For Jungshi Imti, the founder of A Third Space Project, this need for correction came from a very personal place. He moved to Hyderabad four years ago for his Master’s degree, and while campus life initially offered a feeling of belonging, that comfort faded once work began. “On campus, everything felt easy because you’re surrounded by people who are like you,” he explains. “Once that ends, it suddenly becomes really hard to connect.” In the city, he found himself constantly being seen but rarely truly understood. “People were more interested in me as a Northeastern person than as just me,” he shares. “It always stopped at my culture, my food, my accent.”
What Jungshi missed wasn’t attention but intimacy, the kind that doesn’t require explanation. Back home, friendships had always been woven into everyday life. People showed up unannounced. Friends cooked together. The kitchen was where everything happened. In Hyderabad, that ease felt distant and, at times, even unattainable. “Everyone is in their first job, everyone is struggling, and even having a proper kitchen feels expensive,” he admits. For nearly two years, he carried that emptiness until he returned to the one thing that always made sense to him — cooking. Every recipe Jungshi makes comes from his grandmother. “I grew up with her, I took care of her, and everything I know comes from her,” he explains.
One evening, Jungshi posted an Instagram story asking if anyone would like to come over for a supper club. Five people replied. Only one showed up. “Thankfully, my friends were visiting that day, or it would have been heartbreaking,” he laughs. Slowly, the table grew. He called it A Third Space Project because that was what he wanted to build — a space that wasn’t home and wasn’t work, but something in between, where people could arrive without expectation and simply be.
His food is unmistakeably Naga, ingredients travel from home because Hyderabad’s produce doesn’t always behave the way memory demands. “What people eat is what I show them,” he shares. “And what I show them is who I am.”
