Pale pinks, chairs arranged in perfect symmetry and not a (dog) hair out of order, the Instagram account @honeyidressedthepug is a décor enthusiast’s dream. Run by New Yorker Maitri Mody, it acts like a pictorial guidebook on how to make the most of small apartments through DIY solutions and knick-knacks. Apart from Mody’s penchant for finding the cutest—a tissue box designed like a vintage cake—and quirkiest—a hand-powered washing machine—knick-knacks, her pet dog, Ari, is the star of the show. The before-and-after transformation videos are deeply satisfying. Her account has countless ideas to liven up tiny apartments.—Jahnabee Borah
The recent Titan submersible tragedy got the internet curious about how deep the ocean really is. Traversing Twitter, I came across the New York-based creative coder Neal Agarwal and his website neal.fun, which is full of interactive web pages and games on different themes. The Deep Sea, which is essentially an endless scrolling page, is one such addictive pick. You start from an ocean depth of just 6m and continue scrolling till you reach the depths of the Challenger Deep, the deepest known point of the seabed on Earth. Along the way, Agarwal uses subtle animation and storytelling to keep you occupied. The Deep Sea is just one of the many gems on his website. His latest is called The Password Game, a funny take on the pain and frustrations of setting a safe password. It’s definitely worth a click.—Nitin Sreedhar
Two films old, with a third, Maamannan, releasing this week, Mari Selvaraj is one of the most astute users of music in Indian cinema today. His previous films were collaborations with Santhosh Narayanan. Now, Selvaraj has teamed up with A.R. Rahman for the six-track Maamannan album. Opener Kodi Parakura Kaalam starts as a lilting melody but the percussion picks up and soon it’s a perfect storm, complete with a retro guitar solo. Love song Nenjame Nenjame is more tasteful than insistent; Uchanthala, a spectral track that should come alive on screen. Arivu contributes his trademark flurries on Manna Maamanna, an above-average hip-hop track by Rahman standards, though it doesn’t have the ferocity of the Arivu-Narayanan-Selvaraj Karuppi. The standout is Raasa Kannu, a folk-ish number sung with raw feeling with Vadivelu. —Uday Bhatia
If you are fussy about bed-making, you will never go back to regular sheets, aka flat sheets, once you start using fitted sheets. Fitted sheets come with an elasticated band at the edges that hold them snugly against the mattress, so you don’t have to deal with a wrinkled bed and the sheet coming loose every day. A recent visit to the IKEA store in Bengaluru proved to be a happy hunting ground for very reasonably priced fitted sheets, which are typically much more expensive than the regular ones. The Ullvide cotton-and-lyocell fitted sheet comes in four sizes, has a 200 thread count, and fits like a dream. Available in four basic colours (mix and match with bright cushions), at ₹1,099 for the 160x200cm size, the Ullvide is a steal.—Shrabonti Bagchi
Also read: Siddhartha Basu on a life in quizzing
