

The Ganga and the Yamuna have fed this land with love. The produce is so delicious. Even the Karela that grows in that blessed soil is sweet.

That blessed soil doesn’t grow Soya chaap.

I have never eaten Cake in Noida.

There is a particular grief in being erased not by violence but by omission.
To have fed a city for three hundred years and to find yourself, one Tuesday morning, absent from a ’list’s idea of what that city eats.
Erase voters names from voter-lists, erase dishes from culinary maps. Both voters and recipes will continue to exist.

[Shreya Das @drshreed]

@ShahidInam35 Sunset in the Mountains

[Dr.Medusa @ms_medusssa]

I saw that video of the Bengali woman confronting her online abuser. It seemed to me the perfect example of why West Bengal is so important for the Right Wing to conquer. The patriarchal fascism of the right faces off with the fierce, strong and unapologetic resistance of the Woman here and ALWAYS loses. That simply won't do! The Woman HAS to be controlled, shown her place, made to bow! The fall of Bengal will be the ultimate ego boost for the fragile patriarchy of the Right. It never wants to appear to the world in its reality, like the the whimpering, stammering, ashamed man who threatened r@pe when his arguments failed. It will do anything to hide that. It ALREADY IS.

[Paranjoy Guha Thakurta @paranjoygt]

From Pradeepto Biswas:

Bengal fell. An Empire rose. India fell.

Bengal rose. An Empire fell. India rose.

As we stand at the cusp of a defining election, history reminds us.

[Preeti Choudhry @PreetiChoudhry]

My exit poll! As I leave #Bengal, it would be a disservice not to say this: I have come to deeply admire the way women inhabit space here. There is a quiet, almost subconscious elevation of women as independent beings . something that stands in stark contrast to the entrenched misogyny that still finds resonance across much of northern India. Perhaps it stems from a cultural understanding of shakti. A form of empowerment that manifests here in ways both subtle and profound, unlike anywhere else in the country, even in the south.
Any woman journalist who has covered political rallies across India will recognize the difference immediately. Other states, a crowd is not just a logistical challenge, it carries risk. the inevitability of wandering hands, the violation masked by chaos. Here, the crowds are no less dense, the air no less heavy with sweat and alcohol—but the hands, for the most part, do not grope. Men step aside to make way. When contact happens, as it inevitably does in chaos, there is visible embarrassment rather than entitlement. What you encounter is not chivalry, but something far rarer: equality. And equality feels far more meaningful. Was never a fan of chivalry in any case :) 
There is more. Women politicians across party lines campaign with a striking freedom, aggressive, sharp, unapologetically irreverent, often using what would elsewhere be labelled as ‘masculine’ rhetoric. In most states, such behaviour would invite judgment, even censure. Here, it is met with acceptance,  applause. What feels liberating to an outsider is, in Bengal, simply normal. What we frame as empowerment  here is a cultural undercurrent.
I have covered four elections in this state, and each time I have returned with the same sense of awe. Bengal, meanwhile, ambles on with a certain bemusement, as if unaware of what sets it apart. But it is a big deal. And perhaps the most remarkable part is that Bengal does not think so.
Governments will come and go. One can only hope that this constant endures, not just how Bengal sees its women, but how, in many ways, it doesn’t. ♥️♥️♥️

[Shreya Das @drshreed]

@joybhattacharj Remarkable!

[Mahua Moitra @MahuaMoitra]

Respectfully want to tell Supreme Court all 19 appellate tribunals for SIR hearings housed in same building in Joka is CLOSED for entry, guarded by CAPF. Nobody been called, NO hearings have happened. 27 lakhs waiting. Voting in 3 days.

[Nimish Dubey @nimishdubey]

A word of advice for those “feeling bad” at seeing this photograph because “he is having to work like this at the age of seventy-plus while people who are not half as good as him are sitting in posh studios earning huge salaries”:

I have known Prannoy Roy for a long time as a viewer.
I have worked with him too.

This is him.
This is the way he had chosen to work.
Let him.
He has earned the right.

He could have chosen to sit in a posh studio and earn a large salary if he wanted to.
He chose to work like this instead.

Don’t feel bad or sad for him.
He has never wanted sympathy.

Watch him and his content at @DeKoderAI and @dekoderhindi.

That’s all he wants. I don’t think he worries too much another what others are earning and where they are sitting.

This is what he has chosen to do.
Don’t feel bad for him.
Thank him for being out there in the field.
Not many are.

Proud of you, sir. As always.

[সত্যান্বেষী @satyanewshi]

বাংলার ঘর, বাংলার হাট,
বাংলার বন, বাংলার মাঠ-
পূর্ণ হউক, পূর্ণ হউক,
পূর্ণ হউক হে ভগবান॥
বাঙালির পণ, বাঙালির আশা,
বাঙালির কাজ, বাঙালির ভাষা-
সত্য হউক, সত্য হউক,
সত্য হউক হে ভগবান ॥

শুভ নববর্ষ ১৪৩৩

[Tribal Army @TribalArmy]

Cutting down a 100-year-old banyan tree in Nashik for Kumbh preparations is not development, it is environmental destruction. The felling of heritage trees like banyan and peepal along the Godavari River is deeply concerning. Faith should not come at the cost of nature. 🌳

[Aakar Patel @Aakar__Patel]

voice of global south has sore throat it seems

[Arfa Khanum Sherwani @khanumarfa]

Pls Retweet-
Samserganj, Murshidabad.
I invite the Election Commission of India to come meet its victims and see, on the ground, what this so called “voter purification” exercise is doing to the poorest citizens of this country who also happen to be Muslims.
I have covered wars, communal violence, and mass movements. I have never seen anything like this before.

[Mahua Moitra @MahuaMoitra]

Here’s a photo from today that captures the true spirit of India. I, a Hindu campaigning for a Muslim candidate going past Easter celebrations in a local church with the cross behind us.

[Reuters @Reuters]

Pope Leo says God rejects prayers of leaders who wage wars https://t.co/27eGPz0IH0 https://t.co/27eGPz0IH0

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

BJP workers vandalised their party office in Alipurduar after candidate announcement for West Bengal. Watch at 0:10 secs, BJP karyakarta is seen kicking Shri Ram's poster. Imagine the prime time debate If this was done by opposition party workers.