Lounge Loves: ‘The President’s Cake', Retro snacks and more
Also featuring a surprisingly versatile brown lipstick and Belle Burden's memoir 'Strangers'
No Cakewalk This
I watched the Iraqi film The President’s Cake, available on Netflix, at a private screening recently. It became my window into life under a despotic regime I had previously encountered largely through headlines. Set in rural Iraq during the first Gulf War of 1990-91, it follows nine year-old Lamia, tasked with baking a cake for Saddam Hussein’s birthday— something she and her granny simply cannot afford. The way Nayyef conveys Lamia’s doggedness, dread and despondence through her eyes leaves your heart in a constant state of wreckage. Interestingly, the only critical review I read is by Baghdad-based writer and photographer Nabil Salih. Writing for Jacobin, he argues that the film’s focus on the past risks overlooking Iraq’s ruined present. It underscores how no filmmaker can escape the present today, even in their retelling of the past. —Shephali Bhatt
Brownie Points
Brown lipsticks are a major trend at the moment. They feel tricky and a bit old school, unless you are Dua Lipa. In an attempt to step out of my pink lipstick comfort zone, I went looking for a decent brown shade online with no success—even augmented reality failed me. Then I walked into a make-up store, tried everything from Charlotte Tilbury to MAC and found the one in the Kay Beauty aisle. The lipstick’s name is Dialogue, a brown shade that can go from nude to burnt caramel to chestnut depending on how many layers one applies. It can be mixed up with pinks, reds and used as a blush too. Perhaps it will suit most Indian skin tones. —Jahnabee Borah
Retro Snacks
A cup of piping hot chai with biscuits work as a fail-safe stress-buster for me. When the beverage is served in delicate china and the edibles in pretty packages, the effect is even more soothing. I haven’t moved on to the former yet, but the latter came to me as a pleasant surprise recently while doomscrolling on Instagram. The 1970 Shop sells “clean” sweet and savoury snacks online, but their real calling card is the tin boxes, charmingly retro in look and feel, in which you can have your order sent. I purchased their atta biscuits, which were delicious and have long since been consumed, but the cute red box in which they came has remained with me as a keepsake, a home for future knick-knacks. —Somak Ghoshal
After the End
When you follow someone online and witness their relationship from afar, their partner’s sudden disappearance from the feed leaves endless unasked questions. Belle Burden’s Strangers feels like those answers laid bare. When her 21-year marriage ended abruptly during the pandemic, Burden enrolled in a memoir-writing class—reigniting a college passion for writing that led to a viral Modern Love essay and this book. Just shy of 200 pages, it captures every emotion without the shame so often tied to ending a marriage. She traces her sinking lows alongside the slow and necessary process of moving on. Rather than lingering in bitterness, the memoir becomes focused on self-reclamation. It serves as a reminder that even when a shared history vanishes overnight, the work of rebuilding yourself is where true healing begins. —Ghazal Chengappa
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