Vidya Balachander

Food writer + editor | Words in @NPR, @lithub, @TIME, @bethejuggernaut, @CNTraveler, @Food52 |

[Vidya Balachander @vidya83]

So deeply proud of this beautiful, thoughtful magazine and the diverse voices it weaves together. A huge thank you to @Paticheri, @thatdoggonelady, @shirinmehrotra, @nazly, @foodwithmustard, @dinasfoodstory, @theprashanta and others not on Twitter.

[Whetstone Magazine @whetstone_mag]

We are thrilled to present Vol. 1 of Rasa!

To name a couple stories to look forward to, the first issue of our new magazine offers an ode to the rich flavour of tal fruit, celebrated across cuisines in India, and a critical examination of the milk powder shortage in Sri Lanka.

[No filter Skin @NoFilterSkin]

You cannot:

​Work full time, raise children, keep a spotless home, show up fully in your marriage, maintain friendships, stay fit, build wealth, read books, pursue hobbies, serve only home cooked meals, answer every email, and still make the 3:30 school pickup.

​That standard was created to keep you exhausted and blaming yourself. Let it go.

[Vidya Balachander @vidya83]

@aroog1278 That was a good deed. Wish your family the very best of fresh starts!

[Inverse Billore Index @InverseBillore]

Say no more.

[Vidya Balachander @vidya83]

Real life Snail and the Whale.

[Beauty of music and nature 🌺🌺 @Axaxia88]

A pod of around 30 dolphins became stranded on a beach in Brazil after strong waves pushed them ashore. They lay scattered across the sand, making desperate clicking sounds and weakly moving their tails for help 💔🐬

A group of local residents and tourists quickly gathered together, working side by side in an urgent rescue effort. Every time a dolphin successfully made it back into the ocean, people cheered and celebrated with joy.

Some of the dolphins even swam back in circles, almost as if they were saying thank you before finally disappearing into the sea. 🌊🐬

[Vidya Balachander @vidya83]

I recently fielded a very irate inquiry from an interviewee about why I had not used a quote from her in my piece, along with a threat to “reveal my name on social media.” I wish she understood this.

[Hannah Riley Fernandez @hannahcrileyy]

actually if you’re an expert in anything (and I use that term broadly) one of the most useful things you can do with your knowledge is share it with journalists on background so the story is reported more accurately! talking to press isn’t a vanity project it’s public education

[Bloomberg @business]

No visitors. No texting. No escape. For eight days, Ruchika Tandon was “arrested by phone.” This is the inside story of India’s new digital nightmare. Read the 2026 Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel by @an_anandrk @natalieobiko @SuparnaSharma https://t.co/yFrx9fpwsX

[georgia @adatarg]

happy for the bralette girlies but some of us require load bearing architecture

[vivek tejuja 🌈 @vivekisms]

Hi. I'm desperately looking for work. Experience in the field of training (English and soft skills), customer engagement (worked at Books, Flipkart), editorial (culture editor at Verve), & internal communications (at Axis Bank). Please DM if anything comes your way. Please RT

[Vidya Balachander @vidya83]

@MeghnaPant Couldn’t have said it better. It is a circus in the name of discourse, and I am sick of it.

[Vidya Balachander @vidya83]

In the nonstop noise of social media and its many performers, this is a balm that stirs the soul — the universality of the pain of labour, the musician’s stirring words that need no translation, the animal’s response to music. A reminder of the magic of the world.

[Libriscent @libriscent]

Sometimes I forget that we live on a planet where sea otters wrap themselves in kelp so they don’t drift out to sea while they sleep. Where frogs follow elephants in the jungle to lay eggs in their footprints. Where whales lift their newborns to the surface for a breath of air.

[Vidya Balachander @vidya83]

@ranjona Seems like an appropriate name for what she brings to the table 😅

[Priyanka Borpujari💙☘️ @Pri_Borpujari]

Let's see if social media does its magic ✨

I was reporting from Buenos Aires in 2019, and bought an anthology of the writings of Jorge Luis Borges from a 2nd-hand shop. I found that book recently, and this photo popped out.
🧵

[Translating Falasteen (Palestine) @translatingpal]

❤️Sri Lankan migrant workers in Lebanon spend their only day off feeding displaced families

Sri Lankan migrant workers in Lebanon, many working long hours as domestic helpers under strict conditions, used their only day off to prepare and distribute food to families displaced into tents and the streets. Despite earning modest wages and living within employer households, they saved small amounts from their salaries, brought rice, cheese, onions, and water, and cooked meals together before distributing them across Beirut.

“This could be us,” one worker says, explaining why they chose to help despite their own hardships. Coming from one of the main source countries for migrant domestic labor in Lebanon, they stepped in at a time of need, showing solidarity with Lebanese families forced from their homes by Israeli occupation attacks.

lbcilebanonnews (IG)

[Wholesome Side of 𝕏 @itsme_urstruly]

New York subway rule: Dogs must be "carried in a bag" when boarding.
As a result, this regulation has directly sparked a creativity contest among New Yorkers..

[The Curious Tales @thecurioustales]

🚨 JUST IN: A migratory bird just shattered world records — flying 8,425 miles (13,560 km) NON-STOP across the Pacific without landing once.

The bar-tailed godwit doesn’t stop to eat, drink, or sleep during its migration across the Pacific Ocean. Its journey from Alaska to Australia takes roughly 11 days of continuous flight, covering over 13,000 kilometers through storms, headwinds, and open ocean with zero land beneath it the entire time.

Before departure, it does something almost surgical to its own body. It shrinks its digestive organs down to almost nothing, converting the stomach, intestines, and liver into raw fuel. The bird essentially eats its own gut to make room for fat reserves that will power its wings for nearly two weeks straight.

The brain doesn’t fully sleep either. Half of it stays active while the other half rests, alternating in shifts mid-flight at altitude over the open Pacific. The godwit is simultaneously unconscious and navigating with magnetic field sensitivity that no human instrument in the 18th century could replicate.

What makes this genuinely staggering beyond the physical record is the navigational precision involved. The bird leaves Alaska and arrives in New Zealand with accuracy that would embarrass early GPS systems. It reads Earth’s magnetic field, atmospheric pressure gradients, star positions, and potentially quantum-level compass mechanisms inside its eye that literally let it see magnetic field lines overlaid on its visual field.

Evolution spent millions of years building an aerospace navigation system inside a 300 gram animal.

We spend billions engineering machines that do what this bird does on instinct, fat reserves, and half a sleeping brain.
The longest recorded non-stop flight by a commercial aircraft is around 20 hours.

This bird does 11 days.

Without a runway.

[Maggie @maggiemoda]

I’m going to fall for the rage bait to tell you all that you can throw a dinner party with paper plates and solo cups.

You can be 22 and trying to cook for the first time and make your friends eat something awful. Invite them anyways. The desire for perfection is making us lonely.

[Vidya Balachander @vidya83]

I am heartbroken for Iran, Lebanon and the world at large. This quietly observed paper illuminated that universal ache.

[Sylvain Perdigon @sylvain_anthro]

I'm an anthropologist living and working in Beirut. In Fall 2024 Palestinian friends of mine from Tyre stayed with me during the war. I wrote about it and how it was like. My friends from Tyre are staying with me again, I'm posting this text, because imaginations of war are so...

[Vidya Balachander @vidya83]

@sylvain_anthro This was so beautiful that I had to return to it, to soak in the delicacy of its observations. Thank you for sharing.