A mystery solved + love from you + Sanity in the press + new projects
What I mean when I say, 'Diversify! Diversify! Diversify!'
Hello there 👋🏾
So about a month ago, I suddenly got a large number of new subscribers – all from Portugal. I was intrigued and asked my new Portuguese friends to help me crack the mystery.
Many wrote back – thanks everyone. The first among them, Chiara, said she'd discovered Sanity via a newsletter by journalist Margarida David Cardoso from Fumaça, an investigative journalism podcast platform in Portugal. Chiara even very helpfully shared the Google Translate version of Margarida's recommendation:
"My email is full of newsletters that I'd like to ignore less often. This is the only one that doesn't take me many hours to read. Tanmoy is an Indian journalist and storyteller from New Delhi who, over the last few years, has built one of the most beautiful, informative and community-orientated ways of talking about mental health and illness. Little by little, he shatters my European psychiatric bubble. The tone is as personal as it is scientific. It's not therapy or psychological counselling. It's simply the sharing of well-told stories, filtered information and critical analyses."
I wrote to Margarida to tell her that I was blown away by her generous words 🥹 – and today I am thrilled to welcome her into the Sanity supporter tribe, which is the beating heart of this platform and helps me keep the lights on. Thank you so, so much Margarida.
Thanks also to another stalwart of the Sanity community, Rishad Patel at Splice Media, who first told Margarida about my work. Rishad, you constantly excellent human!
Finally, welcome to Sanity, all you lovely folks who've joined in recently from Bangladesh, the US, Sweden, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Gibraltar, and of course Portugal. I hope you enjoy your stay here.
Now take this special discount, because I'm feeling loved
Also because I really, really need your support
Become a paying supporter at 20% off foreverNews roundup
Now then. I've been meaning to send these roundups for a while, but somehow life keeps getting in the way. But hey, there's never a wrong time to start the right thing. In that spirit, here's the first of hopefully a regular series of updates on what else Sanity and I have been up to out there in the world + your wonderful feedback.
In some ways, this update will also give you a glimpse into what I mean when I say that the key to an independent creator's survival is 'Diversify. Diversify. Diversify'.
I'll be at Splice Beta in Chiang Mai this November
Splice Beta is a cult event that celebrates communities, media creators, and media startup entrepreneurs in Asia. I was bummed to miss it last year because I was then slogging away at my paper for the Reuters fellowship. This will be my debut at Beta, thanks to Splice co-founders Alan Soon and Rishad, who are almost too kind, fun, and brilliant to be real. See you there if you are making the trip to Chiang Mai as well.
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A new series on the neglected struggles of the manager
"Heres a hushed-up corporate truth: if you are a manager, being a decent human being may be bad for you. At the heart of it is the outdated, feudal idea that a ‘good’ manager must be unemotional and impersonal, and that putting humanity over productivity is somehow a sign of weakness." My analysis and reportage for the Great Manager Institute turns the scanner on the overlooked mental health struggles of the 'good manager'. More coming soon.
Mandar
Quoted in a story on the impact sector's mental health crisis
"It’s ironic – their work is about being human, but people in the impact sector are really struggling to retain their humanity. The sector has become ruthless like any other industry. People sign up to work for social enterprises and end up being in depression because they are overworked and struggle with their organisation's unreasonable expectations.” Read Sukhada Chaudhary's story on another topic that is mired in a conspiracy of silence.
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Sukhada Chaudhary
Interviewed for a podcast on workplace toxicity
"The physical workplace is the site of control, and if you can't have people in that site physically, companies can get really anxious because it means losing that control. Initially people were really angry about this. But slowly that anger gave way to fatalism." Well-produced podcast with lots of shocking insights from wise experts. 10/10 recommend.
Part of the jury for India's first award for excellence in reporting on suicide prevention
Brendan Dabhi, senior correspondent at Ahmedabad Mirror, has been awarded the Project SIREN award 2023 for excellence in reporting on suicide prevetion for his article Not Just Barriers, Building ‘Bridges’ Can Stop Suicides. I've been a jury member for the award - the first of its kind in India - since its inception three years ago, and it's been one of the most meaningful associations of my life. Congratulations, Brendan, and thank you for your life-saving work.
What you said after 1:1 consulting/mentoring calls with me
"We live in our heads all the time. It’s refreshing to speak to someone who can provide an outside-in perspective. Tanmoy helped with actionable insights, and also helped me reflect. It served as a bit of validation for what I already knew of myself, but having it corroborated by T helped so much. Feels like I can approach my approach with new energy." – Anuradha Ghosh. Read Anuradha's really interesting newsletter here.
"This one hour conversation - on ideas for a master's degree project on digital mental health - gave me so much. Tanmoy instantly understood where I was at, and gave me multiple new perspectives, valuable insights and ideas of things to follow up on... with a lot of warmth and supportiveness." – Steven Siddals
Book 1:1 calls with me on the link below.
Love from you for my recent pieces
"Being a fellow Bangali, I can totally get your emotions about eating our maachbbhat, chingri macher malai kari and mudo diye daal. Since a year now I have been living in Bologna (another gastronomic paradise of Italy), and the food is so differnt but so good here, I find myself craving for a gelato or some days a brioche etc." – Sayantani Maiti on this piece. Thanks Sayantani for making my stomach grumble at 4 on a Wednesday afternoon.
"You have become such an eloquent, daring and assured writer. It feels like you've really come into your own." – Annie Gottlieb, one of the pillars of Sanity since its birth, on this piece. Couldn't have done this without you. Annie :)
That's it for today. Let me know if you enjoyed these updates. See you in a wee.
Be well,
Tanmoy
