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The people we play with, the places we play at, the seasons we play in—all creating a collage of life experiences. I experienced a childhood where women rarely talked about anything to do with their lives before they had children, let alone the games they played. They worked. Cooked. And in the brief moments in between respectable life, they found time for games. This piece is an exploration of what it meant to be a girl during a time when girlhood was rushed into marriage and childbearing. Aluguli Mane, a game that has been played for centuries in Karnataka households, has been evoked as an invitation into an intergenerational conversation with the women in my family. I explore how this game, with its echoes of sowing and reaping, reflects the way memories are cultivated and harvested—evoking celebration, food, friendship, nostalgia, and the connection of their inner child to the present.
Sultana’s Dream
Sultana’s Dream are a contradiction in themselves, quite like dreams. Just like dreams, which are present in our minds but not yet in our reality, the contents of a pop-up book indeed exist, but lie dormant until an action is taken towards their manifestation. This pop-up book spread is part of a series on Sultana’s Dream (1905), Begum Rokeya’s seminal work in feminist speculative fiction. The illustrated and paper-engineered version of the story aims to evoke the joy of childhood dreams, visions of possible worlds, and a reconnection with each little girl inside us. The fragility of paper is contrasted by bold lines and solid colours, representing the enormous strength even unassuming dreamers hold. Blending Mughal art motifs with a whimsical personal style shaped by a Hindu upbringing, I seek to place myself in the complexity of my country’s past, while dreaming of equitable futures.
Kruthika / ಕೃತಿಕಾ / TheWorkplaceDoodler is an interdisciplinary storyteller and artist from Bengaluru, India and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her art explores feminist advocacy, human rights, and justice, with a focus on the global majority. She plays with content and form, and uses diverse mediums in her work, often blending media like illustration with puppetry, comics with pop-up books, and animatronics with film. Her art is political yet playful—incorporating stories, oral histories, and games as an invitation to shared dialogue. She is an MA candidate at NYU Gallatin pursuing art and social transformation, and holds a law degree from NUJS, India.
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