Talking a good game

Pic courtesy/Meghna Bhalla

Besides her regular yoga classes, Bandra-based Shameem Akhtar has started a 20-minute online Shred class, once a week, to trim love handles and build strength. Quick and sweaty, she runs you through a suryanamaskar to warm up and cool down with the precision of a drill master. In the middle are concentrated exercises for the hip and core, which she encourages you to follow on the other days of the week. The classes, priced at Rs 2,000, have only three to four participants, which means she can immediately catch you slacking off or using the wrong muscle group.
Call: 9820540891

A community for music

Mumbai-based Pankaj Tak is the musician behind Some Good Gigs, a WhatsApp group that keeps track of musical gigs across the country and internationally too. Formed on August 14, 2018, it not only has musicians but also other people from the music industry such as photographers, journalists, organisers, managers, visual designers and independent music enthusiasts.

PIC COURTESY/PRASHIN JAGGER

This writer, who has been a part of few such groups, has found them to be very helpful for gig updates and networking opportunities. "There are so many things that are not on Insider or Bookmyshow," says 30-year-old Tak. "So how do you find out about them?" Currently, he has separate groups for 32 cities in India and some international cities as well, with London being the most active. "It's a discovery and sharing platform," explains Tak. "If I am a musician, I can promote my shows among fellow musicians and music enthusiasts."

Tak runs other interest-based groups as well, such as Some Good Gear, Some Good Movies, Some Good Books, Some Good Jobs in music, Some Good Gigs Comedy, and Some Good Visual Artists. While the idea is to constantly grow a community, he admits that he is not able to pay as much attention to the other groups as he does to the music ones.
@somegoodgigs, Instagram

Dancing Monk of Sikkim

There's happy, and then there's Himalayan-monk happy. Jigmee Bhutia, a monk from Gangtok in Sikkim has rallied around a group of light-footed monks like him, and is winning Instagram over with his reels. It's astonishing to see "pious" monks engage in dancing, but Bhutia explains that this is his way of spreading happiness and positivity. And we agree.
@monks_himalayan, Instagram

Tibet talk with a doll

How about exploring a culture through dolls? Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala are preserving their culture through cloth dolls wearing various types of clothes from the Himalayan nation. The six dolls have Tibetan names and are dressed in costumes such as the maroon robes of a buddhist monk. All of them are handcrafted, offering jobs to those women who may not speak Hindi or English, and thus can't sustain themselves. The ‘Bopa' (meaning Tibetan) have distinctive hairstyles and different shades of skin colour so that children can identify with them. The dolls come in baby-size (45 cm) and minis, and are stuffed with pure wool. How refreshing to play with a doll that is not blonde with unrealistic proportions.
Dolls4tibet.com

Nariyal wali straw

In 2017 Professor Saji Varghese, who teaches English at Christ University, Bengaluru, stumbled upon the idea of making straws from coconut leaves. After hundreds of iterations spanning two years, he developed the world's first premium multi-layered drinking straw made using naturally dried coconut leaves. Unlike paper straws, these supposedly retain their shape and do not become soggy after being in cold or hot beverages for three hours. These can be custom-made in a variety of diameter and lengths. They are available in four variants - regular straws, shakes, and smoothie straws, cocktail straws and boba tea straws. A pack of 50 regular straws cost Rs 259.
sunbirdstraws.com