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always ask - why. unfiltered opinions. not being rude. sometimes have foot in mouth. connoisseur of humble pie. I get distracted by too many subjects.

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

@Sharanyashettyy This has and always was the case for men and women moving to metros. Nothing new. The only difference is the eagerness to broadcast this newfound independence, across genders.

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

The enshittification of everything decent in life feels real. Went to a salon. They don’t use towels anymore. Went to a fine dine. They don’t use tablecloths or napkins anymore. 1 tiny change at a time, texture is being stripped from our lives like color. What is the solution?

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

@Nair_Untethered @Panks_Arora I don’t think Goa also wants Indian tourists for the same reasons. You can see it in their videos, and faces.

[Kapil Eshwar @KapilPudin89917]

@Panks_Arora Goa will be fine. All these countries will start banning Indians due to their cheap and rude mentality, horrible manners, and poor civic sense. Some have already imposed visa restrictions, and the rest will follow.

[blue @bluewmist]

Being in someone's home feels so intimate it's like wow these are your possessions I'm in a little museum of your life, a material manifestation of your biography, it's the scent I always smell on you, it's your cutlery, books, shoes, and other traces of your monastic habits

[Col Ajai Sharma, VSM (Retd), SIKH REGT @sherajai]

On one hand Mr Modi is urging people to cut every expenses possible including tadka in kitchen n on another 75 judges have been sent to foreign tour accompanied by the law minister.
The fact is there isn’t dearth of money with this country. They have surplus for all nefarious.

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

@jorahmormont3_ @MilanBarsopia They don’t need to. It’s a brand that has grown with India, and given many an Indian an identity. Their plants/townships form the background of many middle class families today. So in a sense a backbone brand. Say whatever you want about them but you cannot deny their history.

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

@Pratikji @MilanBarsopia Nope all of that is left out.

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

@DrPyaricetamoI I’m sure she in due course she’ll thank you. Do the best you can.

[Amit Schandillia @Schandillia]

An HNI (not a Forbes lister, just an HNI with a 20 crores or so in disposable) will drive on the exact same road as us lowly peasants. Be subject to the same traffic mess. Breathe the some toxic air when not indoors. Be as likely to die under a falling slab. And be as vulnerable to adulteration in food and medicine.

The only plus is cheap labor which isn’t something an HNI is going to need as badly as us middle-class peasants.

[Priyansh Agarwal @Priyansh_31Dec]

Imagine having to face so much inconvenience despite paying so much.

Last year, when I had talked about my own experience (which was way worse) I had to literally fight a court case and pay a lot to my lawyer for something completely baseless.

The misery just doesn't end 😑

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

The TG reacting vs the TG buying are non intersecting Venn diagram.

[Karthik 🇮🇳 @beastoftraal]

XYXX's new ad (agency: PinkSauce Studios) is a brilliant exercise in gender-role reversal used as a comic device. But beneath the humor, it is a smart strategy to solve a unique marketing problem: how to differentiate the selling of an unsexy, utilitarian, and deeply unglamorous garment that has traditionally been sold only in one way in India - the 'macho' way?

The 'macho' way of selling baniyans has always been about roping in a famous male movie star (one of the Khans, Varun Dhawan, etc.) and selling an imaginary world where men miraculously inherit a movie star's magnetism just by putting on a specific brand of baniyan.

This ad takes a completely different route and forces men to think about fit and aesthetics of a garment they rarely talk about. How? By lavishing as much attention on a baniyan as women (and the world) do on a bra! By comparing it to the intense public scrutiny, "staring", judgment, and hyper-awareness surrounding women's bras, the ad forces men to look at their innerwear through a social lens.

And by having a man say, 'My eyes are here' to a group of women in a public bus, the ad mines humor through subversion!

Of course, I thought there was a false equivalence of scrutiny too - for women, the public policing and hyper-sexualization of bra lines or straps isn't just about "looking messy". It is tied to deeply rooted issues of modesty/moral-policing, objectification, and personal safety. For men? A visible baniyan line or a peek of fabric at the collar is just a style slip-up or a sign of being slightly old-fashioned.

By equating a woman’s genuine discomfort with a man’s minor fashion embarrassment, is the ad trivializing a heavy social issue to sell an innerwear? In other words, is it suggesting that the gaze is symmetrical, when in reality, the power dynamic behind that gaze is completely different?

But then, I don't think the ad is equating the danger or the systemic oppression. It is onlt using a universally understood cultural pain-point to create a surreal and absurd taboo-flip. If it makes men uncomfortable, that’s perhaps the point, because that discomfort may drive both social awareness and product consideration.

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

This country needs Dexter. Almost every state does.

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

Is Janet now the TV equivalent of Karen?

[Janet Murray @jan_murray]

Late to the party, but I've started watching Season 1 of House. Same narrative every episode:

Patient has mysterious illness.
Hugh Laurie (House) gets diagnosis wrong.
Patient nearly dies.

Hugh Laurie gets diagnosis wrong again.
Gets threatened with being fired.
Patient nearly dies again.

Hugh Laurie has last minute leftfield idea.
Gets diagnosis right.
Doesn't get fired.

Eight seasons of this?

[Juliet Moses @JulietMosesNZ]

@hughlaurie @MattLon13470215 @jan_murray If House (Hugh Laurie) was part of the burns unit, he would likely
be attending to Janet right now.

[Hugh Laurie @hughlaurie]

Thanks for your critique, Janet. We actually tried a couple of episodes where House (Hugh Laurie) (please put the brackets in the right place) gets it right first time, but they were only 6 minutes long. NBC weren’t happy. Then we tried some where House never gets it right and the patient dies. The audience wasn’t happy.

One could apply your trenchant analysis to other art forms: JS Bach wrote 30 Goldberg variations on the same chord structure; Frida Kahlo painted 50 portraits of herself; Henry Moore, what??

The point is, or was, variations on a theme; if all you see is hospital, medical blah blah, then it wasn’t meant for you.

Nonetheless, I look forward to your first novel!

[Michal Malewicz @michalmalewicz]

In 2001 I was living in Berkeley, right in the middle of the dotcom crash.

I shared a house with three other people, including a funny german guy who used to put porn on a huge CRT tv in the middle of the day, just as backdrop and listened to some techno on minidiscs.

I was 19, so to get beer we had to bribe three Pakistani guys working at a local 7/11. Extra $5 usually did the trick.

I designed and built websites for clients on a 5kg Acer laptop with an 800x600 screen.

For internet I had to go to UC Berkeley library and sit in these small cubicles. "Sync up" on the online life, then go live in the real world.

When I convinced a small client to get a website, they just went with it, I got my $50/$100, everyone was happy.

Most small businesses didn't really care about the bubble bursting and thought of the internet as just another place to be, right after the yellow pages.

When there were no website clients, I painted houses in the SF area.

It paid well.

People actually talked to each other. Nobody danced or lipsynced on the streets. Nobody took pictures of food or coffee.

And we did use the internet to communicate with others. It was just a lot more intentional since you had to go to a library and sit next to a lot of other people doing the same thing.

I seriously don't believe we have it much better now.

Centralized internet is in the hands of a handful big orgs and it's mostly dead. Most traffic is bots and engagement farming.

I'm forever grateful that I was there, building the actual internet, not stock hype. I learned a lot.

[Tim @buildwtim]

@LimestoneHQ kinda wild ppl expect feedback but are surprised when it's blunt… mismatch between what was asked and what they wrote is super common tbh

[Venkatesh Alla @venkat_fin9]

The home ownership math for a Bengaluru engineer in 2026:

Take-home salary: ₹1L/month (15 LPA post-tax)
2 BHK price: ₹1.7 crore
Down payment (20%): ₹34 lakh (3 years of full savings)
EMI on ₹1.36 crore loan: ~₹1.06 lakh/month

EMI > monthly salary.

Before rent, food, school fees, insurance, EMIs on other loans.

This is not a housing problem.
This is a policy-manufactured affordability crisis:
28% GST on cement + pre-election freebie debt inflating land prices + no rental housing policy.

The government built the trap. Then sold you the lock.

[AskQuestions @tiny_pen]

@pritika_9 Get offline. Talk to people for real. You will soon find much of the fear and paranoia is manufactured online, in an echo chamber. There’s still romance and love out there. It’s the most human of all endeavours.