Did you add a @silver_linings_bir to your project?
In Bir, it is a well-documented—if slightly superstitious—phenomenon that any independent venture worth its salt must first manifest as a poorly-taped rectangle on the Silverlining notice board. One might call it a "ritual" or a "good omen"; I prefer to think of it as the only way to get noticed amidst the healers and tarot readers of Bir.
My last poster at silverlining happened in 2018 while launching our children’s foundation in Gunehr, and here we are in 2026, being an intern again to mark the first anniversary of our tribal and forest sound project - Gunehr Sound Museum @notinbir
Silverlining lives up to its name, providing a faint glimmer of hope to our otherwise daunting to-do lists, though its true contribution to society remains the banoffee pie.
It was under the silverlining bougainvillea that Revati and I first met in 2025—presumably at a flea market—and exactly a year later, we are back to plaster our first official poster at our preferred cafe.
Whenever we took babysteps, silverlining was around like an old friend with a noticeboard. And, somehow their noticeboard had a little space for everyone.
What's this poster all about?
Should you find yourself tired of the relentless cafe-hopping that defines local existence, do join us at the Gunehr Sound Museum. We’re offering a sound journey through tribes, women, food, and forests—a rather refreshing change from the usual background electronica.
Ft @rev_tea
To read under a canopy is to enter a library where the ventilation is aplenty, the lighting is temperamental, and the ceiling is prone to dropping the occasional uninvited caterpillar onto your protagonist.
You settle into the roots, attempting to lean against the wall of filtered light in this nature’s lounge. As you open your book, you realise you are now part of a delicate ecosystem: the tree provides the shade, and you being a witness to a shifting mosaic of emerald.
The sunlight dapples across the page, a lovely effect that binds you to sit still for hours, as the light lingers.
Every time the plot gets interesting, a hornbill overhead decides to comment on the prose, or a squirrel begins a frantic, screeching audit of its nut inventory.
Time loses its edges, mostly because you’ve lost feeling in your left leg. You are suspended between two worlds: the gripping narrative in your hands, and the grim reality that you are being outmanoeuvred by a persistent ant. It is a quintessentially Bir joy—insisting that you are having a lovely, pastoral moment while slowly becoming one with the mulch.
Words by @soundteller
Bir Your Own Book
under a new tree each week.
Every Friday 4-6 PM.
Bir Your Own Book ☕📚
Every Friday, 4-6 PM
Lower your expectations. Open your book.
The Premise
In an act of reckless optimism, we are inviting you to sit in a damp field in Bir to do exactly what you do at home: read a book and avoid eye contact with strangers. However, this time there will be birds—specifically Cuckoos, Barbets, and Hoopoes—who will undoubtedly be louder and more productive than any of us.
The Itinerary
Hour One: A mandatory hour of stony silence. We shall sit under a tree (a different one each week, for variety’s sake) and pretend to be deeply intellectual while actually re-reading the same paragraph four times because a bug crawled on our ankle.
Hour Two: Having exhausted our capacity for silence, we shall then ‘share’ what we are reading. This is a polite opportunity to (not) judge each other’s literary tastes while nodding vaguely and waiting for our turn to speak.
The Logistics
Location: A new field every week. We’ll pick one that’s just far enough to be inconvenient but close enough that you can’t use ‘getting lost’ as an excuse.
Dress Code: Something that says “I enjoy nature” but screams “I am terrified of leeches.”
Requirements: Bring a book. A physical one. If your Kindle runs out of battery, we will offer you nothing but a look of mild, Himachali disappointment.
Cost: Free. Although you will pay in grass stains and the inevitable realization that the Hoopoe is judging your choice of paperback.
No RSVPs. If you turn up, you turn up. If you don’t, we’ll simply assume you’ve been carried off by a particularly ambitious Barbet.
DM @biryourownbook for this Friday's location pin.
Or ask to join whatsapp group (yet another, sigh!)
Does love change you, or is it just the erosion of time? Perhaps it’s just the friction of a new soul rubbing against your old edges until something sparks.
When Rev asked for a haircut, I didn’t exactly dust off a celebrity stylist license. It felt more like a mutual contract for a system reboot. Seeing the same lover under a new canopy is about as close as we get to roleplay—a rebrand without the marketing budget.
We went into it with the reckless full-monty energy of a low-budget rebellion. For Rev, the buzz of a male razor wasn't just grooming; it was a loud, vibrating middle finger to societal expectations, a DIY revolution staged in a bathroom.
The result? Let’s just say the revolution was televised, and it looked like a badly manicured lawn riddled with moon craters. My rookie skills had essentially turned her scalp into a topographic map of a disaster zone.
But Rev, ever the stoic, took the wreckage with a pinch of salt and a heavy dose of hair oil. Post-shower, she made peace with the uneven terrain—a botanical failure that only time, the ultimate groundskeeper, could eventually mow down.
Through this act of unprofessional landscaping, we grew something else: a collaborative sense of belonging. The haircut became a joint venture in comfort-in-one’s-own-skin, proving that love isn’t just a feeling. Sometimes, love is just the person who holds the clippers while you both laugh at the craters you’ve made together.
A stranger taking us home made us believe in homes again. It made us wonder if home is a person or a place?
As we performed the story of isolation in the forest, the forest became all of our homes. It spoke with us, it sang for us, and it showed us where we belong. We found our tribe and together we all became boundless.
Thank you @niroshidha_ for getting us home
Thank you Nidhi for bringing us to @blrhubba@anubhava.blr.hubba
Thank you Sabha for being our evening performance home.
With
@notinbir & @rev_tea
Day 2 of @blrhubba X @notinbir
made us walk through the forest within.
We learnt to walk again, this time like a nomadic community with a lot of perception, seeing beyond the obvious.
Learning to walk with a forest at
Panchavati
@blrhubba / @anubhava.blr.hubba
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
Ft vocals by @rev_tea
Storytelling by @soundteller
