Somewhere between rereading The Namesake for comfort and convincing myself that juttis absolutely do work with wide-leg trousers, I realised I had been looking for a blog that did not exist.
Not a fashion blog that treats Indian clothing like costume or nostalgia. Not a book blog that speaks in vague five-star ratings and moral lessons. I wanted something closer to the way my friends and I actually talk about these things — with opinions, overanalysis, emotional attachment, and the occasional unnecessary level of detail.
Because personal style and the books we love are rarely separate things. They shape each other quietly. The same person who annotates The God of Small Things will probably also care deeply about the fall of a handloom kurta, the silver jewellery they wear every day, or whether a saree feels right for a winter evening in New York. Taste travels across everything.
So this became a space for all of it.
I’m based in Bengaluru, employed full-time, and incapable of entering a bookstore without leaving with at least one book I did not plan to buy. I care about Indian textiles — chikankari, khadi, block prints, phulkari, handloom silks — with an intensity that would probably be embarrassing if I had any intention of stopping. I also care about dark academia aesthetics, diaspora fashion, old bookstores, literary women with complicated inner lives, and why Jhumpa Lahiri writes homesickness better than almost anyone else.
Bindis & Bookmarks is where I write about the overlap between what we wear, what we read, and who we become because of both.