Paper Planes – Celebrating Thoughtful Design

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Editor's Picks

Leaving Behind Big City Life

Swapping out days of chaos for more calm

Making Space for Anger

Finding ways to channel an emotion that’s often hard to deal with

I Brought Home a New Plant: Menty, New Delhi

During lockdown, it’s her plants that make this photographer feel a little less lonely

INTERVIEWS

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Prasenjeet Yadav

The Larger Picture

ESSAYS

The Art of Losing

Words by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

Books and Reading

Poetry Books To Pull Out For a Pick-Me-Up

Six writers recommend poetry collections that uplift and lend cheer

EVENTS

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Oddly Enough N°5: Where Will Our Food Come From?

Presenting — the fifth edition of Oddly Enough, a series by Paper Planes

DESIGN & LIVING

Hobbies Are For Grown-Ups Too

Taking time out to do things just for fun

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As an adult, it can be hard to cultivate new hobbi

As an adult, it can be hard to cultivate new hobbies. Whether it’s finding time during busy days, being okay with not acing a skill, or just not knowing where to start, it can seem fairly daunting. And yet, there’s something special about engaging in a hobby just for fun — without any pressure of perfection, without taking pictures or documenting the process — like we used to when we were kids. It might not tick our perceived boxes of productivity or be something we’d be able to monetise in the future, and yet, it can be incredibly important for our mental well-being. For Thinking Aloud, @pearl.dsouza tells us the story of finding her hobby. 🌿Thinking Aloud is a space for visual artists and storytellers to reflect on and make sense of our everyday lives through comics and graphic narratives.

Your eyes aren’t playing tricks! We love this wo

Your eyes aren’t playing tricks! We love this wonky font that’s called Dyslexic Font. It’s drawn by @rocioegio and brought to life by New Delhi–based @pranavxbhardwaj. Rocío Egío, who’s based between Spain and Switzerland, has been using her dyslexia to her advantage as a designer. “Dyslexic Font is a representation of my way of seeing letters, words and messages,” she writes. “Each dyslexic brain has their own singularities when it comes to the interpretation of the alphabet.” The font is available to download for free on the designer’s website.Photos via @rocioegio.#ISpyWithPaperPlanes

Over the last decade, 38 different species of frog

Over the last decade, 38 different species of frogs have been recorded at Ashokavana, a 15-acre plot of land, near the Bisle Reserve Forest. The forested space was initially a piece of agricultural land up for sale, until Ashoka Vardhana GN and Dr Krishna Mohan bought it. “They didn’t plant a single tree or takeaway any, allowing the forest to grow as it would,” writes wildlife writer @sejalmehta06. “They started to document the biodiversity that existed here and welcomed enthusiasts and volunteers to do the same. And so Ashokavana, bought as conservation action, became a base for citizen science.”It’s a story that speaks to why the smallest creatures deserve as much attention as bigger wildlife, and why citizen-science projects are important of our forests, wildlife and sustainable ecosystems. The story was first published in the Coexistence issue of Big Little Things, a print magazine collaboration between Paper Planes and @unltd.india, and is now available to read online — link in our bio!Photo by @gururajakv.

Over the last few years, India’s landscape has b

Over the last few years, India’s landscape has been rapidly changing. Our cities are expanding with new infrastructure projects, but what of our villages? What of the people bringing these roads and railways, metros and flyovers, to life? Several films at the upcoming edition of the Dharamshala International Film Festival hone in on these smaller details. There’s ‘Galiyon ka Sheher’, a documentary filmed in Varanasi that examines the effects of Kashi Vishwanath Temple’s expansion programme. ‘Not Just Roads’ follows the building of the Dwarka Expressway outside Delhi, and ‘A Day’s Work’ tracks the construction of a road across the border, in a remote region of eastern Myanmar. Then there’s ‘Ek Tha Gaon’, which turns its lens to a ghost village in the foothills of the Himalayas, whose former inhabitants have migrated to the city in search of better prospects. And ‘Shoebox’, set in a shifting Allahabad, has the protagonist’s father struggling to keep his single-screen theatre alive. Find the full programme and passes to the online film festival via @diff.india.———
When we see something that we think is worth your time in world of design and architecture, we will give you a heads-up right here on Instagram. And if you wish to list your event or other happenings with us, drop us an email at edit@joinpaperplanes.com. No DMs please.

We’ve often seen incense sticks pierced into ban

We’ve often seen incense sticks pierced into bananas in temples or during festive pujas at home — and we found ourselves chuckling when we spotted this stone incense stick holder that makes that memory a tangible one. It’s cute and whimsical, and comes from design studio @gunavadesign, who worked on this with designer @shrutibiswajit. #ISpyWithPaperPlanesPhotos via @gunavadesign

“The first time I heard about Pathira furniture,

“The first time I heard about Pathira furniture, I was nearing a deadline, and the wonky table in my rental apartment was rocking to the rhythm of my frenzied clickety clacks,” writes @akshaya_pillai. “Latha Aunty was rinsing the saucepan while mocking me for being stingy and not purchasing a good table. ‘Next month,’ I said between lines, placing another folded newspaper under its weak leg. Before she left, she wrote down a number and suggested I try calling her relative, a furniture seller at East Fort, for a new cheaper option.”New up on our website is a story about Pathira furniture, sourced from a street market in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram. Akshaya writes about how the pieces she acquired added character to her life (and, as is clear from the photographs, her cats’ too!), and delves into why they might have come cheap but are greatly loved. Read via the link in our bio.

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