Instagram story viewer> @itsishlikefish> Posts

Ish Patil

@itsishlikefish

2K

followers

1305

following

A virtual scrapbook ✂️
Making things @donmaimumbai @communion_cafe

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

A name that holds a lot of weight.

Ambap. A farming village in Kolhapur.

Dada, to the world you stood tall. A leader. An educationist. A Padma Shri. A Governor. More than 180 institutions.

You made me see that a leader can be kind and gentle.

Your love and care for everyone you met. I only understood the full magnitude of it today.

The power of knowledge is what you believed in. You taught me to live by it.

You gave it away because you believed it belonged to everyone.

To you everyone was family.

I know what you meant to my father. I watched it my whole life.

And what a privilege it is to be a part of your family.

Every time I saw you, you’d show me your step count. You’d hold my hand and not let go. Until the very end.

Everyone called you Dada, the whole world did.

To me you’ll always be Dada. Just mine. by @itsishlikefish

2k

52

2 months ago

Bits and pieces of me by @itsishlikefish

152

24

5 months ago

Not just a restaurant, but my canvas

food as art · founder diary · japanese aesthetic · izakaya vibes · donmai · foodie · japanese food · bombay nights · mumbai eats · taken in Donmai Mumbai by @itsishlikefish

138

21

a year ago

Parallel lines Parallel lives by @itsishlikefish

81

8

8 days ago

Art + Artist taken in Donmai Mumbai by @itsishlikefish

207

24

16 days ago

Rani | 2025

Silk, mixed fabrics, hand-crocheted elements, buttons, pearl beads, Swarovski crystals

76 x 76 cm

Selected for the Art Showcase Open Call at the India Conference, Harvard University. Now in a private collection.

@harvardindiaconf @somaiya @harvard

In the India We Imagine, history is often told through its monuments and leaders. But what about the carrom board gathering dust in your grandmother’s house? The clearest “Echoes of the Forgotten” are found in the everyday objects that have survived the passage of time through the hands of the common people. This piece reimagines the carrom board, a game embedded in Indian homes for generations, as a soft object made from discarded cloth. It treats the ordinary as an archive.

There’s something deeply nostalgic about carrom: the sound of the striker hitting wood, the arguments over whether someone pocketed the queen fairly, the way afternoons stretched into evenings around that board. This work captures that emotional weight, that sense of collective memory embedded in a simple game.

By replacing the smooth, polished surface of a traditional board with found textiles, the work reminds us that history is anything but smooth. Carrom is a game designed for speed but here, the lace, embroidery, and crochet create intentional friction. The board resists easy movement the way lived experience resists neat retelling. That texture becomes a metaphor for what official narratives often leave out: domestic life, informal economies, and the labor that holds households together, work largely done by women and rarely recorded as history.

The hand-crochet embodies this slow time, hours of stitching done between responsibilities, a quiet inheritance of skills passed down and seldom credited.

The board is captured mid-play. The buttons, standing in for carrom pieces, are scattered across the surface, suggesting an active, living history rather than a stagnant museum display. This frozen moment of play reveals the board as a site of unity: the four quadrants, composed of diverse scrap fabrics, represent the varied identities that meet as equals on this textile field, where every discarded piece is given a new purpo by @itsishlikefish

175

35

23 days ago

Lota

Wearable art. Shot by @saachionset

A simple vessel of everyday use. On their visit to India, Charles and Ray Eames called it maybe the most beautiful object ever designed. Shaped for the hands that hold it, the hip it rests on and the head it balances on.

What they didn’t capture, however, is what Saachi pointed out when she saw this piece. Throughout history women have always taken objects and made them their own.

The lota, so intertwined with the feminine experience in India, was no exception. They embossed their names into the copper to mark ownership, decorated it, and made a shared object personal.

I made this one wearable, to claim it in my way. a crocheted collar at the neck, a beaded handle, a silk potli lining the inside, precious stones set into the copper one at a time.

It still fits the hand. Still fits the hip. It just belongs to me now.

Precious stones set into the copper, one at a time.

Women have always made objects their own.

The hip it rests on.

Lined with a silk potli, where water used to sit.

Claimed.

Carried. taken in The Beach by @itsishlikefish

212

43

2 months ago

Delirium — pastel & ink over Worli, 6:24 pm taken in Worli by @itsishlikefish

82

5

2 months ago

when mercury is in retrograde (again) 🌙

#crochet #sadmoon by @itsishlikefish

59

10

6 months ago

a little museum of me 🐟

1. a crochet hook, always within reach
2. a block-print stamp from anokhi
3. a little monster fidget toy
4. a giant swedish fish
5. my mini weaving loom
6. a chainmail coin pouch, from someone i miss
7. an old ship ceramic matchbox
8. a water ring toss toy
9. the journal that goes everywhere
10. my most controversial fashion item: @crocs cowboy boots
11. big sister mouse
12. pink yarn, mid-project
13. a mouse pincushion, gifted by @anjali_sava
14. a little cloisonné vase, thrifted in italy
15. wooden colour sudoku — my latest addiction
16. a crayon — hand-felted by me
17. a pearl bow i found in my studio
18. nintendo hanafuda cards
19. wooden buttons, and a marble
20. the @gentlemonster x @d_heygere collab glasses i made my nani stand in line for

inspired by flow magazine, via @giggling_monkey by @itsishlikefish

81

5

4 months ago

Kyoto in a heartbeat taken in Kyoto by @itsishlikefish

99

10

6 months ago

FRUiTS magazine BTS 📸 taken in Donmai Mumbai by @itsishlikefish

106

7

6 months ago