In 1979, Basu Chatterjee made Baaton Baaton Mein and unobtrusively brought to us the dating and courtship rituals of a community that was till then either caricatured or just overlooked in Hindi cinema. Nancy Perreira and Tony Braganza…
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Matriarchal manipulation in a patriarchal world is depicted unsparingly in Usha Priyamwada’s Pachpan Khambe Laal Deewarein (Now playing on Prasar Bharti). The mother resentful of her lecturer daughter’s comfortable life in her college residence because the younger daughters…
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“Start with hope..always start with hope. We went from being a shitty team to become one of the biggest dynasties in the sport and all it needed was one match to light this fire,” says Michael Jordan at…
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In 1947, my grandparents brought three children and the remains of an uprooted life from Pakistan to India in a train. One of those children was my mother. I grew up hearing a lot of stories about the…
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Three documentaries streaming right now show the ultimate culmination of the Bois Locker Room culture. And what happens when one gender is taught to mistrust its instincts of self-preservation and the other does not even learn something as…
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In Sudip Sharma’s Paatal Lok (Now streaming on Amazon. Co written by Sharma, Sagar Haveli, Hardik Mehta and Gunjit Chopra. Directed by Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy), India’s disowned inhabit the headlines we turn away from. A young…
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I’ve been following the global #MeToo Movement for a few years now, torn between celebrating the outpouring of sisterhood and solidarity for survivors of sexual harassment and appalled at the shame and ridicule they were being subjected to for speaking out. The #MeToo implosion in India followed a scarily similar turn of events, raging through […]
The generation of women that came before mine had a different view by and large of what abuse and violation represented. I remember being told many versions of “apni izzat apne haath mein hoti hai” (your honour is in your hands) while growing up and in my twenties by women who could not understand why I […]
In 1987, Roopkuvarba Kanwar, a Rajput woman was celebrated by a huge number of people in her community for committing Sati at Deorala village of Sikar district in Rajasthan. She was just 18 and had been married for just eight months to one Maal Singh Shekhawat. Thousands of people watched her immolation into a heap of […]
No, there is no real evidence that Mr Bachchan’s daughter-in-law had to marry a tree before she could marry his son but a gentlemanly, deep-seated patriarchy has long been a part of who he is. Many years ago, on Karan Johar’s talk show, he expressed his sincere admiration and absolute respect for Kajol because she […]
Internet sensation Ssumier S Pasricha’s recent video about Pammi aunty mocking a dark, overweight woman at a Teej function evoked mixed reactions. Was he mocking, dark and overweight women? Or was he mocking the women who mock them? If you watch his videos closely, every little narrative is about a woman deriding another woman, establishing the […]
I caught a glimpse of a serial on television the other day. This was the scene – a blind wife throws herself at the husband’s feet begging to be allowed to stay with him. Her disability is seen as a major hindrance that prevents her from doing her wifely duties and chores. Well-wishers urge the […]
Ever since I stopped watching Grey’s Anatomy, I’ve turned to Pinterest for my daily dose of lessons on life and love. All my free time is spent on this insanely addictive app, and a few days ago, I found a quote that really stayed with me : “The older I get, the more I […]
I don’t have a daughter but if I did, would the Selfie with Daughter campaigners look at me benignly and welcome my inclusion in this online movement celebrating the father and daughter bond? Oh, they did not specify that, did they? So mothers can pose too? Yay for equal rights but the issue is […]
I always wondered what would be like to be a boy and to be in a world, where the freedom and choices seemed to be limitless. Where the deadline-free timings left one free to do whatever one wished at all kinds of crazy hours. Where the clothes one wore or […]
An ideal society should be class-less and caste-less, that is understandable, but is it right or even possible to build a society that has no family structure at all? What would be desirable – abolishing the family unit or a fundamental change in it? Social structures based on Caste or Class are either a religious […]
So how dirty is dirty on Indian television? A censored film is not sanitised enough for family audiences but home grown crime shows are? Especially the ones where in the guise of educating viewers about the dangers lurking in every neighbourhood and dark corner, gang rapes are recreated, victims are shown pleading for mercy as […]