There was a conversation, as conversations often are at the background of an idea. Someone was telling Indu Harikumar how big-busted that person had always been, and till the age of 26, thought that that’s all men looked at when she entered a room. Indu was on the other side of the spectrum, she had been much too skinny in her 20s and had often felt like an ‘incomplete’ person. Indu, known for doing art projects on areas that make her curious, then thought of a new one that she would later call Identitty. On her Instagram – where she runs her crowd-sourced art projects – Indu invited women to send stories around their breasts, with a photo of the bust – naked or dressed.

“You can’t anticipate how the reactions would be but from my understanding of having done other projects, as one person shares, it somehow becomes all right for another person to share,” Indu tells TNM. She is based in Mumbai, and has been doing art projects on Instagram for a few years now. After being an illustrator for children’s books and working with children for a while, she wanted to do something more, she knew that her work so far had been “safe”.

“In 2016, I went to do an art residency in Vienna for three months. That’s also when I used Tinder – the dating app – for the first time,” Indu says. That same year, she began the first of her crowd-sourced art projects on Instagram – 100 Indian Tinder Tales. In 2017, she worked on another series – Body of Stories.

“The Tinder Tales, I did, mostly because I was curious about other people’s experiences on the dating app. I also thought it would make interesting drawing material. I didn’t expect anyone to come and tell their stories because why should they.  But I heard from a lot of people – absolute strangers sharing their personal stories with me. I had no idea it would become so popular,” Indu says.

Over the next few years, she has done other projects in the areas of sexuality, relationships and sex. “If there is a common thread in all of the projects that I do, it is vulnerability and shame,” Indu says. People – especially older ones – were ashamed they were even on the Tinder app. When they saw the stories of other people going through similar experiences, they knew they were not alone. And Indu always had more questions to ask on her Instagram.

“Initially, the questions were on what I was thinking about and reading about, and wanted to know what others thought of it.  Over time, people started sending me questions saying ‘I’ve been worrying about this and I want to know what others think about it'. So I put out these questions and I also put out the answers from other people. It is now a little community that has formed in the last one and a half years.”

It is from this community that Identitty too began, her first fully digital project. At the time of Tinder Tales, Indu didn’t anticipate anything, people may or may not send their stories. But people did – women did. The first story was of the woman who had spoken to Indu about her big bust. Indu painted her among a lawn and orange flowers, wearing a blue shirt, unbuttoned and loosely covering parts of her body. The woman writes: “My breasts have been the source of most sexual compliments I get, but they have also been frustratingly large and the source of shame, embarrassment, and feeling ugly. I used to think VERY often about getting breast reduction surgery. I grew up in south east Asia and I was always bigger than girls around me.” Writing how she had always felt like a giant, the woman writes, “The idea that larger breasts are attractive seems to me to be a cruel lie.”

But she has somehow always had a desire to be an exhibitionist for random people, she says, and she is happy that through Indu’s project that dream could at least partially come true.

Indu also asked women to send colour photos so she could get the skin tone right. Among the questions she puts on her Instagram, was one where she's asked, ‘How do you feel getting undressed for the first time in front of a lover’. Someone commented that they are very conscious about their private part because it is very dark. Indu reckons it could come from watching white porn. “Their bodies are different from the bodies of people they watch (on porn). It makes them conscious. Which is why I decided to do this whole project in colour. The colour of your skin is different in different parts too. There is so much gradation in your skin.”

Another woman writes to her of being a conscious young woman who had been taught to never draw attention to her breasts, to wear loose and unshapely clothes and cover her blooming chests with large dupattas. But life changed for her when she met Odissi dancers, in love with their breasts ‘swaying their chests with abandon, keeping slightly cupped palms under their breasts gracefully, draping their pallus across torsos without trying to hide anything.’ Her, Indu drew wearing a pink sari, a slightly melancholic face, and standing in a dance pose.

“When a particular story is out, some women say that they could connect to it. Sharing of such personal information makes you feel that you are not alone. I primarily hear from women, but these days I hear from men too. Men say no one talks to them about these things. Women too don’t know what men are thinking about. Since you don’t talk about these things, you are not even sure if you are allowed to think in a certain way,” Indu says.

Hearing from young men in their 20s – confused and not knowing where to look to for information – really changed Indu as a person, she says. “I now feel less anger towards men.”

After seeing one of the stories Indu shared and sketched, of a woman who was flat-chested as a teenager and had to face a lot of insensitive comments for it, one man told Indu he felt guilty reading it. He had, in a fit of anger, once called his ex-girlfriend flat-chested and that had hurt her so much.

Among her many sketches are also Indu’s own pictures, inspiring stories of how she got through what she did. And that had not been easy, putting herself out there. “I am not someone who likes to get out of my comfort zone at all. I am pushed into these places where I can’t even leave anymore. Each of these projects - I don’t think about where it’s taking me. Once you do it for some time, you feel a certain amount of comfort . There are times when I feel paranoid, there are times when I feel safe. I don’t want to save the world or anything. What these projects do for me is they make me feel less alone. I have my own demons. When I started hearing people’s stories I knew I was not alone.”

Indu Harikumar; Photo Courtesy: Chaitali Mitra

It had also been emotionally draining for her, listening to so many stories and not all of them are happy stories. It affects her, too. Over time, she has learnt to disengage and realise that all people sometimes need is a release. “Telling me such personal details of their life, that is the trust of an absolute stranger in me. I don’t think there’s any better validation than that.”