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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Me too. Me too. Me too. No matter how many times I say it, it won’t be anywhere near enough. Strangers on the street, boyfriends, acquaintances at parties, “friendly” uncles, neighbours- the reality that our bodies belong to everyone but ourselves is one that women realize rather early into their lives. The first time I […]
“Live Responsibly or Anticipate Death and Destruction” reads the title of an article on the death of model Sonika Chauhan. “We want ‘equal rights’ – we want to be able to go out late at night as men do, bar-hop, drink and relax, have several rounds of drinks. It’s our ‘right’. We too need to […]
“Job Offer” read the subject of an email I had been waiting to receive for over two months. I finally had a job in Bombay- a city I’d wanted to move to for two years. I was ecstatic, and then of course, terrified. You see, I have a special knack for always finding the bad […]
Two years ago, the decision to take up Women’s Studies was one I made after a fair bit of struggle and trepidation, and I’d be lying if I said it’s something I always wanted to study. But life never quite turns out the way one would expect, and now, sitting on a flight home, having […]
“How to Survive a Breakup” “Getting Over an Ex in 5 Simple Steps” “10 Things You Should NEVER Do After A Breakup” Over the last few years, I’ve read more issues of Cosmopolitan than I can count, and I’ve read more self help books than I care to admit – “He’s Just Not That Into […]
In my first year of college, a questionable decision I made (read: boyfriend) said the following to me: “You’re not as hot as the girls I usually date, but you’re really sweet, know what I mean?” As an 18- year-old with major self esteem issues and social anxiety, no, I didn’t know what he meant. […]
A few nights ago, I was counselling a friend of mine who was grieving the end of a two year relationship. My advice to her was to put herself out there. Embrace singlehood, get on Tinder and meet some good looking (?) men. Her expression told me she didn’t take me seriously, but she then […]
A while ago, a friend of mine, doing her Masters in an apparently premier institution, was rather excited because her boyfriend was coming to visit for a weekend- however, the thrill soon dissipated when she realized getting out of hostel for a weekend, that too to meet a boy (!) would be rather difficult. “Why […]
I’m often asked why there is such a long gap between my articles. My response is always the same: that I need something to make me really mad, an experience that agitates me enough to write about it. Usually, it takes a while, but I don’t worry much- I know that sooner or later I […]
Being accustomed to receiving information about the outside world through the NDTV app on my phone and articles on Facebook, it’d been a while since I read an actual newspaper. However, paranoia emerging out of rumours about the city I live in being on “high alert” led me to pick up a copy of the Deccan […]
I’m taking up another ad as part of ‘Conditioning is for Hair, Not Minds’ – a series in collaboration with The Spoilt Modern Indian Woman. This one is by Whisper Ultra. The ad review suggestion was made by award-winning bloggerSheena Dabholkar, who is also the co-author of this post. So let’s begin. I was sent a […]
Hello again! The ad I am taking up for the “Conditioning is for Hair, Not Minds’ series in collaboration with The Spoilt Modern Indian Woman is by TVS tyres- watch it here and cringe once again at Indian TVs favourite misogynist, Kapil Sharma. The commercial starts with Sharma offering a lift to a young man holding […]